Echolalia

IF they're resting during games throughout the season, they're slowly losing stamina and agility while other teams are gaining. Whether its intentional or not to take it easy, they'd be setting themselves up for failure in the real season, and they will be playing at 100% then.

I never understood why a team would trap in the 3rd after what was done in the first and second clearly dominated the other team just fine.

Whats to stop the Wings from signing a 2 week RFA contract with Franzen July 1st, so if he does go somewhere, we'll at least get something for him heh heh heh

To add to the tv timeout ban: when it comes down to it, it never really added a significant incentive to not ice the puck in many of the situations where a team generally would ice the puck a year ago. The ultimatum presented is often ice the puck to relieve immediate pressure, and play a bit longer with tired guys, but a now equal chance at getting possession, or try to break out of your zone immediately with tired guys and risk turning the puck over at an opportune moment for the opposition. It still isn't much of an ultimatum for teams faced with the option of icing the puck, compared to before the tv timeout ban was implemented. Besides, there haven't been too many occasions where a team has actually capitalized on the play and scored a goal immediately following an icing resulting from pressuring a worn down defense. That time would be much more economical if it went towards commercial sales. I think this is a good move.

Good. Change everything. Get rid of any thing from the 0-16 season and start with a clean slate. We'll win 4 games this year

Well look on the bright side; this won't affect us Wings fans in any way

Wait a minute, I just saw an article on nhl.com talking about how all the nhl GM's wanted to keep fighting an integral part of the game?

Being paired with Chelios will be good experience for Ericcson. Cheli is pretty assertive, so I don't see Ericcson getting away with playing quietly and reserved with Cheli yelling at him at the end of every shift.

If they end up moving to the West, the first team in my mind to move to the East would be the Coyotes, due to all the financial trouble they've seen in Phoenix, and a number of rumors already indicating Phoenix's downfall as a hockey city.

How much

YES!!

I don't like the possibility of whoring out the outdoor game experience, but everything else seems sound

Oh man I seriously forgot about that! What an awesome moment.

Its so hard to stop!!!

We don't need this. Anyway I can't say that I disagree with you on any of your posts, although I've noticed that how they have been playing as of late looks like a lot of problems can be solved by simple communication skills. Players left uncovered, bad turnovers, breakout passes/clears while under pressure, all of these can be remedied to a great extend if the players talked to each other and let them know who is open and where to throw the puck if they don't have the time to look themselves. I remember last year it was quite common to see a player point to an opponent implying for someone to cover him, especially on defense. You could also see goalies warn defensmen when they had company following behind them. I haven't seen as much of that this year, and its a really simple solution to a number of problems. Who knows whether they actually communicate or not; I can't hear them, but it sure doesn't look like it from on my couch. I also remember someone talking about Hasek saying something along the lines of "you knew he was playing his best hockey if he was talking a lot, because it was a sign he was into the game". I think this can apply to a lot of goaltenders, and even players, but if Osgood is being quiet in net, it might take his mind off of his problems and put him more into the game if he yelled to Raffi and Lids and whoever that Zetterberg is wide open in front of the crease for a good breakout pass, or don't pass up front because Nash is waiting (not blaming him for Raffi's horrible pass btw). Just my two cents, but with the bad economy and inflation its probably 8 or 9 cents by now.

Osgood has 16 more games, give or take 8 or so that Conklin may start, to prove that he's the better of the two. Given his regular season stats, I don't expect him to have as many chances as Hasek did last year in the post season. One bad game and it's suddenly Conklin's job to lose.

San Jose games remaining: Minnesota, St. Louis (road) LA, Anaheim (back to back) Phoenix Nashville Dallas, Colorado (back to back) Chicago, Nashville (road, back to back) Phoenix Calgary, Edmonton (road) Anaheim, Anaheim (back to back) Colorado Phoenix LA pretty much all of those teams besides Phoenix, LA, Calgary, and Chicago are fighting for a playoff spot, with Calgary and Chicago being pretty tough opponents as is. This is where those two extra games in hand might be a bit of a problem for San Jose. The way that the bubble teams are playing right now will give San Jose little time to relax between now and the post season. I'm looking at it as two extra days off for the Wings, but at the cost of being down to San Jose by potentially two games. Detroit games remaining: Phoenix Calgary St. Louis, Columbus (road, back to back) Philidelphia Atlanta, Calgary, Edmonton (road) NYI Nashville St. Louis Minnesota, Buffalo (back to back) Nashville Chicago, Chicago (back to back) Three of those games (Islanders, Phoenix, and Atlanta) are against teams pretty much too far out of a playoff spot to do much about it now. Everything else should be a good, tight, game with the possible exception of the home and home against Chicago, where better players from each team may be resting. You can analyze the schedules how you will, but looking at it, I think there is definitely a possibility the Wings can end up 1st in the league, if they can pull their heads out of their asses for long enough to finish the season. It all depends on how long San Jose want to keep their heads in their asses, too. Although its too early to tell, Vancouver is sitting comfortably in 5th place with four points and two games in hand over the rest of the competition. If they maintain the position and can take out the 4th place team in the first round (most likely Chicago, as they're somewhat comfortably ahead of Vancouver), the first place team would most likely be versing Vancouver, assuming none of the 6th 7th and 8th seeded teams win (which would be a definite possibility seeing as how we're expecting both us and San Jose to win for this assumption, otherwise either one of us is eliminated and speculation is moot). However if Calgary beats their opponent it would be 1st vs Vancouver, 2nd vs Calgary. It may very well come down to whether you prefer to play Vancouver or Calgary in the second round, assuming no upsets. I honestly think I would prefer Luongo's Vancouver, because although I'm certain the Wings are capable of outplaying both the Nucks and the Flames in a seven game series, I would not want to face the Sharks in the WCF after being grinded away against the Flames.

To be honest, those are the two teams that I am the most worried about, come playoffs.

Awesome, too bad the Wings couldn't win to take advantage of a possible rare regulation loss to the Sharks. By the way, is LGW lagging like crazy for anyone else?

I don't see anything from that article that would infer that Lilja will be out for an extended period of time. Anyways, one of Lilja's greatest assets is his ability to block shots, and that role I would be very comfortable with giving to Ericcson, as blocking shots was one thing that I noticed him do pretty frequently and regularly.

My two favorite things to ever grace a TV screen http://msconduct10.blogspot.com/2009/03/wh...aracter-is.html The Wings are Wayne Jarvis, btw. PS, I didn't know whether this should go in general discussion or water cooler, so I picked the more popular of the two.

2 points for a win, regardless of when/how you got it 1 point for a loss in a shootout 0 points for a loss in regulation or overtime

If it means me taking a chubby, I'll suck it up

I thought I remembered reading somewhere from either Babs or Holland that veterans may be scratched in this year's playoffs for younger players (ie Helm, Leino, Ericcson, etc). I'm actually fairly confident Maltby won't be playing in every playoff game.

I just looked at the standings and noticed that as of right now (March 4th 5:14 PM EST) every team in the Central besides St. Louis is in a playoff spot, and seems to be in a position where they can keep it if they keep winning (in other words they don't have the "Anaheim Playoff Spot" where they've played five more games than everyone else, and are still barely clinging to a bottom spot). So much for the Central being the weakest division in the league.