Airborn

I agree; especially if Babcock thinks Sammy adds something on the point of the PP. I feel for Huds; he and Filppula both played good tonight.

I do too; unfortunately I don't have that option. I really miss Mickey and Ken! Yeah, Kipper was great. It could have been 8-0. Edit: Oops - should have said 8-1

I agree, Lebda should sub in. One of the reasons I think Babs went away from playing Lidstrom the whole PP is because he wants him at all times on the ice against Iginla. I don't think Iginla kills penalties, so Calgary would just put him out there after the PP to get him away from Lids. I don't see why Schneider couldn't play the whole time though.

If they weren't ready before, I think they'll be ready after the bulls**t that went down to end the game. The Wings have always responded well in the past when teams pulled that crap (see St. Louis).

I don't know if this has been discussed or not in the GDT, but I'm not thrilled with Sammy playing point on the PP. I know the right hand shot opens things up for Lidstrom, but you're taking a huge gamble there. I was even less a fan of the move when we up 3-0 and he was still back there.

I didn't quite get that myself.

I really think the Wings made their breaks tonight. It could have been worse if not for Kipper. The biggest difference was how hard the Wings worked for the puck. They wanted it more tonight. I fully expect a better effort from Calgary in game 2, which means the Wings have to play the same way. P.S. For anyone who watched the game on Versus; how about Hitchcock in the studio. He was surprisingly very good. He broke down clearly why the Wings were winning, and even gave us props by calling the Z, Dats, Homer line the best in hockey.

Isn't there a huge discrpancy in price though? Also, I thought I read somewhere that Pistons season ticket holders don't have to pay in advance like the Wings season ticket holders do.

I guess the Flames at the end of the game were "giving us a message", but to me that's bulls***. I hope by the end of this series to see Stuart wallowing in a pool of his own blood. Same for Iginla. I love what a tough guy he is picking fights with Zetterberg. By the way Flames, St. Louis lawyers should be calling you soon. You stole their patented move. You know, the one where you can't play with them, so you resort to goonery, by taking on the Wings skill players with your supposed tough guys.

Timothy, you bring up a point dear to my heart. Our plate discipline was pretty good the first couple games; since then it's been crap. In the Baltimore series, we struck out 28 times over three games. When Monroe struck out with the bases loaded, the O's pitcher only threw 1 strike in the entire sequence. Inge is a mess, and even Sheffield is swinging at bad pitches. I had hoped with all the emphasis on this topic in the offseason that we'd see some improvement. I'm not panicking yet, because I think guys like Sheffield and Inge are going to improve as the season goes on. Plus, pitching always seems to have the advantage early, and then hitters eventually catch up.

Verlander was absolutely filthy tonight. He's pitched 13 scoreless innings so far; that's what I call starting the year off right! I think Monroe must have read Lou's comments about him; he clearly had something to prove tonight. P.S. Was I the only one surprised when Sheffield didn't even react after Loewen intentionally beaned him? Maybe he's not as crazy as I remember.

I couldn't be more thrilled. Nobody nationally is giving the Wings a chance, and now Calgary is so confident they're actively dissing our goalie; This couldn't be better for us! I hope Babcock is accidentally leaving these press clippings around the dressing room.

In terms of value brought to the team, definitely Lidstrom. Could you imagine if we had to play any significant amount to time without hm? In terms of just pure outstanding play, I'd go with Zetterberg even with the injury. Up until that point, he was simply dominating. He was putting on the best performance by a Wings forward since Federov's 93-94 season.

Polanco is fastly becoming my favorite Tiger; he just does all the little unoticed things. Tonight is a perfect example. In the 6th, trying to move runners over, he lays down a bunt so perfect that he actually gets a single out of it. Then after it looks like Ordonez hits into a killer, ending-inning double play, he causes Roberts to throw wildly with a hard slide, causing two runs to score. If his bunt doesn't go for a hit, the inning is already over. If he doesn't bust his ass to break up the double play, those 2 runs never score. In the 8th, he gets an insurance run with a sacrafice fly. Finally in the 9th, he makes a diving stop to rob Markakis of a hit, and prevents any rally from potentially starting.

Sounds like Leyland isn't entertaining any discussion about Durbin getting replaced in the rotation. Not that I expected anything different; he always defends his players. There's a reason guys love playing for him. http://www.mlive.com/tigers/stories/index.....xml&coll=1

You know I was thinking the same thing today after watching Durbin pitch; how did this guy beat out Miner? I know it's just one outing, but it looked like he was lobbing batting pratice.

That's my thought as well.

According to this, Babcock says Bert will play in Game 1. Who knows, there seems to be a lot of conflicting info going arouind right now. http://redwingscorner.blogspot.com/2007/04...zi-will-be.html

He's always been good in the playoffs, and I'm sure he'd have a little extra going for him being up against the Wings.

Another day where the bats were ice cold. We're making average pitchers look like the 2nd coming of Bob Gibson right now. I shudder to think what's going to happen when we go up against Halladay later this week. Come on guys; wake up! Lou you should be somewhat happy; Durbin looked like crap. He was floating pitches up there all day (or at least for the whole 4 2/3 innings he lasted). I give him another try; If it's the same result, bring up Miller.

He played in their last game. http://scores.espn.go.com/nhl/boxscore?gameId=270408017

You're on!

If Calgary is tries to run around hitting Z and Dats, it's going to take them out of position and plays right into our hands. How many times have we seen Datsyuk and Zetterberg draw multiple players to them, then make the perfect pass to the open guy. No doubt Calgary will try and play physical by finishing checks, but if they go out of their way, they're going to get burned. Another reason I like keeping them together.

I live in Columbus and have Center Ice (DirecTV), so I'm stuck watching Versus. Man I miss Mickey and Ken! I can't complain too much; at least I don't have to watch Rogers Sportsnet (unabashed Calgary homers). The last time the Wings played Calgary, I was stuck with this feed. By the end of the game, I wanted to strangle the announcers.