Detroit Red Wings & the NHL

[Detroit Dan]

Good win tonight for Wings.

I believe there was a year where they had the 5 minute 4 on 4 OT, but no shootout. In that circumstance, the point for the losers made sense, as it really promoted all out offense in the OT. But since they added the shootout, the point for the losers makes less sense.

Anyway, another thrilling win for the Wings tonight in the shootout. Gotta love Jimmy Howard who stopped all 4 Columbus shootout attempts tonight...

[Hannibal]

Terrible game played the by the Red Wings. I guess if you're going to have one of those, the Blue Jackets are the team to do it against.

[Mike]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[lineygoblue]

Good point, Mike. Not too much is wrong with the Wings right now. They're cruising right along.

[Detroit Dan]

Wings.

[Rob F]

Hooters

[Mike]

Good point, Mike. Not too much is wrong with the Wings right now. They're cruising right along.

I'm talking about the NHL in general but, yes, the Wings are cruising. How about Datsyuk's backhander tonight?!? Wow.

[Paul L]

Fantastic game last night; Howard is playing out of his mind and Datsyuk's backhander was a thing of beauty.

17 in a row at home; 3 from the NHL record!

[madootra]

Convinced almost every game that Datsyuk is the best overall player in the world right now.

[Mike]

I've been saying that for 4 years!

Not suggesting you haven't...

[Hannibal]

Datsyuk might be the best in the world. He's certainly one of a kind. Probably the best puck handler there has ever been. Malkin is pretty incredible too. His performance in the '09 playoffs was probably the best of the past 15 years. Two years ago, I would have said that Ovechkin is the greatest in the world, but for some reason, he has come out of the stratosphere the past couple of years and is on pace to score less than 40 goals again this year.

Zetterberg at one time was up there with Datsyuk, but he is considerably less dominant than he was a few years ago. I think that the numerous injuries that he has had may have taken a toll.

[Tony G]

Probably the best puck handler there has ever been.

Maybe not even the best puck handler the Wings have ever had. Igor, Feds, and Vladdie were all excellent with the puck. I see a lot of comparisons to Fedorov with Dats (only not quite as flaky)

[Hannibal]

Those guys were great in their own way too, but Datsyuk is on another level when it comes to pure puck posession. He's the only guy I have ever seen who pulls off Harlem Globetrotter type moves that make the announcers laugh. I've been told that Igor was probably the best in the world in his prime, but I never got to see it. The Wings got him late in his career (he was 36 when he became a Wing IIRC).

[Tony G]

I would have loved to have seen the Russian Five play with today's rules

[Hannibal]

Yeah, me too. Imagine all of the European stars of the past 15 years playing hockey in the 80s with Wayne Gretzky and Lemieux.