Drake_Marcus

Thanks. I didn't realize that about the brawl... that's an absurd number of penalties. It probably padded some PIM stats pretty well.

This. Goalies are the most difficult players in the game to predict the future of. There's too much of a mental element with goalies. Howard has elite physical tools and talent, all he needs now is to work on his consistency and become accustomed to the NHL game. You can literally say that for ANY goalie prospect. Carry Price was as close to the perfect goaltending prospect as could be asked for. The Canadians brought him up to the NHL and what happened? He struggled mightily with consistency. Price was horrible this season. Horrible. (aside from a handful of good games) Should the Canadians give up on him? It's tough to justify giving up on goaltending prospects early- there's just too much history of s*** turning into gold and goal turning into s***.

Thanks! Future glory is definitely in the cards for us, don't worry.

The Wings have tons of good prospects, but on the surface they lack the "can't miss, kick ass" prospects you get when you draft high. Now Holland may feel differently about that based on experience and his scouts' comments, but as it stands now we don't have as many 'blue chip' prospects as other clubs. Based solely on draft position and the loosie goosie garbage big prospect rating sites (Hockey's Future, et al) use to determine worth, Kindl is probably on top of the pile in this department. In reality, Kindl looks great as a prospect but his development is going a bit slower than expected- he really hasn't shored up his defensive skill or consistency this season. People that list this stuff from the outside usually throw him at the top of the heap, but in reality I'd say Abdelkader is now the king of the hill (noting that Ericsson, Helm and Howard aren't prospects at this point, they're on the roster next season). I'd have to rank our remaining prospects into a top 15 that looks like this (using Red Wings Central's midseason rankings as a starting point and reordering/subtracting/adding on from there): 1 Justin Abdelkader 2 Ville Leino 3 Jakub Kindl 4 Daniel Larsson 5 Thomas McCollum 6 Brendan Smith 7 Mattias Ritola 8 Frances Pare 9 Cory Emmerton 10 Dick Axelsson (hat trick Dick!) 11 Joakim Andersson 12 Jordan Pearce 13 Sebastien Piche 14 Brian Lashoff (really impressed when he stepped in in GR late season) 15 Gustav Nyquist Noticeably missing from that list is a high end offensive player used to the NA style. Axelsson has the chops to be an excellent offensive player, but he's a bit of a mystery until he shows it in a NA rink over the course of a NA season. That's why I'd like to see the Wings take an offensive force in the first round. They like taking the safer picks, but when it comes to scorers the cupboard is looking pretty bare.

Oh I want a rematch. As it stands we're tied with the Pens in head to head cups, and we're leading 7-6 in Finals wins.

Woh, that is a crazy close resemblance. I actually thought you photoshopped the first picture (I only chopped them out of my reply here to save space and stop that repeating photo thing we sometimes get with photo threads).

Red Wing Goaltending depth chart: Osgood [36] (Guaranteed Starter next season) Conklin [33] (Leaving as a FA unless Wings trade Howard) Howard [25] (Has to start on NHL roster or the is exposed to waivers, will only be traded if amazing offer comes up) Larsson [23] (Impressive in Sweden, amazing first half in GR, came down to earth in second half, still highly regarded) McCollum [19] ('08 1st rounder, considered the top goalie in OHL by some, rough WJC, had a strong 08 training camp) Pearce [22] (Just signed, All American, led NCAA in wins, shutouts, 2nd in GAA, 4th in SV%, playoff MVP this year) Let's say they release Conklin (as expected). Here's the line-up: Detroit (NHL): Osgood Howard (back-up, likely 20-30 starts) Grand Rapids (AHL): Larsson McCollum (back-up, may split starts or even take over starting job depending on his play) Not Sure: Pearce (unknown where he'll play right now, may challenge McCollum or Larsson for starts in GR if he impresses at their training camp or gets a shot due to an injury and runs with it) Where could Gustavsson possibly fit in? Since the end of the '08 season the Wings have done the following: -- Draft a goalie in the 1st round (McCollum) -- Signed an NCAA goaltending prospect (Pearce) -- Brought a Swedish prospect to the AHL (Larsson, who had a very impressive transition to NA play) I doubt Gustavsson would see this as a team where he'd get a good shot at some NHL starts any time soon. He's considered the starter for the 09-10 Griffins. After his great training camp he went on to be a leader in almost every stat in the AHL through the 1st half. Was chosen to play for the world team at the AHL All-Star game. Along with the rest of the Griffins, he struggled after the All-Star break (probably due to the increased physical demand of the longer AHL seasons compared to European leagues). As the year came to a close he suffered a concussion which he tried to play through but definitely hurt his play. Howard and Larsson were ranked by www.griffinscentral.com for their first and second half play as quoted below: First Half: 1st Half Report Card (Article) Larsson-- A (They don't seem to believe in the A+, it's not ever given or even an option) Howard-- C- Second Half: 2nd Half Report Card (Article) Larsson-- B Howard-- C+ So, overall, they seem to rate the GR goalies as: Larsson: A- Howard: C

Thanks I'm glad people enjoyed it!

True, but Lilja was wounded for this battle (hence the especially brutal PK).

I do... Once I'm home from work/the gym, and all the snakes are fed and cages are cleaned all I have to do is dick around. My girlfriend is home in Mexico for the summer so I've really got no distractions

Good idea Doc, but I'd like to expand on it. Pick Giggy up from the Ducks and play him... with Osgood. Stack that s*** right up. 2 Forwards, 2 Defensemen, 2 Goalies. Giggy's bloated gear stacked infront of the cool, calm, clutch Chris Osgood. Now that's a balanced team.

This.

The Wings lost by a goal. A post. An inch to the right. A whiffed puck. The smallest possible margin between the winning and losing team in a sporting championship. And they did it even though they were a team utterly devastated by injuries- with their top two players skating injured the entire round, one of which was gone for 4 games. Stop acting like you're some sort of prognosticating genius.

This.

Wow, I hope Leino can put up 55pts next season! That's the kind of rookie season future stars have.

Ericsson looked hungry out there. So did Abdelkader when he was healthy. Datsyuk and Zetterberg both looked great, even when the puck wasn't going in for them. I'm especially impressed with how hard Datsyuk worked even when everything was going against him. For quite some time he was getting great looks at the net, setting up amazing plays but everything hit the post, missed, or hit the goalie (or in some cases, as we saw in Anaheim and Columbus, the goalie just robbed his ass). All those close calls obviously weighed oh him. All players go through slumps- even guys like Ovi (see first 2 months of this season). The impressive part about Datsyuk's slump is that he managed to contribute in every other conceivable way and he still provided valuable offensive pressure. That's the best part about having 2-way stars- a guy can be in 'slump' while still being your best penalty killer and providing energetic checking all night. It sucks that Dats had that slump, but he was pretty effective when he came back from his injury, even though his skating was hampered (everyone sucked offensively for the last two games, not just Dats).

Leino is 25 years old. He's got years of professional experience at the highest level of Finnish hockey and was the Finnish MVP before coming to the Wings. Other teams surely offered him NHL time if he decided to sign with them last season, but he came here and payed his dues in the AHL for a year. Let's be fair- he's got the experience and resume to back up not wanting to be a 26 year old AHL prospect. And again, Abdelkader is a 21 year old coming off his first professional hockey season. He impressed in his time in the playoffs, but so did Helm last year. It's just not the Wings' style to fill their roster with rookies. I'd love to see Abdelkader here next season if he's going to get the minutes and Holland thinks it's the right move. But in the end it can't hurt him to spend next season on the top line in Grand Rapids.

If Holland can get Hossa drunk out of his mind and trick him into taking $4million a season we're one lucky group of fans. I don't want Hossa here (and haven't since we signed Franzen), but for a $4million cap hit he's more than welcome aboard. If you get a chance to take a regular 40 goal scorer for $4million you frickin' do it.

I just want to say before this is all said and done, before we know the outcome of this series- that whoever wins this earned it. Missed calls happened on both sides. Lidstrom got the old can-opener from Fedortanko (spelling?) last night. Fine- that was a blatant interference penalty that directly led to the goal. Pens fans will argue that Hudler held someone's stick on the Wings goal- it's more subtle and definitely arguable (which the interference on Lids was not), but it's still something that could have been called, minor or not. So what? Zetterberg hit a post, Datsyuk handed Zetterberg an empty net on a glorious pass only to have the puck skip a bit, which gave Fleury the chance to set up and deny Z, Cleary had a great break away chance but Fleury stoned him. At the end of the game Franzen could've tied it up when Fleury was down but wasn't able to get the puck off the ice and into the wide open net. The number of failed executions greatly outnumbers the number of missed or bad calls. The fact remains that the Wings s*** the bed in the first and second periods- defensively they were great, and Osgood was easily the best player on the ice for either team last night, but offensively the Wings were terrible. The Penguins collapsed low and instead of firing the pucks from the point with authority the Wings tried to carry the puck through 5 black sweaters. The Wings simply were not better than the Pens last night- Ozzy deserved the win simply for his amazing play, but the rest of the team really didn't earn it. So now we have to stress over the next two days and pray the Wings play on Friday like we know they can and win the cup we know they deserve. But if the Wings don't show up on Friday and we're forced to watch the Pens skate with the cup (as sickening as that is to imagine), I really don't want to read thread after thread about how the league gave the Pens the cup. The Penguins were the better team 3 times so far and the Wings were the better team 3 times. That's a fact. Whoever is the better team on Friday wins the cup- it has nothing to do with reffing or Gary Bettman. Ok, so kind of a lame thread, but I wanted to get this off my chest. I'm positive Detroit will be celebrating their 12 Stanley Cup on Friday night, and it will be because the Wings are the better team, no more, no less. GO WINGS! Edit: (Torry) Spelling

No, what I referred to is most definitely interference. I didn't say they hit the puck dumping forward, I said after the dump they grabbed the forward to prevent him skating around them, which is textbook interference.

Yeah, after last game it'll take a HUGE game 7 from Zetterberg to unseat Osgood (or a terrible game 7 from Ozzy, but that's unlikely to happen if the Wings win it). Same goes for Crosby if he has a chance of unseating Malkin. The thing is, all bets are off in game 7-- if someone dominates game 7 their chance of winning the Smythe is suddenly much better. Say Datsyuk manages to pick up 2 goals and 2 assists, he suddenly has a shot at the Smythe, even having missed the first 4 games of the finals. All bets are off

Burke has always been an old boys club kind of guy anyway... he's known for taking the staff with him when he moves onto a new club... just watch out he doesn't do it to you guys too

First off- Datsyuk made a huge impact in game 5. He was the best Red Wing forward on the ice in game 6, I'm not sure if you watched, but he set up half a dozen pretty impressive scoring chances for the Wings (including that awesome break away pass to Cleary) but no one converted on them. It sucks, but to say he hasn't had an impact smacks of someone who doesn't understand the plays their watching on TV. Crosby has definitely played well in the finals- he did last year too, none of the experts have argued otherwise. He's been managed very nicely, however, by Zetterberg and Lidstrom. If Lidstrom and/or Zetterberg weren't shadowing Crosby's ass all series he'd definitely have more point. Hossa? Mocking us because he hasn't shown up in the playoffs really doesn't hurt Wings fans like you seem to think it does. We're not the ones who mortgaged a chunk of our future away to get Hossa. You did. We didn't trade two roster players, a talented forward prospect just drafted in the 1st round AND a 1st round draft pick to get him. He signed here as a free agent. You're the ones who sold the farm to get him and still came up short. The Wings simply signed him to a one year contract as a free agent in the offseason. You're lucky the Hossa who showed up for these finals isn't the one who showed up for you guys last year. Last year Babcock called him the most dangerous Penguin on the ice. Hossa was the biggest threat we faced last year. This year he didn't show up. It sucks, but the Wings won last year without him. I'm really hoping Hossa has an amazing game tomorrow- he's been great in turning point games so far (until this series). But the situation really isn't the same for us. Hossa cost the Wings organization nothing. Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Franzen are the go-to guys for us tomorrow. If Hossa can pot a goal or two the Wings have you by the nuts. But still haven't trailed in this series, slumping Hossa or not. Keep mocking Hossa's disappearance, he deserves it so far. But now you know why your insults haven't stung like you hoped they would.

Haha. Pittsburgh fans definitely won't have to feel threatened by Detroit fans once the football season starts. I'm not sure if arena league teams would feel threatened by the Lions.

Thanks. I'm definitely making an effort to think positively. And I'm definitely scared about Friday because anything can happen in a best of 1 game series. The standard of officiating has be terrible in the playoffs, especially with regards to how interference is called. The refs refused to call obvious interference (especially when it comes to how defensemen block the leading forward from entering the zone after he dumps the puck in). But both teams have adjusted to the sudden return to clutch and grab hockey, with Hall Gill being the greatest beneficiary of the sudden shift in reffing. Seeing Gill plodding along on the 1st PK and the top defensive pairing only speaks to how bizarre the situation is.