Drake_Marcus

Coaches have been doing that with players like Crosby and Malkin for years. Ovechkin, Greene, Kovelchuk, Lecalvier, all those guys get the same treatment. When you don't have to work in the defensive zone you're able to conserve energy and take longer, more frequent shifts. Datsyuk, for example, would never play a 26 minute game on a regular basis- he'd be too exhausted from having to work constantly. Look at what happened to Getzlaf- when he had to play shifts like Crosby and Malkin while playing a 2-way game he ended up being completely used up after 8 playoff games. It's too exhausting to have to skate end to end and fight for pucks nearly half the game without loafing around in the defensive zone like the other guys do. That's why, in the current NHL, you never see guys put up 120 points AND play a strong defensive game.

Ask anyone who knows stats- you can't base a conclusion on a sample size of 2. Statistics have to be used properly. Give me a 15-25 game average based on this situation and I'd say we could be confident in it.

Bingo. I don't see the issue here. Filppula ratcheted his game up another 10 knots for the playoffs, especially in the conference finals. Does that mean people who criticized him during the regular season were wrong? Of course not. It's not like people were saying "he's not stepping it up against the Hawks!".

Great topic. Well I'm not happy facing Malkin and Crosby with 28pts each in only 17 games. Plus we already faced you guys and frankly, a loss is worse against you because it allows Pens fans to downplay last year's victory by saying 'we're even'... I know that sounds silly, but I'm sure that's what would happen. I'd rather we were facing: Washington, New York, Montreal, Philadelphia, Carolina. All those teams feel more beatable than the Pens do right now. At this point Crosby and the Pens have an axe to grind and the Wings are the people who made their suffer miserable. The emotional advantage is most definitely the Pens. I definitely believe in the Wings, I just don't like how far the emotional edge is tipped in Pittsburgh's favour. In the end this will come down to whether Lidstrom and Datsyuk can recover their form by Saturday. No Lidstrom, no cup.

Quoted for truth.

Ice packs, baby- the Stanley Cup playoffs is what ice packs were made for! Chelios just uses an ice tub, but you know what I mean

Luckily for Helm he's eligible for both those things! Helm's going to play enough playoff games to win a ring if the Wings win the cup. The Calder is based on regular season play, and Helm did not play enough games this year to be eligible OR to prevent him from competing for it next season.

Haha I had a feeling you'd nail Owl to the ground at some point. I'm surprised you waited this long.

And I half-enjoy being pissed off at junk. I'm gleefully emotional when I want to be

I'd rather the back to back be in their homestand and not ours. Disrupt their must win games.

So it's all the gingers fault... Damn you daywalker!

Do you have any idea how s***ty our weather is right now? I've had drizzy, rain and overf***incast days for a week. But with the damn mosquitoes. Screw you sunny California!

You and the entire Red Wings Front Office!

You are aware how terribly he's played in the AHL, right? The one time he managed to string together a good season- this year up until the AHL all-star break, he let it fall apart in the second half. He literally s*** the bed in the second half. He's really not NHL ready in any sense of the word. Seriously. Look, he's 22 years old. Ericsson took until age 25 to make this roster. And 1st rounder or not- he's not better than Ericsson, who was his peer in the AHL. So what do you want the Wings to do? Dump Lidstrom, Rafalski, Kronwall, Stuart, Ericsson or Lilja? They won't put a rookie pair on the back end, so forget that. Kindl's only chance to jump to the NHL roster is to play well in the AHL for a full season and be a ******* +. He was -34 last season and -14 this season. His -34 was the worst in the entire AHL that year, by the way. So someone who is so amazingly weak defensively is "NHL ready"? No one is going to throw Kindl an offer sheet the Wings won't match. If they do it would be something over 2 million or something stupid like that. Offensive d-men who can't do s*** in their own end are a dime a dozen. The Wings can and will match a reasonable offer sheet on this kid. Don't expect a 3 million dollar offer sheet for someone who's done nothing in the NHL. Edit: and this is all in good fun, no personal insult intended. I don't mean to imply he's not a good prospect, just that he's far from jumping from prospect to NHL player.

Haha- I'm not falling for that. My posts carefully outlined my position and my standing that the "conspiracy" was laughable and the scheduling foolishness was just incompetence. Of course I know you've read that, I'm just stating it in case others believe otherwise.

Ozzy's been bashed for years and he always will be. He could win a Hart trophy without escaping the curse of being called 'average' for years by the media. The best part is that Ozzy doesn't care about that s***. He cares about the fans like us who chant his name every night and stop him in the street to say we think he kicks ass, regardless of the season's outcome. Once Ozzy hangs up his pads the win totals, cups and stats will speak for themselves, and he's cool headed enough to know that and be fine with it in the mean time. You gotta respect a guy like that... take lots of balls to look past the doubters and stay so confident.

It's not the same RFA process as with an NHL player in this case.

Actually I was just arguing with Shoreline and saw you line up with him and fired a salvo your way too. Sorry for that. I was under the impression he was being serious instead of trying to get me wound up... retarded on my part.

At least now I'm 100% you're being facetious. To think I was actually under the impression we were arguing with each other...

I'd go buy a nice watch. I mean I think I've earned it. And a nice suit. Also Kindl won't be playing here for at least 2 years, barring a miracle, in which case he's a year away You won't see Kindl until Lidstrom retires, there's just no room and he is no where close to being NHL ready. He should be real good once he matures, though.

And what of those of us who said there's no conspiracy from the very start? Hmm? What of those of us who are simply pissed that the NHL is having the first back to back in the finals since 1955? Remove the "conspiracy" fallacy and you have to debate the necessity of a back to back in the stanley cup finals based solely on merit. Given that there is no merit to making the players endure an unnecessary back to back aside from appeasing NBC executives (that aren't even paying for the right to show the games). If you're like Shoreline you'll read that paragraph (or skim it in his case), stumble and end up creating a new argument, shoving it in my mouth and loudly proclaiming yourself as victor in a one man (plus strawman) debate. Edit: (Torry) Spelling

Interesting. So instead of addressing the actual comments I've made you're inventing an argument for me, indicating I'm saying this made up argument then ridiculing me for the argument you made up. You may be a ******-canoe, but you are creative.

Noting that Yzerman won 3 cups with Fedorov, 0 without. Just playing devil's advocate. You need both players in my opinion, the Yzermans and the Fedorovs.

To quote Bruce MacLeod:

You completely don't understand what I meant when I referred to your asinine fallacy- "conspiracy". Amazing. You just say "I don't need a fallacy to aid my debate!", the fallacy being that your opponent believes in a conspiracy, then you string that into a "conspiracy" accusation. Wow... again, you have no understanding of your opponents viewpoint. You're arguing with a strawman. So let's sum this up with the paragraph down below the one where I made the dinner comment you found so delightful. Let's see how many times I have to rephrase this s*** to pound it into your head: The back to back is a stupid marketing decision made NOT BECAUSE IT'S THE WINGS BUT BECAUSE BETTMAN IS AN ASS THAT DOESN'T CARE ABOUT THE GAME-- JUST 'GROWING' IT FOR THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS.