First of all, Lidstrom is a plus 378 for his career. That's an average of almost plus 24 a season. I would say that's fairly impressive.
Second of all, Lidstrom has only missed 28 games in 16 years. For those of you who don't do well with numbers, that's less than two games a season. The six games he missed this season were the most he's ever missed in one year. Can you even imagine? I think most of the current Sabres have already missed more than six games in a season. A lot of them have probably already missed 28 games for their career and they're just babies compared to Lidstrom. I think he's a Cylon.
Vogl also touches on my favorite thing about Lidstrom's game. He's not particularly big or strong and he's not overly physical. He's just very, very smart. His success is based on reading the play well and putting himself in the right position. He makes playing awesome defense look pretty effortless. I wish we saw him more often. Shouldn't they be in the Eastern Conference anyway?
About the only thing Lidstrom hasn't done is win a Stanley Cup while wearing a Sabres jersey. He should look into doing that. I really think that would clinch him a spot in the Hall of Fame when he retires (in twenty years).
On a completely different note, Vogl also had a nice post over at Sabres Edge about Michel Therrien's latest press conference. Therrien responded to a question about how his team is affected by the Pittsburgh crowd with yet another screed about obstruction in this series. He's ridiculous. I hate obstruction as much as the next fan and I hate the idea of putting away the whistle and "letting them play." I don't think that's letting them play. I think it's letting the guys who can't play as well prevent the players who can play at another level from doing so and I hate that. I also hate that there's one set of rules for the regular season and another set of rules for the postseason. But I'm just not seeing what Therrien is evidently seeing. Where he's seeing obstruction, I'm seeing good, smothering defense. I think the chintziest big call in the series actually went in their favor (Lidstrom's no goal due to goalie interference in Game One). I know there's a lot of gamesmanship involved in press conferences and that a lot of coaches say the things they say with very specific intentions but I'm not sure it's a good idea for Therrien to set the officiating up as an excuse for his young, overmatched team to fall back on. Maybe he's saying something else behind closed doors but his public posturing is getting on my nerves. And if I were an official it would really be getting on my nerves.
Any Bills season ticket holders out there want to pick up a couple tickets to the Monday Night Football game for me?
