toby91_ca

I know you are saying he shouldn't retire, but why is he even on the list? He's only 32 years old. Fedorov is 5 years older than him.

Care to back up your theory here? Juneau - already on a downward spiral (end of career, etc.) when he went to Montreal Perreault - I'd say his best years were in Montreal, or close to it Leclair - bad example, young player, just coming into the league...he actually did well and when he left, he got the benefit of playing with a young/healthy Lindros, which didn't hurt. Recchi - did just fine in Montreal from what I can tell Damphousse - best years were in Montreal

I think the boxscore is just missing the 5 minute major. The typical scenario is 5, 10 and a game and the other team gets a full 5 minutes of powerplay time, regardless of how many goals they may score. A 10 minute misconduct would never result in a 10 minute powerplay.

Ummmm, maybe you should actually watch the play before deciding to write about it. Holloweg did drive Simon into the boards right before the slash. Unless you trying to suggest it happened 10 seconds before and saying right before isn't accurage, in which case, I do not understand your point.

Well, if we all decided to follow these guidelines, we might as well just shut down this site as we would have nothing to talk about. I believe you also made a quote about not being able to judge a player since they are better at something than you are. Firstly, that is not necessarily true, but assuming it is, yes, they are better, but does that mean they are worthy of "x" million dollars? I think a lot of people are very qualified to comment on whether or not they think someone is worth a certain dollar amount, regardless of how much better that player is then the particular poster.

You might not even have talked about it a few days later.

I've always thought it was silly that the division leaders should be ranked 1-3 and then by points after that, rather than just ranking the entire conference by points. However, I think there is some logic to it in that if you have 2 strong teams in a division with 3 very weak teams, you could argue that their points would be inflated and the #2 team in that division "maybe" has more points than they would have if they played in a different division. I know that's a difficult argument to make, but I'm looking for some logic to it. I guess the other logic is that you could theoretically have a divsion winner finish with less points than the top 8 in the conference and therefore miss the playoffs, which would basically mean that divisions are pointless and in that case, you should just get rid of the divisions.

Huh? What are you getting at?

The sad thing is that Kovalchuk is actually younger, only by a few days though, and he is completing his 5th year in the NHL.

In my opinion, one of the most important abilities a GM needs to have is an ability to see future potential in players. Milbury obviously missed the boat on that with several trades he has made.

That's what I would have thought, I just wasn't sure when someone suggested they would wait (i.e. were not restrained) from going back to their seats.

The ushers at the ACC keep you from going back to your seat until a stoppage in play as well.

Well, Bettman was hired and answers to the NHL owners and they are most certainly (as a majority) business first and hockey second, so I am not sure you could have it any other way. I thought this is what is sort of already happening. I am not sure of many snap calls Bettman has made and then got the owners to push it through, can you elaborate on what items you are talking about?

I'm not saying you are wrong, but why would a flaw with his passport impact how his name is spelled on his jersey? Does the NHL have a rule that the name on your jersey has to match the name on your passport? Also, I guess his brother Steffan must have the same passport flaw. The other issue I struggle with is the fact that his name has been spelled Kronwall on the back of his Swedish jerseys even before he was drafted in the NHL.

You make is sound like cutting costs and getting decent success is easy.

I didn't spend a whole lot of time trying to figure out the rankings, but it is obviously driven off of stats, which is really difficult to do when trying to rank a GM, but whatever. Personally, I do not rank Holland as the best GM in the league, I am no basher, but I do think he gets a little more credit for the Wings success than he really deserves. That said, he is a professional and I would have him on the higher end of NHL GMs. This list looks like it has him around 24 in terms of NHL GMs. You can argue all you want for various reasons, but that fact that Milbury was higher than "ANYONE" on this list pretty much invalidates the list as far as I am concerned.

Gretzky got to 200 in less games, but was older.

Well, had they not traded Smyth, having this on trade deadline day wouldn't really have been a problem. However, I wouldn't call it poor ass planning as it would obviously specifically planned that day simply because they were playing Phoenix that night (i.e. Gretzky in town).

Call me crazy, but I would have gone with the good ol' lower body injury for that one.

I understand why it happend. Lowe really thought he would sign him, but when they ran out of time, he traded him to avoid the potential of losing him for nothing. Obviously he could have gotten more had he been shopping him around for 2 weeks, but he wasn't. I am really skeptical of him coming back in the offseason. If they had a hard time signing him now, it will be more difficult signing him when you may have 15 other teams interested. Or maybe that would make his market value more clear and they'll just sign him to that. The only reason I think it is possible that he goes back to Edmonton is the fact that he really wants to be there.

You honestly think it can be done? I know it is not impossible, but based on the numbers you are showing here (I haven't tried to verify the accuracy), wouldn't it require the Wings to 18-0 for the rest of the year? Have the Wings ever won 18 games in a row? My gut tells me that they haven't since the NHL record is 17 consecutive wins.

Ryan Smyths comments about the event were pretty emotional. He said he was sitting at home shedding a few tears. Messier was one of his idols growing up and we would have loved to be there and where the old jerseys, etc. I feel bad for the guy, he really, really did not want to leave.

My count is at 502, but it doesn't really matter. Anything higher than 50 is probably untouchable.

Agreed. The style of play the team plays certainly helps, but if you are going to get into that argument, you can translate that to a lot other guys as well. Arguments are so subjective to begin with, such as this guy has better linemates than that guy, etc. The whole Gretzky vs. Lemieux debate, etc. I find it much easier to simply look at the stats....end the discussion there....but that would be boring wouldn't it?

The team still plays the same style. I was reading somewhere earlier today where someone actually nicknamed them the RoH (ruiners of hockey). It may not be as bad as it was, but they are still a very, very boring team to watch.