Echolalia

Montel Jordan; This is how we do it

I'm ready to let the next gen take over. The Wings' defense has a lot of potential, and they've been groomed for this year for a while. Lets see what they can do behind the wheel.

I like the changes, but I'm generally a fan of minimalistic designs too, so when noise is removed I typically tend to favor it. Also I'm a sucker for laces (real ones).

I think that George RR Martin tells a much better fantasy than JRR Tolkien.

I'm excited to see how our roster does as is. We have a lot of young blood this time around in Dekeyser, Nyqvist, Tatar, Anderson, and Smith, and I have high expectations for each of these guys in one way or another. It'll be fun to see them play, alongside the fact that Helm may very well be available, and the Wings will be in a whole new conference, against relatively unfamiliar opponents. The Wings don't have the raw skill that they have possessed in the recent past (as far as we know), but I think the infusion of young blood and new bodies will push the team's hunger and drive over the top, and with the players we have, I think that level of hunger is as dangerous as any skill player could be.

In terms of the injury, I guess I was thinking more in terms of goalies dropping into a closed butterfly tighter than they're used to, as well as pushing off from a tighter angle to block rebounds. Not so much the act of closing the legs on their own. Either way, only time will tell. The article mentioned that the vote was cast June 27th of this year, and new equipment has begun shipping out to goalies in August. Four goalies got a chance to use the equipment for the first time last Tuesday, at the Reebok-CCM goalie Summit (presumably the 20th, based on when the article was written).

I wonder if we will see more groin injuries as goalies adapt to a larger 5-hole. I do think its ridiculous that these changes are coming with such short notice. Goalies take a while breaking into pads, and getting the stiffness out of new equipment. They aren't getting a whole lot of time to adjust to these equipment changes.

I used to have a fantasy team which I named "Rouse's House"

SPOILERS I'm loving every second of this ride. I wasn't expecting the throwdown between Hank and Walk to occur so quickly, but here we are. I'm thinking that Jesse is going to team up with Hank as a redemption of sorts, and they're going to take down Walt together. Anyway, I'm with others in saying that this is one of the best shows (along with Game of Thrones) that I have ever seen. I get so frustrated when I meet people who haven't watched it and they're like "eh, maybe I'll watch it some day, but I'm watching X right now and don't want to start anything". AHHHH you don't know what you are missing!

I hope so bad to see Helm between Nyqvist and Tatar this year.

The Rags have been trapped in a hockey purgatory for the past decade or so. They consistently do well enough to not warrant a rebuild, and have low picks in the draft, but not quite enough talent/heart/whatever to get to the top.

This one is especially tough to swallow. He was good friends with my coach back in high school, and would show up to practice every now and again and lace em up. I was lucky to be on a line with a kid who never came to practice, so coach would put Shawn Burr on my line, and we would practice three-on-twos, and power plays and whatever else we needed to work on together. It was so awesome to have Shawn Burr feeding me one-timers, and vice-versa. He was such a cheerful guy, always complimenting our game and giving us tips whenever we needed it.

Anytime that there is even a debate whether someone's number should be retired I feel like they shouldn't be up.

I didn't see that one coming

I could see many folks buying a jar for their man cave. How much are they going for?

Four years is a long time in hockey. Miller has been less than stellar since the last Olympics. I don't know if he will pick his game up to Olympic caliber this time around. A side note: Puck Daddy wrote up his prediction for the US roster and has Howard as number 1, with Quick backing him up. I think the general media is beginning to recognize Howard as an elite goalie, which is interesting because I don't know if LGW is even there yet.

Dekeyser getting an invite is quite a statement. I am incredibly excited to see how this kid pans out.

I just went back and watched that highlight. I miss hockey so much right now.

Kronwall is absolutely a legit number 1 defenseman. I think LGW has a bit of a high bar when defining what a number one defensmen is, considering half this board has only ever experienced Lidstrom up until now.

Awesome! I really feel this past year wasn't indicative of the type of player he is. I'm expecting Smith to regain some of that confidence and swagger that he had in his first dozen games with the Wings. It's tough to find a balance between aggressive playmaking and being defensively responsible, but once it comes together for him and he gets a few more years under his belt, I think he'll become one of the more valuable defenseman throughout the league

My understanding is that the Wings are able to buy out his contract, but they cannot use one of their two compliance buyouts because of a time restriction and Sammy is presently claiming injured. With a regular buyout, Sammy is off the team, but his salary will still count against the cap. Of course I'm no expert, and there are a handful of members here who can either expand on my response, or correct any information if I'm wrong, which is certainly possible.

This was my thought as well. I think there is something else going on that the public is not aware of.

Trading Ericsson would put a massive hole into our lineup and undo years of scouting and developmental work, and we would be getting in return a player with no guarantee that he would even crack the lineup, let alone benefit the Wings. At this point the scouting and development which made Ericsson into the player he is today would have to start over on whomever we drafted with the pick.

If you're donating your time and money for the betterment of those in need, I feel you should be immune to any criticisms of where those resources are allocated.

This may very well be entirely in my imagination, but when Crosby signed his contract, wasn't there a bit of outlash from some of the NHLPA because he signed for less than a lot of people expected and valued him at? I think the issue was that other star players couldn't justify a massive payday because the league's best player is only worth X, so logically they should be proportionally less than X. I might have made that all up though. Anyway, 5+ million dollars is a very very large discount. Most of us won't make that throughout our whole careers. And even with the discount, there's no guarantee that it will result in a Cup. We would have to be talking about an extremely generous (and IMO foolish) individual to pass up that kind of money for a better (but still not guaranteed) chance at the Cup.