chrisdetroit

When the hell is the NHL going to wake up? All goals should be reviewed and if it is deemed that the goaltender was interfered with it should be no goal. REGARDLESS of the call on the ice. The same should happen if a goal is waved off and the replay shows that it is a good goal. Whistle, no whistle, intent to blow the whistle, whatever. It should be reviewed and the right call should be made. Why is this so difficult to implement?

The Wings have also shown us repeatedly that when the big games come, they can turn on the switch. This happens every March. As far as right now, we are resting guys and the guys that played tonight looked good. We lost 2-1 to a very good Vancouver team even when resting Dats, Franzen and Bert and Howard looked very good. Patience grasshopper

Actually the Pens are right around .500 since losing Malkin and Crosby. The Vancouver big three of the Sedins and Kessler has played all 74 games. So yea, they had alot of injuries on the blue line but not to their top forwards. How many games has Datsyuk missed? Franzen?

The why don't you go watch the basketball game because your post added nothing of value. So if they do you are pleasantly surprised and can jump on the bandwagon and if they don't you can tell everybody "I told you so". Looks like you have all your bases covered.

Cooke will not be playing. He will get SOME length of a suspension, the only question is how long. No. No xxx sucks. That is something that Nashville or Hawks fans do.

But isn't your D banged up this year? And isn't Mahoultra gone?

I don't want to see alot of travel or a hot goaltender so here are the possibilities Nashville Chicago Minnesota Calgary Dallas Phoenix LA Anaheim I don't think that Minny will make it. Nashville has a very good goalie and Phoenix, LA and Anaheim are too much travel so I'll take Chicago, Calgary or Dallas. Chicago doesn't scare me since they have about the same team that they had in '08 when we crushed them plus the guy that doesn't show up in the playoffs. Unless San Jose collapses in the last 11 games, we can't play them in the first round because they will most likely be ranked #3.

You must be new to Red Wings Playoff Hockey. They flip that switch every year. In fact you can see it on all of the big games. Remember the Boston games or the Montreal game. How soon people forget. Defensive pessimism... Fixed it for you

In my book, a rivalry involves each of the two teams beating the other in the playoffs at least once in the last several years. Our current rivals Pittsburgh San Jose Anaheim Past Rivals Colorado Calgary Wanna be rivals (but they haven't beaten us in the playoffs recently or ever) Chicago Nashville Columbus Dallas

Sigh. I guess I don't know what the hate for Rafalski is based upon. He is currently tied for #13 in +/- for D-men and he plays on a team that is #18 in the league in GAA. People tend to fixate on turnovers and ignore the good plays. No frickin way. Mule is a beast in the playoff and Hossa disappears. EVERY YEAR.

There are some rules changes that would help - no touch icing -get rid of the trapezoid Both of these are easy to do, other leagues have done them and I am hoping are part of #5

1. Ok but what about the other teams in poor hockey markets - Nashville, Atlanta, Phoneix, Columbus? 2. Very few people care about the division names. The issue is that the historical rivals were broken up to allow for teams in silly places like Nashville. 3. I agree about the lockout. it wasn't all Bettman 4. I agree about Versus So 2 of those 4 points are legit. Was this written by a lawyer?

Huh? Shot-outs not used for tie breakers is a very minor change. Things that IMO need to be under discussion: No touch icing get rid of the trapezoid 3 points for all games if you can't get rid of the shootout The stupid puck over the glass rule - change it back to what is was before the lockout padding on the dasherboards padding on the edge of the glass (i.e. the Chara hit) every team plays every team at least twice get rid of the teams that are losing money every year no back-to-back in the playoffs Instant Replay on all goals and the ability to overturn calls that are missed i.e. the intent to blow the whistle Eliminate the instigator rule Just a few things that should be changed. Currently NONE of them are being considered. That silly tie thing that you mentioned is the only thing that has been done since the lockout

I was really surprised at the difference between this game and Fridays. The Oilers were still going all out, the Blues looked like they were just going through the motions. Kudos to the Oilers coach for getting his guys to put in the effort. You could see this when the Wings had the power play and the Blues guys were just watching them compared to the Oilers who were constantly pressuring the Wings. Both teams are out of the playoffs and missing key guys to injuries. I gotta believe that the Blues will have a new coach next year. Z is currently 4th in the league in assists and 9th in points on a team that spreads the scoring out among the guys better than most any other team. If that's a decline, I will take it any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

You have got to be fricking kidding me.. Assassination would be ok. Exactly

You are fixating too much on a few games. Fact is that the Wings are the highest scoring team in the league. This seems to be a common problem on LGW. People seem to think that the season is only a week long. Every team has their ups and downs. I am perfectly happy with a season average of 3.21 Goals/Game even if that means that some games they will only score 1 goal. So the highest scoring team in the league only gets 1 in regulation last night and now the skaters suck AND our goalie sucks.

Great post. LGW has seemed to have decayed into a ***** and moan fest. I don't come on here to read irrational posts about how so and so sucks and the Wings are not going to make it past the first round. How 'bout some intelligent posts about hockey. Fact is, Howard let in one bad goal last night then shut the door. The Oilers goalie played a great game and their skaters played great defense. Howard has not had a great year but that is no excuse for people to not recognize when he does play great. Sure the Wings got a lucky goal at the end but that's the way the puck bounces. Sometimes you get the breaks and sometimes you don't. Does anybody remember last game 3 days ago when the Wings lost because the Refs missed an obvious high-sticking call? Intelligent posts about the game - not so and so sucks, that's what I want to see...

What a load of crap. After reading this one would think that we were headed for an 0-82 season. Guess what ALL team have nights when they don't play well or play well and still lose. And NO, we don't have more than other teams. In fact, that's the point. We have the 3rd best point percentage in the entire league which means that we have fewer nights like this than 27 other teams. "This teams is outworked EVERY game." That really takes the cake. And you are wrong. We could win one game a week and still get in. That's about 6 games which is 12 points and that would give us 98 points which is easily enough to get in. Next time, try to compose a rational post

I agree with you. We will win the Cup this year, Nick will get another Norris trophy for his mantle and maybe even another Conn Smyth and then he will retire. Nick is a guy that will go out on top. If we don't win it, he will be back.

That's just stupid. The team will finish no worse than in the top 5 in the regular season, How often does a top 5 team in any league enter "rebuilding" mode. And this is because of our performance in 1 game. This guy actually got paid to write this?

The problem that I have with the entire thing is that there is no padding on the stanchion. Clearly Chara wasn't trying to run him into the stanchion but it happened. I think that it was just dumb luck the stanchion was at that spot when Chara pushed him into the boards. The NHL says that they are concerned about injuries but they don't make the rinks any safer. Why the hell isn't there padding on the dasher boards so that we never see another Draper injury? And why the hell don't we use no touch icing? And why aren't visors mandatory or skate fenders?

Huh? We were up 7-1 on them the last game before letting them have a couple at the end.

Ok, so which "weapons" do they no longer have that they had in 2008? Howard obviously replaces Ozzie but who else? No Drake, Lebda, Lilja or Maltby. I think that we are better personnel wise than we were in '08 and if Howie plays well, we win the Cup.

They blew a 3 goal lead to a desperate team. s*** happens. The Wings record is still near the top of the conference. This happens every March. The desperate teams go all out and the Wings - not so much. As long as Chicago doesn't catch us, it really doesn't matter. When the playoffs come, we will be ready. Chill out people. Haven't you seen this movie before?

It depends on how your define "best teams". Certainly San Jose is a good team now but they sucked the first half of the season. By the same token Dallas was a good team but they suck now. Every team has ups and downs. The Wings are 6-3-1 in their last 10 games which equates to a 0.650 point percentage. If they managed a .650 point percentage over an entire season, they would finish with 106 points yet people on here are complaining. The Wings have the talent and the depth to beat any team in the league.