sibiriak

Well, decent enough period. Stolen goal notwithstanding. I have a good feeling about this game. Filppula looks good, if only he could hit the empty net...

GAMETIME!!!

You know, when you correct someone's spelling prononciation, it helps to spell correctly yourself. In English It is pronounced San Hose, and it is spelled San Jose. And how do figure Joe Thornton for playoff failure? He's got 33 points in 51 playoff games and has 6 pts in 5 games this year. Also, the Wings are 1-3 vs the Sharks this year. And they have the best PP in the league, when we have our PK. In any case, let's wait till we pass Calgary, then we can start thinking about the next round opponents.

I'm not saying that signing S.Kozlov as a UFA for the next season is a good idea, unless he agrees to $2 mil. or so. But he is very good player still. Just like signing Lecavalier is not feasible at his salary, but he is still a very good player. As to playoff history, how long ago counts? Tkachuk did anything in the playoffs several years ago, buta lotof people here wanted him on the Wings. Slava Kozlov played on a terrible Sabres team, then on a young and bad Atlanta team. This year is the first time he had a chance to play in the playoffs, since Detroit traded him for Hasek in 2001. Hardly a representative sample,with Atlanta playing as poorly as they did as a team.

Slava Kozlov got 80 pts this season. He has career 0.74 PPGin reg. season and 0.67 PPG in the playoffs. He is 35 years old. If you can name 10 upcoming free agent forwards better than him, I'd be shocked. Let alone 1000. He may command more money than the Wings would be willing to pay, but as a player, there aren't too many better.

Blocked shots: DET 37 CAL 41 Hits: DET 105 CAL 114 Over 4 games this difference is insignificant. Calm down. The Wings were not outplayed in the two losses. If they get any kind of PP production, they'll win in 6.

The Flames scored on none of those odd-man chances. The Wings lost today because of the 2 5-on-3 goals gift-wrapped and delivered to Calgary, and because they didn't score on their own PPs. That is all. If Babcock can fix the specialty teams, Wings will win in 6. Otherwise, Wings in 7. Go, WINGS, Go!

So you have Lidstrom and Schneider on the first PP unit, and Lebda and who on the second?

Schneider couldn't play on BOTH PP units at the same time. That is why we see Samuelsson on point. There's no one else on the Wings who could play point on the second PP unit. Chelios is too slow to recover if the puck bounces past him, Lilja is too prone to cough the puck up, and Kronwall is out. Markov and Lebda are passable, but not good, on PP. Who else is left?

Schneider got his penalty at 6:28 of the 1st, the CAL PP goal came at 8:29 of the 1st. It is generally accepted that it takes 2 seconds for the player toget back into play from the penalty box. Npot 1 second. So for all practical purposes, the first CAL goal wasa 5 on 3 goal. Both 5 on 3s shouldn't have been called. Iginla should have gotten 2 min.for elbowing Hasek in the hea don first 5/3 and the call on Lidstrom that put CAL on the second 5/3 was utterly weak. 2 goals gift-wrapped right there. And I don't give a hoot about the "quality of goals". Just call the game reasonably fair, and I'll be content.

Well, looks like whoever predicted a 6-4 game may have been right!

The kindergarten teacher must have stepped out of the room. :caution:

I totally disagree. The Wings tried to "shut the game down" in Game 3. The only thing that achieved, was to give the initiative to the Flames, and have no sustained pressure/puck posession for the Wings. We need to get back to the same tactics that worked in the first two games. Use superior team speed and team movement to outskate and outwork the Flames. Not seat back with 3 players on our blue line at all times.

I don't have evidence to support it, but from what and more significantly how the Russian national team coaches talked about this incident, they believe that Semin intentionally ignored the repeated requests to arrive to the training camp on time. Semin's Washington teammate Ovechkin didn't seem to have had any confusion about the timetable. In order to send the message that ALL players were equal and nobody got preferential treatment because of their NHL status or level of talent, they decided to cut Semin. It's Bykov's (the head coach) resposibility to field the best TEAM he can. If he wins with the players he got, he was right in cutting Semin, if not - he'll be criticized for it later.

The Flames had indeed come out with a much better effort yesterday. However I believe that there were legitimate questions about officiating. It was not a reason the Wings lost, but it did help the Flames to play their game. In the previous two games of the series, a lot of the stuff the Flames did would have been called. The 2 calls on Markov and the call on Calder were bad calls. So far, DET scored 7 ESGs and 2 PPGs, to CAL 1 ESG and 4 PPGs in the series. The Flames don't compare well with DET in even strength, and Detroit's PP is emphatically NOT the reason they won 2 games. If the officiating like yesterday is a norm when Calgary plays at home, then it may explain the mistery of why the Flames won so much at home, and couldn't buy a win on the road.

Yeah, Denver, Minneapolis/St.Paul, Ottawa all had and lost NHL teams before their current franchises. What flops the Avs, Wild, and Sens turned out to be.

In the last year playoffs, Datsyuk blocked 6 shots in 6 games, which was more than Iginla, Lecavalier, and Zetterberg, the same as Draper and Maltby, and Staal blocked 13 shots in 25 games, so Datsyuk blocked more shots per game than Stall as well. You may want to actually examine the stats first , before using the cliche "not in the playoffs" about everything that Datsyuk does.

Why on Earth would you import a goon or a cheker from overseas, when you have hundreds available in Canada and US? Why import a player who would need to learn different language, culture, and hockey style, if you don't expet him to develop beyond the 3rd line? That's why proportionatly more European NHL players are "skilled", and proportionatly more "checking" NHL players come from North America. There's just no reason to import, when you can buy in bulk domestically.

Datsyuk blocked 33 shots this sason. That's more than Draper, Zetterberg, Lecavalier, Eric Staal this season, and one Don Cherry in his whole career. Case closed.

Hey, who stole the notes of coach Playfair's speech before the Sunday game? Or was it the notes from before Game 4?

Yes, I too thought Hitch was a very good communicator. Columbus is lucky to have him.

I have a feeling that the Sunday game is going to be sold out after tonight's resounding win. Th Wings need to continue their amazing team movement in game 2. Because Calgary is bound to play better. They could hardly play any worse.

O, ye of little faith. Of course,the Wings belong here.The Flames barely do, at least so far.

Schneider with a beauty of a slapper. Datsyk'sline was just toying with the poor Flames

Pashaaaa! What a nice move,save that Kipper!