toby91_ca

I'm still a little angered with Ozzie, a little, with respect to his diving. I haven't noticed it before, because I don't think it was there, but he has been diving a bit in the playoffs. Apart from that, he has impressed me, he is playing better than I ever thought he could. The Pens haven't been able to do very much yet, but they have gotten some pretty good chances and Osgood has been there every time to make the save. He hasn't been spectacular, but he has been very good. On the diving, the one thing keeping me from really disliking it is the following: I'm going back to my experience argument here as going into the series I thought this would simply be the reason the Wings would win and it is definately playing out that way. Osgood is an experienced goaltender and he is obviously aware that the officials are cracking down on goaltender interference, so Osgood takes this opportunity to sell a few calls when someone gets hear him. On replays, you can see what Osgood is doing, but in the moment, it must be tough for the refs to see this. I think Osgood has done a good job at that without making himself look foolish, which Hasek has tended to do in the past.

Am I the only one that thought what Roberts did wasn't that big of a deal? Roberts normally throws a quick shot to the guys chest, but I think this punch to the face WAS INTENTIONAL, but so what? It's not like he threw a haymarker. I thought it was a very, very soft blow to be honest and I think 1 of 2 things happened: - Franzen thought there was an elbow thrown and tried to sell it (i.e. wasn't hurt at all) - possible, but I'm not so sure about this. - Franzen could have gotten a thumb in the eye and was actually phased for a bit by this. I think this is the most likely scenario as I just don't see how a punch like that could hurt anyone, even someone coming back from a concussion.

I don't like your advice, I don't think that is something that you go and talk about too much publicly, what's the point? I'm sure his private conversations with his team are quite different from his public press conferences.

From everything I have heard, Crosby has been doing all the right things as captain. I didn't see the press conference, but I imagine some of his comments are out of frustration, however, I imagine that his comments are purposeful as well. There is more obstruction on him than anyone else, so I am not surprised if he chose to talk about it. All he is really trying to do is get the refs thinking about it for the next game. Normally it is the coach that does this, but whatever. I thought the reffing was pathetic in game 2, absolutely pathetic. I thought they let a kinds of obstruction go and the calls they made were very weak. They let clear cut penalties go uncalled and then they would call ones that you really aren't sure where the penalty was. The Wings might have been obstructing a little bit more, but in terms of reffing, I think the refs missed calls on both sides and made bad calls on both sides. I'm going to go back to the experience factor again, the Wings know when they can get away with little things and when they can't.....this seems to be frustrating the Pens. Back to Crosby as captain...I think his main message after game 1 was dead on. He told his team that they were giving Detroit too much respect, which was so true...unfortunately for them, they gave them too much respect in game 2 as well. I'm not sure why, but they keep backing in way off the blue line when the Wings get the zone, which gives them so much room to work with, this is what teams were doing with Pittsburgh earlier in the playoffs and what the Wings are not doing, again, I think this is the experience factor shining through.

I have to be honest, Osgood initiated the contact and then fell, same as on the Malone play, except the Malone play it was probably incidental contact and then Ozzy shoves off and falls. Give him credit, he got the calls out of it.

Why did Osgood even do that? All this does is give the Pens at least something to leave with, actually get their emotions going.

He's older than Crosby and has more professional hockey experience than Crosby. Malkin will be 22 soon. I'm not sure people are going hard on him, but maybe I just didn't read enough of this thread.

Doesn't matter if Laraque is playing or not, it's not like McCarty is going to fight him.

It's actually his 5th bad game in a row. In his defense, he was great in his first 10 games.

I joined in 2002, but like others have stated, why does it matter? It doesn't signify when you became a Wings fan. I've been a fan since the 80's, I actually stumbled upon this site in 2002, didn't even realize hockey discussion boards existed until then......I know, stupid me.

My thoughts on game one are exactly what I thought going in. If speaking of raw ability, I don't think Detroit was really any better than Pittsburgh. Game one, to me, was clearly a more experienced team playing an inexperienced one. At least 3 of the Wings goals were the result of simple mental breakdowns. Malkin and Crosby? I thought Crosby played a pretty good game, he created quite a few good chances actually and I thought he was pretty physical out there. I thought he outmuscled Lidstrom on the boards a couple times. Malkin on the other hand, I thought he was pretty invisible. He hasn't seemed to have much of an impact since about the second period of game 1 against Philly. I wonder if he hurt his back on that Richards hit? I'm not sure if he's hurt, I think he looks like he's inexperienced, doesn't like getting hurt and probably tired. He did run out of gas last year, wonder if he's run out again.

To be honest, I haven't really noticed, I guess I'll watch for it tomorrow night and see what they do.

History will be made either way, but Lidstrom being the first Euro to captain a cup winner would be bigger history.

Good catch, there must have been someone I didn't like standing outside my office while I was typing away.

If everyone wore black, it would look a little strange. White pops out, black would look more like an empty building.

Yeah me too.

In his defense, I think he is simply referring to the physical play comment and that it didn't work all that well for the Flyers. Obviously the Wings are better than the Flyers, but they are not more physical and if that is their game plan, then I think it is fair to compare to how the Flyers faired in that regard. That said, I think that game plan worked for the Flyers when it comes to Malkin, I think he was off his game for most of that series. However, I think it has somewhat of an opposite effect on Crosby, he seems to thrive off of that type of play.

That comment is simply not supportable.

I think this is where I classify them as questionable as I am not so sure his feet are leaving the ice AFTER contact a lot of the time.

This is what is wrong with today's NHL, no one has to answer to him. No one is going to fight the guy.

It depends on what team you are talking about as some teams have individual letters stitched on their jerseys while others have a name plate. The Edge jerseys are the authetic jerseys which should be the same as what is worn during a game. I can't offer much more than that as I have not bought any of the Reebok jerseys.

I agree, a lot of them are questionable, but I wouldn't call them dirty (I know you didn't either, not sure if that's what you were thinking though). I think he jumps into a lot of hits and that's what makes them questionable, but he generally hits with his shoulder and not usually with elbows. Hitting with your shoulder can be dirty too, I'm just not sure I would classify his hits that way.

Could be John Druce syndrome. Could be that he simply came into his own, or Could be that he is just on a major hot streak. He did finish the regular season with 15 goals and 20 pts in the final 16 games.

Let's compare the two situations shall we. Crosby played with a broken foot. Yes, this limited his effectiveness, likely played with a lot of pain, but other than that, playing didn't create any additional risk to him. Franzen appears to have issues impacting his head/brain. While he may be more able to play physically than Crosby was last year, the risks appear to be too high. I'm not sure anyone knows what the issues are at this point, but I have to trust the doctors in their conclusion that it is too risky for him to play as there may be long term effects to his body/life.

Ummm, I'll take your view.....I find it ridiculous to pick a team to win in 6 games wihtout seeing the first 5.