Drake_Marcus

Well that pass off to Adams on the empty net goal was pretty generous of Crosby.

Look at the stats champ. Osgood's playoff numbers utterly destroy Fleury's. Edit: Spelling

He's got a 100mph slap-shot. Problem is he's recovering from a serious wrist injury and it shows in his shot. As far as his play of late goes I'm not sure what else people expect from him. He's made some mistakes, I like to call them rookie mistakes, but he's also had some outstanding plays including lots of cases where he's grabbed a puck at the net and saved us from a sure goal. He's also been strong on the PK. All I know is he's been strong positionally and with his stick work. Has he made rookie mistakes? Yeah, he's definitely made his share of them, but the rest of his play makes up for it and apparently Babs is still happy with his play because Ericsson's still getting played in critical situations.

Yeah, I believe she was being sarcastic to you.

I disagree there. Both the players provided scoring depth, which Washington desperately needs (well not as badly as they need defensemen that actually play defense). Kozlov isn't a huge loss since he can easily be replaced with a free-agent. Fedorov is tougher because he was so versatile and was definitely a mentor for Ovechkin. If you watched the Caps in the playoffs it was Feds that Ovi would go to first when he scored and they were constantly talking on the bench. Fedorov was also one of their best face-off men, one of their best defensive forwards, provided much needed veteran savy and was able to fill in on defense when injuries occurred. Overall it's not a crippling loss, but the Caps will definitely have to find another good face-off man and at least one more shut down forward.

How is it possible for a Red Wings beat writer to not know Datsyuk is also nominated for the Pearson?

Also, I heard that Lidstrom's day-to-day injury was a result of Bettman hitting him in the knee with a lead pipe. Please tell me you're not one of those people who thinks the moon landings were fake (and by 'people' I mean 'retards' ).

Actually, the league wanted to move the schedule because the Wings and Pens are looking like they'll finish their series so early it will leave an 8 day break for the Wings and a 9 day break for the Pens. Note that past history indicates the team with the shorter break before the finals will win (for whatever that kind of 3 year trend is worth to you). I'll be pissed if they move the schedule forward to this Saturday AND have a back-to-back for the first two games. That would be a complete bulls*** move. The finals is the most important 4-7 games of the NHL season, none of those games should be back-to-backs.

No but the Wings are up 3-1 and going home for game 5. The Pens are up 3-0. The odds of it not being a Wings-Pens final are so minuscule as to be negligible. I'm not taking a win in game 5 for granted, but I can't help but be confident the Wings can win 1 of the next 3 games... I pray my confidence isn't unfounded!

At least, on the surface at least, it will make sense this year. Last year they said that coming into the finals and many used it as a way to pump up the Pens. The only problem is we all knew the Oilers were swept by the Islanders the first time around. Really, the only reason the comparison was made is because the two teams had a huge gap in experience/age/recent success, and of course, the media is convinced that Sid is the "Next One", his relative performance over the last two seasons be damned.

No biggy- we all do it. I just found it hilarous that she was sarcastic to you, you didn't detect it, then you were sarcastic in reply to her sarcasm.

You're kidding, right? The 1984 Oilers would be crushed by an elite defensive team of the modern era. There's no way you could throw them into this era and have the sudden defensive dominance of today's teams not be a crippling disadvantage for a team of the 80's. The defensive coverage of our forwards alone would confound an 80's team. Add to that the fact that we have defensemen that aren't singularly concerned with scoring but rather train to shut the opposition down and it's scary for the '84 Oilers. And on top of allllllll that we have a goalie that trains with a goaltending coach to refine his style. In the 80's goaltending coaches were non-existent, team-wide defensive schemes an abstraction, defensemen were the 4th and 5th forwards, or simply guys who were there to deliver crushing checks (ala Scott Stevens), and shut-down forwards were a relic of the Bowman Canadians (and most of them were on the path to being today's coaches). The end-to-end, freewheeling, win 8 goals to 7, defense is for ******* style of the 80's and early 90's would be a crushing disadvantage were a team from that era to play the modern Wings (especially last year's squad).

Fair enough. He did draw, what, like 4 penalties last game? I know he drew two in one sequence to give us that 5-on-3, and he definitely drew another later in the game, so he drew at least 3.

I dunno... Right now the following players are looking really strong for the Conn on the Wings: 1. Osgood -- He's been the most consistent in his excellence 2. Franzen -- His goal scoring's dropped off this series, so he'll have to have some more of those 2 goal games in the next little while. He won't win the Conn if he can't beat his goal scoring numbers from last year. Odds are he will pass 13, though. 3. Zetterberg -- Needs to keep putting up a point or two every game. He's been the most consistent forward in terms of points per game. He'll probably need to show he can out 'clutch' Franzen, though. 4. Lidstrom -- Still running at a point per game. If we win the cup it will because Lidstrom shut down Crosby/Malkin. If Franzen and Zetterberg can't pull away from each other and Osgood's numbers get hurt against Pitts, I think the best money is on Lidstrom. Hossa isn't in the running at all until he can score in more than 3 out of 15 games

To be fair, it's not as bad this year as it was last year. Last year Kronwall served the league notice- he'll hit you out of your f***in' skates if you don't keep your head up. And of course Stuart absolutely brutalized Cindy Crosby, so he'll be watching out for that next week.

It's a good ol' fashion sarcasm off!

Like everyone said- Islanders-Oilers in '84. And it definitely didn't favour the last match-up's winners.

+10 Sometimes I wonder how many people out there remember how injuries work. Plus, it's worth noting that the only way a day-to-day player would be skating on off days is if he's healed, needs to check where he's at physically or is losing his conditioning.

Well they're right on one account. Babcock will be coaching the Canadians at the 2010 Olympics.

I feel for you. I don't want Colorado to be a constant threat to the Wings again, but I definitely don't wish this kind of suffering on them. I'd rather they still played some spirited games against us instead of rolling over I guess the only way you can really justify the suffering is to remind yourself of the quality of draft picks you've lined yourself up for. You guys should get someone really good this year at least.

I feel the same way Queeny. It's not fair. He needs to pad his records more

Ehhhhh... you weren't exactly a saint when you came here, though. I appreciate your apparent willingness to reform your easily aggravated ways!

The real sad thing is that just reminded me about an article I read this morning: Keanu Reeves has been cast as Dr. Jackel and Mr. Hyde in the upcoming movie. *sigh* That f***** makes Cage look like an actor with range.

At this point we have to assume they're shooting for a Chicago/Pittsburgh revival: fistfuls of high draft picks earned via extended seasons of patheticness.

The top two lines look the way I'd like to see them assuming the bottom two lines won't suffer too terribly from the sudden drop in centre depth. Having Filppula on the third makes for three real, real strong lines, then you add Draper/Helm for faceoffs on the 4th and the Wings should be 55%+ on the draw in every game.