toby91_ca

I don't get it.  GMs and other members of management ask for permission to speak to other team's personnel.  If you really want someone, that's what you have to do.  It would such if you had to simply accept who's out there, out of job and looking.  People ask for permission to speak to certain people all the time, sometimes the team says no, sometimes they say yes.

Do I have this correct...some people on here are okay with other GMs doing this with the wings, but not Steve?  Makes no sense.  He needs to fill positions, he can speak to the other 28 teams, but not the Wings?  That's just stupid.

I don't care either way.  Why would anyone care if Pronger won the Conne Smythe or not?

A neutral site works and makes sense for a game like football.  It is a single game and it would probably be unfair for one of those teams to be playing on home field.  For hockey and other sports (see baseball, basketball, etc.), it doesn't make sense and that's why it is not done.  In a 7 games series, you are able to split the games so each team has home ice for different games, no unfair advantage to on of the teams.  The team with the better regular season record gets an extra home game of course, but that's fair.

This love fest with these two players and teams is getting really old.

I can understand the issue most people have with the constant promotion of Crosby and Ovechkin, but I think people need to step back and appreciate just how good these players are.

As of right now (I know numbers could decline, but both are still years away from their primes):

Career points per game leaders in NHL history:

Gretzky - 1.921
Lemieux - 1.883
Bossy - 1.497
Orr - 1.393
Crosby - 1.364
Ovechkin - 1.336
Dionne - 1.314

Pretty impressive group to be included within.  Again, over the long haul, their stats may begin to lag, but it is also important to point out that all the others on this list played in a much higher scorer era than today's NHL.  While they have tried to increase scoring, scoring is still low and goalies are lightyears ahead of where they used to be.

People need to understand that these players are special and if the NHL doesn't market them as such, they are missing out.  To NHL fans of other teams, it gets annoying, but I do think these guys draw in new fans.

Figured this would come up the next time the Wings lost a playoff series.

A luxury tax system is nice, but it still encourages more spending. Teams had proven when there was no system in place to curb their spending that they would spend themselves into bankruptcy to try and be competitive as far as having superstars and getting (at very least) into the playoffs is concerned. A luxury tax would, despite the "sharing" of tax revenues of those over a designated cap, still encourage reckless spending and thus pit the NHL into the same problem it had pre-cap era.

This is without foresight at all, and imo it's just a way to get the Wings out of a cap system so they can spend a lot more money and buy a lot more superstars again so we can see another roster like that of 2002.

I agree, the examples as described just shows total salaries increasing across the board.  So, more money to players, but no more revenues to the league.  Not sure how the owners would feel about that.

It's not JUST about points either - Punching another guy in the junk from behind, taking all kinds of other cheapshots, not shaking hands and overall flopping around and acting like he's been shot with a shotgun over the smallest shots, just to return to the ice 2 shifts later... he portrays the game in a poor light and is a HORRIBLE role model for young players - THAT is not a face the league should market... hell, even though I can't stand him, how about Getzlaf? Even he plays the game with more honor - close to the same PPG, has a Stanley Cup, Olympic gold and is young as well... or even Bobby Ryan... my point is, there are plenty of others in the league that would represent the league better...

Did you just say that Getzlaf has close to the same PPG as Crosby?

Crosby's career PPG is 1.36, Getzlaf's is 0.93.  Getzlaf's BEST season was 1.12, Crosby WORST season was 1.26.

I think this says more about the fans in Montreal than anything else.

If he does retire, he's definitely going to the Hall-of-Fame. The only question is with what jersey? He's won 1 cup with the Habs, 2 with the Wings, and was born in Chicago.  It'll be a hard choice, but I personally think it will come down to the latter two teams.

What are you talking about?  On the day of his induction, he'll be wearing a suit...actually, he'll be wearing a HHOF sports coat.  This isn't baseball.

Also, he's won 1 Norris with Montreal and 2 with Chicago and he's played the most games with Chicago.  For whatever reason, I remember him most from his days with Montreal...probably because when I was younger, I lived in Nova Scotia and HNIC was always Montreal games.

Yes, I think Lids will return for one, maybe two more seasons.  But I'm a little confused as to where you're getting this 1.66 cap hit?  If he signs for 5 mil the first season and say 1 mil the second season, the cap hit would be 3 million, correct?

I think his assumption is that Lids wants $5 million, but rather than sign him to a one year, $5M contract, spread the cap hit over 3 years, assuming he'll retire after the 1st year.  So, its a 3 year deal for $1.67M per year.

However, the big problem is that if Lids retires after the first year, he doesn't get his $5 million, he only gets paid for the year he played.....but the cap remains.

I'm sure you could play around to work something out to pay him well next year and get the cap hit down, but I'm all for not having cap hits for guys that are no longer playing and I'm sure they wouldn't do something like that.

If he is played his last game, I'm a little disappointed that it wasn't well known, then he could have gotten a proper send off from the fans.  Pretty sure he'll be coming back though.

The Pens would have to get by Montreal first.  Don't think you can discount how much having Staal out of the line up hurts either.

I must be the only one that doesn't see the huge deal here.  Yes, he's a ****** for doing what he did, should have gotten his ass kicked and all that, but some are suggesting he should be kicked out of hockey??  If he had hit a defenseman it would have been a good clean hit, probably wouldn't have even knocked him down.  The goalie was not hurt in anyway whatsoever.

Let's be clear, I don't think it was a clean play that should go unpunished, but if this happened in the NHL, I'm guessing he would have gotten his ass kicked, but only a 2 min penalty on the actual contact with the goalie....not an indefinite suspension (by the way, I think there were other things going on that played into the suspension).

Okay, I may be in the minority here, but I decided to have a quick look at the number of a powerplays each team has had so far in the playoffs (after reading about Washington going 1 for 30 so far).  Here are the results:

DET - 28
PHX - 28

VAN - 24
LAK - 26

COL - 15
SJS - 26

CHI - 23
NSH - 27

WSH - 30
MON - 27

PIT - 28
OTT - 22

NJD - 32
PHI - 29

BOS - 22
BUF - 19

Funny all the series have had relatively the same number of penalties called (24-30 range).  The NJD-PHI is a bit out of wack as they only played 5 games, but that's not entirely surprising as PHI is a bit of chippy team.  So, my concern is as follows:  If you look at each series, the powerplay opportunities for each team are very, very similar, with the exception of SJS-COL, not sure why that is so out of wack, but I suspect it is probably from a particular game or something and not even across the entire series (could be though).

You may be asking....so what, looks relatively even for all the teams...what's the beef?  Well, I look at it like this: do we really think each team is committing the same number of infractions?  I guess on average is should make some sense, but I think it is too even.  There is no conspiracy here or anything, I'm just not a fan of the way the officials operate and have been operating for years, and it goes like this:

  - Team A has taken 3 penalties in a row....you know there is no way they are getting the next penalty and the slightest thing Team B does will result in a call (even up).  My philosphy: I don't care if one team gets 15 penalties in a row, if they are deserved, they should be called.  A game can result in 15 powerplays for one team and 2 for the other, doesn't mean the reffing was bad, but more often than not, the number of PP for each team will tend to even up.

NHL 2010 Playoffs Leading scorers through April 25th:

1  Sidney Crosby     5g  9a  14pts  
2  Mikael Samuelsson 7g  4a  11pts   
3  Nicklas Backstrom 5g  4a   9pts    
4  Alex Ovechkin     5g  4a   9pts  
5  Henrik Zetterberg 6g  2a   8pts

I gave a little hint.

Nice! The Flyers are quickly becoming my Eastern Conference team. For years it's been Buffalo, but I think those Flyer fans are awesome!

Have never seen that comment in my entire life, first time for everything I guess.

Not sure if everyone saw the play, but pretty amazing that they called that back.  The call on the ice was a goal, so in order to call it back, you needed conclusive evidence.  If you look at the video, I find it impossible to call that back, but someone did.  I would even suggest that if the call on the ice was no goal, you'd change it to a goal because it was pretty clear that there was no kicking motion.