Cruiser008

Grrrreat show.... oh man I was all pumped after seeing their predictions. And those Forsberg rumours..... ooooooh man Floppa come join the Wings in 'lil Sweden!

I'm interested but I'd much rather do a Live draft.

Federer comes through in the clutch again. What a legend. P.S. Why was Sharapova in Djokovic's corner? Hmm?

But Federer is the only player who can challenge..... Tiger Woods. Consider:

If you watch a lot of tennis like I do I think you'll enjoy this video. Tennis impersonations starring Novak Djokovic.

A bit late to the tennis thread but I'm here. On the men's side I'm really impressed with Djokovic and except him to win a hard-fought semi-final against Nadal. That said I don't think anyone can defeat Darth Federer (as quoted on the USA Network) when the chips are down. On the women's side the 'real' final may well be tomorrow night between Henin and Serena, although Venus and Kuznetsova are also in the mix.

I consider that a tribute to our dedication and fan-dom.

There is NO WAY Rafalski could have gotten $40m for five years. Joe Thornton re-upping for $7.2 million per or Zubov re-upping for $5.35 million.... those are hometown discounts.

NO, NO, NO. A finesse D-man not named Lidstrom (who struggles to handle big forwards in front of the net, along the boards or anywhere) would never get 7 million from any sane NHL GM.

Yes and the gap in overall skill will only grow since Schneider is 5 years older.

'Hometown discount'? Total BS although I still like him a lot and believe it was a good signing; just no need to sugarcoat this.

The contract is a bit steep, but consider the following: - 5-years at $6 million per year is comparable to 2 years at $5.5 million per year given that we expect the cap to go up ~8-10% every year from here on in. - Rafalski is more durable, better defensively and just as good offensively as Schneider right now - Rafalski's production actually increases in the playoffs so he really steps it up in the postseason We needed a no. 2 D-man with Schneider's departure, and we got the best D-man on the market; can't complain too much about that. The real question now is this: can we resign Markov at a reasonable price? And if not which defensive defenseman will replace him?

Ditto!

Oh right, forgot about Ohlund and Chara. Phillips isn't quite there yet IMO.

Watching Datsyuk win back-to-back Lady Byng's at the NHL Awards tonight reminded me that I hadn't had my crow yet regarding my unwavering criticism of Pavel. While a few forwards had better stats, no offensive dynamo in the playoffs had tougher oppostion than Datsyuk. Consider the guys that tried to shut down Datsyuk and failed (or at best had mixed results): Round 1: Kipper, Phaneuf and Regehr Round 2: Nabokov, and Hannan Round 3: Giguere, Neidermayer and Pronger That's 3 elite goalies plus 5 of the top 6 shutdown D-men (Norris Nick not included) in the whole league, and Datsyuk gave each trio/pair all they could handle. When you consider in addition the fact that Detroit's two other big guns were not 100%, it's clear IMO from his performance during the 18 games of this year's playoffs that he deserved the superstar money that he received from Holland. Whether he'll still be worth $6.7 million a year in 6 or 7 years remains to be seen, but I'm sure glad that Datsyuk will be in a Detroit sweater this season.

Wow! Congrats to the 5-time Norris winner!!

Congrats to the Goon Squad, and special shot-outs to the Finnish Flash, the Michelin Man and the Flying Elbow.

Well as the great WWE commentator Jim Ross would say, you gotta give it up to the "dirtiest players in the game". Yeah we like our heroes to be classy but luck truly is random and the cards were just too stacked against a scrappy and resilient Wings team this year. Consider: 1) We lost a top 4 d-man (Kronwall) prior to the start of the playoffs 2) We lost a top-pairing d-man in the second round 3) We drew 3 of the 4 most physical teams in the league in the playoffs (Ottawa being the only team we didn't face) 4) We had the worst travel schedule of any playoff team 5) Compared to Anaheim and Ottawa we had far more difficult opponents in the first two rounds 6) Of the 15 playoff series this year the WCF was the only time a team carried the play for most of the series and lost.

Wow. That was extremely disappointing but you gotta hand it to LeBron; that guy is sick.

Offsides those are some awesome pics! You two are such a cute LGW couple!!

Admired the effort but wow that was SOOOO sloppy, and Hasek, I never wanna see that kind of performance in the playoffs again.

I think he's injured for sure; no one on the Ducks wants the cup as badly as he does.

Quoted for emphasis!! P.S. I'm not ashamed to say I have a man crush on a few unsung heroes on Detroit during these playoffs!

Well I was hoping for 2-3 games but at least it was something. This is HUGE though, Anaheim just lost their #2 d-man and a guy who logs 30 min. for game 4; we MUST take advantage of his absence. We are a fatigued team so we must try to end this series in 5 or 6 if we hope to have a chance in the finals (if we get there).

When does the league usually arrive at a decision in cases such as this? I assume today but when? Anyone know?