Zetts

While I don't wish injuries on any specific person, it's nice to see the Penguins finally getting injuries like everyone else in the playoffs. They've been unnaturally healthy in the playoffs the past couple of years.

While I'm not 100% on this, I thought that Carter and Gagne were projected to be back in 3 weeks from the initial injury, so they'd be back for the third round. Not sure about Lappy though. Edit: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/sports/20100422_Flyers_lose_Carter__Gagne_to_injuries.html So Gagne might be back.

Don't forget the line about the Sharks' forwards being 6'6", 250 and hitting like mack trucks. That was the line in 2007 right? Heatley is injured. Pretty badly from what I hear. That should reduce his effectiveness. There is absolutely no reason to think that Thornton will assert himself in the playoffs, now or ever. That's just wishful thinking. I'd say that the series would be pretty even. But I give the Wings the edge because we don't shoot the puck into our own net in overtime. And Marleau is not good looking.

...cool story?

Not that it's particularly important, but just for the sake of accuracy, he's tied for sixth, not first. Grier, Brown, Orpik, Ruutu and Sobotka all lead him and he's tied with Fisher. All have played the same number of games.

Easy big guy. I'm on your side for this one. ...somewhat I do take issue with this stat that you keep throwing out there though. His zero one goal against is quite misleading about his play. And his mistakes HAVE been directly translatable into goals. Some very good chances just happen to not go in our net for whatever random reason. If you read my post though, I'm very clear that I don't blame him or single him out. I just added my piece because you seemed ready to try to prove that he's been particularly good. And that's not the case.

Haha, I knew you'd get in here sooner or later. He hasn't been particularly brutal and he's sure as hell not the reason we've lost any games. Having said that there have been some TERRIBLE plays that he's made. In particular I remember Lombardi making both him and Lilja look like pylons a couple of times. There's not a chance in hell he's playing anywhere near as well as he did last year in the playoffs. In all fairness to him though, everyone on the team has looked like crap at one point or another in the series.

Logic is taking a serious beating here. If you put your best shooter FIRST, you won't even get to that point. Say Gaborik was, for the sake of argument, a 90% shooter. Put him FIRST and you increase your chances of never getting to that point where it is do or die at all. ...exactly. You never put out your second best option. If he felt Gaborik was better he would have put him there over Jokinen. See, best players first. Because screw maybe making it to the fourth round with a killer shooter. You have to make it there first (or win, if your BEST shooters are good enough to win it first). Therefore, the better shooter of the two should be put third and the worse of the two fourth. To clarify, I'll go over this point further: You're only changing the order of your goals (or the order of your best chance for a goal really). You want to get as many of those goals as fast as you can. That's how a shootout works.

Because you could have lost the shootout by the time you get to your best shooter if he's third? Or failed to put it away earlier and give the other team a chance to get back in the shootout. For example, say you put your second best shooter third. Then you could lose a chance to win the shootout if, say, you're up 1-0 and the second shooting team in the second round. It gives the other team a better chance to tie it up. There is no possible reason to not go best to worst. It can only hurt you. And why should Tort's mind have changed between the start of the shootout and that point? He knew when he named Jokinen that far into his list that it's round-by-round sudden death, and yet you think he would put out the second best option? Right.

I don't see how there's situational coaching here. There's only one thing you want the player to do and that's score. If you're not already putting out your best SO players from best to worst, then, as a coach, there's something wrong in your head. You can hardly put out grinders to change the momentum in a shootout. Whatever, I don't really care either way.

Miraculously, I...agree with Carman.

Osgood could probably get back into form in one or two games. However, by then we'd basically be eliminated. Add to that, because of how little he was played, turning to him now would give off a huge vibe of desperation and lack of control on the Wings' part. Howard hasn't been particularly bad, I say we give him a chance. If he really is starter material, these past games will be a huge motivation to him to play even better. Besides, people have said all year long, this is supposedly a rebuilding/retooling year for us. So lets see what we've got for the future. Of course, if you take Howard out this early, you risk really damaging his confidence in the future as well.

Somewhat, but it's not just them. Anderson, Nabokov, Bryzgalov, Theodore, Boucher, Halak and Fleury have all been lit up in at least one game and they're not just starting out.

Strangest thread I've seen in a while. What are you talking about? This came out of nowhere.

I highly doubt they'd be joking about an actual problem. Don't worry about it.

He did get some unique opportunities in Vancouver, but people are continuing to undervalue this guy. Babcock loved this guy and for a good reason. His lowest point total here was 34 points and that was in 53 games. His worst season was comparable to a player like Filppula this year (35 points 55 games) and in comparison to that season, Flip gets more ice time and plays with better players. I'm not trying to drag Flip down, you could make the same argument with other players. The point is just that Samuelsson was much better than he's given credit for. Oh yeah, and he's clutch. Edit: And with the Wings he was making what, like 1.2 million? I know it doesn't really affect how good he was as a player, but that's some damn good value for your money. I just hate hearing the "logo hunter, Sammy sucked, blah blah" thing. Bargains like that don't come along easily. Williams makes 1.5. Ugh.

Basically, salary-wise, it would be trading Bert and Williams for Samuelsson and a player at league min. Personally, I'd take that in a second. Although I think Sammy indicated that he wanted more of an opportunity than he was getting here. Also, why would Holland have wanted Hudler over Samuelsson? Babcock clearly liked Sammy better seeing as how he was never buried on the fourth line. And since Hudler was an RFA he would have gotten some compensation (at that point he thought Hudler was staying).

Maybe Draper will get a hatty?

Yeah, I miss him. And Konstantinov. And Yzerman. The list goes on.

Lilja.

Not the most important indicator, but still nice to see. Cullen over at TSN has Howard pegged as the top fantasy goalie for the playoffs: http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=317808 He also says that Detroit will win the Cup.

It's kind of to be expected. They're excited to make the playoffs and don't know what to do with themselves. I seem to recall some similar types of things with other teams. They're just talking big, I doubt much will come out of it. If they make the playoffs for something like 4 or 5 of the next 6 years I doubt you'd see this sort of thing there at all.

I imagine a lot of people won't like this, but I'd put Datsyuk back there and stick in a different forward up front. Your back end runs the PP and Datsyuk has unreal vision and a great shot. I think he'd get more space and time to use his skill in a different way. I'd at least like to give it a try. Or at least I think we should have tried it in the regular season. At least he finishes his checks though.

THIS. I'm sorry, but I just can't. Those who can put up with it deserve some serious praise. It. Feels. Terrible.

No kidding.