toby91_ca

Are we using 4 games as the ruler to determine hottest team entering the playoffs? Wings only won 5 of the last 10.

It is still unclear if Crosby will be ready for Game 1, but if he is, the Pens' #2 line would be Iginla - Malkin - Neal. That line (on paper) is probably one of the best in the league and it's the Pens #2 line. That's scary....but still, it's just on paper. Will everyone mesh well when everyone gets in the line up? I don't think that's really a big ? for them though. If they lose, it will be because of their PK and goaltending. It's funny, Fluery is an incredible talent. He's a former #1 overall draft pick and you can see why, but he also has incredible bouts of inconsistency. Vokoun is a pretty good backup though.

I think there is some confusion here with a lot of people thinking Dreger put this rumour out there. The rumour has been out there and Dreger is actually putting out the fire.

I don't get it....funny why?

To be accurate....2008-09 was his best ppg season

Abby does not score failry regularly, quite the opposite if you ask me. He had 1 point in his first 23 games and he's had 4 points in the last 16 games. Other than his hattrick game and 2 goal game, his scoring has been close to non-existent. Normally I'd say that's no big deal, that's not really his role, but if scoring isn't part of his role, he shouldn't be on the #1 line. Did the Hockey News really say that? After scoring 67 points in 70 games, surprising that they'd come out and say that his pointer per game days are over (perhaps you've paraphrased too much?). The distracters might say that with a full season, his per game stats might start to slip.

Decent stats? Yes. Bargain at $4M cap hit? I wouldn't go that far. I don't like the $4M in general, but my biggest issue is that there is 7 years left on it and he is 33 or something like that. Everyone talks about his playoff abilities, but he's sucked in the playoffs just as often as when he's been really good.

As long as they don't lose in regulation, they are in.

Other than being the oldest, he'd also set another record, longest time between Art Ross trophies (9 years).

If their shootout record was as successful as last year's, they'd be sitting in 7th place right now, not 8th. It really isn't that signifcant.

Well, I think Stamkos owes a lot to St. Louis to be honest. There's no doubt St. Louis wouldn't have the stats he has without Stamkos, but it goes the other way too. Stamkos is a sniper, he needs a good set up guy. For St. Louis's acceptance speech, he first needs to thank the puck that smashed Crosby's jaw into several pieces, without that, he might be about 20 points behind.

Yes, he would be the oldest I believe.

I'd be very careful when looking at the stats of a 21 year old playing junior hockey. I'm sure there are examples, but I'd bet you'd have a real difficult time finding many current NHLers would were playing junior hockey at the age of 21.

Why even discuss something that is as close to impossible as you can get without technically being impossible?

Saw/heard this on Sportscentre this morning (Toronto)

Not sure about the Wings, but I saw a stat showing that the Rangers haven't lost a game in regulation that they were leading after 2 periods in the past 90 games or something like that. Crazy stat.

Quite possibly the worst analogy ever. If a person catches themselves wishing their son/daughter was never born....then I'd say something is seriously wrong with that individual.

If they play hard and win 4 or 5 games (having only 4 games left).....they would pull off a record which will likely never be matched

The Wings are doing worse, having won only 2 regulation games and 1 OT in the last 11.

Datsyuk is 21st in league scoring and Zetterberg is 30th. If you think about it, that's much better than what the average team has. Problem is that the Wings probably have more below average players than average or above average.

He's got 4 fewer goals and 3 fewer points than Datsyuk. Neither are exploding with offense, but I think neither are the problem either. If you are asking more form them, you are probably asking too much. Datsyuk is producing at pretty much the same rate as he did last year and Hank is actually up a bit from last year (points perspective, goals only very slightly down). Did a lot think they should have produced more last year and hope this year was better? Perhaps, but that may be unrealistic as well....they are only getting older.

I understand why Ovechkin is in the conversation for Hart right now, but I don't think he deserves it. Yes, he's on a hot streak near the end of the season and the team has gone from sucking to leading their division, but he was a key reason why they were sucking earlier. Also, his team is now leading a division where the other 4 teams might miss the playoffs, 3 of which will for sure and are in a dogfight for the worst team in the league.

Quick to announce concussion, wondering if that is to help with suspension. Normally, teams are pretty cautious before concluding on concussion or not.

There really isn't that many. In the entire league, there are only 5 goalies that make between $6-7 million. Higgest paid goalie (Rinne) makes $7 million. All those guys would have signed in bigger spending days as well (at least theoretically).

Just to look at it from a slightly different angle: If you look at the Caps scoring leaders, there's not much separation in the 3 guys at the top, so one may look at that and say "single handidly leading them to the playoffs?" However, he probably is powering the engine lately, but that also means that he was a big reason for the team sucking earlier in the year. Pens, 28-8, on a 15 game winning streak with Crosby, 3-2 without him.