Drake_Marcus

Don't worry. The way E's been playing-- no way he's on the 3rd pairing come April.

As a physicist I can conclusively say the Blackhawks passed the event horizon in the first period of OT in Game 5. I'd also like to mention that closing a black hole is a retarded concept.

Spot on.

Also, we don't exaggerate around here. Ever.

Matt will likely have it done sometime in the first few days of October. It's usually not put up this early.

There's no way Abdelkader isn't the first line centre in GR. Well other than the times when he's on a call-up in Detroit.

Babs said recently that his target time to play Dats and Z is 18 mins/game each. In that case the third would play a bit more.

Don't worry-- if Holland feels that he's not ready for the AHL he'll definitely move him to the OHL. He has 9 games to figure that out. They won't leave him on the Griffs unless it's clear that he's ready to play in the AHL.

Yes. Smith was at the Prospect camp and in an interview at the camp he stated that he plans on finishing his year Wisconsin this year and plans to make the Griffins next season. Apparently his two injury-plagued seasons slowed his development down enough that they thought he should stick with college hockey for one more season. Expect him to play a few games for the Griffs at the end of their season and likely in the playoffs if they make them. (assuming his college season is over by then)

Yeah, it's great news. Based on Holland's comments I figured he'd give Tatar a shot to prove himself in the AHL. I'm sure they'll watch really closely, though, since they don't want to use up all 9 of his 'free' pro games. I'm really hoping he can work his way onto the top two Griffs lines in his first few games and earn himself a full-time AHL roster spot.

Yeah, I'm really surprised Abdelkader isn't playing tonight... I know he's been over played in the preseason compared to everyone else, but this is exactly the type of game we need him in for. Still, tonight will be an entertaining look at what happens when a physical-first team meets a team that isn't intimidated by physical play. I don't think the Leafs are skilled enough to play the role of the Ducks in this situation (where the Ducks used to be a strong enough balance of tough and skilled to cause us fits).

I figure it has to be because Cleary and Bertuzzi are both coming of groin injuries and haven't played enough in the preseason. Leino's already made the team and he's played lots in the preseason. I too would like to see Leino out there, but the Wings have to play 3 games in three days this weekend so having a guy like Leino rested can't be a bad thing. I still hate the idea of splitting Datsyuk and Zetterberg up. Compare last season to the one before and there's no question that they're better together than apart. I know Babs is trying to balance the team as best he can, but this also forces Filppula onto the 3rd line. While I love how strong that makes the third line I hate that Filppula's going to lose the extra responsibility. I'm sure there will be more than a few games where Z and Dats are together and Val gets to centre the 3rd, but I'd rather the majority of the games were played with Dats and Z together. I'm hoping that at least we'll see the Z-D-H line stay together on the first powerplay so they'll be able to keep that chemistry as strong as possible. Check it out: Team A Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Holmstrom Franzen-Filppula-Leino (here Franzen would play Holmer's role in front of the net since he's big and he's so good in close) Bertuzzi-Williams-Cleary Draper-Helm-Eaves Team B Franzen-Datsyuk-Holmstrom Bertuzzi-Zetterberg-Cleary Leino-Filppula-Williams Draper-Helm-Eaves Is the balance really that much better on Team B? Team B definitely has a better checking line in terms of defensive skill (noting that Williams is terrible defensively, but at least he isn't playing the defensively demanding role of centre on Team B). The s***ty part here is that moving Filppula up to the 2nd line puts the top 3 defensive-offensive combo centres on the top two lines. The Wings simply don't have a fourth centre with offensive up-side but still plays excellent defense. Lots of you will say Helm, but that's simply not true. Helm doesn't have the hands to create significant offense at the NHL level (even Babcock's said that in an interview). Helm will be lucky to produce 15 points (tops) in his rookie year. He doesn't project as more than a 20-25 point guy in today's NHL. All of his points are produced with blazing speed and really hard work, but that's not enough to net you 40+ points without a shot or a decent set of hands. None of that matters, though, because that's not why Helm is such a valued young player-- the Wings love his game without the puck, anything else is a bonus. Anyway, looks like I rambled on for far too long again. Sorry. My point is that Babs should go with Team A and only switch to Team B if Filppula can't cut it offensively.

I think the lesson here is that leaving the NHL to play in another league is a bad idea if you want to be remembered for as long as possible in terms of your statistics (unless you're at the bottom of your productive capacity).

Awesome. More veteran depth is never a bad thing. Great move if they can sign him for the Griffs.

By the sound of Holland and Babcock's comments I'd say Tatar starts on the Griffs but if he can't shine in the AHL he'll be moved to the Plymouth in the OHL. Sounds like they'd rather he dominates in the OHL than struggle in the AHL at this point. But they'll give him a shot early on to show that he deserves to be in the AHL.

Didn't he score a series winning goal or something like that? Whatever, I'm not an expert on Calgary. I'd have said Lanny McDonald because he's so damn cool, but he played for Colorado and the Leafs as well, so it probably wouldn't fly.

Come to Canada... as a Canadian citizen you can go to a world class university for around $5,000 CDN a year!

Fixed it

Mikko Koivu is still a highly underrated player. He'll be appreciated some day, but he isn't nearly as appreciated as he should be right now.

Basically we're on the same page then. He's a great young player but he's still not better than Datsyuk.

This. And I'd like to add that the severe injuries this team had add to the sourness for me. If Rafalski wasn't skating with a damaged back all series Staal wouldn't have made him look like a chump. If Lidstrom's testicles weren't stitched closed and thus each stride wasn't painful when he skated he'd have looked more like Lidstrom out there. If Datsyuk wasn't sporting two leg injuries life would've been much much better. Cleary and Holmstrom were injured and didn't grind like they normally do... the list of things goes on. Even Ericsson was out there with at least three injuries.

Hey now-- no need to make jokes like that. Our captain almost failed at having testicles thanks to Patrick Sharp.

Gordie Howe has to be the Detroit choice. As someone on the Philly radio broadcast of last night's game said-- Howe was the Babe Ruth of hockey. EDIT: I'd also change the Calgary choice to Fluery since he was so critical to their only cup win and he also has the best PPG ratio.

Speaking of which, anyone else wish Maltby could still frigging do that successfully?

In the end it doesn't matter too much-- Larsson's the real deal baby.