Drake_Marcus

Yeah- holmer with the assist! And another goal for Franzen... damn he's rocking their face off.

Sopel with the goal. Flukey but hey- shots from the point often bounce funny Kopecky's looking nice out there tonight.

At this point in their development? yeah, you're right. BUT the minutes Sopel would be using are better invested in our future, no? I mean it's not like I'm suggesting we dump an existing player. I just think he's not really adding anything so significant the time isn't better used to develop the kids.

I dunno- he's been coughing up the puck all over the place. Failed to keep the puck in during the pp a few times too. From what I've seen of him I'd rather let one of the kids play.

Sopel sticking up for his linemates. Wish the rest of our team would remember that. Update: Grigs pickes up the helper as he should: http://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/20072008/GS010014.HTM

Haha Ryno's chasing them around like some kind of forechecking mandog!

He's gotta be if you compare him to Chelios. That man does NOT look 45 out there tonight!

Ahhh guys, I hate to say this but it apears that someone shrunk the jerseys... It's like an episode of Sienfeld.

So Grigs would get the helper for that, right?

Great save Lebda!

Second Training Camp Scrimmage Here's the full text: Team C won for the second time at training camp, beating Team A, Saturday, 6-5 in a shootout. Chris Chelios ended the shootout as the 16th shooter (the previous 15 managed just two goals) when he skated in between the faceoff circles, slowed and sent a slap shot that got past the glove of Adam Berkhoel. The netminder had just made a fantastic glove save on a Dallas Drake deke and backhand on the previous shooter. Standouts in the game include Dominik Hasek and Jimmy Howard. Hasek played a scoreless first half (two 30-minute running-time halves) and Howard who surrendered just one goal to the line of Tomas Holmstrom, Pavel Datsyuk and Johan Franzen. Holmstrom finished with two goals and one assist. Tomas Kopecky also had two goals an one assist and Cory Emmerton had one goal and one assist. Other notes from the game that ended at 12:45 p.m. ... -- It was hard to notice Igor Grigorenko, who skated with Mark Hartigan and Aaron Downey. Grigorenko even missed the net on his shootout, going with a deke, but tapping the puck wide. -- Defenseman Brent Sopel was paired with Nicklas Lidstrom and looked very good. In the second half, Sopel jumped up in the offensive zone with confidence, getting back in timely fashion. -- Aaron Downey was involved in two shoving matches ... one with Brad Ference and one with Tomas Kopecky. -- Evan McGrath played a very strong game. The center stole a clearing pass from Ference late in regulation time and sent a nice pass across to Johan Ryno, who scored to put Team A ahead, 5-4, with 1:11 on the clock. Drake scored with 33.8 seconds left to send the game into overtime. McGrath set up Holmstrom on a two-on-one one-timer in overtime, but goalie Olivier Pelletier made the save. -- Pavel Datsyuk looked brilliant. Posted by Bruce MacLeod at 11:49 AM Things that make Marcus sad: -Grigs was invisible Things that make Marcus happy: - "Standouts in the game include Dominik Hasek and Jimmy Howard." If the Wings need anything it's for their #1 prospect to look great at training camp when he's playing vs. NHLers -Sopel's playing well with Lids. That could split-up the incredibly wasteful pairing that is Lids-Rafalski. Lids can win a Norris paired with an offensive defenseman, so let's keep our other defensive beast anchoring the second line! -Drake continues to be awesome. Even if that doesn't carry through the season it'll make the rest of the sub-top-six forwards fight even harder for a roster spot. I defy anyone to explain how that isn't a good thing. -"Pavel Datsyuk looked brilliant." I know you can say that every game, but damn it still sounds good EDIT: Changed the text from italics to bold because it was hard to read.

No. But I'd bet you'd love to. Sicko.

True up until you questioned Giggy's skill. That just makes you sounds like a homer. JSG single handedly stole games from the wings in the WCF this year.

And what the hell about Dats and Z's point production? Dats is more likely to have a breakout year based on his play from the all-star break onwards then he is to have a slight decline in production. I wouldn't be surprised to see Z hit 45 goals this year since he had 39 the year before last and 33 in a short time span last year.

I'm really excited that Howard stole the goaltending show! The number one prospect continues to shine

No way Filp gets more goals than Huddles. Filp is a playmaking centre, Huds is a pure goal scorer. Filp is playing on the third line. Huds on the second. Oh, and Huds has more goal scoring potential by far.

At this point I'd like to formally distance myself from the overreaction-filled, melodramatic turn this thread has taken.

No. As NN said- his playing weight did not jump 15 lbs that quickly. And, once again as NN said- the RSL is much slower and plays far differently from the NHL. International ice size makes a HUGE difference. Finally- who said that he's extra weight is fat? Maybe he increased his muscle mass and actually cut some fat. I managed to put about 10-12 lbs of muscle on in 4 months while also dropping 2% body fat. I'm 6'1, 200 lbs, 12% body fat. And I put 10lbs of that on (as muscle) between May 1st and August 28th. All of that was done without the use of 'rods, HGH or any of that other horses***. Just hard work, dedication, lots of sleep and a very strict control of what and when I ate. What's the point of that little spiel? I'm trying to say that a professional hockey player could throw on 15 lbs in a summer of hard training. In fact, that's exactly what Zetterberg did last summer. Guess what though- muscle strength and size is very, very different from muscle and cardiovascular endurance. Dump a body-builder on a farm and he's not going to outperform a farm hand by any measure after 15 minutes. So yeah, Igor might have actually put on some muscle but neglected proper NHL conditioning (as that actually burns off muscle since you'd be all catabolic). He might have actually thought he was getting ready for camp in doing so- remember when NHLers benefited from strength and size over speed? I wouldn't jump the gun and start chewing him out before Babs does.

Again, thanks to Bruce MacLeod over at Red Wings Corner. Read the text below the list before you panic! Highlights for those following prospect development: Four junior players were held back for further evaluation: Logan Pyett is being given more time to impress the brass before returning to play on his junior team. Jan Mursak might gets some valuable preseason minutes. Cory Emmerton is still being evaluated by the brass after an impressive camp and prospect tournament performance. Scott Jackson, a 6' 4" 198lb physical D-man who plays a gritty game, was drafted 37th overall in 2005 by St. Louis. The Blues didn't sign him this year, so he's shown up for the Wings camp and apparently is getting another look over.

Thanks to the quirky Bruce MacLeod over at Red Wings Corner. OMG! Zetterberg isn't in the top 12 scorers! I heard he came to camp all pudgy On the serious side it looks like the guys with something to prove are all putting up the most points: -Drake wants to play some real minutes -Franzen to justify his spot up with Dats -Chelios is still itching for some PP time (I believe he said he'd play for free just to play on the PP again) -Meech wants that coveted 7th spot -Lidstrom doesn't want to be cut in favour of Kindl

Love you Rabs!

I'm glad someone enjoyed that

I already posted this earlier today: Thread on training camp cuts

Well I'd bet a ******** that Modano will retire a Star. He's got zero reason to move and is as loyal to the Stars organization as Yzerman is to the Wings. Although the loss of his C looked to have caused a rift between Modano and the management, there haven't been rumblings of discontent since that situation calmed (as far as I know). As for Turco- he's a great goalie when he plays against anyone other than Detroit, so putting him in Detroit would only make him better. He's 32, so not too old for a goalie, but I don't really see Dallas looking to dump Turco after his performance against Vancouver (where he out duelled Luongo a couple of times).

People don't talk about Lebda very much because there's not a lot to ***** about him but there's also not a whole lot to praise either. Cleary and Draper get lots of praise, however. I've got no problems with Lebda- he's a perfectly serviceable 3rd pairing D-man. It's when people say he's got more potential than Kronwall that I have to laugh. Kronwall has a whole ton of potential if he can do three key things: -Stay healthy -Continue to advance his game -Work hard every night Much of the annoyance (aside from his injuries) comes from the perception that Kroner doesn't use his full skill set every night and has a tendency to be pretty inconsistent (something that's no tolerable at the NHL level). Those two traits aren't totally unexpected in a player who's only played 115 NHL games so I can see why the management still has confidence in his ability to further mature. And for the record, unlike Lebda, the rest of the NHL has their eyes on Kronwall, as he's sometimes mentioned in different issues of the Hockey News as someone who's ready to break out. From the September 18th, 2007 issue of the Hockey News: "It's Time Wings D-man Niklas Kronwall is ready for training camp after missing the last four games of the regular season and all of the playoffs with a fractured sacrum. Injuries have limited Kronwall to 115 games over three seasons." --"Quick Hits", pg. 43 Seems innocuous, but it's pretty much the only stand-out chunk of Wings info in that issue (aside from the standard "camp reports" for all 30 teams type of thing). In that same issue they have a team report for the Wings in which they say: "3. Are they too old? They actually have a good nucleus of under-30 talent (Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Niklas Kronwall). This is a well-conditioned skating team that gets stronger in the third period and doesn't wear down." --pg. 45 The point is that Kronwall is seen as an important young talent for the Wings inside and outside of Hockeytown.