theman19

Not really, If hudler is playing on a lower line he's playing against other teams lesser D pairings and forwards, which means instead of playing against the nick lidstroms of the league, he's playing against the brett lebdas and Andreas Lilja's. I'm not knocking Hudler at all, i'm just saying it's a coaching coup to have the kind of matchup for babcock.

I love how you ignore all of my points and focus on ones you think you can win. i really don't feel like responding to someone who obviously has no idea what they're talking about. The cap, up or down,...matters Zero,.....Its in Hossas court,..if he wants to be a red wing he will be, if he doesn't he won't. It's that simple.

Whelp, you where asking for this smack down..... don't tell posters they have a splinter in there eye, when a board is hanging out of yours. lets do this by the numbers, since you're such an incredible hockey fan that you can critique others by being a 12 years old in your responses. A. hossa is an elite offensive AND defensive talent. Two way forward, those are the guys who can play real good like, on both sides of the puck. Hossa is on par with flip defensively and miles above him offensively. B. Flip is not even close to one of the best Defensive playes in the league,..in fact he's not even top three on our team,.....Datsyuk and Draper both have selke's and Zetter was nominated. Brindamour, Madden, Paulsson,..seriously i could do that all day. C. There are plenty of much much better Defensive players that make less than 3 million a year, Paulsson is an example of one, don't embarrass yourself by making me name more. D. Defense indeed wins championships, but the best defense in the world needs someone to score the goals. Hossa has not only been healthy his entire career, he's also constantly put up 30+ goals seasons his entire time in the league. Other than Z and Dats, who on the wings has done that? Did we win a cup without him, yes we did. Could we do it again, Totally, but let me ask you this, if the hottest girl in the world wants to date you, do you turn her down? No,...if Hossa wants to play for the wings and it's a reasonable price, he's playing for us. Hollands not an idiot and players like franzen, flip, lebda,..guys replaced from within will be. You don't replace a guy like hossa. If he wants to play here everything will be done to accommodate him.

that cup hangover is looking less and less noticeable lately knock on wood. Hossa has looked unbelievable

dude, that was gangster jiri. BTW Kopesky has looked really really good. Is it bizzaro Kopesky or what?

i don't know if you were joking or what, but i've honestly seriously thought the same thing. Chelios isn't valuable for his Defensive play anymore, but on the bench and in the locker room he's like a third coach. I really think his wisdom and experience can help right now with guys who even though they've been at this a while, have been awful (kronwall, lilja, lebda etc. ) Now if nick just settles down, we'll be just fine.

WOOOOOO it's the spelling police,...everybody run! seriously dude, get a hobby.

No you need a reminder of last year's playoffs, and how we don't get past nashville with hasek in net. Argument over.

The worst thing for me, was during the finals. That's when my utter disgust with the media and Crosby reached record levels. My Finance is just getting into hockey, she literally knows next to nothing about the sport other than "Rod Brind'amour is hot" ( I live in Raleigh) and my favorite team is the red wings. During the finals she was a tropper and watched every game. Normally she just read a romance novel while i acted like a moron when the game was on. Finally, during game three she spoke up, it went something like this "your team is winning right? I mean overall, like the other team hasn't even really put up a fight" "yeah, we shut them out the past two games" "Okay, so i have a questions" "Sure baby, what is it?" "Is Crosby a guy on your team" "HELL NO" "So,......he p lays for the other team" "Yeah,...." "So why do the announcers keep bringing up his great play over and over again if he's not doing anything?" "I have no idea dear, i've been asking myself that for two years" Yes he's a great player, an elite talent But why the piss do we have to hear about him every freaking game i watch. We could be playing the blue jackets, but by Bob they'd find a way to bring up cindy's name. "what a great pass there by rick nash" "Yeah, know who else is that good and younger, Sidney Crosby,....." It's just stupid how much press he gets.

If you study real hard on that book, when you come back you'll know one of the best kept secrets in hockey; Crosby isn't the next gretzky, cause until he wins A. the cup B. scores 93 goals in a season C. wins the hart for half a decade, he's not even the next lindros. I'll start to care when he acomplishes these things. Another thing you'll learn, there are other players in the league. Some of which, believe it or not, are just as talented as Crosby.

hossa is reminding me more and more of feds in his prime, if he scores like this in the playoffs just hand us the cup now.

Classy.

just for lol sake, i found him hanging out in nhl 09 i forget which team. He's awesome, cracked my red wings dyansty and scored 40 points.

Gold, seriously i about feel out of my chair laughing so hard.

there's to many teams who have gaps to fill for this guy to slip through the cracks. It's not like he's a washed up veteran, he's a restoration project that if successful could pay off heavily for the right team. Scott walker and J. Williams are both out for Carolina, and last year they hit gold by plucking samsanov off the wire, wonder if they'll do the same with bell.

what a sad sad story for Bell. Granted he brought most of this on himself, but it wasn't long he was a highly sought after prospect.

i mean we all know that. The fans know it, the coaching staff knows it, ultimately the players know it. It's what's best if a player wants to be their best in the NHL. But my original point was how that must effect our players mindstate. "Oh btw, you've shown enough talent to separate you from 99% of the hockey population but we're going to keep you in the minors until we absoutly have to use you or trade you, so 23-24 ought to do it. Oh and while you're in the minors we're going to pay you 500K less than you'd make up in the big club even though you're going to play three times as much. It's good for your development". Looking at from the eyes of a 19 year old prospect (not saying helm or any of the other guys do,..just saying what i'd see at 19) puts it in a different light right or wrong.

I'm fairly confident i kept it in perspective by putting "on our 4th line" behind there. No he probably isn't able to carry the team on his back,..yes what you just said is true,..but i wasn't saying anything in contrast to that. However, he managed to get noticed on the 4th line,..playing 5 min. a night,..and also managed to make solid scoring chances and even score some goals on the biggest stage in the nhl, the finals. So i think i'm keeping a pretty good perspective after all.

Thanks, i was stuck on the sixth one.

i'm just curious how long it is before we get a reputation around the league amongst young players that it's Damn near impossible to crack and stay in our lineup. Quincy had a great playoffs in 07, didn't even get a call up afterwards Howard has been waiting for years to prove himself,...instead we sign Ty Conkiln Now we have helm who dispite being a force of nature on our 4th line, is gonna spend time in Grand Rapids for who knows how long. I'm not saying any of these choices arn't the right ones (so seriously there's no need to debate if they are), i don't know a thing about how to run a hockey team, obviously the brass does given our success. I'm just thinking out loud about this, you know these guys are getting frustrated.

wow, i feel terrible. I can't believe they did that. I gave them a sparkling review too. I do feel very lucky however, i bet i'm one of the last people to get a zata jersey. Kinda leary about an AO now. What if i order and they ship me a nylander,..or worse a clark.

wow, that's beyond weird about them only shipping chelios ones now. Seriously any other star on the wings and i'd do it all again but a chris chelios jersey baffles me. There are far better alternatives,...datsyuk osgood, hossa etc. etc. I wonder if all the extra business broke the site lol.

to bad the force isn't very strong with that one.

Not to my knowledge, that's a leafs and habs thing.

i always thought they'd use this one http://www.icehockeyjersey.com/assets/imag...ockeyJersey.jpg