Leaderboard

Verify range to target. One PING only...

If you're Nabokov you gotta be thinking... What should I do? Should I admit the KHL was a mistake? Should I not listen to my family? They're my family. Should I have said the Islanders are a first class organization? What should I do? What should I do? Maybe I should just retire. Should I have told the Islanders to suck my wang? Should I just say, "I am not a role model."? Should I score another power play goal? Should I go back to being "John"? Should I admit I wasn't prepared for Team Canada? Should I be who you want me to be? What should I do?

which is sad since there have been so many dives

I'll still take Mule over Hossa.

You should get a +10 from Edi

I guess McCrimmon is trying to institute a floating pylon defensive scheme. For a blueprint just look at a piece of Swiss cheese.

Crayon + napkin = defensive game plan

They pulled their goalie? Didn't think that was his fault....

Yep. It's been bad the last few years. It was just less noticeable last year because Howard was playing like a man possessed. Team defense has been a joke since the coaching change. Maybe he's got nothing to do with this problem at all, but you simply can't ignore the correlation at this point. What's really scary though is that if this defense played half as well as they're capable of, who would be a sure bet to beat us on any given day? Anyone? Bear in mind, we're still one of the top teams in the league, defensive issues and all.

If it's not apparant yet, McCrimmon is a problem. And getting Datsyuk and Stuart will not solve the problem, it's scheme. And our defensive scheme is... awful.

CRAZY IVAN!

PP. I'll pretend to be excited.

Admittedly, there's only so much he can do with this sieve defense, but the flopping and humongous rebounds into the slot aren't helping him.

I don't buy the scheme thing. It's players performing badly. There's no scheme that dictates Rafalski and Kronwall put the puck on the stick of an opposing forward every other time they attempt a first pass out of the defensive zone. The scheme doesn't tell the penalty killers to make limp-wristed clearing attempts that have no chance of getting out of the zone. No scheme is responsible for all the passes that arrive in skates and the Hail Mary attempts that almost never connect and instead almost always result in a giveaway and an odd-man rush the other way. Coaching shares in the responsibility of players not performing to their abilities right now. But I don't think the problems stem from a systemic problem; they're happening because of guys making bad plays.

Defensive coach. And any team he's come to as a defensive coach (Atlanta being the most recent, I believe) has suffered a precipitous drop in defensive statistics when compared to the previous season without him.

In all honesty how responsible is McCrimmon? Is he like a defensive coordinator in football? If it was a scheme thing shouldn't we ultimately hold Babs responsible?

I miss the days of Vlady Konstantinov absolutely annihilating anyone who tried to get open in fron of the net. Our current defense just kind of asks if they would like a drink out of the water bottle and offers to sharpen their skates.

Honestly, our D has been bad since we won the cup couple years back. No matter who is back there it just seems like everyone is standing around, not skating and not picking up coverage either. I really feel bad for the Wings goalies. They seem to be trying, but get hung out to dry by the D every single night. Thank god we are talented enough to put the puck in the other teams net pretty often.

2nd lowest scoring team in the league has 3 goals on us in one period. Thank you Brad McCrimmon!

In the Wings defense(no pun intended), we haven't played defense the entire season, why start now?

Agreed. Or work on his positioning.

I guess we're still watching the All-Star Game. C'mon Team Lidstrom!

Where?!

He should be arrested.