What will happen with hockey after its year off??
I dont know, I think that it lost a lot of fans by showing that it is truly about money, and not the fans.
I hope the Red Wings do well in their division especially, but they need to sign Datsyuk and Zetterberg.

It lost fans but with time the NHL will get them back (plus more with these new rules increasing the game speed).

I think the Red Wings are gonna struggle this year...they really got screwed over with the new cap but give them a few years and they'll rebuild back to their franchise. They're a very well ran organization and things will smooth out (same goes for Avalanche)

I don't think the Wings have a well run organization. i think they have just outspent everyone for a decade, and were very fortunate to land Scotty Bowman as a coach.

I love the Wings. But this will be very, very hard for them to recover from.

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I won't watch it all this season. I'm not pissed off. It's just way down on the totem pole of sports for me right now. The Pistons should be such an interesting team to follow that I will devote most of my interest with them, the Lions (god help me), and college hoops.

The NHL will be fine in the long run. The fans might not be there at first, but they'll eventually come back. The rule changes they made are a step in the right direction. Nothings worse then watching a 3 and 1/2 hour hockey game where there's no winner and no one even scores. How boring is that?

I'll probably catch a game or two just to see what effect the rule changes are having, but that's about it.

i'm a playoff hockey watcher...and it'll stay that way. regular season games are just too boring / meaningless imo.

I think in Detroit it won't matter at all. It would take a few years of bad teams to keep fans away. Most of the other teams should get their fans back pretty quickly if they have good seasons.

Micro makes a good point though. Now that Illitch can't do his Steinbrenner routine we will see how well run the team is.

As Zoso said, the rule changes are going to make hockey much more interesting and appealing to most people. Low scoring sports, games, and teams just don't attract much interest, at least in the U.S. Just ask the Pistons & Spurs.

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Pavel Datsyuk declined the Wings offer and signed with a russian team for one year.

We need Zetterberg or we're in trouble .

Apparently there's an out clause in his contract with the Russian team. He would have until October 5th to invoke it and sign with the Wings. After that he wouldn't be able to return to the NHL for the rest of the season.

Zetterberg is supposedly close to signing a deal for $2.5 million a year.

Well, I picked my tickets to both Winged Wheel visits to Phoenix. I'm curious how the 'overtime' stuff will speed up the game, though.