toby91_ca

I heard that he essentially told the coach off and that's why he sat a game. If ture, it doesn't surprise me at all. I've always seen him as a bit of dick/cocky bastard (personality wise) - good offensive player though. I can totally see him clashing with the coach who may be trying to get him to buy into a team game, defensive responsible mindset, etc. and him backlashing against that. That's my biased via of the situation though, mixed in a bit with what I had heard as well. Someone else may simply view it as a player who is struggling and gets benched as a bit of a kick in the butt to get him going.

Wouldn't really be useful since such a contract to go to age 45 is structured in a way that the player essentially gets all his money in the early years and with low payments in the late years, the cap hit comes down. There really is no incentive to the player to keep playing. If you put bigger dollars in the later years to add more incentive to keep player, it really defeats the purpose of the contract structured to lower the cap hit.

Since he has an in-person hearing schedule, his suspension will = MIN 5 games. With respect to pending lawsuit against him....bulls***.

I think Martin is probably the Pens best d-man, but that doesn't matter. My real concern is, how long are these guys going to play. Everyone is going to be pretty tired after 2 min.

I hate reading through the CBA, so I'm not going to at the moment, but I'm pretty sure contracts with player or team options are not allowed. Also, with respect to bonuses, I think these are actually very limited under the CBA vs. your coment that they are used prety heavily.

Comeau is perfectly fine, I suspect he laid on the ice for a bit to try and sell it.

I'm sorry, but are you completely insane??? Elbow to the head? The closest the elbow came to the head was when Letang's elbow was next to Comeau's elbow when he hit him shoulder to shoulder, other than that, I don't see the elbow as coming even within 3 feet of the head. This is the bad part of the new rule....you are going to see guys get 5 and a game like this for perfectly clean hits that would never have been called penalties in the past.

Did anyone catch the show last night? If not, there is video up on tsn.ca. They came up with the top 50 based on voting of a panel of 25. I won't give you the whole 50, but here is their top 15: 1 - Crosby 2 - Ovechkin 3 - Toews 4 - Malkin 5 - Keith 6 - H. Sedin 7 - Datsyuk 8 - Doughty 9 - Backstrom 10 - Stamkos 11 - Zetterberg 12 - Miller 13 - Kovalchuk 14 - Nash 15 - Kane I found a few things interesting. I won't discuss any of my surprises as to how low some guys were beyond the top 15 or those that were left off the list, because to be honest, I didn't catch the whole show. Anyway, here are some of my quick thoughts: - they have shown some good respect for Datsyuk and Zetterberg despite their down offensive years last year and have them pretty high on the list - Not sure I'd have Stamkos so high after 1 great year, but I guess the list is based on who they think will be the best for this coming season, so I can see it, but I'd like to see a little more of him before I put him so high - Toews - great player, no question, but #3 in the league? He's never hit 70pts. He had a great playoff year and is great at so many areas of the game, but I don't quite get how much love he gets from everyone. I love him too and understand it a bit, but not to the point where I'd say the only players better than him are Crosby and Ovechkin. - H. Sedin is this high because of last year, but he's not any better than his brother Daniel, why is there such a separation between the 2? - Crosby rec'd 16 votes for #1 compared to 9 for Ovechkin. That's not the interesting point to me, the interesting point to me is that someone voted Ovechkin as #3. (Crosby - 16 first place, 9 second place), Ovechkin (9 first place, 15 second place, 1 third place). Who is the person who thought Ovechkin wasn't in the top 2?

Anyone know of any milestones around the league that could be hit this year? I'm not talking about 200 goals or 300 goals or 600, 700 or 800pts. Preferrably, I'm thinking 500 goals, 1,000 points, etc. I don't think anyone is within reach of 500 goals, but close to 400 goals, you have: - Jason Arnott - needs 17 goals - Daniel Alfredsson - needs 25 goals In terms of 1,000 points, you have the following: - Daniel Alfredsson - needs 8 points - Paul Kariya - needs 11 points - Joe Thornton - needs 69 points - Jerome Iginla - needs 80 points Any others out there? Edit....speaking of Kariya, anyone hear anything on him?

I agree that Patrick Sharp is not top 50, but if you want to talk stats, here are his past 3 seasons: 07/08 - 36g, 62pts 08/09 - 26g, 44pts (61 games = 35g, 59pts over 82 games) 09/10 - 25g, 66pts 09/10 playoffs = 11g, 22pts (22 games). Bolland, Hudler and Filppula have not put up stats anywhere near that, what makes them better?

Have you ever thought that maybe Ovechkin's totals wouldn't be as good without Backstrom? You obviously have not watched the guy play...that much is obvious. And you think the list is based totally on points? If that is the case, how on Earth do you explain Toews at 3, Datsyuk at 6 and Zetterberg at 11. Didn't they all score around 70pts last year?

No, you can still be waived, there are simply different rules for guys on one-ways, including the need to pay their full salary if they are sent to the minor vs. the 10-20% that you'd would be paying someone on a two-way.

You don't have to be the best player on the team to be a good leader and therefore good captain.

HOw can you access 1-75? I only see part 1, which is 76-100.

Am I the only one that doesn't see this as that great? If you are talking about top 100 prospects, on average, every team would have 3, with 10 teams having 4. Detroit would appear to have 4, so not significantly better than the pack and of those 4, 3 of them are #64 or lower and 2 are 87 or lower.

Okay, call me an idiot for not paying real close attention to dates and when the regular season was actually starting, but I simply assumed that the regular season would be starting early this week, perhaps even tonight. It was Oct. 1st on Friday and I knew there were still pre-season games on the weekend, so I assumed the last pre-season games would be played on Saturday and regular season would begin on Monday (this was in the back of my had I guess from a calendar perspective and what I have grown used to, since I actually did konw there were games on Sunday, not sure how I blocked that out though). In any event, I'm used to the season beginning somewhere between Oct. 2-4 and this year it doesn't start until Oct. 7th? Why? If everyone complains so much about the season going too far into June, why start the season so late? I have some ideas about playoff schedule as well (i.e. why so many days off here and there.....though I must admit some of that may be due to TV scheduling and building commitments, but still).

So here's what I don't understand. Someone that comes onto a Red Wings message board, notices the difference in font on the jersey, etc. Surely, such a person must be more than just a casual Wings fan. So, if such a person is not simply a casual Wings fan, how is it possible that this person does not know that they wear different jerseys every pre-season? What's more crazy is that the same question gets asked every year without fail.

So? How can you make a hit without stopping skating to set up? Stopping skating has nothing to do with whether a hit is considered a charge or not.

But does indefinately just mean they have finalized the suspension yet and it could end up being 1 or 2 games?

I can understand where they are coming from (in this day and age). He started from the bottom corner, raced across the ice and targeted him on side wall, left his feet and looks as though he targeted his head. I wouldn't call it getting back to defend either and his teammate was doing that job. He following the player from behind and then hit him when he turned. Edit - that said, charging penalty probably would have made more sense than a suspension.

Iginla was drafted by the Stars, but was traded only a few months later in the Nieuwendyk deal that sent him to Calgary. Every single NHL regular season and playoff game he has played has been with Calgary.

What's Ovechkin's contract something like $125 million?

That's impossibe. Sure, they could come up with something using Kovy's contract terms and make a black and white rule on length, age, etc., but there will always be some other scenario a smart lawyer will come up with for which no black and white rule exists.

Same old, same old for that organization, seem to have a such a hard time with keeping players in that city. It's not the 80s anymore, not even close.

So, if I understand your issue correctly, you are saying that they shouldn't be fined for a contract that did not go through and they shouldn't be fined for a contract that was approved? In that case, there would never, ever be a scenario where they could be fined, does that make sense? The rule in the CBA is that you cannot try and circumvent the cap, if you do, the NHL will not approve the contract and you may be subject to fines and forfeiting of draft picks. This is exactly what happened. The only reason they didn't go through with the original contract is because the NHL didn't allow it. They structured and had a contract signed that circumvented the cap, the league didn't approve and they got fined and lost draft picks. This came as no surprise to anyone. Everyone knew this was coming the day the league didn't approve the contract (pending arbitration of course). Apparently, there must have been some communication between the Devils and the league before the original 17 year deal was signed because I heard that the league warned them not to go ahead with such a deal and they went and did it anyway. That probably plays a little bit into the punishment. The Devils may have takent the league's warning under advisement but felt they could get through arbitration should they not approve. They lost that gamble. Gary's bosses (owners) love him and think very highly of him. I doubt he's pissing his bosses off here. Essentially, the cap is meant to keep player salaries under control (limited the owner's expenses, make the business more profitable to them). This move helps keep those salaries under control, not sure why the owners would not like this.