Dolbytone,
I fully agree with you on Kovalev - he\'s the man.
As for the Red Wings, did they win two cups back to back? I can\'t remember.
Anyway, I think the Red Wing\'s biggest problem is the team - too old, not enough depth, and the fact that their aging defensive corps cannot hide the fact that Chris Osgood is, and always will be, mediocre at best.
They were missing two of their three best players in Yzerman and Shanahan (the third being Lidstrom), and they flopped against LA. Fedorov is a flake - he\'s so inconsistent, and beyond Stevie Y and Shanny who else do they have? Chelios is an old man, so\'s Larry Murphy, and in terms of scoring they have such mediocre players - Lapointe, Holmstrom, Draper, Kozlov - that\'s not premier depth.
Look at Colorado or Dallas, remove Forsberg and Sakic from the Avs and you still have Dury, Hedjuk, Borque, Blake, Tanguay etc. Same thing if you remove two of the top players from any of the teams left in the playoffs (except for Toronto) and you\'d still have a great team.
Perhaps Scotty should shoulder some of the blame they didn\'t put up more of a fight in the last two games of the series against LA, but with Shanahan and Yzerman out this RedWings team doesn\'t have much left in the tank. Even with those two fit, they\'d still be crushed by Dallas, Colorado and perhaps even St. Louis (who have great depth, but like Detroit, no premier goaltender).
Just my opinion though.
I think they\'ll splash the cash this summer on some free-agents.
