Samm-E

Uuugggghhh

Can we put the Euro twins back together please? I hope there's nothing wrong with Dats... What if he's done here cuz he has no help. He's playing with third liners.

There are 30 teams with 20 regulars on each team. So each team should (on average) contribute about 20 players that were drafted by them (plus or minus due to undrafted players and free agents). So according to your assumption the Red Wings are about average, or slightly below the league average of regulars currently playing that were drafted by said team. Edit: Not saying that it's not impressive because as you pointed out we had the least first round picks and mostly later picks.

Oops, I meant Sun Belt. My bad.

Regarding the final four, I meant to say instead of having two Conference champions compete for Lord Stanley, you'd have four Conference champions play one another, dwindling to a top two matchup for the championship. Hypothetical: After 82 regular season games, the top four teams from each conference make the playoffs and duel each other (1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3) Sun Belt Conference Tampa (106 points) 1 seed Carolina (93) 2 seed etc. etc. Appalachian Conference Montreal (103 points) 1 seed Boston (98) 2 seed etc. etc. Great Lakes Conference Chicago (105 points) 1 seed Pittsburg (102) 2 seed Buffalo (101) 3 seed Detroit (100) 4 seed Rockies Conference San Jose (102 points) 1 seed Vancouver (101) 2 seed etc. etc. Tampa makes it out of the Sun Belt Conference Boston makes it out of the Appalachian Conference Detroit makes it out of the Great Lakes conference Vancouver makes it out of the Rockies Conference The final four would be: Tampa (1 seed - based on most points in the regular season - 106) vs. Boston (4 seed - 98 points) (Home Court Tampa) Vancouver (2 seed - 101 points) vs. Detroit (3 seed - 100 points) (Home Court Vancouver) Seeding realigns based on points in the final four. Initially Detroit was a 4 seed in a stacked conference, but 3 seed in the final four. Same for Boston, who was a 2 seed in their conference playoffs, but a four seed in the final four. Winner of Tampa vs. Boston will face off against the winner of Vancouver vs. Detroit (again, home court going to the better seed)

Going back to the four conference idea someone posted 2-3 pages back, but slightly edited. What do you guys think of a 7-8 team conference, with 4 teams from each making the post-season, and a final four to determine the Stanley Cup champions? Also, you can name the conferences by geographical direction or go a more creative approach [example: Rockies (w), Great Lakes (n), Sun Belt (s), Appalachians (e)]. P.S.: I can see to potential problems for the NHL (but positives for us Detroiters) that can come out of this: 1. Phoenix will lose Detroit support and moves to Quebec, the West moves down to 7 teams, and the East moves up to 8 teams. 2. Tampa will be almost guaranteed a final four spot each year with a pathetic South like that. Go Stevie Y!

I understand where you're coming from regarding Z as captain because he is vocal, but after seeing this playoffs and the lack of help Z and Dats got, I think it is more important that we have a captain that leads by example (with his HART, soul, and stick). Similarly to Yzerman and Lidstrom, both of which were/are not highly vocal players.

One thing is for sure, If Lidstrom retires, Datsyuk needs to be Captain.

Datsyuk is due for a dominating period. Whether its the 2nd or 3rd, it's coming, so i still feel confident that we can do this. Just win face-offs.

If the Wings lose, their demise will be their face-off percentage. If you can't win a single face-off in your defensive zone, you WILL NOT get control, and San Jose has taken advantage of that. This problem needs to be addressed this offseason, win or lose today.