Anomalously

Yeah, exactly two minutes before you did! http://www.letsgowings.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=50737

And Fil practiced, too. Maybe he's feeling better (he has been playing but not practicing).

It's always disappointing if your last game is a loss. (Or a regular season game, period.) That said, I still appreciate the team and the games, each year.

The powerplay. Plain and simple. We go to the box like we did against Dallas in Game 6, and the Penguins will put it in the net more than once. The Penguins speed will ensure that they get some chances, boneheaded plays by defensemen will give them too many. The Wings have to be disciplined. Five-on-five I think it's advantage Wings. I don't think goaltending, defense, (combining the two and adding that we have like three-and-a-half checking lines) team defense, special teams, or physicality are problems for the Wings. At all. Osgood is steady, our top four are great, our powerplay and penalty kill, not a problem [as long as we have as many chances as the Pens]. We just have to make sure we can score goals with our teeth, off of rebounds, and off of a stick that isn't Z or Datsyuk's.

Yeah, probably a little Penguins bias. If we're doing pure offensive stats, Ovechkin was the man this season. If he would have had a repeat barring his injury, why was Ovy's PPG and GPG stats higher? Putting 65 in the net means he's best offensively, at least for now. You act as if sharing ice with a talented hockey player is a bad thing. It's not. Look at the Penguins the last time they went to the ECF: Lemieux, Jagr, Kovalev, Straka, and Lang... they were offensively phenomenal, all of them, Lemieux was on fire, Jagr led the league, and KSL were all top 10. The problem with Malkin is that he's young and cocky. He'll get riled very easily, he gets frustrated... he's a lock for runner-up for the Hart, but he is overrated. Consider his FO% this season -- under 40% and almost 1,000 draws taken. It's always a subjective stat, but his giveaways to takeaways ratio isn't superb, and I'll tell you why: he'll try his Russian dangle the whole way through the neutral zone, and he gets beat. Not always, and I love that he's creative, it's great to watch, but guys take the body in the neutral zone and Evgeni can cough up the puck at inopportune times because he tries to get too fancy when he shouldn't. Datsyuk has 76 more takeaways than giveaways. Malkin is -7 in that regard. Datsyuk 54.4% of 833 faceoffs. 39.3% of 890 for Malkin. Datsyuk +41. Malkin +16. Malkin is a high-class talent but still rough around the edges. Datsyuk wasn't even in the league at a comparable age to Malkin. I think it's an offensive battle between Ovechkin, Malkin, and Crosby, and it will remain one for a decade. In that regard, pick these three out of a hat, you've got 1-2-3. Zetterberg and Datsyuk comprise a checking line that put up a combined 21 goals, 40 points in 16 games this postseason. +15 and +12 in 16. Different players, same ballpark. Lidstrom is the epitome of consistency. Iginla is Ovechkin without the flash. THE most consistent power forward in the NHL. Anyway, I'm not going to make a list. I agree with the players you put on your list, but I get the feeling you discount the Wings' superstars as less worthy by a glimpse of statistics, where goals, assists, and points are the only statistics necessary to come to conclusion about a man's game.

Loved how he and Ron were lost in Pittsburgh. Cherry was very opinionated, but naturally, didn't care to hear anybody else's opinion. He should have pushed the instigator rule a bit more, would have made better radio.

This thread wasn't too old, so I figured I'd revive it for this: http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2008/05/fischskates.jpg He apparently took the ice after the rest of the guys ended their skate, this was just yesterday.

No prediction. Tickets to Game 6.

OK, wow. It's like the intermission never happened.

Man, if this goes a few OTs, with the rest of the series over, Dallas could be playing two games tonight and another as soon as Tuesday. Tired, anyone?

As a follow-up to the talk about Sweden, consider this: Zetterberg, Lidstrom, Holmstrom, Franzen, Lilja, Ericsson, etc. could be playing on that team. It ought to be a Swedish tradition for casual hockey fans from Sweden to watch the WCF this year. (Taking nothing away from Ekman, Backstrom, Jonsson, Nilsson, ... but the Wings are probably deeper with Swedish talent than this team.) (Didn't put Olympic gold medalists Kronwall and Sammy, whoops.)

My ballot would be Franzen (9G, 1A), Zetterberg (5G, 4A), Datsyuk (2G, 6A). One, two, three. There's no way you can't give the three stars to the offensive players this series, I thought they played excellent. Beyond them, how can you not give honorable mention to Chris Osgood (4-0, 2.26, .914) and Nicklas Lidstrom (4A, +4). Osgood didn't have to be incredible this series, but stood up tall late with small leads. Lidstrom was out there in every key situation, and I see him trying to compensate a lot for his partner's miscues (I specifically remember two instances, one with Lilja as his partner, another with Rafalski). He has a lot on his shoulders, and he always performs well. An interesting note about effective offense: Samuelsson, after being held to one assist in six against Nashville, went 2G, 4A in four, which is promising. Hopefully it isn't just touching the puck before Franzen puts it away. I hope that whole line is and stays hot.

You damn-near jinxed it. But you didn't.

He's got 5 teams pursuing you. Or however many. He toured Dallas's facility, watched them lose. He met some of the guys from Detroit while they're on the road, watch them beat Colorado 8-2. He may go to Montreal, may meet with Burke, may see Toronto. Montreal is the only stop left at this point though... You have got to think that it would be hard for Fabian not to root for the team with his fellow countrymen playing so well in a 8-2 rout of a team that's pursuing him. Hard to imagine Brunnstrom not being highly impressed. This is his first time in North America, I think he's doing less thinking and the benefit of this trip is going to be an emotional pull towards a particular team. An 8-2 victory with so many goals from Sammy, Franzen, and Z, I think, is persuasive.

Not to mention Patrick Roy's last game... Could this be Joe Sakic's? This could easily be the last game Forsberg's involved with an NHL organization.

How can you possibly stop a team that scores goals like that? Incredible.

NFM: I'm with you on both fronts, they were mere observations.

Can't speak for toby, but for a big man, people would like him to use his body more and more effectively when he does. Anyway, it would give Maltby a spot on the roster. Maltby does play well in the playoffs. Also, to puckbags: we lost Game 4. And we had another roster change: Lilja came in for Stuart.

Tie game in NY. Wow.

The votes are already in. It's a regular season award.

Incredibly well put. You shoved balance right back into this thread. Iginla is a fine finalist. I think Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and Lidstrom would have been good candidates too. Any of the top 3 on Ottawa played well enough that if they didn't collapse they could be finalists. A few more GP and Crosby probably would have been a choice as well (he had the second-best PPG among players with more than 15 games). But it really was Ovechkin's season. And then everybody else. I think it's 1-2 and then a five-way race for third, and that's good for the NHL, we need a number of superstars.

He's still in the Wings' system, working on player development now.

Details?

My rendition of Peter Forsberg:

Should I take this as proof that you can't read the forum's rules? There's already a thread on Pierre McGuire.