Drake_Marcus

Yeah they'd never have won that Cup without Crosby's clutch 3pt in 7 game finals performance! Tell me he was injured-- so was Datsyuk and he matched that point total in half the games. Who got the Smythe again? Oh yeah. No no, you're right-- Crosby should get the credit for tipping the Pens over the top even though he wasn't even a significant factor in the finals. Really-- he didn't need Malkin, right? I mean you take Malkin off that team and they totally wouldn't have been destroyed by the Wings. Waaiiiit... the only difference between the Pens and the Caps in that series was Malkin since Crosby and Ovechkin had the same outputs (well that's not fair-- they had the same point total at the end of the series but Ovi had more points in the actual series). 2009 Playoffs: Crosby: 24gp 15g 16a 31pts +9 (1.29 points per game) Ovechkin: 14gp 11g 10a 21pts +10 (1.5 points per game) pwned

Oh how I'm racked with jealousy. Please lord help me feel less jealous of the great Sindy!

I'd just like to add: *Yawn* Crosby: 27gp 15g 15a 30pts +6 (1.11 points per game) Ovechkin: 20gp 18g 11a 29pts +12 (1.45 points per game) pwned

Annnnnd.... the retard rodeo begins. *sigh*

But I'm still tempering my enthusiasm until we see this play continue into the long term. Leino was as hot as this for the first quarter of the GR season but after Christmas he slowed down significantly when the grind of the AHL schedule finally caught up to him. Now in the end he played great and lead the AHL in playoff scoring through the first 2 rounds on the back of his 1st round points (he was something like a 2 ppg player in the first round). Now to be fair there's nearly an eight year age difference, so we can afford to let Tatar learn to get past the pro hockey wall. It takes all prospects a bit to recover from the huge difference in games and scheduling that happens when the transition to an 80/82 game pro league.

In the last 5 games Tatar's got 4g and 5a for 9pts. He's sitting at 5g 7a 12pts in 15 AHL games. He's also on a 4 game goal scoring streak. Looks like he's getting accustomed to the AHL and doesn't mind the pace!

True.

Just tank it and get Hall. That kid is money.

Don't worry-- this past draft is beginning to look very, very strong for the Wings. Coetzee was the cherry on top of our prospect cake

To be fair there's really one area where he stands head and shoulders above Hudler: skating. Hudler would be an all-star if he could skate well (hell, imagine how good he'd be if he could skate like Helm!). Tatar is definitely a good skater. He's not Helm (but very few people can or ever will skate as well as Helm), but he's definitely good enough to skate well at the NHL level. His skating already puts him ahead of Hudler when it comes to getting into the NHL since that was the biggest knock on Huds from the moment he was drafted. But yeah, Tatar's definitely good defensively.

Sad but true. After two shutouts on HOME ICE. Holland needs to bring some kids up and and give them a chance because it's apparent that waiting it out hasn't helped the Wings win more than 1 game in the last 6. They've scored 5 goals in 6 games. Maybe it's time to use the temporary cap room they have and sit some slackers to ice a kid or two. Give the the kids in GR a reward for their hard work and let the guys on the roster know that losing is not acceptable long term in this city. Holland is Mr. Patience, so I'm sure it'd take 3 of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse to get his attention, but bringing kids up from GR is definitely not out of his character. Once again, I know Holland's said he won't make call-ups when the injuries hit, but it's clear that Abdelkader, Helm and Leino aren't stepping up like he hoped they would when he said the kids would have to step up. None of the three are expected to be game breakers and let's be fair-- the guys making 6 million aren't stepping up either. All I'm saying is it's not crazy to ask Holland to give Babcock some people he can actually put on the top six and shake that stagnant group up short-term.

I agree 100%. From the games I've watched (4 so far) he's looked great. He's one of the best forwards on the team and he's the youngest kid in the league. He's so intelligent out there and a really hard worker. The only reason I'm tempering my enthusiasm a bit is we haven't seen this over a sustained period. Right now it could be the initial burst thing type of thing you see with kids walking into a new situation (like we saw in Leino's 13 game call-up last year-- now he's struggling more to do it when he's expected to). I'm really hopeful that this will continue though, because this kid looks like the real deal.

You can add Lidstrom to that list, unfortunately.

I feel for Ericsson and the rest of the guys on the ice after that goal. E makes a great play to nullify the 2-on-1 like you said, then Datsyuk knocks the puck right into the net. Seeing the replay with Dats losing control of that puck and having it go in the net was painful.

Cool. Both you and your friends are wrong then. Don't confuse consensus with correctness. Putting a player on LTIR only clears space for a replacement player until the original player returns. As soon as that injured player returns you have to be cap compliant again, so no, you don't build up extra cap room by stocking up on injuries.

Scary isn't it?

I'm sure it is. They'd like him back as quick as possible as well. It's not like the team's doctors would let him destroy his knee just so he could get to the olympics. From the quotes he gave it sounds like he's hoping he can make it back and be ahead of schedule, not that he's going to do something high risk.

Check'er out: https://twitter.com/tsnbobmckenzie T.J. Hensick of Lansing, Michigan has been waived by the Avalanche. Here's the down-low from Hockey Futures: Note that he was 61gp 4g 17a 21pts last year as a rookie. This year he's 7gp 1g 2a 3pts. He was the 88th overall pick by the Avs in 2005. Think Holland would pick this kid up? Why not stock up on Michigan kids while the waiver order is low, right?

Homer's been one dimensional for a decade now. He's still the best at what he does.

This makes me sad You made me relive my summer nightmare again.

I'm also thinking that the Avs made it known they did not want him to be picked up. I'm thinking it's a bit of a gentleman's agreement with waiver moves where teams will sometimes come out and say-- hey, please don't pick this kid up because we have real plans for him. But more often then not they don't mind a pick up. I know it seems crazy, but we're not talking about kids like Tavares on waivers here-- obviously a GM would laugh at idea of passing him up just to be in the good standings of another GM. I look at this as something similar to offer sheets-- if someone makes it clear they don't want you to interfere in their player issues and you do expect them (and others) to go for your throat when you have an RFA.

It's funny because it's almost like you're trying to convince us that Richards' blatant shot to Booth's head was justifiable. As if there's an appropriate time to gleefully drill a man's skull into last week. I love hitting in hockey. But this game is nothing if the men who play it don't at least kind of respect their opponent enough not to make potentially career ending hits to the brain. I've seen tons of players let up on a check because their opponent was in a vulnerable position. Tons of players will pull up a bit and try not to hit the other guy in the frigging skull. Other guys just don't care. It's not about removing hitting it's about inserting a bit of fricking respect. Why would a decent person deliberately put someone's brain and spinal cord in such danger?

If the Wings can't muster a good game tonight Imma be a sad panda. Could we please see some scoring from the Wings tonight AND some good defense? Thanks. Ever since Mindfly left things have really gone down hill. Maybe he's in the Wings' locker room bringing their spirits down?

We need the centres from a face-off point of view and from a defensive point of view. Filppula's too valuable in that sense to put on the wing. Plus he's got worse hands than Bertuzzi, so it's not really an upgrade in terms of scoring ability.

I'm not terribly worried about him injuring himself by rushing back-- I have to assume the team trainer and doctors wouldn't let him injure himself like that. So if he does get back earlier I'll trust the team physicians were on board and management felt it was a sound choice. Franzen knows this is a business, so I don't think he'd expect Holland to let him jeopardize the team's success by re-injuring himself.