egroen

Was there an octopus thrown last night? I knew of at least two posters who claimed they were going to... Not that I fault them if they ended up not doing it, but I was curious.

Again - there is a reason guys like Coffey, Housley and Hatcher did not win Norrises in years they were over thirty goals, and guys like Potvin, Orr and Wilson did -- those guys were elite defensively as well as capable of putting up huge offensive numbers. Green is not there yet. To compound it, Green missed over ten games this season. Green very well might win it because he scored a lot of goals, but he does not deserve it.

I kept watching the bench to see any motion from Conklin -- they appeared completely unconcerned on the bench, so I am going to assume he really was fine.

Paul Coffey scored 40 goals and 126 points, which was second in scoring of ALL players in the NHL in 1984 and did not win the Norris (in fact, he was 5th in voting). Phil Housley also had over thirty goals that year. Rod Langway won it with 32 points. Kevin Hatcher never won a Norris. Defense matters. Defensively, Wilson was better than Green is now, but I'll say Green is already better defensively than Housley and Hatcher. I'd say Green's defense right now is comparable to Coffey, in that both of them are a bit underrated in that department, though Coffey had wheels Green could only dream of, which allowed him to get back more often (so I would still give Coffey the edge). Potvin and Orr were ten times the defensive players Green is now. For almost 1/5 of the season Green did absolutely nothing to help his team.

http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/ I hesitated to post the source for fear of Drake Marcus' social life crumbling

Here are the players Lidstrom is sent out against the most (even strength minutes against listed): ANZE KOPITAR 48:05 RICK NASH 45:04 OLLI JOKINEN 44:54 HENRIK SEDIN 43:43 DANIEL SEDIN 43:39 RYAN GETZLAF 43:12 JOE THORNTON 42:19 PATRICK O'SULLIVAN 41:33 BRAD BOYES 41:29 COREY PERRY 41:26 JAROME IGINLA 41:03 Mike Green PAUL MARTIN 39:36 BRYCE SALVADOR 34:45 JAY BOUWMEESTER 34:34 MARTIN ST. LOUIS 33:33 DENNIS SEIDENBERG 32:59 TIM GLEASON 32:50 CHAD LAROSE 32:40 ZACH PARISE 32:32 BRAYDON COBURN 32:26 RAY WHITNEY 32:17 ANTON BABCHUK 32:14 No wonder Mike Green's +/- is so good -- Look who he is playing against!

Three - He was second in '98 (robbed), '99 and 2000.

I think I remember reading that... [searching]... yup, Salming was Lidstrom's idol growing up, and the two actually got to play together in 1991 for Team Sweden in the Canada Cup.

I would trust my first born son to Pavel Datsyuk.

Nice write-up! To guys that saw him, Lidstrom reminds a lot of old-timers of Red Kelly. Doug Harvey was a chippier version of Lidstrom as well, and was the first version of the "perfect" defenseman. Borje Salming more of us can remember, and I assume he had a large influence on Lidstrom. Serge Savard, defensively, is also someone I would compare favorably to Lidstrom.

I was going off memory -- with only a few games to go, he was 9% up on Markov. I argue on this one a lot - but games not played is not a bonus, and in fact is a huge negative. Green was doing absolutely nothing to help his team out those 14 games he did not play. Lidstrom, even if he is not scoring points is still often the MVP of the game, because of his defensive play. Something we can rarely say about Mike Green. In fact, the last person to miss as many games as Green has this year, and still win the Norris was Bobby Orr. I am not ready to start comparing Green to Orr and Coffey.

Lidstrom deserves it - much better all-around player than both Chara and Green. Coffey was destroying his peers by as much as 40% when he won his Norrises based mainly on offense; Green was not even 10% higher than his closest competitor. On his best days Chara can play as good of defense as a 38 year-old Lidstrom, but Lidstrom clearly beats him in the offensive zone. Plus Lidstrom's +/- is much better, and on a team that let in a hell of a lot more goals than Boston. Maybe the writers are sick of Lidstrom winning it, but he clearly deserves it.

I have no problem speculating who the Wings play next round, or even in the SCFs for that matter. It's just idle chat. I want to play Anaheim because not only do I think the Wings match up well with them, but I do not want to later see a San Jose team that has dealt with adversity and triumphed.

Stuart helped kill off the last remaining self-preserving brain cells in Umberger's head telling him to get the f@ck out of the way!

Umberger is the real deal - but man, he is going to have a short career if he keeps that up. The man has a lot of highlight reels of him being utterly destroyed.

LOL! What an ass... and I am close to the point of thinking the reason he was pissed the Red Wings were winning.

Also, I think you are far less likely to get "jumped" the earlier you throw the octopus. For instance, in this last game with 2 minutes left in a losing game, "top Shelf" was probably not too concerned with losing his seat and missing the rest of the game. I doubt too many Columbus bad-asses will have bought two tickets "just in case" they have to assault a Red Wings fan.

I started writing about the Wings in my spare time, and feel like I got a "scoop" sorta... http://isportsweb.com/2009/04/22/experienc...topus-indicted/

The thread is gone now, but the guy pictured doing it posted and bragged about "slamming that punk's face into the glass". There were also posters gloating that the Red Wings fan was in pretty bad shape after the game.

I know we all love to make fun of Ohio, but I didn't actually think they were that bad. Wrong-O-

I'd say it is one of the, if not the greatest team playoff traditions in hockey.

Gary Bettman would suspend Lidstrom and Datsyuk.

I would certainly hate it if a Red Wings player was promoted as heavily as Crosby, but I wouldn't mind one of them getting even 2% of the promotion, or even the team as a whole. Seeing the Pens utterly demolishing the Red wings in every ad I watch really gets on my nerves though.

Sources have confirmed he has requested a trade. (E4)

Will you be boiling the octopi tonight? -- definitely recommended!