NeverForgetMac25

or Elmo.

Uh.........the first 1:45 of the 2:16 video talked about how great the Red Wings are, with only the next 20 or so seconds talking about Crosby. The last 10 seconds he says the Wings will win in 7. That guy was animated.

You never can tell on a message board without using the handy-dandy emoticons. Just gotta throw a at the end of it.

Normally, I would agree but this isn't playing through the pain of a foot or hand injury. If there's a concussion you absolutely need to be 100% or atleast guaranteed that playing without being 100% won't possibly harm you down the road.

:rotflmao:

You do realize that The Onion is a Fictional Satire Newspaper, that makes up all its stories? It's not like its a credited hockey (or news for that matter) source. It's simply for humor.

I'll make sure to warn the Red Wings for you.

Sidenote: That was the funniest sh*t I've seen so far in this years playoffs. All of a sudden Malkin just winds up from like 20 feet and lets it rip! It was kind of like, "who the f*ck thinks of doing something like that at that range?" Kudos to him for burying it, though. In regards to that last sentence, that's not entirely correct. True, the Wings won't play dirty but Kronwall, Drake and probably Stuart are going to level Malkin and others throughout the series. The Wings won't adjust their play for the Penguins, but they will *continue* to hit others like they have all postseason.

Can you imagine the boost this would give the team playing on the road in games 3 & 4? Oh the matchup humanity!

My point is that I don't feel the Penguins and Red Wings defense are remotely close to matching up closely. I do agree that the Penguins offense is slightly better though. I understand Staal is putting the puck in the net these playoffs, but all I'm saying is that I would think the Wings' brain trust would pick up on that, and assign Cleary the role of shadowing him to prevent that from happening as best as possible.

While I agree with you that the role players are going to make a big difference in this series (and could possibly decide it), the defenses are not close. I'm not being a homer, I'm being obvious.

And the Wings will counter with Cleary who plays exceptional defense. Keep in mind he was part of the shutdown line until Franzen went out.

Merged

Hudler has given the Wings a phenomenal 4th line threat that no opposition has been able to match this postseason. The Wings' second line, which will be defended by the Penguins shutdown line this series would likely take away a solid amount of Hudler's effectiveness if he's inserted on that line. It's not to say that Hudler can't thrive on the second line, but he's terrorizing the oppositions 3rd and 4th lines with timely goal scoring. Why would you want to take that away by (I'm assuming) putting Sammy on that line, if he obviously isn't a scoring threat? Then its just a wasted 4th line to give the top 3 a breather. Lastly, if thats what you would do, than that what you would do. Obviously you have your opinion about what should be done with Sammy and I have mine. Our's just differ.

Saying "he tends to disappear on the scoreboard when the opposition plays physical against him" is nothing like the bolded comment. What was said, which can't really be refuted is that he tends to get off his game when physical players have keyed in on him. No one said he was non-existent, just that he can be rattled and taken off his game a little.

Holmstrom is always going to look somewhat out of sync playing on a line with Z and Dats. Those two are some of the most skilled and elite players in the world, and Holmstrom will never be able to match that type of talent. TBH, if it weren't for the job Homer does in front of the net, its pretty safe to assume he might not only be off the Wings, but be out of the league as well. Simply put, Homer's job is two-fold: (1) Create room and Z and Dats to do their magic, which he has...and (2) to be a net front presence that will hinder the oppositions goalie from making saves (especially on the PK), which again, he has done. I can understand your worry about his play since the Game 4 "goalie interference" but lets break this down. Of course he was probably a little rattled the remainder of that game. Game 5 Turco flat-out played out of his mind, and Game 6 the Wings staked themselves to a 4 goal lead merely 23 minutes into the game. Top that off with the amount of PK time the Wings had to kill off the final two periods of that game, and all Homer really needed to do was play responsibly. He didn't need to score goals or create plays (like he did on the Colorado Game 3 drop pass to Raf which took a boatload of calmness). At that point, it was more of him probably trying to play a defensive role which really isn't Homer's forte to begin with.

Borderline is borderline to me. Whether its retribution or the initial hit. I'm not saying it isn't nice to see a dirty player once in a while get what they've got coming to them, but as others have posted there just doesn't seem to be much respect amongst players now-a-days. Responding with a borderline hit to a borderline hit that came your way is exactly the type of lack of respect alot of people don't care for. Neither belong. I'm not trying to be an ass, but what makes you think that simply because he did it in one game? There have been plenty of other times where he has gotten thrown off his game due to the opposition getting physical with him. While the Wings won't get dirty with him the way the Flyers did, you can bet Drake, Kronwall (and Stuart for that matter) are going to be hitting him every chance they get. That can be enough to get even the most level-headed players rattled. Getting laid out unsuspectingly somehow will play right into the hands of Malkin? Please explain to me how if Malkin has his head down and doesn't see the hit (at best) until the absolute last moment before he's crushed that this will somehow play right into Malkin's hands. As Matt said on the first page, Kronwall times his hits very well and rarely puts his team in a bad position when he flattens a player on the opposition. 99% of the time, there's support behind him when he makes his move.

Yeah? To a young gun, without the playoff experience and calmness that Sammy will be able to bring to the table? Or how about a young gun that you can guarantee me will have put up 9 points at this time of the postseason? Or a young gun that you can, again guarantee me will have the chemistry that he, Filppula and Franzen were playing with before Mule went down?

Then by the bolded comments, he's not useless. Catch my drift?

QFT! I completely agree that it will be Malkin for two major reasons. (1) Kronwall and Stuart will be the defensive pairing against that line the majority of the game and (2) Malkin gets away from his game when the other team gets physical with him. If you can get under Malkin's skin, he tends to disappear on the scoreboard.

What are we talking about here? Are we talking about dirty runs at opposing stars or simply laying out a clean hit on a star that should have had his head up to begin with?

Honestly, I'm not trying to get personal. There are just some known posters on these boards that make certain claims about the Wings only to pretend like they never happened when they are proven wrong. Perhaps I jumped the gun a little with you, as you may have every intention of taking back what you've said if the Wings do in fact win it all, but thats waiting to be seen. As for PM's...I'm down with that, and I agree.

I would say its a 50/50 wash. TBH, I have watched the majority of his hits multiple times, and when Kronwall leaves his feet is one of the first things I look for. I completely agree that he has left his feet early on some of them, but he also has delivered clean hits with his shoulder (rather than his elbow) and stayed grounded until after contact was made. Again, I'm completely with you in saying some of them are definitely questionable, as shown in my initial post in this thread.

If Malkin is thinking about hitting the Wings' star players than he's not thinking about scoring....which in my book is success: Kronwall.

To add on to this, on the majority of his hits this postseason he feet haven't left the ice until after contact is made. When you rock someone as hard as Kronwall is frequently doing right now, you never really know how your going to come off of the hit, even if you're the one delivering it.