toby91_ca

I've been working way too much lately, so I only got to catch the 3rd period when I got home last night, but has anyone ever noticed that players don't put a lot of effort into hitting Lidstrom? I haven't paid much attention to it before, but I noticed it last night. If Lidstrom is going to the back wall or the corner to get a puck, he'll get nudged a bit by the Oiler coming in to challenge, but I didn't see any of them going in real hard to hit him. If it was someone like Kronwall in the same spot, they would be going much, much harder at him. It didn't surprise me at all, I figure it is young guys respecting one of the great defensemen who is nearing the end of his career, but I also think it has a lot to do with how Lidstrom plays (i.e. he's not out running around hitting people). So, while I'm not surprised, wonder if anyone noticed this.

Honest question.....how much were tickets to the college game?

No, that may be true in other examples, but I am specifically referring to situations where he could have easily been hammered, the player is there, they still hit him, but it was more like the type of bump you'd see at an all star game.

I don't see a lot of clock malfunctions, so I'm not sure how common it is.

But what are you going to do....have them replay the game? Even doing that changes everything, it's a different game. What should have happened is that they noticed there shouldn't have been a goal when it happened and then they go on to overtime. I don't see any way of fixing this after the fact.

He hasn't won yet. I agree that he is the front runner currently. I think Elliot is right up there though. I know he's behind quite a bit in games, but if he plays alot for the rest of the year, his number of games might not look so low compared to the rest (they will still be pretty low though I think (50ish), so that will hurt him a lot. I agree with some others too, I think Rask's performance will really hurt Thomas's chances. Normally, backups with great stats is a non-issue, but normally, backups don't play as much as Rask.

I understand that, but that reasoning very rarely gets you into the Hall of Fame, you need results. Bob Gainey is a decent comparison in terms of stats, but he is/was considered the best defensive forward of all-time. I think Datsyuk is the better overall player, but without piling up the stats, I wouldn't put him into "LOCK" category. I highly doubt Pavs will play for another decade (though not impossible). Datsyuk palying an entire career up to Selanne's age and level is an enormous stretch (stats wise anyway) - even age.

Really? How many HOFers have scored 200 goals and 700 points? He'll probably get there, but I'm not sure I'd call him a lock at this point.

I'm not sure about that, but wouldn't doubt it for a second. That's what players do and that is why you need to try and keep them out of the decision process.

This is what makes things worse for the medical staff, I could understand not looking for possible neck problems for no reason....but ummm....Pens medical staff.....what the hell? Oh and how does Crosby and Brady become friends? I don't see the connection. Link

The Pens medical staff has to be completely embarrased right about now, but they seem to have screwed up several times. Let's not forget that they let him play, not only the 3rd period in the Winter classic, but the next game as well...after likely having broken his neck and suffering a oncussion. I understand the neck thing just came out now, but even without that, they should have learned from Crosby's concussion, yet this year, they let Letang go back in a game after taking a pretty wicked head shot. Sure enough, within the next few days, he's out with a concussion. Someone really should be fired.

I'm not bothered, he's just a complete idiot/ass/whatever you want to call him. If he was related to me, I'd be bothered.

I think it's asking for a complete disaster. What happens if the game needs to be pushed back a few hours because of weather like it has in past years. All of a sudden you are competing directly with the Super Bowl. The aricle elludes to the need to push back the timing in the past and one of the suggestions was just to play new year's night.....why did they simply forget all about that when they got to the "obvious" choice?

Serious question for those that don't see the dive: What he doing with his legs? Your legs don't naturally flip up like that when you get hit.

Someone who is hit from behind into the boards does not have their feet flopping up behind them like that....no question he dove and not hidden very well. I'm guessing the ref didn't actually see the full play and used judgment to come up with the 2 min boarding call.

I think you are way off on minutes played for Osgood.

Well, the answer could simply be that he's starting to decline and perhaps moreso than expected because of history of injuries. That wouldn't be shocking to me. Or, it could be just that he's having a bit of a down year.

The issue is if a player is going to miss the game because of injury, he should be injured. If they only miss the all star game, but play the other games, then are they really injured? Toews is missing regular season games here, completely different than the Lidstrom issue a few years back. I can understand the league's views on this....they use the game as a way to advertise the league, they want the best players there. However, they have seemed to ease up on the suspension issue in the last few years (i.e. allowing players to ask not to be named behind the scenes to avoid the issue). I haven't heard the Ovechkin stuff though, seems odd.

I don't think so. It didn't look all that bad to me. The classic knee on knee playing is when a playing is coming down with speed and makes a move where the defender sticks his leg out in reaction to that. I didn't see that at all here, Hemsky looks to be going for the puck with his head down, didn't move his leg out from what I can tell....looks like Burns is the only one that moved a leg. Hemsky would have had to jump out of the way to avoid contact.

Matter of opinion I guess. There wasn't much force at all behind Michalek's hit as compared to Ovechkin's. Two different plays, so hard to compare. The other thing to consider is that Ovechkin is a repeat offender. A somewhat similar hit to Ovechkin's I thought was Sutton's hit on Ponikarovsky. Sutton got 8 games for that. Big difference may be that Sutton got his arms up into Poni's head though. I guess the other thing to think about is that the ruling on Ovechkin isn't complete yet....maybe it is the tougher decision.

Oh, okay. I do think Ovechkin is more "reckless" than "dirty", but he does have his moments.

Whether it was from behind or not is irrelevant. He hit him in the head with his shoulder, while leaving his feet to make the hit....I'm not sure how you can consider that a clean hit. Even 5 years ago, that wouldn't have been a clean hit due to him leaving his feet.

Shoulder to shoulder?

Not my words....which is why I'll put in quotes:

If the players choose to pay for their own inflated insurance premiums because they don't wear one...fine, maybe, but there are several other factors to consider beyond their own safety and that they are men, they can decide that for themselves. Others might make the role model argument, but I'm not a huge fan of that....although, when your entire living is made off of people paying to see you peform....maybe there is some importance to that.