Earthhuman

I doubt this year will be much different. He will be at or near the top statistically, except for SV% (low shot total), and he will start for the playoffs, and do what he needs to do. At the worst he is either injured (knock on wood) or he starts the season off slow because, as Babcock says, it takes older player a little while to settle into the groove of the season.

How is Osgood not a quality playoff goalie? The goaltending trouble we had last year retired, and Conklin played like a starter in Pittsburgh, he could do it again. As for injuries, well, every team gets those. As long as they're even, the Wings are still the better team.

The first thing I checked when I read this was when you joined this forum (June 20th), so you might be serious about that. Looking back at all of the times I've seen a post like that, I'm wondering why our lineup isn't filled with aged hall-of-famers, and the Wings aren't $10 million under the cap.

Looks like Puckloo is going from Texas to Paradubice.

If Lidstrom isn't washed up than neither is Sakic. Forsberg should probably retire while he can still walk/steer an automatic wheelchair. Foote is a solid defensive defenseman. Just because it worked for Detroit doesn't mean everyone needs to ship all of their older players to Toronto (we all know they'd take them). The kids in Colorado aren't ready, I don't think, to step it up and be elite players. Statsny, Wolski, and Svatos aren't where Dats and Zata were in 06-07.

I hope he does get the chance to retire a Blackhawk. I would want to in his position.

I'm also thinking that getting hit less would be a [minor], related bonus. Most players can get that puck away fast, because there are plenty of options on the ice. If you're oft-injured, or 35+, that would be a pretty big deal.

Lets say hypothetically you're drafted by a team who may never make the playoffs; could retire to be free of their ownership of you? Or would you just have to wait it out?

Sick burn. Sidney Crosby is a respectable hockey player and one of the best in the league. Why does his reputation take such a hit, still?

I'm a Rangers fan second, because the rest of my family are major Rangers fans. They're young, they can never get the puck out of their zone, they have alternately the worst and the best elite goalie in the NHL, and- thanks to Glen Sather- they are a real-world drama and revolving door. The catalyst was the 05-06 season, that was supposed to be a major bust. They were projected at the bottom of their conference with no offense to speak of, no goalie, and no defense. Well, Jagr has a crazy season along with his linemates Straka and Nylander, Prucha steps up with Rucinsky and later Sykora, Lundqvist turns out to be a phenom goalie from Sweden (complete with gold medal), and goes on to make a defensive core headed by Malik one of the better defenses in the league. On the bottom lines, the kids played with energy and speed, fun to watch. It's bugging me, though- who was the third-line center? I'm thinking he went to Atlanta? And I think he once played for Anaheim. Oh! Steve Rucchin. Liked that guy. I also saw their '94 cup run a few years ago, and a fan was holding up a sign that said, "Now or never." Well, given their history, I thought to myself, "Now and never." I then realized the inherent truth in the statement, and since then, they have gotten every drop of pity I can squeeze out of my tear-ducts. --------- Since then, nearly all of my favorite players have been traded or otherwise thrown out. NYR is no longer the Czech national team. Their underdog, scrappy style is gone and replaced with a downright boring style of skate... skate... skate... shoot... skate... try to clear the zone... try to clear the zone... try to clear the zone... try to clear the zone... try to clear the zone... feel dejected, look at scoreboard, feel dejected. The only things that keep me going are Prucha's limited ice-time, Lundqvist occasionally being stellar, and now Dubinsky and a couple of other new kids. Also, suddenly they've been drafting well. That's exciting... EDIT: They also had a really good offseason this year; I marvel at their apparent cap space. Zherdev should be exciting.

There's more than one kind of fan. Just because someone shells out the money for a SCF ticket, and not for the regular season, it doesn't make them a bad fan. I've seen a total of one game at JLA, because I live in Ohio (where I at least see a few Wings games a year in Columbus). I still see almost every other game on tv, and I'm biting my nails just as much as a guy who's in the arena, or I'm just as excited when they win. Accept that there are going to be more fans coming out of the woodwork when the Wings are going deep in the playoffs. Detroit has plenty of teams to pick from, and being a die-hard fan of multiple teams don't leave time for much else... regardless of who they support, though, a shot at the Stanley Cup is something special. How you can blame them for having enough money to see at least one of those games is beyond me. The Cleveland Indians went pretty deep awhile ago, and I kept myself informed about it, watched the games, talked about it, etc., even though I don't like baseball (I'm not legally allowed to drink yet). Oh, and if you had $300 to try to buy a ticket, and you spent $100 per game, 7 games in the year, then you could have been economical and gotten two SCF tickets, or skipped two of the regular season games and had enough to get a SCF ticket. Maybe the "die-hard fans" just thought it through a little bit more.

Right on- Nashville deserves a shot at drafting another player. I'm sure that the GM got a chance to talk to him first, or else why would he draft him, in the first round, no less? So the question is, did Radulov say he would do what it took to play in the NHL, or did he not comment on it, and that was the risk Nashville was taking?

It still doesn't make sense to trade a guy who plays generally well regularly, with the potential to #1, not even in his prime (!), for somebody else who isn't even that far along. The whole team doesn't have to be 21 years old. Kronwall has many good years left.

I wouldn't rank one over the other. Kronwall overachieved, maybe more than even god expected. He looks that much better. Rafalski was still an elite defenseman, put together some pretty good stats, and some of the complaints about him in the season disappeared (slow, bad first passes). He has seen plenty of playoff games, I think it showed. If he carries through with the way he played to next year, we will have three defensemen who should be #1 defensemen.

I agree with that, but I add Recchi and Bondra.

Jagr has got to be up there on the list. Look up his top 10 goals on youtube if you haven't seen him play much. Jagr used his size. Nobody could push him off the puck and all he had to do was turn his back. - Bure's skates were on steroids and there should have been a speed limit when he played. Notice he sometimes crashes into the boards because he can't stop fast enough. Other players do this, but that's because the boards are designed to be somewhat elastic- the players kind of bounce off. Why wouldn't you drift into it? In Bure's case, he crashed headlong, sometimes feet-first. - Datsyuk has a little string on his stick that he expertly ties around the puck before the drop of the puck. It's got a little fishing pole reel, so it can go far away from him, even when he's on the bench. When intermission comes, he just cuts the string and reties it before the next period. When broadcasters say that it's like he's got the puck on a string, they're utilizing a technique called dramatic irony. Kovalev is probably the best. I was just watching the Rangers '94 cup run on dvd (August, need hockey soon!) and he's so subtle, and he doesn't really show off, but he definitely controls the puck more than anyone on the ice. Well, except for Leetch, but I believe he's the best defenseman we've seen since Orr.

An NHL team thinks he's worth $10 million when he's 37 years old. Inflated or not, a player like that should be in the Hall of Fame. Is that the highest a 37-year-old has ever been paid, if he takes it? This is also the Hockey Hall of Fame, not the Hockey Hall of At Least 1.3 Points-Per-Game & a Cup. Sundin lived the game. More selflessly than most players.

I'm guessing Whitney would go in the deal with Tyler Kennedy, and probably a draft pick. It couldn't be a low one, because Pittsburgh will do decent next season, making their picks less valuable.

http://senators.nhl.com/team/app?articleid...mp;service=page Antoine Vermette signed a $2.5 million deal for two years, according to nhlpa.com. This is a good deal for a guy with plenty of experience, 53 points last season (24-29-53), great on face-offs (6th best in league), and a regular penalty killer. This makes me think of Filppula's deal. They're comparable- young, second-line centers; but Vermette is, lets be honest, the better hockey player. At least now. And he's counting for half a million less against the cap. If they were getting paid the same, ok, you could argue that Filppula is better in the playoffs so it's justified. This deal has made me slightly less comfortable with our deal, and I hope Filppula plays next season like his contract says he should.

Probably should have waived his NTC, eh? I don't think he took a very close look at the market this year.

Filppula has been up and down the lineup. He spent a lot of time on the first and especially the second lines. He's not out there to shut down stars. Smolinski was above .5 and Comrie was at about .6.

I think that's been basically covered throughout this thread.

He almost went to arbitration. He wasn't going to take that deal.

Vermette centered the third line while Smolinski was there, and while Comrie is there. Being in the 30 point range on that line is great for a kid. His job wasn't even to score, and he did that pretty well. Meanwhile, everybody wants Filppula to hit the 50 point range. 60 if they're unrealistic. I also said, "At least now."

The Gomez deal is overboard. I knew it wasn't 10 million average, but that's what he made last season, which is ridiculous no matter how you look at it. That's why his average is higher than it should be. By the way, I think it's $8 million average, according to NHLPA. Also, $7 million for Drury. Nearly $8 million for Lundqvist (deserves it, but conventionally goalies don't make quite that much). $5 million for Naslund. Really?! Ok, I'm looking at NHLPA.com, and these figures seem to be off. Regardless, overpaying. The .5 isn't the huge steal. How much could he have gotten, what is he worth? More than 2.5 by far. That's the huge steal. If they're paying him $4-5 million next contract, it wont be much more than what he should be making now. I think they came out of this saving money and cap space. We didn't. Flip side (no pun), we are guaranteed Flippula, but he is guaranteed a job. I believe he will continue to improve, but many don't. You know as well as all of us that 5 years in a city doesn't make the occupation permanent. We've had Yzerman and Lidstrom, but we've also had Shanny and Fedorov.