Hockey Talk

[Rick]

I'm looking for a few good people who know their hockey and know how to communicate it. If you play fantasy hockey, so much the better.

I need an expert on each of the following areas to start.

Chicago-Denver-Detroit-Minnesota

We'll have a little contest.
Pick your favorite team and tell us about them in this thread. Have at it

[BackHerUp]

I'm a Detroit Red Wings fanatic (from Detroit)!

I have a custom Strat-style electric guitar signed by the entire 1991 Red Wings while they were staying at the Marriot Desert Springs (in Palm Desert) for 4 days of "fun in the sun" set up by their (then) coach/GM, Bryan Murray. That same Saturday they faced the L.A. Kings...

It was great! I was a musician in the "house band" back then when that particular Tuesday, we were unloading our vehicles and setting up our equipment. A couple tour buses pull up and start unloading all these golf bags and luggage with Detroit Red Wing colors and logos on them! My keyboard player and I, just looked at each other in disbelief (he's from Detroit too), when we realized that they were in southern Cal for the Kings game...
The Friday morning when they left Palm Desert (headed for L.A. 2 hours away), Bob Probert, who loved our band, (he kept requesting a ton of songs, most of which we didn't know!) got the entire team to sign my guitar as they boarded the buses. We also had them signing pennants and hockey cards too! They were great guys and those are great memories too!

------------------
"Shhh...I'm fishing"

[This message has been edited by BackHerUp (edited 06-26-2004).]

[Kostoglotov]

Blackhawks

Well any discussion on this team needs to start with its drunken owner Bill Wirtz and his chief crony Bob Pulford. Collectively the 2 headed beast is known as Wirtzford. How this team has been mismanaged is the stuff legends are made of. One saving grace from Wirtzford was the firing of Mike Smith (The Russian Anti-Christ).

As for the current team they are lead by a couple of senior members of the Blackhawk-for-Life club – Daryl Sutter and Denis Savard. Savvy has been incharge of one of the leagues worst powerplay for about 4 years so yeah its safe to say he has job security.

As for the team, there is limited NHL talent on the current roster. On what I would consider a good NHL team the Hawks would have 3 out of 6 positions filled

Eric Daze – Could be a 35-40 goal guy if he could stay healthy. Winds up netting 25.
Tuumo Ruutu – Good young talent. Could be a legit #2 Center
Marc Bell - #2 Powerforward type

The rest of the upfront players are a mixture of 3-4 line guys and career minor leaguers.

On D at least the future looks some what bright. 3 good young D-men should be with the big club within 2 years. Cam Barker (This years #3 pick overall), Brent Seabrook, and Anton Babchuk all have the potential to be top 4 d-men. There are a number of other players that can fill in the 5-6 slots. On the current team Brian Berard is a good offensive defensemen. Jim Vandemeer is a good stay at home D-man, Steve McCarthy has yet to find any consistency and looks like a #5-6 type d-man.

In between the pipes – Jocelyn Tbo has been the only thing keeping the hawks from losing 8-2 (instead of 4-2). For the immediate future as he goes so do the Hawks. There are a couple of good prospects in the system led by Mike Leighton and Craig Anderson.

I’m not bitter

[AaronM]

Little off the beaten path already started but how about the Wheeler boy from Breck who just got picked 5th overall in the NHL draft? Who would have thought a junior in highschool could ever do that..

[This message has been edited by fishingfrenzy (edited 06-28-2004).]

[BackHerUp]

Well...check this out... my boy, Steve Yzerman played in his first NHL All-Star Game when he was 18!!! (high school aged senior)...

[silverbullet]

Considering Breck is in class A and only 5 teams on their schedual last year were even worth playing, I think the Coyotes made a big mistake.

[Jim Bob]

Avs fan here!

I still can't believe they lost in the playoffs like they did. They had way to much talent to lose so early. That might be the problem to much talent and not enough grinders.

Main core coming back next year. Forsberg is one of the best when healthy. Several young players played strong all year.

Hopefully there is a season next year.

[Duck-o-holic]

Wow! A fishing site that also has hockey threads? Talk about another reason to love FishingMN.com!!! Thanks Rick!

In all honesty, Fantasy hockey is the only reason that my Fishing MN time has dropped for the 7-8 months I'm obsessed with it. I was on two Yahoo leagues last year, one Head-to-Head, and one Rotisserie league. Both were extremely competitive leagues, but I have to say that I enjoyed the Rotisserie format much better. Any of you Fishing MN-ers out there into Fantasy Hockey?

The Avs had an interesting year last year. They did find a goalie to fill in Roy's shoes (skates) as best as one could. Aebischer was outstanding in net, and one can only look at the lack of effort and work ethic from a "Loaded" team for the failure to play for the cup. Sauve looked promising as a back-up goalie in the beginning of the season, but faltered down the stretch a bit, but gained some much needed experience. I look for him to improve even more next year.
So what of this "Loaded" offense? With Kariya injured throughout much of the season, his "signing mate" Teemu Selanne played horrible!!!! Less playing time, and line Demotion (even benching) from coach Granato did little to spark the "Finnish Flash". It will be interesting to see where he ends up next year... but I feel that he'd do better with an organization that didn't have as much talent on the team, which would result in more playing time, and powerplay time.

Forsberg played awesome when not injured... hopefully he doesn't end up playing in Sweden in '04-'05 (if there is even a season).

Hejduk played extremely well, but tapered off towards the end of the season a bit (once I acquired him). He also didn't have much of a playoff impact.

Sakic carried the team in many games last year. He needed to rebound from his injury riddled season the year before. He came through with flying colors.

Tanguay continues to "Shock and Awe", after a couple of consecutive "Off" years. He played stellar last season!

Blake also played up to his high expectations, although late season injury kept his point totals from where they would have been. John-Michael Liles stepped up to the plate for the "Sleeper-Defenseman" award when Blake was out. Keep an eye on him next year!

One of the best aquisitions of '03-'04 was the Avs trade deadline pick-up of Matthew Barneby. I regret not jumping on him in both of my leagues, as he racked up the penalty minutes AND points after donning the Av jersey! Talk about playing with some **** and Vinegar! This guy would have been great in a Wild jersey!!!

Dan Hinote, Elk River, MN native, also had some clutch plays during the latter stages of the year, and playoffs. Although not a big points player yet, clutch is nice

The '03-'04 Avalanche remind me of the "Dream Team" Detroit Red Wings a few years ago. Now all they have to do is show that they deserve that title by winning a cup again!

Duck-o-holic

[wallygators]

Avs then wild i hate the wings of course like any good avs fan. the Avs problem in the playoff this year was not only the grinders but Abesheirer doesn't have that much playoff expeireince. I hate to say it but i knew they weren't cup bound this year but next year when Abby has some more Playoff expeirience he is going to play lioke the great Roy. count on it. Hey anybody think that if we don't have a season next year Forsberg will retire and go back to sweden to play like there has been so many rumors about the last couple of years.
As for the wild i think gaborcik holding out was there biggest problem this year. he is a key player and by him holding out it took alot away from the fluidness of the team all season they just didn't gel like they did last year.

Do i love hockey hell yea flew to Denver just to watch the AvS beat up Wings Feb 2003 Hejduk got a Hatrick it was great.

[squeedunk]

Yzerman is GOD!!! Avs suck!!! Go Wild!!!
!Squee

[muskylureguyneedsmusky]

BOOOO YZERMAN!!!! REDWINGS AINT NOTHIN!!! the real GODS are SAKIC, ST. LOUIS, and KOVALCHUK by the way, i heard yzerman is living in an old folks home now haha, what a geezer GO WILD!!

[IFallsRon]

Yzerman could have been a North Star but they picked Dino the flasher instead.

[Jim T]

I have to agree with you IFallsRon, the other bonehead pick by Lou Nanne was Brian Lawton over Pat LaFontaine.
Oh, what could have been!

[Rolly22]

Detroit is a bunch of antiques that obviously got tired at the end of the year.

The only thing I like about Chicago is their goalie, cause I've scored on him before.

Minnesota doesn't have the money to contend and they traded one of my buddies....they traded him to Colorado which is why I have picked them. They also have a new coach and are talented. Now, the question is...will there be a season?

[hawg_wobbler]

wow! this is cool a hockey/fishing site. Only in Minnesota. I'm a huge Wild fan, in fact I just built a custom MN Wild Muskie rod. You can check out the rod at
http://www.fishingphotos.net/
Click on the members gallery. Type in hawg_wobbler in the search box on the upper right side of the screen. Then click on the name hawg_wobbler and that will bring you to my gallery.

I'm also a big fan of the WCHA. I mainly cheer for the Gophs but I also like the Bulldogs, and the Soiux. Plus I'm a State Tourney junky, last season I took 3 vacation days just to watch the tourney on t.v. Next season I'm going down to the excel for it, nothing beats the tourney live.

I also coach the Bantam team here in my home town. Man, what a thrill that is, it's the next best thing to playing.