Lunatic

If It's really difficult to compare the four. If Lemieux and Orr had stayed healthy? if Gretsky had not been on the Oilers? if Howe played during te same period? who knows. In comparing the four, they each had their strengths and weaknesses. Orr was not great defensively, as I remember it, but boy did he revolutionize his position. Gretsky had no trouble piling points on, the more points the better, whereas, Mario never, or seldom, piled points on when the outcome of game, was not in question. I respected him for that. Howe is Howe. I got to watch much of his early/mid career through CKLW. He was indestuctible, never put up points as many points in any one year, as the other three but he lasted forever, additionally he was mean, mean, mean. I might put Bobby Hull in this group. He revolutionized the modern-day slap shot. Pittsburgh has been very fortunate to have two generational best players in Lemieux and Crosby.

At this point I think that the Flyers are playing the situation just right. They should fear not having a viable back-up. Just look at this season. So stating now that they are not going to buyout Bryz is just smart. They have four months to find another viable goalie. If they announce that they are going to buyout Brzy, at this time, the price of acquiring another viable goalie just goes up and up. I can see 29 GMs profusely drooling just waiting for Homer's call. If, and hopefully, the Flyers do find a suitable goalie during this four month period, bye-bye, Bryz. If not they have another year with no penalty associated by overpaying for Bryz's replacement and adequate goaltending next year.

Jammer, How would you rate the top 3? What do you thik their potential is? Yu must think they are pretty good for LA to give that much up.

At this point I would reserve judgement on Carchidi's article. I'd be interested hearing from people who cover Canadian Junior Hockey. I do not have an idea as to how good the top three in this draft are, as compared to the rest. If there is a marked difference, I still might go for defence, but might trade down a couple picks and possibly pick up a first round pick next year. At this point it is all speculation, though.

Maybe Pronger needs to "talk" to him.

Why????????

Sad. Some things truly surpass hockey.

Really interesting since he graduate from Brown @ a 3.6 GPA in Econ. Just goes to show that there are different types of intelligence.

Unfortunately for that hit Z may never play for the Flyers again. They will send him down to avoid the loss of a player.

I could not agree with you more. When I think about Z's hit, there is no consensus as to whether it was 'clean or dirty", sending it to the league office is taking hockey from a fast, hard-hitting game to a micro managed mess. The game is played in real time, not frame by frame. I really think that Buttman, et. al would rather have fancy skating wusses, with their heads down, dancing through the middle of the ice unimpeded. As for the comments about Z's previous hit, that he should not have been made so late in a game that was settled, well that's BS. When you are on the ice, be ready to get hit anytime, not just the PC time.

To me he did not leave his feet until after the contact, then, just his back foot. The other guy was entering the zone with his head down (Dumb, Dumb). I hope the league doesn't penalize players for checking players with the puck who skate into their offensive zone with their heads down. If he gets suspended, I hope it is for unintentional contact to the head. But, basically that was a good hit.

Wow! If the projected lineups for the Flyers and Pens remains as projected, we are going to have a rematch of of Couts vs Malkin. I can't wait!

Still in shock about the lockout, but it's hokey time. So, here goes: Line #1: Hartnell Giroux Read Line #2: Schenn Briere Vorachuk Line #3 Fedotenko Couturier Simmons Line #4 Rinaldo Talbot Harry Z Defence 1st pairing Coburn Gustafsson 2nd paring Timonen Schenn 3rd pairing Grossman Mezaros Goalie Bryz

Jammer, What do you think of Devellano's statement: "I would say there is, again, an unwritten rule...we all know it in the NHL, but not everyone follows it." Isn't that really giving the NHLPA more ammunition?

It appears that this "tightly knit" group of owners might not be as tightly knit Bettman would like the world to think?

Jammer, I'm with you. Bernie will always be my favorite goalie and if buying his book might help him, I'm buying it.

Jammer, I think that you hit the nail on the head. One other thought has come to mind. Do you suppose that Fehr and the Players Union structured their proposal to take Bettman out?

Donald Fehr has very effectively boxed Gary Bettman into a corner on two, or maybe three or four fronts. First: Bettman's' support among the owners has historically been from the smaller market owners. The Players Union has thrown a bone to the small market owners, by suggesting more money for them via revenue sharing, realizing that the unions intertests are in having many teams, ergo, more players. The NHL's proposal is not geared to change how the smaller market teams receive, or how much they receive of the sharing money. Second: The players Union realizes that the richer teams are frustrated by the "Cap". Ergo- install a modified, limited tax allowing them to exceed the cap. Thus there is an incentive for them to consider the Player's Union proposal. Third the Players are willing to reduce their share of the total revenue, as revenues continue to grow (an assumption, born out by history), and finally, Fourth: They have presented a reasonable proposal, made no demands and have agreed to work through the negotiations without a work lockout. This has won the pole of public opinion. "Responsive" in legal terms generally means not addressing a specific question. It is not necessarily relevant in a negotiation. Management made their proposal, the union made their proposal. The fact that the Player's Union proposal did not address the management's proposal is not the point. It does not have to be "responsive". It is their proposal. The fact that Mr. Betmann, fell back on the legalistic concept of "responsiveness" suggests, to me, that he was not prepared for union's response and realizes that he has been boxed in, and that by giving any credence to the union's proposal would only lead to his demise. It's a shame. Mr. Bettman is hired by the owners. He serves at the owners discretion. He is doing their biding. But listening to him on NHL Home Ice, it is apparent that he has a real passion for hockey. It's sad that things can't be workout, there are record earnings, without having a looser: fan, players or owners.

I do not consider myself pro union, or pro management. I am pro hockey! As with any negotiation there is posturing and eventually some give and take. So be it. But enough is enough! There have been two cancellations of hockey since Bettman became commissioner, the last one entailed the entire season. Now it looks like there will be another curtailment of the hockey season again. The owners made the union buckle to almost all their demands after the last strike. The contract that presently exists contains almost all the owners wants at that time. Now with these contract negotiations the owners are saying, "OOPs! the last contract was not what we really,really wanted. Now we want this: "If you the union do not agree by September 15th, we will just lock down at least the beginning of the season". Bettman waits to submit a 76,000 page proposal to the Players Union until the middle of July. The proposal that effectively reverses all the owner's last wish list and calls for a huge cut in the players salary and other losses that the players are to absorb. He then comes out in middle August and tells the world that if the Players Union does not get it together and agree to a contract by September 15th, the owners will lock them out. Can you imagine any organization being able to digest a 76,000 page proposal? Yet alone to respond to it? So far these negotiations have had unreasonable pressure applied by one side and only one side. Where is the spirit of negotiation? There is none on the part of the owners. It is no wonder that collectively the owners are generally view a spoiled, very rich fat-cats. To Mr Bettman: Mr. Bettman, if this season is lost, I will never follow NHL hockey again and that is hard to say after following hockey for more than fifty years! I bough NHL jerseys, etc, held season tickets for 20 of those years and years when it was not feasible to attend games I paid for television coverage when available and travelled more frequently to see NHL hockey. I know that you do not care about me, the the individual fan when you see all the money to be had wih corporate sponsorships, but if you loose all the little inconsequential fans, NHL hockey will on a dead-end road and it is nobodies fault but yours. Thank goodness you don't control minor hockey, or college hockey.

Jammer, I'm with you! That trade is crazy. Ryan would nice to have, but, Read may turn out to be a better player at 1/5 the price.

Read is an interesting player. Yes, he is 25, but he skates really well, plays in all situations (including PK), has a world class shot (as demonstrated at the All-Star Game) and scored 40+ points without playing on the top two lines. I really hope they don't trade him. Let's give him a chance and see what he is made of. Just think if they traded Poulin after his first year!

There is a significant divide between the haves, consistently successful, wealthy teams and the have nots, inconsistently successful, mostly smaller market teams. Bettman's power base is formed mostly by the later group. There are more of the later category teams and in the NHL owners group, yet each individual owner has an equal stake in the NHL, even though their teams widely vary in worth. Therefore, Bettman's policies tend to favor the less successful teams to the expense of the more successful teams, as blatantly exhibited by the NHL's very recent contract proposal to the player's association. The problem is that the NY's, Philadelphia'sand Torontos run on a very different economic scale than the smaller market teams. The pressures and rewards are exponentially greater for the more successful teams. They produce far greater revenue but also have to produce a better team year in and year out. It takes good management, strong fan support and more money to do so consistently. Although we hear about the resentment around the NHL towards the large market teams the truth is that the lare market teams support the smaller market teams. Revenue sharing takes from the wealthy and gives to the poor. This artificially limits the larger market teams ability to produce a good product. at some level this has to bread resentment. Mr Snider gives other teams money, so they can take his players. Just look at Carle. Do the Flyers share their money with Tampa Bay? Yes. Does Tampa Bay then outbid the Flyers, with the Flyers money, for a good but not stellar player? Yes. I think that the pressures to produce a superior product and the limitations which are inherent in the present system leads to "circumvention" or whatever you want to call it, as represented by this recent offer to Weber at such an inauspicious time as during the collective bargaining meetings. For the franchise "NHL" there has to be a better model than to have owners of each team, in essence, equal partners, when Toronto is worth a billion dollars and New Jersey and Phoenix are basically bankrupt. Their circumstances are just to different. This system just won't work for the long term. I do not know what the answer is, but the system is broken, and if there is another lockout this yea,r the NHL won't recover in it's present form.

I could not agree more with these sentiments.

I would guess that the Predators are busy on several fronts. At the least, they are digesting all the details of the offer sheet and determining if/how they can match the offer, or orchestrate a trade, and what the ramifications of each course of action mean. On a very different level, I would not be surprised if they are in contact with Bettman to see if he can step in and rule that the offer sheets violates what is in the NHL's best interest. Bettman can't be happy. He has built his power base on the support of the small market owners. On one hand the NHL is telling the Players' Association that they don't have the money to support player compensation at the current level, all the while the some owners are demonstrating that they have more money than god.

I absolutely agree. Homer has kept Weber out of the East and away from everyone but Nashville, similar to what he did he did by making obscene offers to Paresi and Suter. Brilliant off-season by Homer.