egroen

Rumor has it Bogosian wants out of Atlanta...

Messier won 2 Cups as a Captain. The fact it was with 2 different teams is more of a trivia thing than meaningful because most great captains stick to one team for the majority of their careers and are not hired guns. Besides, Messier's Rangers had 8 players from his Cup year with the Oilers... That's actually more of the same 'team' than Sakic and Stevens had between their first and last Cup wins. Finally, Vancouver fans absolutely despise Messier, even to this day. How many of the greatest captains ever are hated by a fan base they captained?

They're not looming UFAs is why. Kelly has 1 year left, Fisher has two years left and Versteeg a year plus RFA.

Playing defense for the Canucks is right there with playing drums for Spinal Tap.

Good choices - I'd probably bump Messier though. Most of these guys became better leaders with age, while Messier literally became a 'bad' captain - demanding too much ice-time, causing division in locker rooms and just believing all his own hype. Potvin is another guy I consider.

Lol

Ericsson was a worse culprit than Stuart, but Lidstrom's +/- took a toll this year from both of them taking a lot of risks - and would have been much worse if he had not single-handedly broken up a bunch of 2 on 1s he was left to deal with this year. I'm looking forward to Stuart returning, but hope he gives up on pinching so often. I do believe there are a fair amount of voters who look for any excuse to not vote for a 'soft euro' whom has already won it a bunch of times before.

And Jagr mentioned in an interview he plans to consider the NHL over the summer. The 90s are getting the band back together!

Enjoying the commentary

I worked in a factory years ago and heard derogatory cracker jokes all the time. But then, I found most of them funny. Ultimately, I think you have to acknowledge your chosen work environment and take it with a grain of salt. If you work as a stripper, you are probably going to face some sexual harassment. Join the military and you are in for some verbal, if not physical, abuse. Working any blue collar job is going to expose yourself to a lot of ethnic slurs. Ultimately, I think you do more for yourself and your ethnicity by letting jokes roll off, doing your job and not take every real or perceived offense so literally. In a predominantly black work setting, I probably did more for their perception of whites by being an easy-going guy who could take, and give, a joke than if I was all up in arms over any slight or attempted to sue the company I was working for. Sure, it can be a slippery slope, but a zero tolerance policy for any of the grey areas doesn't seem to do much good and only fosters resentment, further mistrust and only hardens stereotypes. That does not mean you tolerate anything truly in the red, but joking about Jews liking money is a far cry from a truly hostile work environment in which he is being singled out for his differences and abused. Suing in cases like this tend to discredit cases of true abuse, IMO.

Having Ericsson, Kindl and Smith all on the active roster does make me a bit nervous. It's nice to have a veteran presence on the back pairing, like Salei... But there seems to be a good chance he is gone next year in favor of getting Smith up and making sure Kindl is not lost to waivers. Red Wings defense has really disappointed me the past couple of years, and it is tough to really pinpoint just what the problem has been.

Bowman is also in favor of doing away with free-icings from teams on the PK - "why give a penalized team an advantage?" I see his point, but am not sure I can go with it - especially with how penalties are called nowadays.

As long as Crosby sits out a game immediately preceding or following the ASG, he will not be suspended. Though I am kinda hoping he does play them and gets the same BS Lids and Dats got.

This has to be a real nice morale boost to that Islanders lockerroom.

This is hilarious - it's like Holland just threw a wrench into the the system as a big F-you to the NHL, as he just created a situation which is going to be a huge headache for them to clear up and address in the future. Literally no one knows their head from their ass in this case. [eating popcorn]

I guarantee this does not happen. The NHLPA would battle that day and night. Absolutely no presedance for it whatsoever... no talk of this when Selanne and Niedermayer were refusing to show up for Anaheim.

This whole situation at least makes things interesting.

My assumption would be his team could just suspend him like the Ducks did with Niedermayer - in which case he comes off the cap and roster, until he is no longer breaching his contract.

With the exception of Holmstrom. It's in the fine print.

Lidstrom going further into the negative +/- His defensive partners are really going to put a crimp on his Norris chances.

I like his rocket-fueled tricycle of doom!

Or if he has ever played a sport in his entire life. Injuries can be played through, but it's not necessarily smart to pile on more activity voluntarily. At least Theo Fleury has not come out and called Zetterberg a "spoiled brat" yet like he did to Datsyuk and Lidstrom.

He ridicules the NHL's fine on Toronto as petty but then goes onto to use that incident to justify disciplining Zetterberg... As in one wrong deserves another. Great logic, Ken.

There was a game during the Original 6 where both goaltenders went down and they actually had someone from the crowd play. Another instance where the goaltending coach ended up playing.

Wings pay for his cap hit whether he plays or not - and he better play!