Blitzkrieg wrote:Seeing Shanny in a Rangers uni is painful, especially so since the Wings have been so woeful on the PP. Worse, he hit 600 in Blue and has been pretty goddamned good for the Rangers. Thus, increasing the number of times I see him in said Rangers gear.. Rack you Shanny, you'll always be money in my book.... traitor.
I can still understand your dislike for another former Red Wing that shall remain nameless but don't kill Shanny for going to another team. With Shanahan and Yzerman no longer on the team, the Wings are able to start building towards the future. Granted, Lidstrom is no young pup either but Shanahan was let go by the Wings as much as he left to join the Rangers. He's doing well over there and I won't kill him for his change of scenery. The Wings didn't have too much wiggle room under the cap between finding a goalie and having to re-sign Lidstrom. I do think letting a 40-goal scorer walk was very risky and right now, the Wings are lacking a bonafide finisher. Adding Hasek and Markov have worked well and allowing some of the youngsters like Franzen, Hudler, Filppula and Kopecky to play significant minutes...the Wings don't look like they're ready to hand over the Central Division to the Predators just yet. Babcock has managed the goaltending situation well between Hasek and Osgood...they're allowing just under 2 goals a game right now. Zetterberg may be off to a slow start and a defenseman leads them in scoring but this is pretty darn good team right now. It's too early to figure if this is a team better suited for the playoffs than previous additions but they're winning with goaltending, solid defense and a balanced attack but not dominating offense. They might be hideous on special teams but even strength, they've improved greatly from last year and they get the best offensive contribution from their defense out of every other team in the league.
I'll give some quicks hits around the league...
The Ducks streak of collecting points in every game so far came to an end last night...they're still the most complete team in the league right now. I mentioned this a couple weeks ago about their young forwards...the Baby Ducks are for real...and it looks like Giguere is back to being one of the goalies in the NHL once again. Bryzgalov is no slouch himself.
We'll see how good the Leafs really are without Sundin the lineup. They're the only ones there remotely close to the Sabres in the Northeast right now. Like him or hate him, Tucker is rounding into a complete player...at least from an offensive standpoint.
No disrespect to former Wings coach Dave Lewis, but that Bruins team should be a lot better than they are. Thomas is showing he was a flash in the pan and I'm sure the Bruins brass is kicking themselves right now for signing him to that extension last year after he played well for a few months. I think they'll regret letting Raycroft go unless they're doing that already.
I've been trumpeting the Thrashers from the beginning of the season...I think this team is for real but I don't know if they'll be able to win these 6-4 and 5-3 games all year long. Lehtonen has cooled off some but there isn't a better 1-2 punch in the league right now as good as Kovalchuk and Hossa. Hedberg has given them some good spot starts in goal when they needed him.
Looks like the same story as last year for the Central Division...it's just the Wings and the Predators and three also-rans. We've seen Minnesota make strides in their brief NHL existence but when are the Blue Jackets going to do anything significant?
