Drake_Marcus

"A mule will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once.” --William Faulkner's wisdom to the scouts that passed over Franzen

Well he's 2 pts from taking the lead with at least one game left, so I definitelty think it's not yet out of his grasp. Plus- Zetterberg's pk on that 5-on-3 was simply stunning and he's been widely recognized for that play. My plea to Zetterberg is this: PLEASE SEND ME AN AUTOGRAPHED JERSEY!

Very funny, but nothing tops the crowd full of obstruction faces!

Enjoyable read- thanks for posting. This article, along with the Pronger one, was a refreshing change of pace from reading hockey journalists.

I'd guess he means that Downey's a big guy in terms of muscle. He seems solidly built- add to that how low his body fat would be as an NHL player and I imagine he's got slabs of muscle. Having slabs of muscle is basically his sole job

Hasek's fine and dandy. He played great for most of the regular season even if he did have a few rough games in the playoffs. Of course Downey deserves credit and will get it IF the Wings win the cup. I'm not going to count my chickens before they hatch. (but I do want to have some chicken dinner tonight )

Damn. And I thought my answer was clever.

Well I think I can explain why they chose Barry. You see- I once heard someone say that tampa couldn't get any worse. Mullet's there to show my buddy he was dead wrong.

True, but I don't think that's a brilliant move by the Pens if that happens. Orpik and Malone are key players for that team. Hossa was a stupid, stupid, stupid trade. Mind-numbingly high priced for a rental. Fleury still has the potential to spiral back down into the depths of garbage he's been known for inbetween hot-streaks. Hopefully for the Pens he continues the stellar play he's been known for this post season because they're going to have to cut him a big juicy deal and he's short on consistent success aside from the last 4 months. That being said- they obviously realize all this and are going to deal with the situation as delicately as possible.

I'm not too too worried. If I know one thing about Zetterberg I know this- he's always better after a longer rest. You just know he's fighting through wrist and back pain every game, so it shouldn't be surprising that he's most dominant after an extended rest. Dats? Well he's what the French call "le clutch". Last night he came up short a few times but let's not dillute ourselves- Fleury was playing out of his mind last night. He had some awesome saves and definitely gave the Pens a chance to win. That combined with our boys giving Crosby a bit more room to skate was a deadly combination. Back on topic though, I see Dats coming through big on Saturday. He's well aware that he has no points in the finals so far and that he had an off game last night in terms of his capacty to make plays while being smothered by the opposition. Dats is usually awesome at holding and using the puck in situations with 2 or 3 guys hanging off his ass, so I don't expect that talent to melt away overnight. This team needed to lose a game last night. I think they dominated the Pens so much in the first two games that a slight dial back in intensity was unavoidable. Outscoring your opponents 7-0 over two straight games will lull you into a false sense of security. I trust in Babcock. I trust in Zetterberg. I trust in Datsyuk. I trust in Lidstrom. I trust in Kronwall. I trust in Franzen. I trust in Filppula. I trust in Cleary. ...well you get my point. And for the record- Sammy had a great night last night and I'm very, very happy with his play so far in the Finals. Val's been unreal. He was our most dangerous forward in Game 2 and hasn't dialed it back even a tiny bit. I really believe that last night was a case of the Wings not supporting each other like they were before. People dropped back and collapsed on the net, yeah, but they weren't as smooth or methodical in their defensive support roles. I'm sure Babs will beat that back into them

I wasn't a Fleury fan going into this series- but his great play when his team was melting down around him made me stand up for him for then on. He's played awesome the last three games- anyone that disagrees didn't watch the games. I think he stole this game for the Pens. Well Crosby AND Fleury stole the game. Fleury's play on the PK was amazing. I'm especially impressed with how well he handled Dats, Z, Franzen, Filppula and Franzen. Each of those players were dangerous and made some great plays around Fleury but only one walked away with a goal. I lost count of how many times I've screamed f*** after Fleury stole a puck I was sure was goign to go in. *Sigh* I'm still chocking to death on the Canadian media's constant fellating of the Pens so I can't stand the thought of the next 3 days. *shudder* Congrats on the win. Note that the Pens got called on as many "obstructions" as the Wings (just in case you bought your coach's bulls*** lines).

Pavel's already a leader on this team- that's why they gave him the A. I'm sure he'll continue to be an important leader on the team for years to come, regardless of Z's C. Every Yzerman needs his Shanny and his Lidstrom.

I think that's the crux of it- the NHLPA wasn't going to let Crosby accept a low salary at the time he signed that contract. I fully agree that they'd put up a fuss if Crosby tried signing at something like 6.5 million- that's a pretty low ball value. Just look at Lidstrom- he accepted a near identical salary for his most recent contract as he was paid coming out of the lockout.

Feel free to donate Malone to the Wings. I think he'd be a perfect fit on the Wings. Not as perfect as Staal but there's probably about a one in a million chance the Wings could get Staal anyway.

Agreed. But it's the Onion- they sometimes cross the line because they're always walking such a fine one between funny and tasteless. I'll be honest- I find the Onion to be quite funny, but, like the rest of you, I cringed at that last part. Regardless- the rest of it was very funny. Someone wanna photoshop out the horrible cancer and humanitarian accident joke so we can leave the picture up?

That's my angle. Additionally, Wings fans are frustrated because Sammy has single handedly ruined all of the game worn Hasek and Osgood practice jerseys by irreparably wearing away the centre of the Red Wings logo. For further information ask about Kronwall, Lidstrom and Rafalski's practice shinpads.

I think the crux of this is that no one on the Detroit Red Wings will be dumb enough to underestimate or with-hold respect from the Penguins. The exact same thing goes for the Pens with respect to the Wings. Both teams are great teams. It's easy to dislike the Pens for all the attention they receive, especially if you're Canadian and get sick of the Crosby hype over here. That doesn't take aways from Crosby himself but it should help you Pens fans understand why some of us are sick of hearing about Sid. I've been a big Ovetchkin supporter since day one, so you'll have to forgive me for not giving Crosby all his due I did, however, idolize Mario along with Stevie Y, Fedorov and Howe when I was a kid. I recently found a picture of myself wearing a Pens jersey while playing hockey with my brother. Luckily all the other pictures feature me in Red Wings mechandise Regardless of how much I love the Wings I definitely always take Mario's side in the Gretzky-Mario debates so you can't call me a blind homer- I just don't have a man-crush on Sid.

Crosby with 3pts in 5 games? Well I damn well hope Lids or Kronwall would win the Con Smyth in that situation! Sammy more than doubling Crosby's point total? That's like 2 of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse showing up to the Joe! Seriously- I'll stop bitching about Sammy for a full year if that prediction comes true. MAKE IT HAPPEN SHINGUARD ASSASSIN!

Double post

Unless Franzen comes back in full form (please oh please come back to us Franzen and don't lose that scoring touch!) I'm pretty worried about our secondary scoring. One bright point is that Cleary is rounding back into form since being horribly injured for such a long time. Hopefully Filppula gets back to his goal-scoring self and Hudler plays as well as he did against Nashville and Dallas.

Well hell- I'll whine about the fact that the Penguins will be a difficult team to knock off! I wanted the Wings to play the Bruins... but noooooo- the Malkin show had to win the east. Seriously- the Pens recieved HUGE boosts by getting some luck from the Draft. BUT- they've managed their team very, very well in terms of making smart drafts, retaining the right players and staying on a specific course even through hard times. Obviously Crosby was a no-brainer of a draft but trading up for Flury looked like a terrible idea for the last few years- he didn't really earn his draft position until the playoffs this year. Many, many journalists and even Pens fans were lampooning Flurry for his poor play over the last few years. The Pens were seriously trying to replace him last summer, no? Well someone decided to stick with the kid and it's paid off well for them. Personally, I think Flurry would've been well served to stay in the minors until he was maturer (something I feel is necessary 99.9% of the time for a goalie), but he's come up big for the Pens at just the right time. Look at Staal- this year he had a horrible time putting up time. Did the Pens move him? No- they were smart enough to know he's a gem of a player (and would look really good in a Wings uniform ) and they stood by him. I am bitter that the Pens have lucked out with the draft in the past decade but the Islanders, Panthers and other bottem-feeders during that time seemed to have bad luck with, mismanage or poorly choose their picks. In the end, though, the Pens have managed to convert their lottery luck into a great team. Yes they got their picks by being a horrible, horrible team, but they certainly haven't squandered them like so many other teams have. Regardless, the fact that the Pens can ice an insanely large number of high picks doesn't detract from the fact that they've assembled them into a great team. The fact remains that picks don't manage and coach themselves. And a group of good players doesn't magically assemble into a eastern conference champion team. I may not be a Pens fan, but I do respect our opponent this round. The Wings are going to have to work hard to win the cup and I truly believe they'll kick some ass this year!

Let's try and keep them at least half respectful. I really don't get the whole homosexual allegations thing... you might as well call Crosby a communist. EDIT: Heh- I see that Matt got to those pictures already. Nice work Also: could we avoid repeatedly quoting pictures onto new pages? It's a waste of space and you can get your appreciation across by just directing your praise at the author of the post in question. Quoting them but deleting the picture from the quote makes everything run and load so much smoother- especially with large pictures.

Woh, woh, woh! I'm a huge cleary fan but he's just not up to his old self and putting him up for 1st line minutes isn't likely a prudent idea! Here's what I'd do: Filppula/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Hudler/Zetterberg/Samuelsson <--- these two lines are how they played split before Cleary/Draper/Drake/ Maltby/Helm/Abdelkader Lidstrom/Rafalski Kronwall/Stuart Lebda/Ericsson <-- this line be a horrible idea given the lack of experience between the two Or, I'd go real nuts and do this: Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Filppula/Hudler/Helm Cleary/Draper/Drake Maltby/Abdelkader/Samuelsson <-- who knows how centre would work out with gator there

Sorry guys and gals- but Chelios's PK acumen is too great to give up. If Babs did sit Chelios I'd strongly, strongly, strongly suggest giving Ericsson a shot. He's so, so talented and showed in the regular season that he's capable of playing really well. Just fantastically so. We were all impressed by Quincey's play last post season. Imagine how impressive it'd be to see someone with real talent and a 6'4 frame do that. We're talking about third pairing minutes, but you're all crazy if you don't think Ericsson would play the best hockey of his life. Plus it'd get that extra fire into Chelios. As far as realistic changes? I'd put Abdelkader in for D-Mac. Sorry D- you're just not doing it for me right now Completely throw the second line in the blender. Oh, and make the boys feel the gravity of the situation as much as possible. I'm sure they're well aware of it, but there's a reason why leadership and coaching is so important. Good luck boys... if we don't win this series I fear I'll slip into a dark, dark place. I've never been so emotionally invested in something I have such little control of.

My thoughts exactly.