Pskov Wings Fan

No Malkin did not play with Datsyuk on the same line during the last WC.

I also do not understand that. He would be a solid second line center on half (if not more) NHL teams.

I do see Wild playing quite a bit. So I would offer few comments on Wild players. Koivu is a very good center. Bouchard is injury-prone, but when he is playing he is good enough to be second line center. Very few team are lucky to have Dats-Z or Crosby-Malkin as their top centers. And are you really saying that there is much difference in quality of bottom 6 plugs between Red Wings and Wild (Cleary, Helm, Tootoo, Eaves, Nyquist, Miller vs Cullen, Brodziak, Mitchell, Clutterbuck, Powe, Konopka)? I haven't seen Gilbert enough to tell how good he is. Otherwise Jared Spurgeon is Wild's best d-man after Suter. Backstorm got one year left. He will not be paid 6M by Wild if he stays.

If they manage to win the division then they are at least 3rd. And the Wild should be able to compete for the NW division. Wild forwards are as good if not better than Vancouver. Vancouver got better defense. Luongo apparently on the way out but regardless Wild and Canucks got comparable goaltending.

Helped my fantasy team few years back. His offensive production is down. But still a solid d-man. His previous contract was $5M/year. This would be too much now. Maybe 3.

Having 29 teams in a league is a pain. I think Bettman would move it to Canada (as much as he does not like to do that) before he would allow it to fold.

"I don't know" is probably just a phrase he is using to avoid talking about it. Might not mean anything either way.

Nobody is worth that much.

I found this about NHL salary arbitration "The team cannot request a reduction in salary of greater than 15%". So I think a raise is not a guarantee. He might just remain at ~$3M.

Yes, Wild might regret it when these players are 35 and still taking 15M in cap space. But who knows what is going to happen in 7 years or in few months with the new CBA. Last CBA negotiations resulted in something like 20% rollback of current (at the time) contracts.

And out of that excitement Wild sold like 1000 season tickets just on 4th. Wild owner and GM have been talking about making big moves this summer pretty much since the end of the season. They had to do something to avoid backlash from the fans. Also given that other sports teams in Minneapolis suck pretty bad at the moment it would be a good moment for Wild to become a winning team.

I think if Parise and Suter got Wild to the finals next year and "totally choked" there the Wild management would consider their acquisition an awesome investment. They could not fill the Xcel Center on the regular basis last few years after many years of selling out every single game. So getting to the playoffs next year would be par for the course. Anything better is a bonus.

They were quite entertaining together at the Worlds. Not all they tried worked, but with practice I can see some spectacular plays coming (like Dats and Z were making when they played together a lot).

Well, as long as rising cap/salaries is the result of league making more money I do not see a problem here. But the fact that number of teams claim to be losing money while cap keeps rising suggests that something is not quite right.

According to the current CBA players salary cannot account for more than a fixed percentage (54%?) of league revenues. So at least theoretically GMs cannot overspend. Bettman claims that league revenues are rising so the cap raises with it. So as long as their accounting is sound teams should not be able to get into too much trouble. As for the small market teams does not NHL have some kind of revenue sharing scheme? Why is the cap inflated? If anything I would rather see more money go to the players rather than to the owners.

Really? Guy who writes this is to be listened to?

Wild went down once Koivu got injured and never recovered. They are still weak in the center but their offense sure did not get worse with Parise signing. Their defense was among the last in scoring. Suter should help there. Goaltending has never been a problem for the Wild.

We can probably get Hemsky but I do not see why Wings would need him.

TSN lists Jeff Carter as a potential trade target. His contract is on the long side but cap hit is manageable. Wings probably do not have assets to trade to Columbus for him otherwise it can be a nice acquisition.

Ah, NBC Sports. Same old Versus under different name. Still it is better than NHL Network, which is nowhere to be found on my TV. Pavel had not points in the last game. Time to break out of this horrible slump.

Stupid NHL Network blacking out Center Ice feed.

Number of people supporting particular idea is not a good way to evaluate validity of the said idea. Having said that I am biased since I prefer skill over grit. Two Sharks skating into each other trying to hit Dats is my idea of a good hockey play. Him fighting Perry - I can live without.

Sometimes I wonder if they script these games. Crosby comes back and scores in first 6 minutes.

How is this even an issue? Advertisements are currently a part of life, like it or not. Just learn to ignore it. Also do not forget that without corporate money watching hockey most likely would be more expensive for the fans. You do not have to feel alone, there are at least two of us.

Boston lost a player for the remainder of the series because of deliberate action of Vancouver player. The league decided that this action was illegal. League cannot restore the balance in full since Horton is a better player than Rome. So suspending Rome for 4 games is the best they can do. Otherwise why not just break an arm or a leg of an opponent's star player and take a 2 minute slashing minor.