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Jimmy D is a high school dropout who grew up in the bad part of Toronto (yes, they exist in Canada).  Eloquence is not his strong suit, but I frankly love it.

But the man is a hockey genius and has been a key component on 8 Stanley Cup winning teams.  Yeah, fire him.

While I side with the owners that percentage of revenue going to the players should go down, contracts signed before the old CBA should be grandfathered in.  That's a very legitimate player gripe.  It also happens to greatly favor the Wings, who really have not signed any outrageous deals.

Love Jimmy D interviews - his frankness is refreshing.

Flipping it, to 43% players and 57% owners still seems like a good deal to me.  That's still a huge chunk to the players, but you have to remember the owners still have to pay coaches, scouts, doctors, vendors, trainers, administrators, insurance, marketing and maintenance.  Imagine if doctors at a hospital demanded 50% of all revenues?

It's getting real hard for me to side with the players as this keeps going on.  My biggest worry is contracts coming down so much the NHL can not compete with a league like the KHL for top salaries.  It's just too bad the top dogs on each side are famous for relating poorly with the other side - Fehr and Bettman.

I think it is pretty guaranteed he'll continue to clean his act in Detroit, but good lord, I pray he does not lose his edge and get to thinking he's being paid to only hit, forecheck and score the occasional point - Wings have been needing a Maltby and McCarty type for a while, and Abdelkader is not it.  Tootoo is a rare combination of pest, legit middleweight fighter, and skills to actually take a regular shift.  I'd rather see him keep his dirtiness than turn into Abdelkader 2.0 on the Wings.

Philly, Nashville and the Blues are now all said to be bidding for JBo - agree he is going to be too pricey.

At this point the Wings should trade a bottom 6 forward and draft pick to San Jose for Doug Murray and hope an opportunity presents itself at the trade deadline... or maybe Volchenkov from NJ (though like JBo he has a no-trade clause) .  SJ and NJ have too many defensemen right now.

I love Tootoo and am really excited about this signing.  Gives his all on every shift and is a wrecking ball out there.  Exactly what the Wings need and have been lacking for some time now.

"Thank you" seems trite, honestly.  I feel like it doesn't quite express the full breadth of our gratitude.  We need to come up with something else.

Our first born.

Because they aren't really 'top prospects'. Maybe among our organization. Not so much throughout the rest of the league.

Until the Wings suck and start getting Top 10 picks they are not going to, and are stuck trying to find talent that will just take longer to develop.  This is easily the best the prospect pool has looked in over a decade, so I'm just not getting all the pooh-poohing.

First time I've seen the NHL "angry" about a call and Bettman later on the air saying the officials would be "held responsible".

I swear, it's like they are purposefully adding fuel to the tin foil cap crowd.  Pretty much in the past week you have no suspension for Orprik's knee-on-knee, an exhorbant fine to Torts for calling the Pens arrogant, Bettman defending Crosby on air after Milbury/Torts/Berube comments and now an official being thrown under the bus for blowing a call that hurt the Pens.  Mario Lemieux publishes an article on his website and releases it to the media directly criticizing the NHL's officiating and doesn't get fined a cent.  And every Wings fan here can name more than a handful of other dubious incidents that have coincidently favored the Penguins over the past few years.  Except it's not just Wings fans... It's pretty much every other fanbase, and also players and coaches who notice and comment on it.  I'm at the point where I wouldn't even be surprised if the league announced Crosby's number was to be retired leaguewide... tomorrow.

I think Holland ends up snagging Semin for a decent cap hit.  No Suter or Parise, but I think they end up with Weber when he becomes a UFA.

Phoenix in 6 - just not expecting much from Chicago this year.

I'm going with the upset of the first round here:
Capitals in 7

Someone on LGW loves Cleary???? How could this be?? Who is it???  Didn't they hear NBC explain how Cleary shoulda been cut years ago? I'm amazed the guy is still in the NHL actually after reading this thread. He's seriously terrible. I think its a bit odd that the hockey team with the best eye for talent in the whole league would ever even consider him...quite strange. I mean its not like he is a grade A team guy or a great locker room presence, he's more like locker room cancer!!!...I believe somebody said something about his lack of intensity as well...dont get me started on that one, he is sooooo lazy, never back checks, never forechecks, never five checks, never side to side checks....pretty much the last phrase i would ever use to describe dan cleary is "one of the hardest workers on this team" yup i would definitely never describe Cleary in that way. He's also been struggling with injuries this year LOL what a nancy-boy cleary is. HATE HIM.

did i also mention i hate Floatzen, Ericsson, Hudler, Bertuzzi, Holmstrom, Kindl, Emmerton, Conklin, Abby, ANDDDDD Miller. How are these guys still on this team??? and how do we keep doing so well with all these joke hockey players on our team????

I used to HATE val fillpula too because, u kno, hes just another soft euro who doesnt shoot the puck enough....but hes having an up year this year so now i suddenly love him.

pretty much the only acceptable players we have are lids, dats, z, and howie.....everyone else should be traded for draft picks...cleary doesnt have much trade value so we should just cut him and fill his roster spot with Daigle....been hearing he wants to make a comeback to hockey. ahhhh Daigle, now thats a premium hockey player.....everything that cleary is not.

No -- Lidstrom is a shadow of his old self and needs to retire for the needed cap space, Zetterberg's back has made his contract an albatross (see first half of this season), Datsyuk is getting old with injuries taking an obvious toll (only 5 pts in 8 gms since coming back from injury) and Howard is too inconsistent, with poor rebound control and never taken a team past the 2nd round.

I say gut the team... Maybe keep Helm, but he is starting to seem pretty injury-prone.

And I thought Daigle has been playing in Switzerland?  Regardless, I'm on board.

Hartnell taunting Hulk Hogan was hilarious.

If he is so injured I really am baffled why he has not been given any games off.  Every one is right - there are simply more effective players right now than injured Cleary, and getting far less minutes.  And if the injury is not that bad, that's even worse - he's just plain stinking it up then.

A 100% Cleary is great to have in the playoffs... I just hope we see it, somehow.