Drake_Marcus

Really? He'd make our 2nd PP absolutely killer. Like crazy awesome. Gonchar puts up similar numbers to Lids on the PP. I'm aware of his horrible defensive issues, but hey, we had Schnieder here and all that...

This is my point. I can see a reason for this hypothetical debate. We all know they won't throw the game, but it's interesting to talk about the possibilities.

Man, looking for funny Crosby images, I've discovered one thing- Flyers fans really hate Crosby. I mean this s*** is just crazy:

Time for more light harted stuff. Ok, so I googled "lol crosby" and clicked images. Here were my results. The last two are pretty bizarre.

Greene is absolutely horrible defensively- you guys saw that. He's a turn-over machine. Given that Greene's style thrives on him being given space and time to make the play without physical contact. Throw him in the playoffs and he's s***. He was, what, minus 400 against you guys? I think I saw Sidney hand him the puck, steal it back and laugh at him, just 'cause Sid felt like making him sad.

Hey, there had to be a reason why his offensive numbers dropped by 10 pts. Elbow surgery and it's back to winning Norris trophies and drinking fine wine with the hot bitchez in da hizouse!

Yeah, you're right... I don't need to go around apologizing for everyone who acts bad. I guess I kinda jumped on him there. What's more interesting is that your avatar depicts Cthulhu grabbing Lord Stanley!

You're kidding right? This kid spazes out and acts like a ******* ******* towards posters from another team that come on here to talk hockey. He makes all of us look like jerks. I'll call out guys like him because I care, at least to some extent, about how we look on here as a collective fanbase. And I could be his Dad, I don't keep track of that stuff.

Huet is sweet man. You're crazy...

The joke of it is that your behaviour is so rude and childish these pens fans are more respected around here than you are. Pens fans- sorry about this kid, he has a tenancy to flip out like this.

Really? The Wings played one crummy team, and two teams that were superior to the three you played. Washington is a joke. They have zero defense. Zero. They have minimal scoring depth. They still took you to 7 games. I don't want to get into a pissing contest here, but the quality of opponent the Wings have played leading up to the finals is superior to the quality of opponent the Pens played. Ask a Wings fan if they were more scared for the Ducks or the Pens. You'll get Ducks from the people that understand hockey. The Pens play a puck possession game. The Wings own the puck possession game. The Wings are the class of the NHL with the puck- you won't find one analyst who wouldn't agree that we're the best puck possession team in the league by a mile. So what's a harder match-up in hockey- playing a lesser puck possession team or playing a shutdown team with size, grit and a build designed to foil puck possession?

Maybe not, but how many 50+ point players do you have on the third line? 'cause that's what Hudler puts up on the third line. Cleary- he's got the same number of points as your number 3 forward, but he plays on the third line...

You guys do realize how royally f***ed we are if we have to play back to backs on Saturday/Sunday, right? If Lidstrom isn't at least at 80% the Wings are f***ed against a team with Crosby and Malkin on it. Lidstrom can neutralize a great deal of the threat in one of those two players. After that we're playing the Ducks with s***ty defense. The Wings could deal with Getzlaf, they can deal with one of Crosby or Malkin. No Lidstrom, no way they can deal with both. So I ask you this- can you honestly say Lidstrom is ready to play a back to back of must win games on Saturday/Sunday when he can't even play the game on Wednesday? Can the Wings win against the Pens without Datsyuk playing at least at the level he was playing before injury (amazing PKing, great scoring pressure but not clicking)? Let's put it this way- if Lidstrom and Datsyuk can't heal up AND the Wings are f***ed by the League and have to play back to backs for their home games, we're effectively the underdogs. It's shocking how many people here are acting like the OP is being rediculous by posing this question. A week long break could be the difference between winning and losing against the Pens. Against a healthy Wings the Pens are underdogs. Against the Wings minus their regular season MVP and the 2nd greatest defenseman to ever play the game, the Pens are the favourites. A top pairing of Ericsson-Rafalski will get eaten alive by Crosby's line.

It should be noted that the puck that slid through the mouth of the net was too late to cross the goal line anyway. If you slow it down you'll notice that the clock hits zero before the puck gets through the goal mouth. Even if the puck was directed short side (which is hard to imagine in the situation), it's tough to say it'd go in before the buzzer anyway. And like others have said- the Wings were even closer to sealing it in 5 games. Moreover, if Datsyuk wasn't pulled down before he shot the puck into the empty net in game 6 the game would've been sealed. Not even mentioning that the Pens got away with a free penalty when they literally pulled Dats down infront of an empty net before he shot the puck. Regardless, it's not fair to say Crosby and Malkin were essentially doing nothing as if they just chose not to show up. They were shut down by the Wings defense and defensive forwards. As Babcock said after the series- Hossa was your best player in the finals.

Just like all of the Wings' opponents want the Wings to be too old, not physical enough, tired, etc. When people make the argument that there's a huge drop off from Malkin, Crosby, to the rest of your forwards they're not crazy for saying it if they're Wings fans. We've got Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Hossa, Franzen slipping into Hudler, Filppula, Cleary, then into another tier of players. Yeah, the Pens have some depth, it's just nothing compared to the depth of the Wings.

My point was to make light of the fact that statistically, Khabi and Fleury are the worst remaining goalies.

You do realize that Fleury and Khabi sit beside each other in all the goaltending statistical categories, right? Edit: And I should point out that those two aren't sitting at the top of those categories, either.

Really? Hossa, Malone, Roberts... for Satan,Fedortanko (or however the hell you spell his name ), Guerin. Kunitz isn't scary from an offensive standpoint, he is however, a critical component that was added to your team. He singlehandedly made your PK jump forward in quality. I'll give you this much- Crosby is almost twice as scary as he was last year. He's been a f***in' wrecking machine. I'm less impressed by Malkin's 6 game scoring orgy simply because it's been mostly against one team and it happened over such a short period. Malkin's still a beast, but Crosby's been scary since game 1 of the playoffs. I agree with you that this series will be much tougher than last year's. Last season I literally laughed in the face of the guys at work that said the Penguins would stomp all over the Wings. Our defense was playing amazing and the Wings were by far the class of the league from the very beginning of the season. This year I'm much more wary about the Penguins. The Wings' PK is terrible right now. They're really missing Lilja's shot blocking and the powerful effect of a healthy Datsyuk. But Hossa's hot again (although I want to see him play at last game's level tonight before I'm happy with him again) and Datsyuk has had more than a week off, so I'm hoping he'll be well rested and healed in time for the finals. There's no way this series is shorter than 6 games. And Pens fans should feel blessed by the league if they move the schedule to make Games 1 and 2 back to backs this weekend. That negates the rest period after this series, and more importantly, it removes home ice advantage from the Wings' equation. A back to back is much, much, much easier to split than two spaced out games.

Osgood isn't a irreplaceable piece. Lidstrom will retire in a few years, and his loss will impact the Wings pretty harshly. But the Wings have been around this block before. When the salary cap hit people called for the demise of the Wings. When Steve Yzerman retired people argued the Wings couldn't recover- they made the conference finals their first season without their captain of 20 years. Losing the second greatest defenseman to ever play the game ain't easy, but if one team has the depth, management and experience to move forward and continue their success in the light of that it's the Detroit Red Wings. There's a reason why they've been the class of the league for more than a decade.

Oh is he? How many NHL games has he won? Playoff series won? Appearances in the Cup finals? Is he widely regarded as the most likely coach of the Canadian Olympic team in 2010? Don't be so casual in your dismissal of the coaching disparity.

Just because the x-rays didn't reveal damage, doesn't mean there isn't soft-tissue damage anyway. And to top it all off, I suspect they aren't going to tell the truth anyway

Well first things first: f***. My. Life. Now that that's over with... I'm not surprised by this move at all. With the prospect of having to play the first two games of the finals back to back on zero rest, it's probably the wisest move not to risk Dats' or Lids' health unless they're completely recovered. I know Babs said they'll play if they're ready, regardless of the rest issue, but I suspect the reality is less black and white than that

And that's the only part that pisses me off beyond belief. The Stanley Cup Finals represent the 4-7 most important games of the entire season. Putting two of the first four together as back to backs is completely unacceptable. There's a line that shouldn't be crossed for the purposes of selling the game- and that's having marketing concerns effect the outcome of the series. By making the first two games back to backs you seriously jeopardize the home team's 'home ice advantage' by making the second game essentially an overtime crap shoot. Look at the regular season schedule- teams are far more likely to split a home stand that's back to back than they are any two isolated games. Then, after stealing the home advantage away from the higher-seeded team, they hand a nice cushy home stand that's not back to back- conferring a comparative advantage to that team. The only time I would say a back to back isn't so much of an unbalancing force is if it's one of the pairs of home and home games that occur after game 5. The first 4 games are absolutely critical to any seven game series. I'll be utterly incensed if they end up ******* with this by making the first home stand back to back.

If only that were the trade-off we had to make!

HUDLER SMASH! *'roid rage* "Please don't hurt me Mr. Hudler"