toby91_ca

People have been complaining about poor officiating since the beggining of time, so I am not sure there has been any recent increase in the number of bad calls. To be honest, I don't think the increased speed of the game should really have much of an impact, however, I think there is a bit of survival mode happening simply because it is a difficult job. Some calls are easy, some are not. There will always be mistakes when you have rely on humans to do a diffcult task.

I think Lidstrom is probably the most important player on the team and having him out hurts a lot, so don't take what I am going to say as a knock on Lidstrom, I just think those that are suggesting this slump has a lot to do with Lidstrom being hurt are a little off. Last 6 games Lidstrom was still playing, the Wings record was 0-5-1 (I think) 5 games since his injury, their record is 2-2-1.

Pronger only missed 3 games the year he won. If he didn't miss all those games last year, he could have very easily taken the Norris. He was the front runner before going down. I know it is very easy to jump on ESPN any chance we get, but I think people are extending their comments further than what they actually are. Lidstrom is obviously the front runner, still, but the article is only questionning "what if?" he misses significant time, instead of the the few games he is expecte to miss. To be honest, if he doesn't play another game this season, I think him winning the Norris would certainly be in doubt, but he's likely still be a front runner, which speaks to how far out ahead he is right now.

The thing is, I'm sure a lot of teams were linked to potential deals for Luongo, the Wings just happen to be one of them.

Not regular season.

What? The guy has some talent, but he's no potential Art Ross winner. He's a point per game player at best. I think last year was statistically his best year in terms of points per game, with 57 pts in 56 games. Extrapolate that over a full 82 games, you get about 83 points. That would be a good country mile away from the Art Ross.

I guess Murray figured he had nothing to do until after the playoffs since the trade deadline has passed, so now is a good time to coach the team.

You can't prove an opinion wrong (for the most part). Why is it that someone is a dick because he doesn't place the Wings on a pedastal? I can understand thinking McGuire is a dick for other reasons (he is annoying at times), but simply because he doesn't have the Wings in his top 5 or isn't a homer Wings fan doesn't seem justified to me. I have to be honest, I haven't watched a ton of TSN's hockey coverage for whatever reason. Most of the time I listen to him its with respect to the World Juniors and I don't mind him in that capacity. I can understand not having the Wings as your favourite, out of your top 5 is probably a little strange. I think there is a bit of jumping the gun here due to high and lows of the Wings season so far. The Wings record over the past little while probably influences this current thoughts on their chances a little more than it should. Even with the injuries they have, their record has been disappointing the past while, remember, Lidstrom was around for quite a few losses before going down. If you expect everyone to be healthy come playoff time, then it would be very difficult not to have the Wings as a top contender.

If Hossa doesn't re-sign with the Pens, not a great deal for them.

Agreed, it doesn't get much dirtier than this:

Not even close to a dirty hit. I can see a potential for a penalty to be called, but if it was mean, I wouldn't call a penalty. I see the eblow coming into contact with the chin as being a result of Lidstrom falling back towards the boards and head coming down as Lappy's arms extend as they would in delivering a normal check for the most part. Either way, call it a penalty if you want, it's borderline, but don't call it dirty just because it resulted in an injury.

I have never heard of Messier "demanding" someone give him number 11. The way it would actually work is whoever was wearing that number would likely offer to give the number up. In any event, Messier has gone from Edm to NYR to Van and back to NYR. In each case, I don't think anyone on the team he was going to wore number 11, so when would he have had to demand it?

Except Fedorov's career started in 1990.

The level of evil on this board has actually surprised me.

But isn't the Canucks logo shown above from last year? I don't think that logo exists on this year's jerseys.

Are your hands bigger than your trapper? I'm not sure how shaving a couple inches off the size of the trapper, which probably extends a good 10 inches beyond the finger tips is really going to put a goalie at risk. The only thing the outer areas of the trapper are potetecting is the air that surrounds it......or the mesh in the net behind it.

I'm really disappointed in the argument that the goalies need the big equipment for protection, that is just absurd. Think about it, how big is your hand, how big is the goalie's trapper. What part of his body is the outer areas of the trapper protecting. What about the Jerseys that are 5X the size they need to be. Are goalies going to try for a second to argue that they need a bigger jersey for potection? Why are wider and longer pads needed for protection? Are their legs really that wide? Do they not wear potective pants that come to their knees? Anything above the knee is beyond protection zone. I could go on and on, but the protection argument is plain stupid. Also, count me in as someone who will defend Giggy. The guy is a great goalie, big equipment or not.

It goes way beyond that, especially if you read the article. If you recall as well, there was speculation about the Chris Benoit tragedy that prior concussions may have played a large role in why that happened.

It's Brent Burns not Brett right?

I seem to recall some on this board being against someone getting their ass kicked for throwing a hit on a star player (i.e. if it is a clean hit, it doesn't matter who it is). Now that it happens to someone like Nik, the tune seems to be changed. Granted, I can't demonstrate that one person changed their mind, it's just an overall sense that I get of the feeling on the subject before and after it happened to a Wing. My take, which has never changed: Good that Downey did what he did, he needs to do that, otherwise, having someone like him is fairly useless. Unfortunately, the instigator rule does deter and limit this reaction quite a bit. Facts are, if you are going to hit a star player (whether it is clean or not....I stress the importance of this as it should make no difference), that player needs to pay the price. This does not mean that the league needs to ban hits on star players, what is means is that a team has an enforcer to protect its star players, so when someone takes a run at a star player, that enforcer is there to send the message for him not to do it again.

Actually, I think it's only Heatley and Kovalchuk that are ahead, well, actually, I haven't checked, but I can't think of anyone off the top of my head. A search by draft year would be much easier, but they didn't all start in the league at the same time. Richards was drafted the same year, but started in the NHL earlier than Datsyuk. He has 487pts and a ppg stat that is slightly below Datsyuk's. There are another handful of guys in his draft year that have over 500, some approaching 600, but they didn't start in the NHL the same year as Datsyuk.

At first glance, this didn't look as bad as the Malarchuk incident, maybe it just wasn't as graphic. Malarchuk was back playing in a week and it looks like Zednik won't be back until at least next season.

Flash and dash is nice and all, but how does that make you a bigger threat?

Havlat.....Havlat?? I think some people don't give Crosby enough credit for his goal scoring ability. He certainly is a pass first guy, but in terms of ability, he could be potting quite a few more goals than he does. Let's also not ignore the fact that he was 1 goal away from 40 in his rookie year. Havlat, well, his best year, he scored 31 goals. Crosby was well on his way to his 3rd 35+ goal season in a row before getting hurt. I know Havlat has been hurt a lot in his career, but even on a per game basis, he scores less than Crosby.

I think if you put Ovechkin on a better team (not that the Caps are terrible), he'd have less goals. No way would he be shooting the puck as much as he doesn now if he played for the Wings. So that is one little argument, but I guess the real point is that I don't like it when people say if this player played on this team instead of the team they are playing on, etc. You can make arguments both ways, so instead of that, just look at what a guy is doing on the team he is playing for.