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Lol, I see how this was taken other-wise, but I agree -- his statement could be taken as 99.99% of the hard-working hockey players in the world who never made the NHL, let alone cash in on $6 million a year, are not 'working as hard as me'. Fact is, the kid was blessed/lucked-out with a ton of talent, and hard work helped ensure he got to where he was. I could work on my hockey game 18 hours a day, harder than Patrick Kane could ever dream of, and still not get within sniffing distance of the NHL. If "hard work" is all it took to get where Kane is, there'd be a heck of a lot more of us there. Besides, this is Detroit - and we like our players with a good slice of humility. Screw Kane.

But Lebda and Meetch have little-to-no chance of getting better.

I would rather have Janik up full-time for sure - Kindl still makes me nervous, but I am getting so sick of Lebda, and Meech has been a big disappointment.

Oh, and the Wings had several key players missing games to injuries in that series.

Hawks have to earn it first, and the Wings handled them quite well in the last playoffs.

True, Sidney will even braid their hair.

I think Messier had as many suspensions as Pronger has... thanks so much for posting that clip, as yet again I am pissed off thinking of the 'Messier Leadership Award' and how the hell if they were really dying to have a pretty much impossible to measure award (at least on a year-to-year basis), why was it not named after Jean Beliveau? Messier was a hell of a player and was a good leader (at times), but he is one of the most overrated players of all time.

Sakic was better defensively for the Avs (over Forsberg) but was no Fedorov (or Yzerman), defensively. I would definitely say Forsberg was a better player than Lindros, and it is funny to say Forsberg was "more durable" than anyone. But at their absolute peak, I would definitely pick Lindros.

When comparing points and PPG - remember that Neely played most of his career in a much higher scoring era, while Lindros played a good amount in the dead puck era... which makes Lindros' edge there even more significant. Lindros really is twice the player Cam Neely was, though I will say Neely stepped up in the playoffs 'more' than Lindros. Finally, Neely is not an 'excuse' for Lindros to get in, as Lindros is a much better player, but the bar does not have to be set at Neely either -- as he is in there for a lot of intangibles outside of his stats.

Helm has really been taking good lessons from Draper on how to finish a breakaway!

They made the Avery Rule right out of the blue... and thank goodness they did! But for a legitimate problem like this, that keeps popping up again and again, and a problem that could be fixed instantly (put in the rules that an "intent" to whistle is reviewable on goals and non-goals)... "maybe it will come up at the next General Manager's Meeting."

It looked like the guy in the blue might have been related to the little girl, and that the guy in the dark shirt was at the very least a drunk, belligerent *******. Blue shirt guy looks to be largely blameless in this one, and you can't fault the lady next to him, whom was probably his wife or girl friend, for trying to jump in there.

West-side hockey, brah.

That wasn't a fan fighting with the little girl, it was Corey Perry.... .... or was Perry the little girl?

Well I don't buy that for a second - and not that the players' feelings would have any impact on Bowman, anyways. Thanks for posting the full article - I thought something was missing from that, and he does not come off nearly as bad as it was first portrayed. But the guy is still a prima-donna and he can not honestly say he gave it even close to his 100% here 100% of the time. Even if some of the players might have been somehow "jealous" of the Russian 5 and did not want them playing together, the veterans and especially Steve Yzerman would have squashed that right away. Yzerman had been through enough by then, and he wanted to win.

Red Kelly was twice the player for Detroit than Fedorov was (and I have little problem with retiring Fedorov's number, in reality... despite his prima-donna attitude at times).

I can understand Fedorov's position, as it clearly was the Red Wings holding him back all these years, and if you look over his career in the NHL, those years in Detroit really stick out like a sore thumb and are an ugly blight on his record.

Heh, and I was wrong -- Shutt is right!

Fetisov was planning on retiring after the 97 season anyways - that is weird how Fedorov stated that. Lost in translation?

Is he saying the players were not best buddies with Bowman? Shocking. I bet they could have done much better with a more approachable coach, like Dave Lewis.

Campbell came right out and said what the ref did was wrong - he should have conferred with Toronto, who then could have corrected him and ensured the right call was made. Bettman then goes on to do a jig and pull the whole, "Well, we can't review every play" card. That little man infuriates me.

"You can't over-react to one incident" -- Yeah, because this never happens in the NHL. "We'll probably talk about it at the next GM meeting."

Bettman is such an arrogant ******* -- listening to him on NHL Live. Essentially saying if they reviewed this it would get out of hand and fans are essentially idiots for thinking otherwise.

LOL... I didn't realize that was also him.

That one was blatantly worse than all of O'Hallaran's combined -- however, O'Hallaran made many of his calls in the playoffs, where the implications of his botched calls could have been far greater.