Drew Doughty

wow. brad richards to dallas, brian campbell to san jose, cristobal huet to capitals. the huet thing was totally unexpected. great move for the caps. only gave up a 2nd rounder for him?

wow the kings almost pulled off another crazy comeback but i'm happy with the result anyway. they don't need the points and i actually like the blackhawks. it was a good "character" game, especially for a young team like them.

we had jim vandermeer in the lineup. it's hard to get much worse than that. and modry is a +2 on the year, pretty good considering that he's been on a horrible team. the next best among regular defensemen was a -9 from preissing. in other news, the flyers managed to lose their 10th consecutive shootout last night. that's not easy. +/- is such a bad stat. preissing would be the kings second worse defensive defenseman, btw. he's slow, he's not physical, he's bad positionally, he has a bad shot, and he's not a very good passer. him being in the NHL is rather inexplicable.

hahahahaha philadelphia gave up anything for jaroslav modry. have fun with that one.

that would be kyle kendrick. i guess it's not surprising that the cubs gm wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Richard Zednik had his throat slashed by Olli Jokinen's skate. He's apparently okay. on a lighter note Dan Cloutier won an NHL game. on a sad note the world is ending tomorrow :(

the nhl all star game sucks and versus also sucks. i like watching the AHL game/skills comp because it's one of the rare times i get to see kings prospects before they're in the NHL.

eh, give it time. he'll find his niche eventually. it's certainly a process when you're trying to fit that much talent together. drury and jagr never really seemed like a fit to me though. they should've held on to nylander and gone after gomez if they were going to get two of the high priced centers. i really liked the avery - gomez - shanahan line they had going earlier this year. dubinsky looked decent with jagr at the time too. still that leaves a high price as the third line center with drury. as much as jagr is a wonderful player, he really is finnicky about who he will and won't play with, and he's shown pretty often that he will play well with straka and nylander. so that would give them... Straka - Nylander - Jagr Avery - Gomez - Shanny Prucha - Dubinsky - Betts that's a pretty great top 3 right there. if avery doesn't work with that line for whatever reason you can move prucha up and make the third line the shutdown line, it should accomplish the job pretty well. then they have a good defense (and more specifically a good system) and a top 5 goalie in the NHL. that's one of the best teams in the league there. oh well, maybe nylander wanted out, who knows.

As a Red Wings fan I have to tell you there was a very good reason that the Wings had absolutely no interest in resigning Lang after this season. Dave Tallon has done a terrible job signing free agents. Almost all of them if not all have been huge letdowns, especially Khabibulin. Instead of signing Lane and some other smalltimer centers they should have opened up the checkbook and signed one of the top 3 centers available this past offseason. it's not just about the checkbook. the free agents have to want to go there, and most don't want to go to places like chicago or los angeles because there is a losing atmosphere surrounding the team. the kings were going to open the checkbooks and pushed hard after drury and briere and ended up with handzus (who i like, but he isn't a top line center), stuart, preissing, and nagy. a bunch of projects/tier 2 guys at best. this isn't like baseball where you can just offer more than the othe rteam, most of the teams can compete with each other financially because of the salary cap (this isn't 100% true, but it generally fits). you have to do it like the blackhawks are trying to do it right now and build from the ground up. before the last off-season started, dean lombardi (kings GM) talked about his philosophy as a GM. he said you consider some guys bridges and some guys builders. what he means is that you have to start with the bridges (stuart, nagy) so the young guys will be ready to step in and be productive when they're ready. now it helps when you end up with stars in the making like toews or kane or kopitar and they can step in and immediately produce, but that isn't going to happen very often. so teams like the blackhawks are stuck with the lower end of the free agent market until they can compete in the standings or at least show that they might be able to in the near future. then they'll be able to bring in stars via free agency and trade. i would look to this off-season as a shot for the blackhawks to make a big splash in the FA market.

in the book of things that are worst for baseball, these two things are on page six after "the grass is too sharp".

12 rounds. 24 shooters. hard to believe with all the handsy talent those two teams had, it went scoreless for that long. and it wasn't even garon in net for the Oilers.

how about instead of a league we just see who drafts the best? no transactions all year long except for changing the roster if you want to. at any rate, i'm in. i'd prefer if it turned into a league but i'll do this again. i won the league last year, even though meph gave up.

yeah the brewers and cubs should have been going hard after....carlos silva and josh towers.

So the sport that has hard checks into the boards, highsticking, and regularly has fighting is concerned that players might be injured because it's a little windy and snowy? These guys are getting paid plenty for injury risk. the difference is that these guys are prepared to be hit and whatnot, they aren't ready for a divot in the ice. i think you underestimate how much bad ice affects a game. in the echl, fresno is notorious for horrible ice. here's a brief recap of some of the injuries caused by bad ice. http://falconsmusings.blogspot.com/2007_02_18_archive.html

Who was calling the game? Emrick and more importantly Olczyk. He never coached Malkin so he didn't laud him as much. sorry blackhawk fans :lol:

i just hope the stoppages to fix the ice don't bother too many casual fans. good game so far. especially the last 7 minutes or so. Great pace.

That would be a very poor decision IMO. 9th in AL in WHIP. < 30. Pitches in AL East. not going to repeat it. he'll be lucky to have an era below 4.5 regardless of which division he pitches in next year. we don't need to throw away two assets to get him.

AJ Burnett. and his contract was before the ridiculous contract boom of the last two years.

i hope he wins 12 consecutive cy youngs.

i don't really see it. if it was JH, fick would have a guaranteed MLB contract and davanon would be our starting OF. rite guys? jim hendry sucks? did i do that right?

Curtis Granderson w/ less power.

Meany-bopper :evil: :evil: =D>

i thought both teams played pretty poor defensively. the difference is that khabibulin is above average and quick and aubin aren't even average. ugh.

I consider them to be winners in this saga, not signing Rowand or Hunter. Who plays CF. Owens? does it matter? they probably weren't going to contend next year and getting rowand or hunter wouldn't have changed that. not getting one of those two (add jones to that list as well) is a good thing considering the price.

Sick 'em, modzilla. =D>