2008/2009 Hockey Thread v2.0

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

...shit, you're right. If I'm getting expansion dates wrong (not counting the early 90s), I shouldn't be awake anymore.

[Toe]

I really think Anaheim has to win tonight to keep any hope of winning alive. I don't see these Red Wings failing to finish off an opponent when ahead 2-0.

[Gabriel]

The Ducks/Wings game was awesome. That's a series.

Eric Staal was a monster tonight for Carolina, and I applaud his play... but he's going to get himself very seriously hurt. He keeps putting himself in bad positions. He spent more time facing the boards than any other direction tonight, and he kept looking around for penalties when Chara would dump him. I'm sorry, but if you're purposely playing that way, then you're asking for it. I liked that they didn't call it.

[Plubby]

Being a goalie, I would like nothing more than to see a Hiller/Varlamov Stanley Cup duel. That would make me so happy.

[gunnar hendershow]

So tonight's game will go down in hockey lore I think.

[TGWL]

Markus Naslund's days in the NHL are over. The 35 year old has decided to hang 'em up, bringing to a close his very successful 15 year NHL career. He has informed his teammates that he is planning on retiring and has also notified Glen Sather. Rangers fans did not get to see Naslund in his prime, but they are well aware of his accolades elsewhere.

Naslund is the defintion of class. Instead of waiting to notify the team of his impending retirement, he could have waited to be bought out and collected a cool $2 million without even breaking a sweat (Curt Schilling anyone?). But in a world where Alex Rodriguez is making $30 million a year, Markus Naslund decided he was better than the statusquo. He saved the Rangers a $2 million cap hit next season and a $1 million hit two years from now, thus giving them a better opportunity to compete even though he will no longer be with the team.

The three time all-star's legs were old and tired. As much as he wanted to play in New York, with John Tortorella behind the bench, Naslund was no longer a good fit in his uptempo system. For the cap stricken Rangers, his retirement erases $4 million of beautiful cap space to help re-sign Ryan Callahan and Brandon Dubinsky.

[Toe]

Great career for Naslund. He is in the upper level of Canucks and I hope the Canucks give him a little ceremony sometime next year. He didn't retire their, but he will be remembered as one of the great Canucks.

[Clawson]

Great career for Naslund. He is in the upper level of Canucks and I hope the Canucks give him a little ceremony sometime next year. He didn't retire their, but he will be remembered as one of the great Canucks.

Yes he had a good career but in all fairness if I played for the Canucks I could probably be in that group too.

[Toe]

Great career for Naslund. He is in the upper level of Canucks and I hope the Canucks give him a little ceremony sometime next year. He didn't retire their, but he will be remembered as one of the great Canucks.

Yes he had a good career but in all fairness if I played for the Canucks I could probably be in that group too.

They have had their fair share of good players.

[Clawson]

Luongo, Bure aaaaannnnnddddd...?

[Gabriel]

Luongo, Bure aaaaannnnnddddd...?

Cliff Ronning... Kirk McLean... there's two more.

[Guest King Tut]

Trevor Linden beats almost all those guys.

[jase12881]

I hope the Wings can pull at least one of the next two against Anaheim, but the Ducks are tough as Hell. Big guys. They do a good job of playing the body while not allowing the puck to get past them. A lot of the Detroit fans on the HFboards say shit like: "Well Anaheim isn't so tough, the Wings aren't even playing that well and they're playing as good as the Ducks." That shit cracks me up. No hockey fans can just give credit to the other team. And I'd like to believe that's true, but I just don't think it is.

I believe Detroit hasn't looked like themselves because Anaheim has played them tough and smothered them. Make no mistake about it, Anaheim is better than their #8 seed indicates (I knew that before the playoffs, before I had even heard of Hiller) . I honestly think whoever wins the Detroit/Anaheim series will win the West. Now I may be biased on that, and to be perfectly fair, I haven't seen Vancouver (or Chicago for that matter) play much. I will say, I would like (not love, because my team would be out ) to see a Chicago/Pittsburgh finals. Not only for the history, but because it would feature some great young talent, but it doesn't look like that's incredibly likely at this point (though it's too early to say for sure.)

Oh, and the Capitals' goalie makes some amazing saves. Someone will probably argue it's because he's out of position or something, but man, he made some incrediblly acrobatic saves in the first two games. Hiller seems to be pretty damn good too actually.

I so hope the Wings can win tonight and take back the lead in the series. It worries me that Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Hossa have done precisely dick in the series so far though.

[Toe]

I know people in this market are against it...but Burke has to at least make an offer to the Sedin twins. People knock them, but they are point per game producers and they are putting up points in the postseason. They are durable and I think if Burke wanted to go in that direction, it would be a good move.

TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEMUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

Edited May 6, 2009 by Toe

[Guest King Tut]

Jim Balsillie is at it again - he's offered to buy Phoenix for $212 million, on the condition that he be allowed to move the team to southern Ontario.

[Hajjhowe]

I see no way that the Leafs will let them put a team so close to them. Put the team in Winnipeg. We can just pretend the last like 10 seasons didn't happen for them. Nobody will notice.

[SeanDMan]

The thing I like about the Chicago series is that it could just as easily be 3-0 Chicago or 3-0 Vancouver right now. Each game has been close, despite the scorelines, and a bounce or a call the other way changes the entire dynamic of the the games.

[Gabriel]

The thing I like about the Chicago series is that it could just as easily be 3-0 Chicago or 3-0 Vancouver right now. Each game has been close, despite the scorelines, and a bounce or a call the other way changes the entire dynamic of the the games.

That's pretty much how I feel about Anaheim/Detroit and Pittsburgh/Washington... it's just been great hockey in the second round, with a lot of really close games, even when the scores may have said otherwise.

[SeanDMan]

Oh, and there's a lot of debate right now about whether we should retire Naslund's number (only three numbers have been retired by the Canucks in their history; Linden, Steamer, and Wayne Maki). He's a very devisive figure in there here parts but an unofficial poll of Sportsnet said 67% are in favour, so...

[Gabriel]

I think, in the future, yes... but there are guys I'd put before him. When Smyl's number isn't retired, and Linden's is you know they're doing it for the feel-good reasons as opposed to anything else though.

I agree that Trevor Linden deserved his number retired, but it really was just to capitalize on the moment... and for that reason, I don't see Naslund waiting too long to get that big ol' 19 up in the rafters.