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I think Babcock plays whichever one that is currently the hottest, most.

A friend I am once removed from (friend of a friend) was wearing a Red Wings jersey in a crowded bar down south (not directly in Nashville). Throught out the night he keeps hearing someone yelling, "Reddd Wiiings Suuuuck" in the background, but never sees who it is. Finally this short guy, built like a tree trunk comes by with a s*** eating grin on his face. Jordin Tootoo, of course. Says hi and jokes around for a bit.

I was actually impressed with how he reigned it in during the playoffs last year, stayed out of the penalty box while being a consistent threat every time he was on the ice and being one of their hardest workers.

Lol, I can't stand Avery, but I've grown to actually like Tootoo... that little guy can lay down a beating when he wants to.

Don't forget Holmstrom. This is just for flexibility, and I doubt any team is going to be putting in a claim for McCarty. Which is almost strange, because you would think the worst player on a championship team is still better than the worst players on a lot of other teams.

Of the afore-mentioned list, I think Franzen is currently better and quickly turning into a prime Drury. Clutch, clutch and more clutch.

Well, in that case, it looked like the player was holding his stick with his two pinkie fingers. The calls I see often abused are the following: Hooking -- This is the worst one. What is being called nowadays is not hooking, it is touching or tapping someone with your stick. They should just make a new penalty if they want to keep calling this, call it "Tapping". These calls are the ones that rarely get called until a "makeup" call is deemed necessary or a team is running away with a game. Slashing -- A lot of room for embellishment with this one. Just drop your stick and chances are you will get a call. Holding -- In the "clutch and grab" era, players were literally being held with two hands, whether they had the puck or not. Nowadays I see the refs call this when a player simply extends a hand to someone else. A lot of room for abuse with this call. Boarding -- This one just really bothers me, and is kinda off the subject. With the crackdown on runs from behind, I see players consistently turning their backs to someone coming in to hit them when they are along the boards. Not only is it embellishing, but it is dangerous to purposefuly put yourself in that position just to get the call. I think diving should be called on a lot of these players.

And he was full of compliments to the Red Wings and had nothing but great things to say about the team and organization! And then of course he gets fired immediately after a loss to the Wings... be interesting if he gets a job in the booth again and how his attitude towards the Wings will be.

I think Murphy is "fine". He's no Redmond, but who could be? (... maybe Chelios when he retires in ten years?) I'd say Murphy is a bit too politically correct at times, and he makes Ken Daniels look like a flaming homer, which is funny, because Redmond makes Ken Daniels look incredibly even keel. I remember the goal Anaheim scored in overtime where numerous pictures have now shown it was above the cross bar -- Daniels said it was above and Murphy said it wasn't. Yeah, that's annoying, but at least Murphy has some interesting anecdotes from time to time.

It's simple -- anything short of a repeat winning the Stanley Cup will be considered a failure this year, and despite their record, they are not playing like a Stanley Cup winning team. The fans have noticed it, and the coach and players have admitted it. Of course not - they would be happy to even make the playoffs. Completely different expectations.

Well, they were hoping to get Bobby Ryan in somehow.

It's obvious and it is ruining the game for me. It was obvious in Pittsburgh and it was obvious when the Lightning went up 2-0 on Detroit, as well as almost every single game I have watched where one team starts to run away or one team is taking a majority of the penalties, it always seems to be "evened-up". It is league-endorsed cheating as far as I am concerned. I am fine with mistakes being made - but what I am sick of are the "make-up" calls. Those calls make me want to barf. It is better to let a guilty criminal go free than to convict an innocent man.

Isn't he another tiny, but very skilled player?

He was playing like this last year before he was injured. Now we just need to get Kopecky going again....

He's on pace for 60!

I was agreeing with you!

Heh... I wonder how he could be possibly be lacking confidence

I definitely miss having the best goalie to ever play the game on the team! What an entertaining player. Just would have loved to see the utter dominance of Detroit if we had him in his prime. Between Sawchuk, Hall and Hasek, three of the game's top 5 goaltenders have played for Detroit.

In no way has Hudler "proven" he can not hack it on the second line - we have barely seen him there. Samuelsson does something every ten games or so that makes him look like a decent option on that second line, then he goes back to being the space on the ice where plays go to die. So far this season, Filppula and Cleary have "proven" they do not belong there either.

Avery is a cancer though I enjoy him being in the NHL... on OTHER teams. Avery was traded from Detroit because of his attitude - and this was way before his clown show really took off. Yzerman had talks with him about his attitude and they liked his potential as a hockey player, but it was obviously not going to work out given the makeup of Detroit's locker room. There is not a chance in hell Holland would consider him for a second, considering his antics since he left, let alone Yzerman or anyone else in management. Ps... nice bump, I thought this was the one started recently.

1) Sergei Fedorov 2) Slava Kozlov 3) Zdeno Chara 4) Mike Richards 5) Sergei Zubov

Could it also be why Hudler is getting so little playing time? Probably not... but I wouldn't mind if that was the reason.

Zetterberg is a better all-around player than Hossa and can set others up better, while still being a consistent scoring threat. Having Franzen back will give him a legitimate 2nd option and we should see his assists start to take off. Get Samuelsson off the second line - he just turns the puck over too much to make that line a real #1 line alternative and is a poor compliment to Franzen and Zetterberg. Hudler is still my first choice because he is the best set up man, followed by Filppula because I think he has the potential. Leino would also probably be a good fit there. I want to see Samuelsson play consistently with Cleary and maybe Kopecky. On that line, Samuelsson could throw as many pucks towards the net as he wants, with Cleary and Kopecky banging away and getting some sloppies. Not a bad energy/chaos line.

Joey Kocur needs to throw a chair on the ice...

I've never really jived with this line of thinking. So you are saying the only people who should be critiquing, say... the president, are a handful of old, rich white guys who happened to have occupied the same office previously?