Nightfall

Yea 6-0 would actually be the score but i didnt want to shock anyone

Howard scoring 4 goals?  

Because irrational Wings fans trumps common sense.

And you know the season's begun when my ignore list starts accumulating honorees.

Fixed it for you.

Weak osgood :/

Can we not have Osgood play anymore?

Terribly timed goals.

Not Osgoods fault.  It hit Salei and changed direction.  Can't blame the goalie when he centers himself to the shot and yet it hits one of his own guys and goes a different direction and in.

So far, I can't fault Osgood on a blown defensive assignment that results in a goal or a deflection goal.  These are the goals that your team has to fight through.

You are confusing shared servers to dedicated servers. But go ahead and keep on thinking that Hockeystreams.com is streaming these videos and spending their time and risking getting caught for $0-dollar profit. They are doing illegal activities to serve you, the viewer, for free. And go ahead and keep on thinking they are only charging you what it costs them in bandwidth. Lol @ how naive people truly are. Just mind-blowing.

And remind me to never do business where you "contract on the ISP side". /facepalm.

Dedicated servers and shared servers have nothing to do with the conversation.  Its all about the ISP.  Who says I am thinking that they are only charging for bandwidth or that he is only doing it for free?  I don't think anyone is that dumb, and since I never said that, you can stop drawing conclusions to try to make yourself look righteous.  As for you doing business where I work on the ISP side, you are probably safe there unless you do business in MI and stream a ton of video.  From your knowledge and experience, you obviously don't do that.  Otherwise, you would have been down that road as I have with many customers.

I would like to have a good natured conversation with you about this if you are interested.  Lets take it to PM though.  The conversation is way off topic.

I already proved you wrong on the first point. I even sourced it from some random hosting service. One can even build a server in their own home or office if they so desire. It's not that complicating if you possess basic understanding. Not sure why this is so hard for you to understand?

I can point out a lot of providers who say "unlimited" bandwidth, but when push comes to shove, they will not allow you to push that much.  Residential broadband providers and hosted solutions may say "unlimited" but when you start pushing a lot through the provider, you will find your account suspended or canceled.  True unlimited bandwidth costs are astronomical.  If you knew the industry and how shared hosting works, you would understand that.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree.  I know how the industry works and know companies that have lost hosting privileges because of excessive bandwidth when the provider false advertises, and you can find a lot of providers who say unlimited.

And I've built servers from the ground up and sold bandwidth. What's your point? They will support thousands of users. The facts remain the same, that website is selling intellectual property. Are you going to argue that it's not illegal now because you are an FBI agent and a Judge?

I am not arguing the intellectual property rights at all.  I was merely correcting you in that the bandwidth costs are not a concern.  If you want to change the subject in order to make a valid point so it makes you look right, then thats great.  You can find someone else to debate with on that topic.

/facepalm

Whatever dude. unmetered bandwidth server packages start at $150 - $395 per month. Hockeystreams is somewhere in the middle. Do you tell a mechanic how to fix your vehicle when you take it into the shop for repairs? Online business is my career, and I am proud to say that I do it legally.

But whatever helps you sleep at night.

Good luck getting unlimited when you have thousands of users pushing that kind of bandwidth.  I am also in the online industry, but I contract on the ISP side, and I am smart enough to know that those prices are not accurate.  Providers like netelligent oversell their bandwidth all the time.  They will not support thousands of users streaming video.  If you think they will, then you are dreaming.

3 STANLEY CUPS - NUFF SAID ! AND HE IS THE BACKUP !

I agree.  Osgood should have won 4 cups if the Wings would have taken game 6 or 7, but I digress.  The Wings are not losing because of Osgoods play right now.  They are losing because the Pens played all their starters.  If we had all our starters in, the game would be much different.  The Ozzie haters will all pile on the hate bandwagon though.

Whoa, Crosby out?  And we didn't even do it?  Rad!

Injury?

I was on ESPN's website and found a good article on Gary Bettman.  Now, before the Bettman insults start flying, I wanted to throw my thoughts on the table.  I believe Bettman has done a good job with the NHL as a whole.  The league is making money as a whole.  The game has improved from the clutch and grab hockey that was prevalent in the late 90s and early 2000s.  Its not all good though, as I also believe that the league has expanded too much and they should be contracting to 24 teams.  Still, Bettman is a smart commissioner and deserves his post.  

Have a read of the article and let me know what you think.  

---

http://insider.espn....tory?id=5602951

---

The NHL commissioner is looking to define his league -- and his legacy

GARY BETTMAN IS IN A GOOD MOOD. Two days earlier, an independent arbitrator upheld the league's rejection of the Devils' first attempt to sign Ilya Kovalchuk. The decision backed Bettman's belief that the 17-year, $102 million deal was just a blatant end run around the NHL's salary cap. It was the latest validation of Bettman's stature as the most dominating commissioner in pro sports. Even the August sun, pouring through a wall of windows into Bettman's Manhattan office, seems to shine for him. He's relaxed, even cheery, in pleasant contrast to his reputation as a pugnacious and humorless know-it-all who looks as if he were born in a dark suit. At the moment, he's even in shirtsleeves -- blue tie knotted at his throat, but shirtsleeves nonetheless. "Whatever you want, we're happy to help," he says.

"In that case," I say, "I'd like a franchise."

He grins: "Do you have an American Express card with a pretty big limit?"

Soon enough we're digging into serious issues: the Kovalchuk deal, off-season drug testing and NHL participation in the Olympics -- all issues that will shape pro hockey in the coming years. Bettman handles even the most contentious subjects with aplomb. But something has him uneasy. Without warning, he blurts, "I assume when I'm being funny and cute, we're not going to intersperse it into the article."

Any hint of a smile is gone. "Do it in context," he says, more order than request.

Summer sun or not, Gary Bettman's office is suddenly as chilly as Calgary in January.

KENESAW MOUNTAIN Landis saved baseball's soul by excommunicating the Black Sox. Pete Rozelle created an NFL juggernaut with a savvy merger and socialist distribution of TV revenue. But no major sport commissioner has had more far-reaching impact in his world than Bettman, who has influenced everything from the location of franchises to the size of goalie pads. The NHL is Gary's league; Sid and Ovi just play in it.

In his 18-year reign, the NHL has gone from a league hemorrhaging $200 million a year to one that just produced record (estimated) profits of $180 million. On ice, the clutching and grabbing that numbed offenses last decade has given way to thrilling open-ice rushes. "He's the best thing that could've happened to the NHL, because he's always known what needed to be done," says Dave Checketts, managing owner of the Blues.

Change, though, has come at a cost -- most traumatically, the 2004-05 season that Bettman sacrificed to win the hard salary cap he insisted was necessary for league survival. And still, payroll-cost certainty hasn't kept several owners from struggling. The Coyotes became a $170 million ward of the league, and other warm-weather clubs are barely above water, giving rise to the biggest wave of criticism about Bettman's reign -- his focus on southern expansion.

This was probably why Bettman had second thoughts about his charge-a-franchise quip. He is a fierce protector of the brand. And god help the naysayer who suggests that even the toughest problems won't be solved. "He's the last guy you want to fight," Checketts says. "He doesn't give up, doesn't give in, doesn't bend. When he decides, it's over. He will win."

His ruthlessness has Bettman both respected and despised. In Canada, fan and media vitriol is so nasty you'd think the man had torched every Tim Hortons from Halifax to Whitehorse. Players and GMs, fearing reprisals, refuse to talk publicly against him. Even Boston's Jeremy Jacobs, one of the NHL's most powerful owners, worries that an innocuous quote for this story about adjusting the collective bargaining agreement will get him fined. Don Meehan, one of hockey's shrewdest agents, can't get off the phone with me fast enough: "I'm not going there," he says at the first mention of the commissioner's name.

Simple fear isn't all that makes players and agents go silent: Donald Fehr has told them to shut up too. The most powerful man in baseball for two decades as head of the MLB players' union, Fehr is a fierce negotiator who once won a $280 million payout when he proved that MLB owners were colluding. After retiring in 2009, he became an unpaid consultant to the chronically chaotic NHLPA; he's now the presumptive choice to be the union's next executive director, a hiring expected to be finalized by a vote later this fall. (Calls to Fehr, 62, went unreturned.) For the first time since former union boss Bob Goodenow lost his throwdown with Bettman six years ago, NHL players have someone who might just be able to muscle the commish.

Over the next 18 months, Bettman will try to make himself stronger by shoring up struggling franchises, bolstering league finances, securing a more lucrative TV deal and, most important, sealing loopholes in the CBA. Bettman says the media overhyped the Kovalchuk contract battle, even though he spent the summer engaged in the talks. The NHL approved a slightly shorter and smaller deal on Sept. 4, but New Jersey was fined $3 million and lost two draft picks. More to the point, Bettman got the NHLPA to limit such deals going forward. The commissioner, never complacent, feels an extra urgency to secure labor peace. "I would prefer a constructive, strong relationship with a players' association that can work with us," he says, countering a pervasive feeling that he's trying to put the union out of business. "There's a lot of people saying we already did that," he says a bit too enthusiastically. Bettman seems to realize his overzealousness because he quickly adds, "That's not the goal." He saw the new union regime looming long before Fehr showed at the World Hockey Summit in Toronto in August. And he has been in charge too long to be scared. But it has been forever since Gary Bettman wasn't the undisputed smartest person in the room.

He was small and felt like an outcast as an only child growing up in Queens, N.Y. His father, who owned a nut business, left home when Gary was 5; he died eight years later. "I don't think I'm overstating things," Bettman says haltingly. "I may have been the only kid in the '50s living in a single-parent household." He pauses. "It was different."

What he lacked in size or social confidence Bettman made up for in smarts. And while that made him more of an outsider, it also gave him a means to control his world. Today, he eagerly argues the most controversial issues facing the NHL but gets prickly over innocent biographical questions -- like what he dreamed of growing up to be. "I'm 58 years old," Bettman snaps. "I'm not exactly in touch with what my feelings were 46 years ago. I'd need a couple of hours of therapy to start thinking about that stuff."

For the record, he claims no memory of ever wanting to be anything other than a lawyer. He went to Cornell's school of industrial and labor relations, mostly for its prelaw curriculum, then got a law degree at New York University. Hired by a Manhattan law firm whose clients included the NBA, his talents were soon recognized by then-executive vice president David Stern, who hired him away in 1981. Bettman eventually rose from in-house lawyer to the league's No. 3 executive, charged with implementing its salary cap. The NHL came calling in 1992, making Bettman the first non-hockey lifer to run its ship.

He wasn't born into the game, but Bettman seems genetically suited to command a sport. "Our mother had enormous brain power," says Jeffrey Pollack, Bettman's half-brother and 13 years his junior. "Gary is a kinetic intellectual force. Some of that came from her." Pollack says his own career was inspired by Bettman's: He founded Sports Business Daily before spending four years as commissioner of the World Series of Poker. Today, he heads the Professional Bull Riders league. Pollack knows how it feels to walk into a foreign culture as its boss. "Gary is a superior intellect, and some people take that as pugnacious," he says. "When I'm with him at an NHL arena and he gets booed, I cheer loudly. Gary laughs it off, but it's painful."

The boos are one side effect of forcing many wrenching changes on the NHL. Six new teams -- Florida, Anaheim, Nashville, Atlanta, Minnesota and Columbus -- sprung to life during Bettman's first eight years on the job. Three others migrated south, pushing the NHL's center of gravity from its roots. But the current state of warm-weather teams has sparked some second-guessing, even within the NHL's Board of Governors (albeit anonymously). "I think selling ice to the Sun Belt, driving hockey into markets that didn't want it, may be Gary's one mistake," one owner says.

The commissioner disagrees: "The idea that I hate Canada is obviously absurd. Calgary and Edmonton wouldn't have survived if not for the things I did to save those franchises. Having teams in big U.S. markets gave us a footprint competitive with what other leagues have. Those markets make us more attractive, long-term, to television and national sponsors."

Another key to Bettman's recovery plan -- tamping down player salaries -- nearly killed the patient. Shuttering a major league for a year was an unprecedented gamble, one which won him a hard cap but also led to an untimely end to a valuable TV deal with ESPN. The NHL has since been shown on Versus, the young cable network owned by Comcast, which also owns the Flyers. That deal expires next summer and the league expects competitive negotiations, with ESPN among those at the table. How successful the league is at securing more money and exposure will largely answer the question of whether hockey has truly recovered from the lockout. Bettman says some evidence is already in. "Our cable ratings, nationally, in the first two rounds of the playoffs were the highest they've been since they started recording these things," he says. "On a network that isn't in as many homes."

Those ratings reflect a more dramatic and clean game, mitigating gripes from traditionalists still rankled by postlockout innovations like tie-breaking shootouts. Bettman credits execs Colin Campbell, a former Rangers coach, and Brendan Shanahan, an ex-player, for authoring most of the rules changes. But that isn't to suggest he isn't heavily involved in every decision.

HE PRACTICALLY BURSTS with delight. "Oh, I know the question that's coming!" Seven words into hearing a sentence, Bettman, like a game show contestant pounding the buzzer, jumps in. He's slightly off in anticipating the subject, but it's his overeager reaction that is most telling. He isn't just the smartest guy in most rooms; he can't resist making sure everyone is clear on that fact. When Bettman is excited, he springs up in his chair, military straight. "Go ahead!" he says. "It's the fighting question!"

No actually, it's the head-shot question. Last season, the NHL confronted an epidemic of concussions by rewriting the rules to draw distinctions between east-west headshots and full-on noggin-poundings. So why can't a civilized-if-violent sport -- Bettman interrupts me to substitute "physical" for "violent" -- ban headshots entirely?

"No, no, no!" he shouts. "It's not about hitting people in the head. We obviously don't want players hit in the head." Bettman then begins a disquisition about the tiptoe between letting players play and keeping them from killing each other. His reasoning is impressive. What gets him stoked, though, are illustrative examples. "So if I take my elbow and I hit you in the head," he says, leaning forward, words pouring faster, "or I take my stick and I hit you in the head or I take my fist and I hit you in the head & " The father of three and doting grandfather looks as if he'd like to drop the gloves right now, or at least unclasp his French cuffs.

The biggest fight Bettman has won to date, the salary cap, still feels like a split decision. And it is largely what's drawn Fehr into the players' corner for the rematch. Sure, the cap saved franchises on both sides of the border, but it has also fueled a dizzying turnover in talent that frays the team-fan bond Bettman claims to prize. The Blackhawks won the Cup in June; by August the cap had forced them to jettison one third of their roster.

"Since the lockout, guys have played for three, four, five teams," says Ian Pulver, an agent and former NHLPA executive. "The game is better and more exciting, and the players like that. But it's a lot different to be a player now. Everyone points to an increase in the average salary, but careers are cut short as younger players replace older, more expensive ones. Pack your bags, unpack, pack your bags."

Bettman shrugs when he hears this critique. "The relationship with fans is about whether you're winning," he says. "Chicago decided what it was going to do this past season to try to win the Cup. I think they knew going in this wasn't a team they could sustain for the long haul."

He brings the same lack of sentiment to the debate over whether to pause the 2014 season so players can participate in the Olympics in Sochi, Russia. "The players who represented their countries in Vancouver, they didn't get compensated, and they risked their careers," he says. "I think the total of their contracts exceeded $2 billion. And yet the IOC wouldn't even allow the NHL Network to cover my press conference!"

His detached stance is entirely rational, but it also gives the commissioner another chip when collective bargaining comes around next year. Still, how will he tell Alex Ovechkin that he can't represent his homeland in his homeland, especially when Ted Leonsis, the Capitals owner, says he'll allow his star to play regardless?

"Have you ever been to Sochi?" Bettman says with contempt. "Maybe you should go."

So much for the charm offensive.

Then again, Bettman isn't much interested in winning hearts, not when he believes his sport can do it for him. And, anyway, it is the looming battle with Fehr that will most likely determine his legacy. Bettman says, and has shown often, that he's not one to back down. But he claims not to be spoiling for anything other than a league that works for both sides. "I'm not a fan of the fight for the sake of the fight," the commissioner says, settling placidly back into his chair.

Maybe the Kovalchuk wrangling, which ended with both the league and the union able to claim victory, was the beginning of something radical: hockey's combative commissioner figuring out how to wage peace. Or maybe that's just what he wants the other guys in the room to think.

Real fans don't hang players on their team out to dry.  These are your Red Wings, take em or leave em.  Mistakes happen in the game.  Players have bad seasons and a bad stretch of luck.  Its hockey.  This is why its a team sport.  Win as a team.  Lose as a team.

Like Howard, support him... be his secret BFF but your are kidding yourself. His rebound control was terrible, he was caught out of position and bailed out the the team too often, and his 5 hole was as wide as the grand canyon some nights. It was his rookie season in the NHL and he has a lot of improvements to make. No, we did not lose in the playoffs solely because of goal tending but we weren't helped along by it by any means... some nights he was flat out crap. If he has done his work in the off season and worked out some of the bugs then he'll be fine and if he hasn't then he'd better stop listening to his secret BFF's

I guess I have to ask you the same question.  Name me a number 1 goalie that you would choose that would fit the mold of that kind of goalie who has...

1.  Almost perfect rebound control
2.  Hardly ever caught out of position
3.  Covers the 5 hole almost perfectly

I think your expectations are a little unrealistic.  I think you will find that 90% of the elite NHL goalies out there are in fact the best in the world and pretty even when it comes to skill level.  Brodeur and Roy were the best in their prime thats for sure and those are in the top 10% echelon.  You have to figure that those players are rare and thats why they stick around for many years with their respective teams.  Their teams know how valuable they are and pay them accordingly.  The Wings have no such player in their system, and in fact, I don't see any goalie that has had that kind of consistency that is currently in the NHL.  Brodeur hasn't won a playoff series in 4 years and is past his prime.  Most of the good goalies you are hearing about now are one year wonders.

I am just pointing out that most hockey fans have these lavish unrealistic expectations of their team's goalies.  If every hockey fan had their wish, the goalie would be a literal God in net and they would make a save on everything.  The simple fact of the matter is that goalies are human, and humans make mistakes.  The good goalies rebound from those mistakes and play better the next night.  Howard has shown signs of that last season, and will be a better player this year.

You honestly don't think Howard had a problem with rebound control, nor he had issues in the playoffs?

Yup, I thought he played just fine.  He made as many mistakes as other goalies have in the past.  Look at every stanley cup winning team.  Every goalie has had their fair share of mistakes.  To say that Howard was the make or break of the team winning/losing is pretty disingenuous if you ask me.

I could point out many instances, but look at Niemi last season.  Against Vancouver, he played pretty badly with over a 3.00GAA.  He did not play very well and made his share of mistakes.  Still, the team in front of him pulled together and won the series.  How about in 1998 with Osgood when he was letting in horrible goals at inopportune times.  If the wings lost out that year, Osgood would have been thrown under the bus.  As it turns out, they won the cup that year and Osgood was the man.

I am just saying that a lot of casual armchair hockey fans really have unrealistic expectations of what their goalie should do for them.

Its great to see Leino do well in Philly.  Its just further proof that there are a few players that when faced with a change of scenery, they do well.  Is it the coach?  Is it the environment?  Who knows.  All I do know is that he deserved the success he has had so far.  Wings fans shouldn't feel slighted at all as this does happen from time to time.

That said, I think there can be more improvements to how games are called.  I, along with many others, would simply like to have more consistency in the calls.  I don't much care if games are called loose or tight, as long as it is consistent.  Overall, I think how refs have to interpret calls needs to be more clarified.  For example, the whole kicking/propelling a puck.  there has got to be a way to allow pucks to go into the net for goals off of skates while still keeping goalies safe from having people kicking their blades at him.

There are a few penalties that get me mad every time.  I hate how a slash that breaks a stick, or knocks it out of a player's hands is an instant penalty.  Some of these sticks break when someone receives a soft pass!  And allowing a player to gain a penalty by dropping his stick is a farce to me.  I also don't like the hooking calls where the player being hooked closes his arm on the stick and pins it to him.  If anything, I'd like that to be 2 for hooking, 2 for holding and send both to the box.

Overall, I think the game could be improved with more off-ice punishment.  I LOVED back before the lockout when they would announce fines for players that dived.  Then that went away.  I think it should come back.  Dives can be hard to catch in the moment, but are easier via review.  Announce fines for dives.  After 2 or 3 dives, a player gets suspended.  Subsequent dives have longer suspensions.  Maybe suspend a coach when his team reaches a certain seasonal dive threshold.  Embarrass the players, and make them hurt their teams by missing games, and diving will become much less a part of the game.

I feel that consistency is all relative to how the ref is doing.  There are some games I watch where its real loose out there.  Other games are very tight.  Its good to not see pre-lockout hockey thats for sure, but even in loose games you see a little more hooking and interference than you would in a tight game.  So how do you make things more consistent?  Thats hard because no matter what, refs are going to call different games.  When you see a trip happen out there, maybe 6 out of 10 refs would say it was a trip while the other 4 would say he lost an edge.

I agree with you on the slashing calls too.  Just because a slash breaks a stick doesn't mean its a penalty.  Refs have to be able to make that judgment call on their own.  Sure, the broken stick is a bad sign, but I feel that there are some instances (about 15%) where a players stick breaks and it wasn't a slash.  Same with dives.  I find the diving call to be stupid as hell.  If you call player A for a trip and player B for a dive, how the hell did player A trip player B then?  A dive is a dive.  I don't know why player A should be penalized for player B diving.

The rules are what they are though.  The refs have to work around those rules as best as they can.  If they go outside the rules, some refs get penalized themselves in fines or "time off" where they don't get any games.  Yes, that happens in USA hockey, college hockey, and pro hockey.  Refs do get penalized for making mistakes.

I remember back about 8 years ago when I would get frustrated with refereeing when I would watch hockey.  I played hockey and I just didn't understand why, as a goalie, I could see penalties that the ref wouldn't see right in front of them.  Last year, I decided to get my USA Hockey certification and start reffing.  It was a very good experience for me, and it really opened my eyes to what happens out there on the ice.

Now, a lot of the comments I see are from people who have never reffed hockey before.  Heck, I am betting that 95% of you have never reffed any sport before.  There are a couple things that people should at least consider before drawing conclusions about a game or a series and how it was reffed.

First, I consider hockey to be one of the hardest sports to referee.  The game moves so fast, and in the course of a play, the ref has to break it down in his head.  I thought, as a goalie moving into reffing, that I would be better at this.  The simple fact of the matter is that I wasn't.  I spend a lot of time studying the rules, taping my games to watch it from a fan's perspective, and also talking to coaches and players.  There are a lot of fans that talk out of their asses about how the reffing is when they have never reffed a game in their lives.  I am a firm believer that people should walk a mile in their shoes before passing judgment.  Give reffing a try before you ***** about the reffing.  A lot of people don't even want to go down that road because its hard or they are lazy.  

Second, refs are human.  They do miss calls.  They do make mistakes.  I never understood why the refs in the NHL get a free pass on all these things.  One of the things I pride myself on is being honest with all players and coaches out on the ice.  If I made a mistake, I own up to it.  The league officials may not expect that, but I expect it from myself.  I question Gary Bettmen when he stands behind his refs 100% and insists that mistakes are never made.  As a fan of hockey, everyone should just acknowledge the fact that mistakes and missed calls are going to happen in the course of a game.

Third, there is no conspiracy.  Refs are consummate professionals.  I am a hockey fan as much as I am a Wings fan.  I don't see any conspiracy out there.  Sure, I see mistakes.  I see missed calls in every game, but its easy for an armchair fan to watch a game and see something bad.  Especially a fan of a team that sees something against his team.  Which is why you hear 20,000 fans boo the refs when they don't get a call.  Try attending a hockey game or watching one on TV where you don't care who wins or loses.  What would you call in the course of that game?  How many penalties total?  I bet if you were watching the Wings you would easily call a 3 to 1 margin in favor of the Wings.  Now, that would be a conspiracy if you were reffing.

I know that a lot of Wings fans feel slighted about the reffing.  Heck, I feel that way.  I feel the Wings came out on the bad end of some calls in the game, thats for sure.  At the same time though, the Sharks were in fact more disciplined.  As Mickey said after the last game, when you are chasing the other team around, you are going to commit more penalties.  Well, they spent a lot of the games of this series chasing the sharks around.  The sharks deserved to win, and the refs were not swinging it in their direction.  The Red Wings were giving them the games by committing timely penalties.

In the end, I listen to what a lot of Wings fans have to say and I just *facepalm*.  Here fans are bitching about the reffing and saying that the refs gave the series to the Sharks.  Ok, well if that was the case, then their team as it is should be just fine for next season.  Nope!  They are too old and slow and need to be revamped.  So was it the refs fault in the end?  Or was it a worth ethic issue?  Or was it just the fact that the Sharks out hustled and out played the wings?  In the Stanley Cup playoffs, I am a firm believer that the hungrier team always advances.  The Sharks were the hungrier team.