Drake_Marcus

You make a good point. I just hope there's something the Wings can do to help him get healthy. I thought the last two long summers would really help but apparently they didn't help his production even if they did help prevent long periods of missed games.

I wonder if the recent trend of Red Wings stars opting out of the All-Star game is starting to have an effect on how players think of the game. Does anyone remember notable opt outs for rest without a significant injury before Lids and Dats pissed Bettman off that year? Rafalski also oped out of being an injury replacement a few years ago. If you combine the silly fan balloting choices we've seen (for example the year Montreal fans spam voted 4 of their players onto the Eastern team's starting 6) with well-regarded guys like Lidstrom opting out of the game, it seems plausible that NHL players aren't putting much stock in the act of going to the All-Star game anymore. That has to be a burr in Bettman's saddle. If national writers picked up on it I wouldn't be surprised to see the penalties being handed out for absences again.

As far as Raask vs Thomas goes: regular season numbers aren't the same as playoff dominance. Thomas won the Conn Smythe by a mile. No one else even had a chance. I laughed at this quote about Thomas from that article

Not just the plane crash. Don't forget that Datsyuk knew Boogaard pretty well. Datsyuk had Boogaard come teach at his summer hockey camp in Russia twice, so he clearly knew Boo on a personal level. Edit: Here's an article about Datsyuk's reaction to Boogaard's death: http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2011/05/15/datsyuk-shocked-by-boogaards-death/

I voted Datsyuk because he's been really carrying the offence on his back lately, but if I could have I'd vote for Datsyuk and Howard as co-mvps. Howard and Datsyuk have been brilliant. The crazy thing is if Datsyuk hadn't started the season so poorly he'd be leading the league in scoring. Just for kicks let's break the numbers down: Datsyuk: 48gp 14g 39a 53pts +21 55.6FO% 3rd in the league in assists 3rd(tied)in the league in pts (with a game in hand on the guy he's tied with) 13th in the league in face-off percentage 17th in the league in game winning goals Notes: In the first 16 games this year Datsyuk only had 2 goals and 10pts. Through the last 32 games he's scored 12g and 43pts (1.34 points per game). Ready for the mindf***? If Datsyuk maintains the pace he's been on since November 17 for the rest of the year he'll end up with 26 goals and 97 points in 81 games. Sound familiar? That's the production level he was at in 07-08 and 08-09 (albeit with 5 fewer goals then he averaged in those years). What's with Datsyuk and the number 97? Howard: 41gp 30-10-1 0.926sv% 1.95gga 5SO 6PIM 1st in Wins (Rinne is the next closest guy with 28W in 45gp) 2nd in Shut-outs 5th in Goals against average 7th in Save percentage 1st in Penalties in minutes Assuming Howard plays the same percentage of the games remaining that he's played so far he's on pace for 50 wins. Notes: With 1,088 shots against (10th in the league) in 2,458 mins (8th) Jimmy isn't being isolated too much by the Wings. He's really making a ton of saves this year and is incredibly clutch. If Jimmy was facing very few shots we'd expect to see a significant difference between his rank in shots against and minutes played. What's the problem here? Well he's on pace for 68 games played (5 more than in his last two seasons). That's a fairly heavy workload in my opinion and I think we'll see him given more nights off as the playoffs approach. That will undoubtedly hurt his chances to break Brodeur's win record (not that we should really care all that much about a silly record). Just expanding on the Brodeur record for a second, it took him 78 games played to get his 48 wins. It's silly to extrapolate too much since playing nearly an entire season of starts at an elite level is incredibly hard for a goalie to do, but if we did apply Jimmy's win percentage so far to a 78 start season he'd have 57 wins in that time. That should really put Howard's win totals in perspective here. He needs 18 more wins over the remaining 33 games (and presumably 27 starts) this season (that's a 0.67% win percentage compared to his current 0.73% percentage). Brodeur's 0.922sv% and 2.18gaa that season are below Howard's so far this season. For Howard's season so far to be compared so favourably to Brodeur's famous 48 win season is a huge complement in itself. Edit: Note that I expect Howie to cool down a bit as this heavy workload wears on him, so I'm not trying to say he'll break Brodeur's record. I just think it's worth comparing his play so far to that season as a way of showing just how great Howard's been.

To be fair-- it was Kunitz. I saw that guy stab a puppy in the face just for kicks.

Oiler fans probably sat straight up and said "Holy s***! Hemsky did something!"

The rumour was they didn't get offers they wanted... anyone who thinks a team wouldn't throw a 7th rounder at Hudler hasn't met Glen Slather

Agreed. Ovi was a few inches from it being shoulder to shoulder contact (not that the same can't be said for any dirty hit). It just looked like he missed and hit Michalek's head. That being said, Ovi deserves whatever suspension they give him. The standard the NHL wants to maintain is that head hits are unacceptable regardless of intention. I'd classify Ovechkin's hit as reckless and Michalek's as dirty. Ovi's a force of nature when he gets going and this type of stuff just happens with him. I wonder if he'd be a more effective player if he went back to being reckless and overly aggressive like he was when he entered the league. He's just not the same player when he tries to rein himself in.

I'd love to see the Wings pick Jussi Jokinen up from the 'canes. He's had a down year so far but has the ability to break out and put some numbers up. Put him on a line with an elite player like Datsyuk and he could really do some damage. Jokinen's only running a cap hit of $3,000,000 for two more years so he wouldn't be a huge risk.

Given the average age of our star players (Howard excluded) we really can't afford to deal our first round pick. The Wings' minor and junior talent pool is looking better than it's been in a long time and that's all due to Holland's decision not to trade many picks. The one thing we really need is a superstar in the pipeline. Nyquist and Tatar look like they can be players of Filppula or Hudler's calibre but probably not of Datsyuk and Zetterberg's calibre. Tatar's season in GR hasn't been significantly better than last (in large part because of his extremely slow start). Nyquist's been brilliant in GR but he still needs to get stronger before he can be an impact in the NHL (and really, without seeing him play with NHL strength it's hard to say how good he'll be when he gets here). I think Nyquist and Tatar have very good shots at being top six players, though. Don't forget that in Kopecky's last season with GR he posted 32goals and 72pts in 77 games (although by then he'd spent four seasons in GR). Smith looks like a stud but he's slowed down quite a bit in GR over the last few months and may not post better numbers this year than he did last. Sheahan's having an excellent season in ND. He looks like he'll nearly double his points from last season. Still, we've yet to see him perform in an 80 game, pro environment. I doubt he'll fail to make the NHL but he may end up a defensive specialist (at worst). Plukkinen has the top end skill to be a superstar if he can put everything else together (although his numbers in the SM-liiga are down a bit compared to last season he recently broke out of a scoring slump with a hattie). Jarnkrok could be a Zetterberg type of guy if we're lucky. Calle's one assist short of matching his total from last season in 11 fewer games. Both these guys need to get there physically before they're sure bets for the NHL. The good news is people said the same thing about Dats and Z before they came to NA. Jurco looks like he could be a star in the NHL and Tvrdon appears to have the chops to do it too as long as they both stay on track in their development. I've left a lot of guys out but the point is that the Wings have a lot of talent in the cupboard that needs to mature. What we don't have is a kid who looks like he can walk in at 18 or 19 and be an impact player. That's the kind of player we need right now and that's only going to come from the draft.

Wow... if Montreal took that deal there would be rioting in the streets. Put it this way: when a team is shopping a kid with his talent, production as a rookie and age there's something very wrong

A Leafs vs Wings Winter Classic would result in something pretty cool for me: Dad would fly to Detroit from Vancouver and I'd fly to Detroit from New Brunswick. The greatest day of non-Stanley Cup hockey would certainly be the result.

Hudler's on pace for 23g and 51pts. By all means-- disparage him. But you're still painfully wrong.

I have it on good authority that that's a retarded trade. Z's slowed but he's been a point per game player over the last 25 or so games and he's still a beast in the playoffs. Even with the huge contract they'd be taking on that would be a horribly lopsided trade for Florid.

All I have to say is:

Yup. Things have been cloudy in NJ for a while. IIRC they've had attendance issues for years now.

There's no question it should be either Datsyuk or Zetterberg. If we had this discussion in the summer of 2008 I'd say Zetterberg is the best choice for captain but it's 2012 and things have changed. Zetterberg's still a leader on this team but Datsyuk shouldn't be discounted either. Based on play it'd have to be Datsyuk, based on media popularity and league-wide recognition you'd pick Datsyuk as well. Leadership? I don't really know since I'm not in the locker room. I do know that Dats sets the tone on the ice each night like a captain should and he does all the right things every night. In my eyes, it's Datsyuk's consistency that sets him above Zetterberg but in the end the C is about leadership both on the ice and in the locker room (and I'm not privy to the second part).

Get him while he's down! Kick some dirt in his eyes. Classy.

Marchand's a punk and always has been. Even in high school he was an entitled dick to people. My brother knew him well from minor hockey and school, trust me-- he's a ******.

If I were selecting I'd tend to pick the younger guys who are new to the experience. Guys like Pav and Alfie aren't going to go balls out like Karlsson or Giroux. Almost the entire Washington roster is guilty of extreme underachievement. Something in that locker room needs to change.

Howard will get the nod from the NHL's picker people. He'll play, let in some goals like all those poor bastards do and Detroit will dance.

So what if I was? It's the drinkin' season, after all.

He'll be added to the roster. The ballot only picks the starting two goalies with league operations assigning the last 4 spots.