Will this series be worth the staying up late when the Wings play at the Shark's home in San Jose?  It will be for this first reason to see how the Red Wings are going to defend Joe Thornton and Jonathan Cheechoo.  This series will have great defense against tremendous offensive skills and puck possession.  The test on the road for the Red Wings will be to generate offense from the defense.  Now this will not assume that the Wings will not score on their chances around the net of San Jose look at Dan Cleary and Henrik Zetterberg after the face off.  These two Red WINGS are good enough without defensive take aways.  The first reason as to why the Red Wings and SHARKS will be good watching is to see how the Wings will matchup and contain the first two lines throughout the seven game series.  Doing this on the road is a must for Detroit.  Otherwise it could out of hand and the Red Wings will have to win all four at home.  This will be another reason for the Shakrs and Wings being a series you will not want to miss.

      The second reason to turn on the television and watch this series is that I think the Sharks will take one when they are the Joe.  I am not going to give away the strategies that I think each team will use to win games on the road, I am not a coach.  But the team who wins two or more games on the road will win the series.  Propelling the team closer to the Stanley Cup.  Now after that I think that the Sharks are tough to beat and the Wings proved that they are to when they they had to better than good against the goalie in the last series against the Calgary Flames.  San Jose will not be shooting at a Red Wings net with Manny Legace but Dominik Hasek.  This is the second reason why hockey fans will want to watch the Sharks in Detroit, for them they will have to play better than good on the road.

     The third reason is to see when Todd Bertuzzi is going to have his game breaking goals and hits.  The other player on the Wings is Dan Cleary.  He shows up, plays tough and he moves the puck to score and that is it plain and simple he is a play maker.  Disagree? Tell me why.  But he was the best Red Wing in the series in Calgary, he is one reason why the Wings closed the series with a win on the road.  And if the Sharks think all they have to do is to take care of Dan that would be only be a small start.  But like Red Wings being tested in reason one the Sharks defense will be tested with four lines who shoot the puck and are not afraid of getting angry around the opponents net.

      Game on and watch Thursday.  It will be worth staying up late for.

  Robert Lang

 Dan Cleary

  Kyle Calder

   Have you seen reports or read about the possibility of Robert Lang not being in a Red Wings jersey next year because of not contributing?  Will stop right there with that nonsense.  Robert Lang and his line had a fired up and energized Dan Cleary on before he went down eight games ago with injury.  Now Robert Lang is in a way posting some personal statistics and he has on his line another player who was written off by some as an "under achiever", this would be Kyle Calder.

     Kyle Calder and Robert Lang have only combined for more than 15 points in the nine games that Calder has been a Red Wing.  This line will be only more potent when Dan Cleary is back from injury before the playoffs and when the time comes to put a contract before Lang next year his ability to bring has beens like Cleary and Calder back to being the type of players people inside the game expected, the Wings organization will want to keep Lang around for a while.

     Now this brings us to Kyle Calder and the line with Robert Lang and Daniel Cleary.  It will be potent with passing and shooting the puck.  These guys all three are determined, hard working players with drive to win.  That cannot be beat and checked out of them.  They will work harder then to puck in the net for a score.  They do not care about personal production first, they do, only after team success is meant and that is more important goal than the combined points for each player at the end of the season.

     As people did not think that either Dan Cleary and Kyle Calder would have personal success to begin with, so this has only come to be present in the Red Wings playing the type of hockey that most thought was lost when Shanahan went to New York.  The Wings have proven they are still the tough domineering team they once were. 

     When Todd Bertuzzi wears the Wings jersey for the first time in a game it will be on the Zetterberg line with Pavel Datsyuk the other forward. 

     The revived Robert Lang line has made sure of that.  They are tough enough.  Look for the Wings to have four very strong lines when each player returns from injury and come playoffs they will focused and driven together as a team that no one expected would be tough and domineering at this time of year and doing the unexpected that a few NHL "insiders" did not have them doing at the beginning of this season, being in the playoffs and potentially winning those tought games.  Thanks to the revived Robert Lang line this is a reality.

     A refreshed Kyle Calder is on his way to showing he might be the best under the radar trade that happend before deadline day.  My take on Todd Bertuzzi in Detroit Red Wings jersey is good.  Once he gets ready to go he will do that at the Joe.  I really do think that bringing up th incident against Derek Morris is old news.  And that is behind him and I know that Ken Holland told himplay tough for us but do not be Scarface out there.  When the Red Wings make a trade it is not necessarily about business but what is best for the team and the fans who want the product to be the best and yes you have me there that is business.  What is not business about what Detroit did in trading for Calder and Bertuzzi is giving the players a chance to win it June.  And the team has exceeded expectations when neighsayers totally wrote the Wings out of the picture for the playoffs and even being an .500 team was not possible.  Ken Holland has proven once again that gambling on certain players in the league is worth it. 

     Other teams that are in the hunt for the Stanley Cup after the regular season is over are the Atlanta Thrashers this team has a experienced player Keith Tkachuk and he has valuable experience with being a team captain and he has very good post season statisitics.

     San Jose needs Joe Thornton Bill Guerin is a mercenary type player and he cannot win by himself.  When Joe Thornton appears Jonathon Cheechoo will be in picture as well.  The Sharks desparately need goals and wins and for talented players to start playing meaning scoring at will.  If that starts to happen before the playoffs they have a very good chance. 

     One other team out of the others in the NHL who is in the hunt for the Cup is the Sabres they have done very well on the power play but this team wants to win.  When they are frustrated you can tell that Lindy Ruff wants them to work out of that and start to score at will like they were at the start of the season.

     The Predators getting Peter Forsberg will add some spice to the series against the Red Wings if they should play in a seven game series look for Bertuzzi to help clear some lanes for the shots of Schneider and Lidstrom on the power play.  There will be quite a few penalties called. But the Wings will not drop out after the first round this year and by the way look for Datsyuk to compile some goals for his playoff stats column.  To help Zetterberg win his first Stanley Cup as a Red Wing.

     These predictions are meant for fun.  If they happen to be accurate I will be a happy Red Wings fan.  Look for Kyle Calder as well to be considered for Conn Smythe honros.  He is going to be the find of the deals before the deadline for 2007. 

     Hockey is known as the official winter of Canada.  The game is remembered in America when the team in 1980 won against the Soviets.  Hockey is a game that glitters at times in America like the ice after the Zamboni has cleaned it.  What will it take for the National Hockey League to gain audience and fan support in the United States?  The fact that most people do not know about the NHL other than the fact the teams did not play two years ago and that Wayne Gretzky was a great player.  Here a few ideas and these are not the be all end all but they might be start to get more in the USA to watch the game.

     The NHL should take on the issue of no one in the big metropolitan areas of the states has no means to buy the expensive equipment for the game to be played.  Basketball and baseball equipment is inexpensive for kids who do not have alot of money.  In essence this point is that accessability to the equipment of the sport for kids is limited to the middle and upper class of the United States.  Making the equipment affordable would increase accessability for new generations of fans, this could be applied to the urban areas of Canada as well. 

    Tell the ownership of the Chicago Blackhawks to give authority for the games to be televised locally.  The city of Chicago is ready for a winning team and one thing that will help the Hawks to reach the people is to televise the games for all to watch.  So far it is easy what the problem of Hockey America is, accessablity.  The fact that the equipment is expensive and that television is not used in a large metropolitan area like Chicago is not good for the NHL as an entity.  Correcting these issues will grow the sport to the fans and the profits will increase as well.

      If you have any ideas about Hockey America leave comment.  The sport has potential to reach people and give people more reason to get ready for the Stanley Cup playoffs.  I would say that expansion is not the answer if the NHL is to expand it should the game through affordable equipment and more games on local and major networks.

     It is half done.  The National Hockey League is winding towards the playoffs.  Here are my predictions for the playoffs and I will predict the winner.  There is still half a season left I will pick the 16 teams now.  I will also predict that two teams will make trades that no one thought would ever happen.  One team from the east and one from the west.  They will not swap players with each other they will address a need and both of these teams have some salary cap room.  The playoff predictions are:

From the Eastern Confrence-

Buffalo Sabres

New Jersey Devils

Atlanta Thrashers

Montreal Canadiens

New York Rangers

Carolina Hurricanes

Toronto Maple Leafs

Ottawa Senators

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Representing the Western Confrence-

Nashville Predators

Vancouver Canucks

Anaheim Ducks

Detroit Red Wings

Calgary Flames

San Jose Sharks

Minnesota Wild

Dallas Stars

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     Stanley Cup victor and the city that will host the parade will be from the result of an upset the Atlanta Thrashers.  Why?  The goalkeeping and the play of the offense will keep them in contention the remaining half of the regular season and then in the playoffs they have the team that is built to win close games.   The city of Atlanta will come to celebrate the victory as the result of winning the Cup in seven games over the Nashville Predators.  Nashville came oh, so close but 2007 was not meant to be for them.  The Conn Smythe trophy winner is Ilya Kovalchuk. 

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     The two teams that will make the trades are Detroit from the West and Buffalo from the East.  Detroit trades for a forward who can score and Buffalo trades for checking wing.