FanHouse BrianRafalski

It's been a one-way street out of Detroit this offseason, as the Red Wings have watched Marian Hossa, Mikael Samuelsson, Ty Conklin and Tomas Kopecky sign with rival teams in the Western Conference, while Jiri Hudler attempts to make a jump to the KHL (even though the NHL isn't all that happy about it). Such losses would be a sizable blow to most teams, but the Red Wings aren't like most teams.

While it's true they lost some talent and production, and haven't added anything of consequence in the early stages of the offseason, it still shouldn't put much of a dent in the Red Wings' Stanley Cup chances for 2009-10.

Let's take a look at what Detroit is really losing, and what it has coming up through the Grand Rapids pipeline.

Two years ago, a much more heralded Anaheim Ducks team took out Detroit on their way to a Stanley Cup. This time, the Ducks enter a series against the Red Wings as perhaps the most-feared eighth seed in NHL playoff history. That said, they're still an eighth seed, and a decided underdog. Is this the end of "Cinderella"?

The Detroit Red Wings are one of the deepest offensive teams in the NHL. Unfortunately for them, they don't boast similar defensive depth. Instead, they tend to lean on their puck possession and scoring to mask some flaws along the blue line and in goal.

As a result, news that veteran puck-moving defenseman Brian Rafalski will miss Game 1 of the Wings' Western Conference semifinal series against Anaheim is not good. It's not a death blow -- as an injury to Nicklas Lidstrom would be -- but it's not a good way for Detroit to start this series.

In 2000, I had a chance to interview Doug Risebrough on a radio show I hosted in Duluth, Minn. It was an interesting conversation, and it was a bit of an education. Frankly, I didn't know a lot about hockey then, and I certainly didn't know a thing about building an expansion franchise from the ground up.

Nearly nine years later, Risebrough finds himself unemployed, fired as Minnesota Wild president and general manager by club owner Craig Leipold. While I was shocked by the move, it was one that I knew needed to happen. Given multiple chances at redemption, Risebrough could only destroy his chance of returning.

We're less than one year away from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Once again, the NHL will take a mid-season break and allow its players to participate in the Games.

After a wonderful run to silver in Salt Lake City back in 2002, Team USA was nothing short of disappointing in Torino three years ago. The Americans went just 1-3-1 in pool play, including an inexplicable tie against Latvia, before dropping a 4-3 decision to Finland in the quarterfinals. Heading into 2010, general manager Brian Burke has plenty of decisions to make, mainly surrounding the question of age.

On Saturday night, TSN hockey analyst Gord Miller became the latest person to jump on the Pittsburgh is doomed because it has too much cap money tied up in too few players(!) bandwagon.

According to Miller, the Penguins can't compete with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin making as much money as they do, because it forces the Penguins to surround them with bargain basement players. This is apparently because Ray Shero couldn't get his star players to sign cap friendly contracts like Ken Holland did in Detroit. Because of this, the Penguins must (his opinion, not mine) trade Malkin.

Fantastic game in Dallas on Monday night, as the Stars overcame a 3-1 deficit to pull out a 5-4 overtime win against the Detroit Red Wings.

The Stars fired 49 shots at Detroit goaltender Chris Osgood, which is the most shots a Detroit team has allowed since 1989. Brian Rafalski and Tomas Holmstrom scored a pair of goals in the first period, staking the Wings out to an early 2-0 lead. After Niklas Grossman scored his first career regular season goal for Dallas, Marian Hossa responded just a minute later to help Detroit take back its two-goal advantage.

Dallas, however, came out in the second period and unleashed a barrage of shots at Osgood -- 23 in the second period alone -- while Stephane Robidas and Mark Parrish tallied goals to tie the game, 3-3, heading into the third peiod.

I've been in media scrums before, but I have to admit I haven't been in many as intense as the one I walked into at Wrigley Field while attending the 2009 NHL Winter Classic. Press is here from all over North America, which means space was at a premium today, something that's easy to tell from watching this clip I put together featuring Marian Hossa, Henrik Zetterberg, Chris Chelios and Brian Rafalski. While the first three players all talk about how great it is to play in the Classic, Rafalski strikes a different note when it comes to his concern for ice conditions.

It's been said that hockey fans have an inferiority complex. If that's true, Devils fans are doubly tortured, as they and their team are the subject of abuse among league loyalists. We're blamed for the degradation of the NHL, the perception that hockey is boring, and indirectly causing not one, but two labor stoppages.

And yeah, maybe the Devils have leaned on defense a lot over the years, but they've also succeeded with offense (in 2000-2001 they led the league with 295 goals). When they hired coach Brent Sutter in 2007, it was supposed to be a new era for the Devils -- new arena, new emphasis on offense, yet the results were depressingly same-y -- 206 goals (2.51 per game).

But in Sutter's second year, the team is making those old knocks on the Devils irrelevant (unless you've got some attendance jokes, in which case the dead horse is over there in the corner).

Through 31 games, the Devils have 99 goals (3.2 per game), good enough for 10th in the league, though every team above them except the Blackhawks has played more games. That's a pace of 262 goals, 15 better than the "amazing" offense the Penguins put together last year. In December, the team is averaging 3.9 goals per. And they're doing it in flashy ways.

So, um, why? How?

On Monday, we told you about former Lightning head coach Barry Melrose who openly admitted that he is taking great delight in the struggles of the organization that fired him, not to mention the fact he's openly rooting for them to lose every game they play. Well, Melrose has to be loving this current nine-game losing streak Tampa Bay is on, as it dropped another one on Wednesday night in Buffalo, 4-2.

The Lightning actually jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first period, thanks to goals by Mark Recchi and Martin St. Louis.

With less than a minute to play in the opening period, Buffalo's Drew Stafford picked up a power play goal, which set the stage for Thomas Vanek to tie the game and, ultimately, give the Sabres the lead in the second period with a pair of goals, giving him a league-best 22 on the season. Vanek has four goals in his past three games, all Buffalo victories.

Jason Pominville picked up an empty net goal late in the third, while Ryan Miller stopped 26 shots in the win.