Bannedforlife

Is it just me, or was every single other person on the awards show awkward as hell other than Nick? That's pretty sad considering english isn't even his first language  

Sure, sure. Modano WOULD have had 40 points, WOULD have put up a fair share of goals, WOULD have saved the team. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Fact is, he stunk and was benched for a reason.

40-50 points for a guy who is 39 and hasn't played in the NHL in 3 years? Are you serious? We'd be LUCKY if he broke 20, with maybe 7 of those points being goals.

Jeez, can Holland not pick up someone in free agency over 36 for once?

This is coming from the guy who thought Bryzgalov would sign a 5 year contract @ $1.1 million per  

Why does Kenny Holland keep signing over-the-hill geezers. We are becoming a nursing home rather than a hockey team. Say NO to Jagr and NO to any players over 35 (unless they are named Selanne or Lidstrom.

Didn't they learn their lessons with Hull, Robitaille, Hasek, Larionov, Chelios, Fetisov, Murphy, Drake? It's like they just want to keep winning Stanley Cups or something...

Ok, I'm going to post a lineup and I don't want to get blasted over it. I'm not saying it's possible or that I think it might happen, just how cool it looks. Sort of like if I were to post a picture of a Lamborghini. I know I won't be owning a Lamborghini anytime soon, but they sure are cool to look at. So is this.

FORWARDS
Henrik Zetterberg ($6.083m) / Pavel Datsyuk ($6.700m) / Daniel Cleary ($2.800m)
Jiri Hudler ($2.875m) / Jeff Carter ($5.272m) / Jaromir Jagr ($2.000m)
Johan Franzen ($3.954m) / Valtteri Filppula ($3.000m) / Todd Bertuzzi ($1.937m)
Justin Abdelkader ($0.787m) / Darren Helm ($0.912m) / Patrick Eaves ($1.000m)
Tomas Holmstrom ($1.875m) / Jan Mursak ($0.550m)

DEFENSEMEN
Niklas Kronwall ($3.000m) / James Wisniewski ($4.750m)
Nicklas Lidstrom ($6.000m) / Jonathan Ericsson ($1.500m)
Brad Stuart ($3.750m) / Jakub Kindl ($0.883m)
Doug Janik ($0.512m)

GOALTENDERS
Jimmy Howard ($2.250m) / Brian Boucher ($1.000m)

CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(these totals are compiled without the bonus cushion)
SALARY CAP: $63,500,000; CAP PAYROLL: $63,393,938; BONUSES: $0
CAP SPACE (23-man roster): $106,062

Most of it isn't that far-fetched, except that I've put Carter in there instead of Emmerton. I know a trade for Carter would start with Filppula, but it just looks so much cooler with Filppula in there. Beyond that, I've put in Jagr, which is possible given the rumors that his agent called Holland. 2 million probably wouldn't happen, but that's the most I would feel comfortable paying him. I've also added Wisniewski, I think the consensus is that he is the best option available, and Boucher, but you could add any FA backup goalie and it would still look great. Other than that, I've just re-signed our free agents Eaves, Lidstrom, and Ericsson. This is also dependent on the cap going up to 63.5 million, which is the highest estimate I've seen.

First of all, the forward lines are deep as hell. So many different line combos it could make blueadams head explode. We know that Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Cleary is magic on ice, and having so much depth allows us to keep them together full time.

Hudler-Carter-Jagr would be the first combo I'd try for Jagr, you'd have a excellent playmaker in Hudler dishing to a pair of left and right shooting goal scorers, both Jagr and Carter are big guys to make more room for undersized Hudler and there might be a Czech connection to be discovered.

Franzen-Filppula-Bertuzzi is a known quantity as well and would be another case of an excellent playmaker dishing to 2 big, goal scoring wingers. I know the first criticism will be having Filppula and Franzen on the third line, but I don't think of it as a third line. I think of it as a 1A/1B/1C situation. All three of the top lines could be a first on 20 teams in the league. This way you could spread the playing time more evenly, preventing possible injuries and keeping players fresher for the playoffs. Matching up against this team would be a nightmare.

Abdelkader-Helm-Eaves is an incredible energy line, hard hitting and could even pot more than their share of goals.

That would leave Holmstrom out as a power play specialist, reducing wear on him for the playoffs. He and Mursak would be excellent injury fill-ins. You know Franzen is going to go down sooner than later; you could put Mursak on the fourth line and move Abdelkader to the third and not miss a beat. Then you could put Holmstrom on the first line with Z&D when Cleary goes down and know that will work too. This line-up would also improve us greatly in the faceoff circle.

The defense would be ok with the first injury, as you could call up Smith first, but might be a little thin if 2 guys went down. Having Boucher fill in for Howard would be more than ok though, I think he is arguably the best back-up in the league right now.

Another concern is cap space for next year, but we would have 23.648 million (assuming we sign Wisniewski, Ericsson, Eaves and Boucher to multi-year deals this year) plus however much the cap goes up next year to re-sign Kronwall, Stuart, Helm and Abdelkader, plus 4 forwards and 2 defensemen. Lidstrom retires, let Hudler, Jagr, Holmstrom, Bertuzzi, and Janik walk.

Good stat work on the penalty question guys.  Seems like that question is effectively laid to rest.

Wisniewski committed 18 minor penalties in 75 games last year. If you break down the types of penalties he received it indicates that he does not have a tendancy to commit the same mistake over and over, which can be annoying to watch.

Holding the stick: 1
Interference: 2
Slashing: 2
Cross check: 3
Roughing: 3
Boarding: 1
Hooking: 4
High-sticking: 1
High-sticking (Double): 1

Wiz took 8 of those penalties in 32 games for New York (One was for roughing during the 1-6 loss to the Flyers in which 120 minutes were handed out) and 10 while playing 43 games for Montreal (Another one was for roughing in the 2nd period brawl of the 6-8 loss to Boston in which 182 penalty minutes were handed out)

Of those 18 penalties, only 5 occured during the last 10 minutes of the game (cross check, high-sticking, high-sticking, hooking, roughing), 1 came after the final horn (cross check) and none during overtime. Three times the opposing team received a matching minor, including the brawl in Boston. Only 4 times did the opposing team score on the ensuing power play (roughing, high-sticking, hooking, hooking) and none of those goals turned out to be the game winning or game tying goal. In fact, the goals that were scored turned out to be mostly inconsequential. One was the final goal in a 5-0 beatdown by the Predators, another was the fourth goal in that 6-1 blowout by the Flyers, another was the final goal in a 5-2 loss to the Penguins. The only one that really had any consequence to it was the go-ahead goal that put the Leafs up 4-3. The game ended 5-4 Leafs.

By comparison, Rafalski committed 11 minor penalties last year in 63 games. While Rafalski was great about not taking penalties towards the end of the game, he did take one tripping penalty in OT against Dallas. Loui Eriksson ended up scoring shortly after the penalty expired. The puck also ended up in the back of the net on 2 other Rafalski penalties (hooking and cross check). Also, the majority of the penalties he did take were of the infuriating variety (4 hooking, 3 tripping, 1 puck over the glass). It is worth noting that the only guy Rafalski roughed up this year was Kopecky (That could be seen as good or bad)

PS I was bored and couldnt sleep last night, somehow I got stuck on this.

Last day of the season. 7 more days till Lidstrom takes home the Norris, 9 days till the draft and 16 days till free agency!!!

thanks Fin, i didnt bother to reply as i know the guys over the other side of the pond dont know alot about the geography this side !!
for you who dont know;
Baltic;
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania

Eastern Europe:
Belarus
Moldova
Ukraine

Transcaucasus:
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Georgia

Central Asia:
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan

Eurasia:
Russia
these were all part of the old USSR.
hope this helps with any homework.

Which is the one with all the hot chicks?

Make with the lines, line-boy

He actually provided insight on something a lot of people probably didn't know regarding the CBA, RFA's and arbitration.  I sure didn't.  So he shared some actual hockey knowledge.  

And that somehow offended you?

I wasn't offended by the information he shared but that he decided to be a smug ******* about it. A public service announcement? Since when did it become your job to school all of us on the CBA? Apparently he and Konnan are the ones easily offended by our ignorance and naiveté since they devote so much of their free time to making sure we understand how futile it is to hope for such things.

...or Parise.

Because they're all eligible for salary arbitration (which protects a player from offer sheets), and if these players are not signed by July 1st, it's likely that will be taken to arbitration (the arbitration award is not likely to be as high as what exposing such a player to offer sheets could drive their salary to). A team has the option to take a player to arbitration once per each player's career (a tool to protect a valuable player from offer sheets during their most valuable RFA period). A player can still choose to go to arbitration any time he comes up as RFA.

This has been a public service announcement.

Thank god you're around to protect all of us from our own imaginations. Now that this great service has been rendered, why don't you start touring around elementary schools dispelling the evil myths of Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. While you're at it, maybe you can share with them the odds of becoming astronauts, or baseball players, or the president of the United States. Much better that they stop dreaming now than to learn the crushing truth on their own.

Allows the majority of this board to play their favorite game, "ARMCHAIR GM", which they are more than entitled to obviously. Just almost seems like they got handed the 6 million and haven't thought about the puck controlling, point machine we just lost. A declining one yes, but also a great leader and example for the younger dmen like Smith coming up. Hopefully he takes a front office job or something to that effect.

Am I glad that's he's injured and decided that he can no longer play? No. But seeing as how that is the case, I'm glad that he decided to move on rather than linger around and be a hindrance defensively and financially.

The reality is that he can no longer play at the level he wants to be at, so we should be thankful that he made the right decision and happy for him as he moves into a new phase of his life. There's nothing wrong with that.

This is not the year to retire, based on the FA talent pool.  There just isn't a lot out there, and unfortunately those few players that are available will be high in demand and be subject to a bidding war that will drive up the cost to acquire them.
I wonder if there are any stud defensemen in the draft this year that Holland could trade up to grab.

Adam Larsson  

I would feel bad giving up more than 2 firsts for any player. I dont like moving draft picks one bit.

Would you trade Sheahan, Ferraro, McCollum and Smith for Weber? I would

I dont understand why everyone thinks its such a good idea for Winnipeg to get a team. Didnt they lose their first team due to poor attendance? I also seem to remember reading that players hated playing/living there. Am I way off-base?

Great news, but not enough in my opinion. He wasted 3 years of Lidstrom's prime. I think 40 lashes is appropriate.