Majsheppard

The D still looks bad, but there are a bunch of little differences in how the team plays and I like it.

Leino has his first goal of the season for the Buffalo Sabers. Looks pretty good as of now.

Participated... but again I doubt it will do any good. I have come to the realization that unless you can influence 150 million people with ease, or are super rich (usually need to be the latter to do the former) you can't influence any change.

I don't get why they would even want it on the practice jersey... Who even ever sees it? Are they trying to trick the players into getting into the pyramid scheme?

If he finishes the job he will never play again...

Drew and Andrew are the same name guys... One is just shorthand...

A billion times yes.

It would be great to allow a three for one style trade now... Nyquvist and an acquired player with Mursak. That could be made possible now thanks to this addition. Perhaps we can fleece Burke in the process!

I would send him down for the full period and hope to trade Hudler or Miller during that period. I would much rather keep Miller though.

I would like to see Johnson end up in GR... I think he would help them become a more complete team. Is it possible to send Mursak down for a rehab assignment? I know there are rules for that... I am not quite sure what they are though.

Joe Louis forever. New arena is only going to help the rich. The old arena is for the middle class.

I don't like no-touch. This opinion was formed before we had Helm. I would be really mad if a star was hurt on my team... Therefore I will not complain much if they put it in... I still would rather not have it.

The only name you don't make an effort to pronounce correctly is Roy. Why? Because their name isn't English.

I think the suspension on Brendan Smith for his hit on Ben Smith, given out by Brendan Shanahan, was further proof that the league does not know what it is doing. Even with best intentions they prove to make mistakes that seem small now, but set themselves up for bigger and costlier blunders down the road. The worst part of this, besides too many of the same names closely together, is that Brendan Smith had EXCELLENT LEGAL FORM IN HIS HIT!!! The only thing illegal about this hit was under the new rules; he made contact with the head. We all know that there was no way for him to avoid making contact with the head because he aimed at the shoulder of a moving target that moved out of the way but left his head there. When a player dekes with 2/3rds of a second left there isn’t a person on the planet that can avoid making contact when you are going over 20 miles per hour and have a third of a second to move. Even if he did move out of the way, then why does the player get to play chicken and force the defenseman to let him go unabated to the goal? It seems as if the defenseman Smith is taking too much heat on this one. I don’t put 100% of the blame on Ben Smith, but I refuse to put more than 50% of the blame on Brendan Smith either. I will get to what Smith deserved in a minute, but first let us think about what happened in another situation. When I play hockey, there are times where I put my head in a similar position to try and move the puck, and I have been elbowed. I never once got up and said, hey mother f@#&-er why did you have your shoulder or elbows at their natural level!!!! HOW DARE YOU KEEP YOUR EXTREMITIES WHERE THEY BELONG!!! If you lower your head, you are taking the risk of it making contact with lower body parts. It is just plain negligent to do so when you know a hit is coming. It could even be considered cheating in the future if you do it to DRAW SUSPENSIONS AND FIVE MINUTE MAJORS!!! We know people dive, so why wouldn't people dive like this? Smith deserved punishment under the letter of the law, and I just want to make sure that these punishments remain proportional and fair. I will say right of the bat, that I do not believe injuries are required to make a suspension occur nor should they be ignored in lengthening the sentence. I believe the five minute major was a big punishment in and of itself, and I expect that to be called routinely. I just don't want the likely outcome, where the only time the five minutes is called is when the player embellishes or is legitimately hurt. If you are going to call the major for contact to the head, you better do it 100% of the time. The NHL has proven conclusively that they will never be able to do this with any rule. Therefore it is my opinion that if they use a five minute major that they should count this as a significant part of the suspension. This obviously goes even further with game misconducts or match penalties. Unless they allow clubs to sub in a player for Smith, they are penalizing the team a game right there and giving such a momentum swing that the majority of the time the receiving team will lose. The games the player misses will be easier to win than the one where they get tossed without some sort of adjustment there, so I hate the idea of taking them out of the game. I would rather leave the guy in, and if they have an enforcer on the other team, well the problem will take care of itself. After that you suspend the player for his hit. Otherwise the penalty is proportionally upon the club and fan base for the act. This is heinous when the hit is the fault of the other player. In Smith's case, he basically received a one game suspension right then and there and cost the Wings a meaningless game. Because of this, I am okay with the punishment being delayed to the regular season for him because the meaning is heavier, but five games is an absurd for a first time offender. This first time offender also had his only offense be that a player zigged when he should have zagged. I would have been fine with a two game suspension of the regular season on par with the other preseason suspensions or a five game preseason suspension. Five games at the start of the career is pretty insane. I know I would never ask for that if I was the one hit. I know, because I have had head injuries do to similar circumstances. I think the league is once again going overboard to start and most likely will ease off of it in time for the playoffs. The fact that he was punished is not the issue; the fact that he was punished so severely for something I could see embellished in the future is the issue. I still think of how Marian Hossa received no match penalty in the playoffs for a hit that was identical to Ovechkin’s hit on Brian Campbell just a few weeks prior in the regular season, then went on to score the winning goal that turned a series around. It can be argued that if they called that consistently then Nashville would have made it harder for Chicago to get out of that series, if at all, and the Blackhawks might not have won the Stanley Cup that year. That proves that issues of consistency can have the biggest impact on the outcomes of the entire history of the sport. I do not want another way for inconsistent suspension or match penalty calls to further tarnish the sport. The league took another step towards mockery while taking a step towards player safety. Can we please move towards a safer league without making it impossible for teams to deliver a good effort? Can we do it taking into account the possibility of equal fault? Can we do it without costing any team from making the playoffs or going further on, due to misjudgment of an incident? Can we please just do it consistently, and not change from situation to situation? I don't think this first group of suspensions and calls prove that we can. I love you Shanny, but I think you need to go back to the drawing board and figure out a better framework so you don't make more disproportional mistakes. Addendum: Shanahan explains, that his (Ben Smith) head position did not significantly change. I would like to point out that his head position did change in relation to his left shoulder, which was the target. His head was protected by his left shoulder until he dropped it back and opened his body allowing the natural and pre-chosen trajectory to follow into his head instead of his shoulder. He still put himself into a vulnerable position by moving his shoulders. This is from my blog.

I know that the best way to move mountains is to get a ton of people to move small stones. In our modern age whenever something needs to get done, it is the masses mobilizing that gets work done. Now we have a year to make sure we are the team to go east, not Nashville or Columbus. What can we use to get that to happen? Well the Wings can use their leverage, but that might not be enough to get this done. The other major tool at our advantage is our fanbase is far larger. We need to use it to make sure the league knows what we can do. I suggest we use the internet and our brains to figure out a grassroots movement to ensure that we are the team to move east. The best idea I can come up with is to make ourselves visible in front of the Arena every home game, and every away game with signs visibly demanding a move to the east, as well as events in front of NHL league offices in Toronto and New York. This means those among us with the means to travel, or living in those markets need to get visible and loud. I also suggest we start an internet movement pledging to boycott away games in the West if we don't get moved, and pledging to travel to eastern teams if we do. The best goal is to make it seem like the league will lose money if we don't get moved. Anyone have any other ideas? Does anyone have the abilities to take leadership on this? Does anyone want to see us MOVE EAST!!!! I have started a tweet thread. #MoveDetroitEast This is the start, Atlanta leaves to go West, Detroit is the only team that deserves to go East. Join us fans! All you twitter addicts, start tweeting using #MoveDetroitEast and let the league know! Can anyone get a website going called www.MoveDetroitEast.org or com or whatever? Edit update: I have established a Facebook page and a twitter movement already! Join me and like "Move Detroit East" On Facebook! Tweet about #MoveDetroitEast as much as possible and spread the word we deserve to go east! Keep up the ideas and effort, remember if social media and protests in the streets can topple dictators, it can topple Bettman!!!

http://detnews.com/article/20110615/SPORTS0103/106150416/1128/rss16 Please God no. EDIT: I guess Jagr said no to Pit... Now what?

I also don't believe that there should be a suspension based upon the fact that there is a 5 minute penalty that cost us that game. Honestly how much can you punish someone for the other person being at fault? It reminds me of hitting someone with your car. You always lose if you are the driver, but there are people who dive in front of cars in order to sue... Just wait until one of the divers figures out if they lead with their head, then fall down hard they can get a five minute penalty and a suspension in a playoff series... Note that they would most likely have to spend 10 minutes in the quiet room.

I don't understand this concession.... Does that mean we have fewer games against Western opponents? Or does it mean we have more home games than away games? Will this mean other teams get the same type of schedules? Or does that mean that we get the best schedule out of any team in the league? THESE ARE EPIC QUESTIONS!!! Could you imagine a 52 game home schedule?!?!?!

Something about that Finger smells... fishy.

The back doesn't bother me, but the front does.

lol, btw love the new avatar.

The game is blacked out only in the Detroit Market area... So the entire country gets to watch the Wings except Detroit because FSN is supposed to be showing the game and forced Versus to black it out in our area, but now is not showing it because they rather show Tigers and soccer. BULLs***!!!!

WTF isn't the game on versus in the Detroit Market??? Where is it on?

Why play a team we will have to play freaking too many times already in the regular season?!?!

Unless there is a two-way clause in the contract. He still gets his salary paid to him for playing in the AHL. The full amount is still given unless he breaches contract. His salary just doesn't show up on the Cap.