Drake_Marcus

Annnnnd here's the man who did that to Rafalksi:

Yeah man- here's the before and after shot:

Getzlaf is a classless goon when his game face is on, but he's a surprisingly good guy when he shuts that game face off. There's a Cabby On The Street interview with Getzlaf at his house in LA that paints him as a pretty cool guy off the ice.

Thanks Duck Guy! The Ducks have nothing to regret about this series- they played great and hung in until the last possible second! We caught a bit of a break on Cleary's goal since his stick touched the pads of Hiller and not the puck. BUT you guys had that huge break when Pronger crosschecked Hudler's spine, pushing him into Hiller and generating a magical PP for the Ducks instead of the PK for crosschecking. And hey- that stick laying on the ice that tied up Ericsson's feet and took him out of the play was a bizzare break too. So I feel that those two breaks for the Ducks made the Cleary break for us justified. Please stick around dude- you're still appreciated around here by lot of us

Go ahead and watch the video. Slide the bar over to 1:36/1:52. Whoever thinks that doesn't look like intent to injure and all around pathetic, gutless behaviour is an idiot. Edit: fixed video link.

So you think Bettman is a top?

Take away the two powerplay goals the Pens had and they still won 4-2. The two refs were the perfect storm of terrible reffing-- O'Halloran and McCreary, I'll admit that, but the Caps still s*** the bed.

Except the message received by the Wings isn't the one the Ducks intended to send. All the Ducks did is light a fire under the collective asses of a team that slumped through that game. If the Wings felt motivated before the fight, you can bet they feel even more driven to wipe the floor with the Ducks now.

On this point I can agree with you.

Yeah, that scrum at the end of the game certainly helped the Ducks win. There's zero chance the Wings will feel goaded into fighting harder and take that beating as a catalyst for a stronger team identity. I have a real hard time seeing that scrum at the end of game 6 improving the Ducks' chance of winning this series.

Use a degree sign please. Otherwise, yeah it's cool

If Filppula discovers his shot I hope he does it early in his contract so we can have a scoring version of Filppula for only 3 mill!

Huh? The version of Tourette Syndrome you've described only constitutes a small minority of the cases (somewhere around 1 in 10). Shouting obscene words, known as Coprolalia, is something the majority of Tourette Syndrome sufferers doesn't have to worry about. The vast majority of symptoms are verbal and physical tics (coughs, throat clearing, mouth clicks, shrugs, blinking, snapping of the fingers, tapping of the foot... etc).

Yes. Filppula has very poor finishing skills. But everything else he does is high quality. Finishing is his only real weakness aside from not using his body to be physically punishing. In the long run Filppula will end up being a poor man's Datsyuk, which is fine with me since we can't afford to pay the entire top six 6 million dollars or more a year.

The ironic thing is how strongly the NHL was telling everyone that they would punish teams that "try to send a message" and how "message sending" wouldn't be tolerated in the playoffs. They even went so far as to contact every GM and tell them they wouldn't tolerate it. What happens? They flap their gums and lack the balls to enforce the rules when it's tough to do so. No one gives a f*** if Brasher or a fourth liner like that is suspended for games 1 and 2 of a series. If the NHL doesn't have the testicular fortitude to ban an impact player who clearly disregards the rules and attacks another player after the clock on the game runs out- no one is going to follow the rules. Colin Campbell and Gary Bettman are a pair of slobbering *******.

Bingo. That's my point. Neidavacation escalated to the point that he could have seriously injured Pavel.

There's a point where you just say- yeah it's a scrum after the whistle, boys will be boys. I get that- I'm not calling for Getzlaf or even Perry's head on a pike. Perry's move was a ***** move since he went after a guy who was just coming off an injury and has zero history of fighting... but he didn't injure Ralfaski as far as I know, and I don't see an intent to injure in his actions, just a ***** trying to fight an unwilling opponent who's not even healthy. But that elbow by Neidavacation is completely different- that's either something intended to injure or something thrown with complete reckless abandon and no thought to the consequences. Both those options are reprehensible and the fact remains that looking at that replay you can't really argue it doesn't at least warrant a review by the league. The scrum last night was pretty typical of NHL hockey and the emotions that boil over, even if it was a bit over the line in terms of what kind of players the Ducks went after. The elbow by Neidavacation was a gutless, chickens*** move. Period.

Gold. I'm officially commandeering that for my own use

Also, and I kid you not with this- after the game I saw Neidavacation punch a kitten in the throat! True story.

I agree with Shoreline. ...it feels so dirty.

Huh? I never understood this logic. Do you honestly think Detroit, with it's fighterless roster is the only team that deals with dirty plays against their players? Did the Rangers lack fighters on their roster this year? Because someone on their team got his face destroyed by a dirty elbow, so we must assume this was done because the Rangers lacked the ability to defend themselves... And of course, the Wings in 97 mustn't have had tough guys on their roster when Draper had to have his face wired shut, because Claude LePuke would never have done something so dirty if Detroit had a fighter on the bench to magically repel dirty plays... I'm all for having guys who can defend themselves- I'd love to have Chara line up with Lids, but come on man- no one really believes that tough guys repel dirty plays, do they?

Pathetic, eh? It's incredibly sad that the NHL tells themselves they enforce their rules in a consistent, intelligent, understandable manner. I mean these guys really think they're doing it right. Seriously, they do.

If people really, really want to help the Wings they need to canvus the NHL's head offices. They need to demand justice for Neidavacation and Perry's behaviour at the end of game 6. Cause a stir- call your local sports radio station- email the clip in my thread and instructions to go to 1:36/1:52 to TSN, the NHL, ESPN, your mom, whoever. Stir up some s*** and make loud noise. The NHL won't start calling their own rules consistently until the fans demand that they do.

Oh man you got it- the Wings literally won 50% of their series last year in the first elimination game. They did so against the SexualPredators and the Avalanche. The Stars? Nope. The Pens? Apparently someone forgets the game 5 OT loss.

Dude- how long have you been watching the Wings? The grit on the 97, 98 and to a lesser extent the 02 teams was a little bit of spice, a garnish if you will. The do not play the "North American style" you're pining for. And guess what? They've won 4 of the last 11 cups. No one else can even claim to be their peer over the last 12 years.