Kronstantinov

Sounds like they took him straight to the hospital to be checked out/worked on.  They're saying dental work is highly likely.

 

Can't stand the kid, and his attitude, but getting nailed in the face with a puck isn't something I would laugh at.  I know I would have hated if people laughed when Yzerman took a puck to the eye, so I don't want to laugh when their captain took one to the teeth.

I agree that it is very childish to laugh at him for that but no one would laugh at Yzerman, he is a classy individual not a douchebag like Crosby

I like the nickname the team has given him.

 

DK

Maybe he'll turn into one of those guys like Z who only needs one letter.

 

D

 

That will say it all.  The fact that it's also the first syllable of has last name helps too.

LOL, since we like to beat dead horses, NO! Franzen is not a bargin, nor is he a 30 gaol per year guy. Franzen has made it to the 30 goal in a season mark once! In 08/09. That is it. 1 time out of 9 or so years. For his career, Franzen has played 512 regular season games. he has a total of 164 regular season goals. When you do the math, that averages out to 26 goals per 82 games. But Franzen doesn't play 82 games per year. His career high was 80 games his rookie season in 05/06. Prior to this year he played 472 games in 7 seasons. Which is a 68 game per season average. Using 68 games as his average, and multiplying by his career goals per game average, franzen averages 22 goals per season.

But Franzen is great in the playoffs! No, that isn't true either. He has been with us for 7 trips to the playoffs. In 5 of those trips he has scored 6 goals or less. In those 5 years he averaged .27 goals per game, which is LOWER than his career goals per game average. What franzen did do was have great PO years in 08 and 09. That was 4 and 5 seasons ago, back when he was 28 and 29 years old. Back when Z and Datsyuk were also having their career years.

Now on the plus side, Franzen is signed for 7 more years! For 7 more years he will take up 4 million of cap space. Even if he is retired! I wonder how much everyone is going to like Franzen, Z, and Kronwall in 4 or 5 years when we will be forced to let young stars like (example) Dekeyser walk because our cap is all used up! Just wait for it......

You are a moron

First unless your last name is ilitch the only # that matters is cap hit cuz that is what effects team building.  Now to address the " floating".  I'll agree I sometimes see mule not where he could be/ should be and I do see it as a lack of effort but for every mule float I see a cleary fall or a kronner bad clear so yeah his game isn't perfect but no one whos last name isn't  lidstrom is.

If it's any consolation, I hated Bettman before his contribution to a 3rd work stoppage in 18 years.

In other news, it's been 195 days 7 hours 46 minutes 1 seconds since the last Kronwalling.

Those poor players, getting paid millions to bang super hot chicks (as many as they want), skate around playing hockey for 15 years and retiring at 40. That must really suck.

It's a good thing someone pays them to do this sort of thing. Otherwise, working at Arby's , getting zero ***** and getting sodomized in a bar by a burly Canadian fellow in a restroom at the local watering hole seems like the only alternative.

Seriously guys these players are nuts. The only thing they can do is play hockey. They get paid well with lots of perks, I'm pretty sure most of them want to play the game. This union nonsense has to stop. The union rep,doesn't care about that it's about $.

It's about time we got this season started.

They are the 1 % best hockeyplayers worldwide so for sure they are going to want a rfair deal and not an insulting one presented by a guy, who has absolutely no atlethic or negotiating skills and is the exact opposite of everything, hockey should be.

If the NHL wants the players to give up money, they have to at least honor their contract rights simple as that.

Hey, guys, guess what:

Both Bettman and the owners are responsible for creating "the environment."

BOOM
LOST

This issue so complicated because of the polarizing figure that is Gary Bettman.  A New York lawyer running the most popular sport in Canada.  3 significant work stoppages in 18 years.  

@Nightfall is partially right when he says that Bettman was not the "cause" of the lockout.  Admittedly, that would be an oversimplification.  I heard a TSN podcast today where one guy wondered if this isn't just the "new normal" given the fact that salaries were so constant for so many years and then shot up exponentially in the past 20 years.  He wondered if the underlying problem isn't just that nobody knows "what anything is worth" in the NHL.

But I refuse to give Bettman a pass on "causing the lockout" for this reason: He DID create and stubbornly support the environment that caused this lockout to happen in the last 2 CBA's.  When you a situation where you can make $3.3 billion in profits AND it can also be true that (allegedly) 18 franchises are operating in the red, you have fundamental problems.  If I honestly believed that setting HRR at 50/50 and just telling the players to give a little more back would solve those problems, I would turn on the NHLPA and Fehr in a heartbeat.

But here's the thing: I have zero confidence that Phoenix, Dallas, Nashville, Florida, etc are suddenly going to become profitable simply because you cap player contracts at 5 years, lower the salary cap, and take money out of the players' share.  I have zero confidence because we were told that everything in '05 CBA was necessary to save those bottom-feeder teams, and it didn't work.  

The problem is the structure of the league, and the freedom of the owners to continue spending even with a hard cap in place.  The deeper problem is that the league is badly overexpanded into places it doesn't belong.  Phoenix is not going to start drawing 15,000 a game just because you made it so the Parises and Suters of the world only sign $40 million deals instead of $98 million ones.  And when ownership in Phoenix or any other city in Bettman's "Grand Sun Belt Experiment" tried to sell to owners/cities with actual money and an interest in hockey, Bettman blocked it.  

Unless you are willing to dramatically revise how revenue sharing works and commit yourself to having the Tornto-type markets carrying the struggling teams (which is obviously problematic), this will continue to happen.  And Bettman (who whoever represents the owners) will continue to ask for additional money every CBA simply because they can.

If anyone complaining about this thread right now attends a single NHL game in the next seven years, then they are fake raging in here.  I know I am going to put my money where my mouth is.

No more NHL Center Ice
No more buying tickets to NHL games
No more buying NHL merchandise

The NHL, players and owners, can go f*** themselves.

I don't even know wo Justin Bieber is but seriously, why is that such a big story? Couldn't care less about what type of music the players like.

Bettman manages the league in a manner that can be most accurately described as Machiavellian.
The goalie equipment is much bigger now than before Bettman became commisiioner. He allowed all the equipment to get bigger and bigger. He allowed so much obstruction before the last lockout rendering hockey almost unwatchable. He has done it to restrict talent and skill for the sake of parity to give weaker teams a better chance of winning. When fans and media were complaining about the lack of scoring, bigger goalie equipment and obstruction, he would start a crackdown on obstruction at the beginning of seasons only to give it up a few weeks later making it look like he was addressing the problem while actually never wanting to in the first place. He shrunk the goalie pads twice before seasons (making it look like he was addressing the problem) but they are still slightly bigger than when he became the commissioner(he allowed them to grow in the first place and people say he has nothing to do with such decisions, you obviously don't knw Bettman, he is a control freak and it was never allowed before he became commissioner and it went along with his goal of parity. Coincidence? I think not especially considering how duplicitously he handled addressing the situation) but it is the chest protector, shoulder pads jerseys, gloves... that are much so bigger even the helmets are designed to flare out to cover more net.
The goalie equipment is made so much bigger not to protect the goalie but the net.
Bettman drastically changed the game (restricting talent and skill) to help this new expansion teams in bad hockey markets become more successful. Major offensive records will never be broken. He has implemented all kinds of stupid rules (like the trapezoid rule stating goalies beat everyone to the puck when it's dumped and they just shoot it out of their zone, if their equipment was as small as it was before Bettman, there would be no need) to look like they are trying to increase the scoring when actually he really doesn't want to. Hockey is less exciting than it would be if it were less defensive (and it would be if there was more net to shoot at) and those teams aren't fairing any better, that's why they are reneging on contracts to help subsidize these franchises.
There should be an asterisk on statistics for players that played while Bettman was commissioner. He has caused them to miss so many games with lockouts and restricted talent, skill and scoring for the sake of parity as well as having locked us out 3 times, that most of them don't have a chance of being all-time scoring leaders had that played most of their careers while Bettman was commissioner.
Boycott spending money on the NHL until they have no choice but to fire Bettman, he is the worst thing to ever happen to the game of hockey

How would Bettman like it the owners were to renege on his paychecks (which are much bigger than most of the players' paychecks)?

Why are the owners wrong for not wanting 18 of their franchises to lose money? We can blame the owners of those teams for handing out huge stupid contracts (And I really do) but in the end it has to be fixed or the league will lose franchises which in turn equals less revenue, less jobs for players and no big TV conract.

This is why this lock-out makes me so mad. The owners were stupid and the players are greedy and have lost touch with reality.

They're wrong because the solution to a problem they created shouldn't be to force someone else to solve it for them. They sure as hell shouldn't be looking to that solution for the second time in eight years. It's time for the owners to look at trying something other than taking money away from players.

The problem isn't how much is being spent on players, it's mostly who's spending it. Owner's need to take responsibility for their poor decisions. Also, either there's not enough revenue sharing, or the payroll range is too narrow. The owners need to address one or the other.

The top owners will likely lose around $300M if we lose the whole season. If instead they were to take half of that to help the teams that are struggling, we could get through this season. Then the next season, between the combination of revenue growth and lower salary commitments on existing contracts the player's share is lowered without requiring a rollback or escrow. Do that for a few years, and the share eventually gets down to a number the owners are more comfortable with. Combine that with increased revenue sharing or a wider range, and telling dumb owners there will be no more bailouts, and maybe we'll get the right teams spending the money and we won't need another lockout for the next CBA.

But what the owners want is to beat down the players again, the top teams will lose their $300M, the other teams will still lose just as much or more than they would playing the season, the fans lose, the league loses future revenue, and even if the owners get what they want the same thing is likely to happen again in the future, because it reinforces the owner's mentality that they can correct any stupidity on their part by taking back from the players.