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Toews/Kane shouldn't get massive, team gutting raises this time though. They only make 6.3 a piece. Getzlaf/Perry signed for 8.5 during the season I think. team gutting no...but will be somewhat of a challenge. Hawks are in good shape capwise though.

Weiss is an upgrade over Filp(who got $5 mill per). I think Weiss will score 60 points centering Franzen/Alfredsson. As a Wings fan I am way more upset about them potentially losing Brunner than I am over the Weiss deal. I also would rather have Alferdsson for 1 season at 5.5 than ever spend another penny on Cleary. So it has been a good/bad day mix I guess.

Flyers kill me. They were able to buy themselves out of cap hell and have decided to start doing the exact things that put them in that position to begin with.

Filppula is going to get far more than I'd be willing to pay for him. Weiss would be great but probably the same situation. Supposedly the Wings never got serious about Lecavalier because they were more interested in Weiss. Filppula is probably out as a Wing. I think Filppula would be a great addition to the Hawks. But he is going to probably be out of the Hawks price range.

Are the White Sox in the worst position in MLB? Bad, getting worse, no immediate help, no apparent plan for the future

Not exactly a big FA crop this season

What can we expect for their next contracts? Are they going to have to decide for one over the other? They will both get raises of a couple million each, and they will both almost certainly remain Blackhawks. Both seem to absolutely love playing in Chicago and they are the two faces of the franchise. I wouldn't be too worried, our dynamic duo should be around for a long, long time. I know it is too soon to talk about this kind of stuff, but I suspect that the Hawks will buy out Hossa after next season and split his money up and give it to Toews/Kane. I think they will get 8.5 a piece.

our captain and a young pillar on which the NHL is built has taken a series of violent shots to the upper body in the series. this is not simple "physical play", it's a constant attempt to injure, to cheat their way into the cup. this should be looked at. players like toews should not have to be the focus of dirty hits, this is real attack on the quality of play in the league itself. if the NHL wants to promote its stars, it needs to protect them. that means a lengthy suspension for hits like this, and any real attempts by goons and other animals to injure actual hockey players. the worst part about this is that when goons like steve moore make intentionally dirty hits in an effort to cheat their way to victory, then get their dirty asses removed from hockey when an opposing player like bertuzzi makes retribution, it's the guys like bertuzzi that pay with draconian suspensions. if the league doesn't want to police this kind of thing, then fine, let the players police it themselves. this means allowing violent retribution without suspension or fine. I am okay with your post. But you have to do this from day 1 for all teams. Game 5 of the Cup finals is not a good time to make a stand, if you have not been consistent about it all year. But I will still contend that clearing the front of the net involves a lot of very high cross-checking that almost never gets called. Almost all d-men do it to just about every player who is willing to go in there. And I think you would be very upset if Hawks d-men were not doing it. I think Boychuk would have hit Frolik just the same as Toews. Boychuk deserved a penalty, but not a suspension in todays NHL. BTW...great observation about the Steve Moore/Bertuzzi incident. I am not a Bertuzzi fan, but Moore being a "victim" is a complete media generated fraud.

So for some reason I cannot watch videos today so I may be out on a limb here, but I do not think Boychuk should have been suspended. Of course of the Hawks would have announced Toews was out for game 6 I am sure he would have been. As bothersome as this may sound, what Boychuk did was really quite standard in NHL. It just looked worse because Toews' momentum made the hit all the more violent. Clearing the crease in this manner is common. You would probably really hate any Hawk dman who did not do these sort of things. Okay, I can see videos now. Seeing the video only reinforces my stance. Changed positions, point of contact and all of that. In a more broad sense I do think the NHL does a really bad job at policing this kind of stuff.

Datsyuk has a dolphin, one of those yin-yang symbols, a Chinese character and a butterfly. There were many fans upset because the dolphin was hardly out on the PK that season. Yzerman got a heart with Scotty B written through it.

Selke is the trophy for the cutest ankle tattoo acquired that season.

So where 75% of American hockey fans live:) I have not really looked at the details yet, but I think the Hawks will win. Pittsburgh's D is not even in the same league as Chicago's. Also, I think this series will be won on the 3rd/4th lines...advantage Hawks.

I think the amount of people who would have to know about these "conspiracies" make them extremely unlikely. At some point someone would say something and it would get out. A much more likely conspiracy is rigging the draft lottery or something like that. Figure that could be done with a very limited amount of people knowing. Even so the benefits do not out weigh the potential disaster getting caught would cost the sport. The funny thing about Pens fans thinking these things is that almost every other irrational NHL fan thinks the league does things that help the Pens succeed.

I think the IHSA has gone to the BBcor standard. I know the Jr Hi level has, as long as the bat is over 30". I have also heard about several HSers switching to wood bats for better bat speed. My son owns a Demarini bat that is composite and still is BBcor certified. In summer Pony League the bat rules are more relaxed, but we require all the Jr Hi baseball players on our team to use BBcor. So a couple of kids on our team who are not Jr Hi players and a lot of players throughout the league use drop 9 composites. There is quite a bit of difference.

I just threw 5 mill out as an example. His playoff push is probably making 4 realistic. If he can be a somewhat productive top 6, he could fill a very huge need for the Wings. They probably would not have any problem paying him 4 mill. Personally I would rather the Wings tried to get Stalberg for less. Not that I think he is better but I think he may end up being better value while still providing some size. The Wings have not been very successful at acquiring FA the last few off-seasons though.

The Cap hit will always be the average of the total contract. So a 5 yr 25 mil contract will have a 5 mill cap hit no matter how you structure the contract.

Probably because in 2010 the Hawks were rising out from the ashes of being a really pathetic franchise and now they're just another good, big-market team.

driving around NHL boards it seems that a majority of non-Hawks fans think he should be suspended. Not so much for the hit as much as a consistency issue. Several players have been suspended this playoffs for making hockey plays that ended up hitting someone on the head accidentally. Keith was not even making a hockey play and accidentally whacked Carter in the head with his stick. I think it is a valid point. In NUN hockey world, I do not think he should be suspended. Probably should have been a 5 min major though.

Is it necessarily player development, or is it that their scouting might just be better at finding guys who actually develop into things? Probably both.

What ever happened to the Cards being a sinking ship after they traded the system for Holiday and then gave him a "terrible" contract? Does anyone ever talk about Mozeliak being the best GM in baseball? Okay this was a Cardinal rant wrapped up in a couple of questions...carry on with Cubs musings

Boston is really exposing Pittsburgh weakness...defensive depth and goaltending. I am not surprised that Boston is winning but not like this

More like Emery's replacement after someone does the same. Of course, if they follow the Detroit model of not paying goalies then maybe he's his eventual successor. Detroit gave Howard a nice extension. They had no obvious replacement though.

I think the one thing that really impressed me the most about the Hawks in this series was Q. In the past when his teams start to get beat by the Wings in a playoff series he has countered with goonery, lack of discipline and whining. He did his fair share of whining early and the Hawks looked like a team losing discipline in game 3. However, they came back in game 4, played well and lost but did not lose discipline. In the long run the better team won because Q had them be the better team, not stupid "physical" play or message sending that has always been his undoing in the past. As a whole this may have been the worst officiated series I can remember. Not because they let them play, but because of the times that they just decided to make calls. It was odd. I said my peace about game 6 and obviously the call last night was terrible. The better team ended up winning, so it probably didn't matter. NHL would do themselves a huge favor and just start having refs be less subjective and more assertive on calling the rules as they are written. It would open the game up more and leave themselves open to much less criticism. Going forward I think the Hawks/Kings series is going to weigh heavily on how the series is officiated. If it is called tightly, I think the Hawks will out skate them and win rather easily. If it is called how the Hawks/Wings series was, it is going to be hard for the Hawks to win.

i think wings fans are being perfectly honest when they blame the loss on the vast nhl conspiracy, phantom offside, or bogus penalty shots. i think if wings fans thought their team was better than the blackhawks, they would actually make a coherent case for that, rather than resorting to all of the nonsense we see around the internets Do not forget Michigan is the state that gives us Amway and all those militias. Crazy ass internet stuff is like the norm to a lot of those people. Like I said that IF they were honest. But they would also have to claim that Obama is not the worst president ever IF they are honest.

I think if you read my entire post you would notice that I ended by saying that Howard played the PS terribly...but oh well. I also did not say the Wings lost because of PS. I just explained why I thought it was a bad call. I'm just expecting you to be completely pissed right now, at the Wings. Without equivocation. Because if the Hawks had blown a 3-1 lead to go to a game 7 in Detroit, I'd be really angry at them. I wouldn't even be talking about a ref call, certainly not that one. But I do get that you tried to balance your opinion, I give you credit for that. Oh, I was very upset about how they started the 3rd. No doubt. Their play in the 3rd period has been terrible all season long and has only gotten worse in the playoffs. I am not happy with how Howard played the PS. It was not a great move. He played it terrible, without a doubt. The Hawks are way to good, Wings cannot afford to make some lapses they made last night. I am also pissed the Wings did not get a sniper at the deadline. I am not happy they played with no effort in game 5.