chrisdetroit

You lost me on item #1 so I realized that this was not a well thought out post and stopped reading. Chicago won the Cup with Niemi in goal - hardly a great goaltender. He had a .910 save percentage in the playoffs the year they won the Cup Pittsburgh won with Fluery with an .891 save percentage the year they won. As of today, the 8 teams in the West that are below the #8 line are: Dallas Phoenix Minny Edmonton Calgary LA Colorado Columbus Of these 8 the only one that is a surprise is LA. I know it's just under 1/4 way through but the LGW naysayers are going to be proved wrong. The Wings WILL make the playoffs because there are at least 7 teams in the West that are worse than us.

Yea, because we don't want any guys that are under 6' like that Datsyuk guy or that Zetterberg guy....I just hope these guys in our farm system are Canadians.

LOL. The expectation on LGW are always low. We could have the best team in the league and the LGW posters would want to blow it up...

Why is it a "fluke" goal when we score but not when the other team scores. You need to be objective instead of just bashing the Wings. 1. They have a couple of injuries on defense - Ericsson, White, Colo, Smith all missed multiple games. So it would be irrational to make any conclusions about the D-men that we do have. 2. agreed 3. The Wings will make the playoffs because they are still better than at least 8 other teams in the west.

Yes they are, but they didn't get that much hype. Especially not Z. Not like that guy in Pittsburgh... There should be a "Whipping Boy" thread pinned and we can just change the name on it every so often.

They are both great players but they have different playing styles. Zetterburg shoots the puck at every opportunity. In fact he is often one of the league leaders in shots on goal. Dats is more of a play maker and passes alot he also has magic hands. They comlpiment each other which is why they are so good together.

That doesn't really work with hockey. In the NFL the teams only play once a week so travel is irrelevant. MLB is just the opposite. They can play 6 or 7 days a week so when the teams have to travel a long distance, they stay for 3 or 4 days at a time and play games each day. In hockey, they really can't play more than 2 days in a row and they can't take 6 days off between games so long distance travel is a big issue. That is why the conferences in hockey as well as the divisions are split geographically.

I was being sarcastic. The term "injury prone" implies that they are injured because of something other than bad luck like they are small, play recklessly, have areas of their bodies that they often have trouble with - like a bad back or a bad knee. Getting cut by a skate is none of these. It is just plain bad luck. Bad luck and being "injury prone" are 2 different things.

What a load of crap. People need to back up their posts with actual facts. 1. Franzen was our leading goal scorer last year. You don't buy out your leading goal scorer no matter how much the fans don't like his work ethic. 2. The Red Wings prospects are ranked middle of the pack or better by everybody that actually knows something about this. 3. The Wings are 2-2 after 4 games. The Rangers who are favored to win the Cup are 2-3 and in last place in their division. Last year's Cup winners are 1-2-1. You can't draw any conclusions this early. 4. The Wings played the Stars with 8 guys out because of injury and played the last game missing 3 of their 6 starting defensemen. Blow up the team at this point? Seriously?

Injury prone? Getting cut by a skate makes you injury prone? Coming down with Mono that turns out not to be mono? It's just bad luck in most cases. But I'm sure on LGW somebody will decide that White is injury prone... Exactly. If we had more big tough Canadians there would be none of this getting cut by a skate BS. And incidently Chara is a Euro and therefore a sissy. Bad example. You must have meant Pronger. Oh, wait...

20 comments 10 negative or sarcastic 9 neutral 1 positive yup. Welcome to LGW

Really? Franzen can't be the #1 goal scorer for a team. Uh... He was last year. Hossa is a great regular season player but a playoff no-show.

I'm not making excuses but you have to consider all of the facts. 1. St. Louis has essentially the same team as last year. We had several new guys so the short training camp effected them less. 2. St. Louis was at home 3. We were missing our fastest most energetic guy in Helm. 4. We were missing one of our biggest tough guys in Bertuzzi. 5. We had beaten the Blues the last 4 times that we played them (yes, that's true - look it up) so they were obviously out for revenge. As I said, that doesn't excuse their performance but you need to keep things in perspective. The Wings don't always disappear in "statement games". You only seem to remeber the ones in which they do. Just ask the Blues whom they beat 4 times in a row before last night. Tonight is a huge game. If they don't come out and play hard agains the BJ's then there is a real issue. If they do, then we can move on.

The pessimism is astounding. The shortened season is working against us? Why is it working against us more than everybody else? Because we are older? But you could argue that the short season benefits the older guys and that the younger guys have less time to gain experience. It's all a matter of how you look at it. Detroit has the oldest team in the league but NJ is second and they lost in the finals last year. Try to be objective people. Chicago did not improve, St. Louis did not improve, Nashville got worse, Columbus got worse. 7 teams in the west will not make the playoffs. IMO they are: Columbus Colorado Minny Edmonton Calgary Anaheim Dallas Phoenix That's actually (8). Which 2 of those teams is better than us? I can't think of any Norris trophy candidates on any of those teams. We no longer have the best D-man in the West but neither do any of these 8.

I agree about the Blues but I don't think you should judge anything from the first game about any of the teams because everybody will be rusty. The Blues don't have enough experience to go very far. They showed this in the playoffs last year.

Look at the other teams in the Central. I think our chances are good. Columbus will obviously be worse Chicago did nothing even though their goaltending was terrible last year. Nashville lost Radolov, Kostytsn and Suter St. Louis played over their heads last year and fell apart in the playoffs. I don't see them being as good In the Central: 1. Blues/WIngs 2. Wings/Blues 3. Preds/Hawks 4. Hawks/Preds 5. BJ's What were the odds of the Kings winning the Cup last year?

To many posters ignore the facts when they come up with these absurd posts. No we are not going to buy him out nor are we going to trade our top scoring winger. Ignorant is the word that comes to mind. Hockey Prospects has our youngsters as the 10th best in the league so they must know something

Ok. Franzen haters, I hate to burst your bubble but the Mule will NOT be bought out. When I guy is bought out, you still have to pay him like 2/3's of his salary. It would make no sense to buy out somebody that you could trade. No way in hell they buy out OR trade the mule.

Our weakest area is D and you want to trade our #1 D prospect ( plus Fil) for Yandle. Smith has the potential to be at least as good as Yandle. No thanks

It should be pretty simple (in my mind anyway). Many of the owners are circumventing the cap that they won in the last go round. Stop the circumvention by prohibiting the "averaging" of the yearly salaries. If a player signs a 4 year contract and is paid $10M, $5M, and $4M and $1M respectively, the cap hit should be $10M, $5M, $4M and $1M. With the current system the cap hit is $5m, $5M, $5M, $5M. Chances are he retires in the last year so the team has paid him $19M in 3 years but only used up $15M of cap space in 3 years. In the common sense scenario cap hit = actual salary. Secondly, bonuses have to count as part of the salary.

I'd bet that the league will allow them to move in a heartbeat. If they were a team that Gary had moved to the desert, the league would literally spend years trying to come up with some scenario - ANY scenario where they didn't move.

Finally, somebody that agrees with me. Franzen may float at times but he is good for 25+ goals a season. I think that he will have a big year and put up 40 this year. He is certainly capable.

There's that word. hahahah Chicago and St. Louis have basically the same team as last year. I doubt that St. Louis will be as good. IMO, they were playing over their head. Working your asses off to make up for mediocre talent will only get you so far. I expect them to be not as good. The Wings and Nashville both got slightly worse. I think now the division is wide open except for Columbus who IMO will not recover from losing Nash.

Did LA have a legitament chance at the Cup this year? Almost everybody that knows anything about hockey would say no. They had the lowest scoring team in the league and barely squeaked into the playoffs as a #8 seed. All of this doom and gloom stuff is stupid. There are 7 teams in the west that will not make the playoffs. Most likely they are: Aneheim Dallas Columbus Clagary Edmonton Minnesota Colorado Phoenix (maybe) Nashville (maybe) For us to NOT make the playoffs, we have to be worse than 2 of these teams. I just don't see it