Echolalia

Seeing Helm on three of eight lines and Franzen on a line with Maltby and Draper is what did it for me. I didn't even see that Meech made it to the penalty kill.

Hahaha I don't even know how to respond to this. Not only did you totally ignore everything that I said about Helm not being capable of playing on the top line, but now you say that you would have Helm playing every 3 shifts out of 8, with 6 different players. Gotta love Franzen playing with Draper and Maltby too. I was really going to try to take your argument seriously, because I was expecting a well thought out response that at least makes Helm seem slightly appealing on the top line, but you really left me hanging here. At least I got a laugh out of it.

What in Helm's history makes you think he is capable in the least of top line minutes, let alone playing alongside top line skill? He hasn't proven himself as a capable player beyond a grinder role in the NHL. In 23 regular season games, Helm has a grand total of 1 assist (no goals). What about the playoffs you ask? In 41 games he has a total of nine points. Forget the NHL, he hasn't even had a 20 goal season in the AHL (or a 40 point season, for that matter). Last year in the AHL Helm had 37 points. Interestingly enough Tomas Holmstrom (who played a great deal of the season injured last year as we all already know, and two games less than Helm in the AHL) also scored 37 points, except at the NHL level. I can understand your hatred for Homer in the first line to a degree, but to say that Helm is the ideal replacement is absolutely ridiculous. Also, if you don't want Homer on the top line, then where the hell do you put him? His only real asset is the fact that he can plant himself in front of a goalie, take crosschecks, and still tip in shots/rebounds for goals, which also incidentally generates room for more skilled players, by the way. The first and second lines are synonymous in terms of skill, so I'm assuming you don't want him in the top six, and the third and fourth lines aren't skilled enough to take full advantage of Homer's strengths, or cover up for his deficits. He would essentially rot away a roster spot and cap space on the third and fourth lines and make our bottom six a liability. So assign him to Grand Rapids? And fill in that extra line with who? Maltby? Eaves? Abdelkader? They're even worse than Helm in terms of production.

Could you imagine a Malkin Datsyuk Ovechkin line. Jesus. Jesus.

The game was very similar to our season: we lead through pretty much the entire thing, when the game was supposed to be over we were tied with Minnesota, and in extra time we let our lead slip. In any event that had to be the best game of baseball I have ever seen, and if Dombrowski can hold the core together, the future certainly looks bright.

collectively, at least. And just to pass the time between now and the start of the season. edit: I realized that I could explain this alot better... anyway, I ultimately want to compile a list of the top 20 players in the league at this moment, but because everyone has their own opinions and blah blah blah, I want to take a bit more scientific* method of compiling the top 20. So I propose that we submit a vote for each of the 20 spots on the list individually, and I tally up the votes. That way, the majority vote will be the what's expressed on the list, and not just a compilation of 1000 lists that most people just skim through anyways. But to make it interesting (and to clear up problems that I see occurring down the road), I want voting to occur on one position at a time. That is, first we will all vote on who is the best overall player in the league right now, and after we're done voting (I'll let you know when I'm going to tally up the votes), that player will be locked in the top spot, and we can begin voting on the second best player using all the players that are still left. That means whoever gets the top spot can't be voted to be second best or third best or eighth best or any other best. I won't include votes for repeats. Also, use whatever definition you feel best for "best player". Try to include offensive and defensive awareness, stamina, passing accuracy, shooting accuracy, shooting power, physicality, grittiness, etc etc etc etc. Sound good? Currently voting on 11th place results so far: 1) Ovechkin (35.29% of votes) detailed results on page 4 2) Lidstrom (40.74% of votes) detailed results on page 6 3) Crosby (44.44% of votes) detailed results on page 9 4) Datsyuk (70% of votes) detailed results on page 12 5) Malkin (80.95% of votes) detailed results on page 13 6) Zetterberg (65% of votes) detailed results on page 14 7) Iginla (40.91% of votes) detailed results on page 16 8) Getzlaf (47.37% of votes) detailed results on page 18 9) Luongo (33.33% of votes) detailed results on page 20 10) Kovalchuk (50% of votes) detailed results on page 22 11) Parise (35.29% of votes) detailed results on page 23 12) 13) 14) 15) 16) 17) 18) 19) 20) *scientific is being used incredibly loosely. Don't hold me accountable for any "science" that may or may not occur in this thread.

Your washed up boy Homer has more points than Datsyuk does right now, and more goals than Franzen. I would like to see Homer Dats and Zetterberg back together Franzen Filppulla Leino Williams Cleary Bertuzzi Whoever is the flavor of the week on the fourth line

I thought there was going to be a link in here saying that his play was just that stellar in the playoffs last year.

okay, voting is closed at a pitiful 17 votes. Parise came in first with 6 votes, or 35.29% Thornton came in second with 5 votes, or 29.41% Chara came in third with 4 votes, or 23.53% Nabokov and Broduer came in fourth with one vote each (5.88%). And now that everyone has had a break from voting for about a week, lets get back on the bandwagon and vote like crazy for the 12th spot!! Chara

So you are actually predicting that the Wings won't make the playoffs?

Man the Wings sucked today and yesterday, so that supports what the OP was saying about them not making the playoffs. They'll probably get last place, actually. <== contributing.

The Cardinals team that beat us to win the World Series a couple years back could easily be considered a Cinderella story. They had only won 83 games that series (already less than what we have this year), and the Tigers were heavily favored to win it all after getting to the finals. They destroyed us.

Nice save.

who's in net?

The thing is the Cup does require a bit of luck in addition to a plethora of skill to win. The year that we won the Cup we were lucky. We didn't have to verse any of Calgary, Anaheim, Vancouver, or San Jose, and we ended up versing a depleted and worn out team (Dallas) who did have to go through those trials. When we made it to the finals we were still relatively healthy and energized. Pittsburgh was immature and wasn't capable of properly handling the pressure at that point so we steamrolled them. Fast forward one year and everything is totally different. We fought through an incredibly mentally and physically demanding Anaheim team early in the playoffs. The fatigue that we got in that round was given time to grow by versing Chicago before making it to the finals, and along the way the Wings suffered through some untimely injuries. Besides facing Washington, Pittsburgh didn't have much pressure in reaching the Finals (a bit like us two years ago), and were a more experienced team when they got there than a year before. Sure, on paper the Wings were the better team, but the Cup isn't handed out the team who is best on paper. The way I see it there are two types of teams in the nhl. Cup-competing teams and non Cup competing teams. All the Cup-competing teams are the ones that make the playoffs. From there, anything can happen, and a Wings fan should know this better than most.

We most likely wont have "a lot" of cap space to sign someone big; especially with so many holes to fill (look at all the free agents this year). Holland is a magician with numbers, though, so any changes will most likely be for the better. Just don't expect Kovalchuk to be wearing a Winged Wheel.

Kind of like how the Ducks earlier this decade needed a miracle to get to the Finals. Or the Oilers a couple years later. Or the Tigers from a couple years back for that matter.

If only we had more enforcers

Boston surprises me. I really expected Chicago.

Just a heads up: I have an extremely busy week with school and work right now so I most likely won't get a chance to update this and move voting on to the 12th spot until Thursday/Fridayish. Just keep the votes coming and hopefully (haha) I will come back and see that 40+ people voted. That's what I dream of at night, at least.

"What does the Larson-meter say, Vegeta?" "Over 9000!!!!!!!"

I agree. Meech's greatest asset is that he is an interchangable forward/defensman. Now that we have Abdelkader, Maltby, and possibly May fighting for a 13th forward spot, we no longer need his depth up front. Meech still has more nhl experience than the likes of Kindl or some of our other prospects so at the very least he does provide depth, but I would like him to be below Delmore on that depth list. In any event I would be surprised to see Meech in a Wings uniform next year.

Okay I'll settle for 18 votes, but I'm not happy about it. Kovalchuk won this round with 9 votes (50%) Parise and Chara came in second with 3 votes apiece (16.67%) Broduer, Lecavalier, and Fitzpatrick came in third with 1 vote each (5.56%) Total looks like this: 1) Ovechkin 2) Lidstrom 3) Crosby 4) Datsyuk 5) Malkin 6) Zetterberg 7) Iginla 8) Getzlaf 9) Luongo 10) Kovalchuk Now lets get started on voting for 11th best, and lets get a good turn out for this round. The more votes the more "accurate" a representation of the entire boards. That and I feel its more worthwhile to actually tally up everything and update my spreadsheet if there are more than 18 votes. So for 11th best, I'll start off voting by picking Parise

Zetterberg Datsyuk Homer Franzen Filppulla Leino Williams Cleary Bertuzzi Draper Eaves Helm Maltby is already sitting on the sidelines by my record.

I'm wondering whether Brad May could potentially be the Dallas Drake of two years ago. The guy can certainly fight, but he also knows how to skate and play hockey. But the question is who's spot would he take and where would the money come from?