Drake_Marcus

Ericsson used his stick to deflect Lidstrom's shot into the net... if you define that as a Lidstrom goal Holmstrom would have a total of 4 goals this year and Lidstrom would have two dozen.

Jonathan Ericsson: 1 SH goal (game winner) 1 assist +4 Multiple excellent defensive plays too. Hey doubters-- eat s***. What have I said all along? When he's confident in himself he's a very good young defenseman. When he's down on himself he sucks. Fine-- I can describe Filppula or most other Wings as s*** when they're not confident. But what happens when Big Rig is confident? He rocks the s*** out of the frigging rink.

Jonathan Ericsson: 1 SH goal (game winner) 1 assist +4 Multiple excellent defensive plays too. Hey doubters-- eat s***. What have I said all along? When he's confident in himself he's a very good young defenseman. When he's down on himself he sucks. Fine-- I can describe Filppula or most other Wings as s*** when they're not confident. But what happens when Big Rig is confident? He rocks the s*** out of the frigging rink. Edit: spelling

That's why there's a difference between posting some random stats and understanding them. The onus is on you to understand how the stats apply and treat them accordingly. The fact that some people misuse stats does not mean they're any less useful to people with a rudimentary background in math (which is not the same thing as having "an obsession with numbers").

I agree.

Friday: Ottawa @ Buffalo Minnesota @ Detroit x2 Anaheim @ Edmonton (the battle of the losers... Anaheim only has 11 wins on the road!) Saturday: Calgary @ Boston Philadelphia @ Pittsburgh (they've manhandled Philly head-to-head this year) Tampa Bay @ Buffalo (this is a gamble...) NY Rangers @ Toronto New Jersey @ Montreal Florida @ Ottawa Atlanta @ Carolina NY Islanders @ Columbus Detroit @ Nashville Colorado @ Phoenix Vancouver @ San Jose (another tough one to call but I have to gamble to win...) Dallas @ Los Angeles Sunday: Calgary @ Washington Toronto @ Pittsburgh (I have a bad feeling about this...) Edmonton @ St Louis New Jersey @ Philadelphia

Because demotion to the minors is a very, very, very uncommon thing for an organization to do. That's especially true in this situation where it's clear that the demotion would be to make up for piss poor management decisions in signing a UFA to a bloated contract right before a bunch of high profile RFAs had to be signed. Is Huet terrible? Yeah. Is he a different goalie than the guy they signed? No.

Ozzy already had 3 cup rings at that point. Huet's resume is much less impressive.

8-2 Blue Jackets. Awesome!

Really strong game for Ericsson tonight. He did everything Babs wants him to do and even helped set a goal up. Any night when he's a plus, was on the ice for zero goals against AND had zero give-aways is a great night for a rookie d-man.

Barnaby sounded retarded when he said that and even he knew it. That's not even the best move I've seen Crosby make.

Yeah? Well I learned to skate at age 12 and never got past house level hockey. Beat that!

Rafalski and the Wings were very lucky on that hit. It looked like it could've been much worse.

Based on the number of games played Raskk is ineligible so that's not a big factor. He's been able to cherry pick his opponents to a degree while Howard has not. Although I don't want to take anything away from Raskk because he's had a great season and definitely deserves credit. In all honesty, if the Wings make the post season Howard will be standing at around 35 wins. If he can put that many wins up with his current save percentage and goals against or even improve on those stats I think he has a very strong argument for the Calder. If he does win it I don't think that's a good thing for the Wings unless they plan on trading him (which I strongly doubt they would). Having a Calder will only inflate Howard's salary next summer when it's time for him to re-sign.

Interesting note-- he has the same look on his face when the Wings are the ones up 5-1.

Fair enough, but one has to consider that he's only going to be on the ice for about 72 games a year. Datsyuk's physical durability is definitely an asset in this respect.

Looks good to me. Clearly is most successful in a 3rd line role anyway. He can afford to be inconsistent offensively as a checking line guy.

Not what I'd call a well reasoned, calm response...

I definitely don't want to jinx it. Look what happened when I talked him up all summer. He's been great along the boards too. He's good for jumping in a stalemate along the boards and dislodging the puck with sheer force.

Yes, but the owners love him. And he runs the league... so really it's just the fans, players and some of the management who dislikes him.

Vancouver is dangerous but Luongo has yet to prove he's a winner in the playoffs.

Ugly little trolls the world over will morn his death:

That should be dangerous.

Stats is the easiest response-- no one else is even close to his point total. He's the only guy who cracked 60pts in the country. All the articles I've read on the subject have Gustav as the clear favourite based on his superior offensive numbers and lack of defensive deficiencies. Who else can touch him? The next closest guy has 8 fewer points in 5 fewer games but his goal total isn't much different (20g vs 19g) and his point per game number is smaller (1.51 vs 1.56). After that the field drops off significantly with a 1.37ppg player that did manage to score 8 more goals than Nyquist but can't even touch his total points. See for yourself: http://www.uscho.com/stats/ Here's what Puck Daddy thinks: http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/NCAA-Hockey-101-Who-wants-the-Hobey-Baker-now-?urn=nhl,226213 Note that since he wrote that article Nyquist boosted his goal total to 19 which pretty much kills the last argument one could make against him...

Confidence is Val's kryptonite. He's a completely different player when he's confident. Zetterberg is the same way. If Val could only even out his game life would be much easier.