MabusIncarnate

Forza Horizon was recently on sale on Xbox Marketplace for ten bucks, so I picked it up and am pretty hooked. Not typically a racing fan but this one is different for some reason, reminds me of a more open world Gran Turismo over your typical racer.

A bunch of them are pretty solid, a few are a bit out of place but I can understand where it would be hard to make an association. Snake's head on the Wings logo is probably one of the weakest. My favorites are the Panthers, Coyotes, Islanders, Blackhawks and Predators. Remember Stan Lee's NHL Superheroes? Again, another hit or miss but some were pretty cool.

LA overcame a 3-0 deficit, and knocked out the powerhouse Blackhawks to get here. The Rangers had to battle through Dustin Tokarski to get to the cup final. I firmly believe that it's a LA/Montreal cup final is Price is healthy for that series. LA wins in 5. They have already climbed over the two largest obstacles they are going to face in this years playoffs.

I'm not a fan, was never a fan. That usually means they did something to significantly damage us with their skill in the past. Glad to see you go Giguere, but at the same time, part of me was glad to witness parts of your career.

Great accomplishment, here's hoping for a bright future wearing the winged wheel.

I'm not sure how I feel about Sheahan being top 5 and Sproul nowhere on the list. Still, this previous season proved just how much talent we have waiting to emerge, a lot of these guys we wouldn't have even seen had it not been for chronic injuries. The future is bright, I hope it comes sooner than later.

I can understand your argument to an extent about Miller, but Hiller is moderately further below Howard on my list of NHL goaltenders. He's been barely clinging onto a starting job in Anaheim for a few seasons now, Fasth outplayed him and took a lot of starts, 20 year old Gibson took over for him during playoffs because of Hillers inconsistency. Hiller in for Howard as the starting goalie here would spell more problems going forward, i'm confident in that statement. I also feel like Miller is on par, if not a very minor upgrade over Howard at this stage of his career and it wouldn't be worth the effort of moving Howard and bringing in Miller for the potential small benefit.

Oh the joys of the offseason at LGW. No way do I ever see locking up any player at that cap hit a good idea unless he is the literal second coming of Wayne Gretzky and provides the offense of 3 top line players combined scoring over 200 points per season. Who knows what happens when players figure out how to defend against him better, and if he is selfish enough to command maximum contract he is likely the same class of player who will drop off in production after getting that contract. Look at the quality of player we get out of Datsyuk for the price, pay nearly double? No thanks.

I'll take it a step further and say Phaneuf is a defensive liability. He is likely being shopped for a reason, he has been getting worse in his own end and the money that comes along with him i'd stay FAR away from him. He only had 31 points in 80 games, which is a lot less than Kronwall put up, and he takes a lot of penalties unnecessarily. I have zero interest in Phaneuf, he's a shadow of the top defenseman he used to be and I don't see the Wings benefiting from his presence at all.

Please be aware of the subject manner of what you are posting and where it belongs on the forums. Trade rumors, speculations, discussion about players that may be traded or anything involving potential transactions belongs in the "Trade Rumor & Free Agent Talk" section of the forums. We have been moving a lot of posts lately and with offseason upcoming the rumors will continue to build and emerge, we want to keep the boards as organized and tight as possible. Thanks.

As per the thread topic, congrats to Abs. I know it's offseason but let's not stray too far off course here ladies and gents.

http://kuklaskorner.com/tmr/comments/sipple-red-wings-prospect-anthony-mantha-named-a-finalist-for-two-chl-award "Red Wings prospect Anthony Mantha is a finalist for CHL Top Scorer along with Connor Brown and Mitch Holmberg. Winner announced May 24." "Wings prospect Anthony Mantha also finalist for CHL Player of Year along with Connor Brown and Sam Reinhart."

Howard's Heart = Above Average

It's an unfair assessment of Weiss who played injured for all his games as a Red Wing and was injured the rest of the season. I consider the fact that this was published a bit ridiculous. Clarkson was healthy for the games he wasn't suspended and put up 11 points. If Weiss played the same amount of games while injured he still would have put up more points going by averages. Considering how many people wanted Clarkson to sign here last offseason, he is by far the most over payed for his overall production. Not going by averages and just saying "minimum 25 games played", you can sit here and say Franzen had a much better season than Datsyuk because he scored 4 more points than him last season, but not take into account total games played. It makes it look much worse when put into this perspective. Let's see some healthy games for more than one quarter of an injured season out of Weiss before declaring him the worst contract in the NHL.

Ship off Howard, bring in Miller, give it 40 games next season before the "Miller = Average" thread goes up. He's aging, he isn't what he used to be. He wasn't that good in the playoffs this year, his numbers leave something to be desired. He'd come here, play about on par, maybe slightly better than Howard, but people will realize how much more of an impact the defense makes (if it is not much improved) over the quality of the goaltender. I think a lot of people cling onto how he was 5 years ago, the kind of goalie he was in the Olympics, the NHL superstar goalie, that isn't the Miller we'd be overpaying for and i'd rather see the money go into a better defenseman over a very mild upgrade over Howard for a much bigger contract. It's honestly just my opinion, i've been wrong before, we all have at one point, but I think the focus is solely defense first and maybe one quality winger.

I somewhat agree, but sometimes drastic change is needed. There is still a whole offseason to work on things, make a few impact signings and/or deals. Barry's Preds are the only Preds we've ever see so it's rational to think an entirely different playstyle is incapable but you never know. Good luck this upcoming season Predsfan, I hope this spells turnaround in a good way for your squad and they begin back down the path of success. And I hope Weber gets a big splinter.

I'm not making excuses for Ovechkin, I think he is pretty lazy defensively, but look at the big picture. We need goals, he scores a lot of them. Our PP is pretty much awful, Ovechkin is a PP monster, also accounting for his plus minus as a lot of his goals come on the PP and don't count as a +1 or else that area of his stats would look much better. Ovechkin hits, a lot, we need a strong physical presence that will throw the body around and threaten the opposition. He's a scoring winger, a need most of us have claimed we are in desperate need of for a few seasons now. Ovechkin would land in my top 3 of guys i'd want to come play here, I think he would thrive and his production and overall value vastly outweighs his lack of defensive play.

As it sits, Miller is a UFA as his contract expired after this season. It would be a matter of making him an offer and him accepting. IF St. Louis elects to not bring him back or Miller decides he wants to play elsewhere is the first question. The second is would Detroit be willing to give up on Howard after his recent contract extension. I believe no, but i've been surprised before. Being Miller is a UFA and that is the base of this thread, i'm moving it to the Trade Rumor/UFA area of the forums.

I wanted to add on to what I posted above. This season I am the GM of a CHL team in League Gaming. It's full OTP style, 6 vs 6 with no AI involvement. It's an insanely organized and massive league with three tiers, CHL, AHL, and NHL depending on skill and experience. I am in the process of scouting to build my team for this season, we are looking for 20 forwards, 8 defenders, and 3 goalies. If you enjoy the Club/EASHL/OTP game mode and are looking for a good organized league to join, this is definitely the one. You only have to commit to 3 games per week, games are generally 8PM and 9PM Sunday through Thursday. You can even commit to just one or two games per week if that is what your schedule allows for. I wanted to put the word out, encourage people to check out the league and if you decide to sign up for this season i'll give you a good look and try to draft you to my squad. Last year we made it to the 2nd round of the playoffs, and it was a lot of fun getting there. Its all free, registration is quick and the season begins in about three weeks. Give it a look, if you are sick of playing drop-in with a ton of quitters and want a true 6's league then check out the link. http://www.leaguegaming.com LGCHL is the league I am part of.

I remember reading somewhere that EA stated doing the commentary is the most difficult and expensive aspect of developing a sports title, that's why it's been Gary and Bill for the last 7 years or so unchanged. I for one support this entirely and i'm pretty excited about the change. I am a GM for a League Gaming team and play at least 1,500 online games per year, I compete in organized OTP leagues so I definitely overplay the series. Hearing the same commentary for the last 7 years has pretty much forced me to turn it off in the options menu entirely. While i'm not thrilled about Eddie being here, the rest don't much bother me and it's a much needed change.

I don't see them targeting players like this personally, as little as Tootoo was used along with how the Wings have drafted, I could MAYBE see them signing one and using him for 20 games or so. With that said, from your list above, Wingels and Greening are both players I like who have some skill (Wingels more than Greening) but throw around the body. They would be good fill-ins for the bottom two lines. Unrealistically, Hornqvist is sort of Holmstrom 2.0 and he's someone i'd welcome here. Also Backes (obviously) and Hartnell, both I feel are true "Hockey Players" and have a good balance of every skill needed to be an asset.

Well if this proved anything, it's that things could always be worse. We could all be Sharks fans. You think WE are frustrated and annoyed with our team? Imagine dealing with this over the last how many years with no championships. Incredible feat for the Kings, I think a few of us had it in the back of our heads that if a team was going to come back from a 3-0 hole this year it likely would be against the Sharks. I don't know how I would handle the choke as a fan on their side of the ice after their playoff history in recent memory.

I get it, the Wings just got eliminated, emotions are running hot right now. Keep this thread on topic, do not resort to personal attacks or other similar remarks in attempt to get your point across. This is your only notification, any further derailing or insults thrown at each other, warnings and/or suspensions will be handed out. Keep it civil.

Updated.. crunch time boys. Win or go home, that's all there is to it. Bring it home for game 6, our season DOES NOT end today. Wings take it 4-2 GO RED WINGS!!!