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If ONLY we had an enforcer to keep that herniated disc of Z's in line... ...and to make sure that pesky groin of Weiss' would be held accountable... ...or that Howard's knee wouldn't dare tweak itself... For the record. Detroit (as of yesterday) sat at 10th in the league in terms of Man-Games-Lost-To-Injury, at 110. The #8 team, Montreal, is at 122 games lost. Yet, Montreal currently ranks 3rd in fighting majors at 22. Columbus is 5th in games lost to injury, 130, and 7th in fighting majors at 20. Tampa Bay is 7th in games lost at 123, and 13th in the league with 17 fighting majors. Toronto leads the league in fighting majors at 26, yet is only 2 spots back from Detroit with 97 games lost. I just did the math. The average # of games lost to injury by any team this year is a smidge over 93 games (93.066666667, etc). Detroit's at 110, which is above average, but not astonishingly so, especially given that Detroit is tied for dead last in the league at 4 fighting majors. As it stands, the statistics don't necessarily agree that having players who are more willing to "enforce" (a.k.a. willing to drop the gloves) translates into less games lost due to injury...

You mean like how Orpik thought twice about hitting skilled winger Loui Eriksson because of all the big, bad, enforcers that Boston has? Or perhaps how James Neal didn't even consider kneeing Marchand in the head during the same game for the same reason? And certainly nobody would consider taking liberties with Phil Kessel with Orr and McLaren on the ice for Toronto. I completely agree with everything you just said.

As I recall, we lost 10 games out of 11. We called up every defenseman we had in GR, and had to borrow Stafford from them even though he wasn't technically signed as a Wing. We went a game with: Cheli-Lilja Lebda-Quincey Meech-Stafford Then in the first period, Cheli broke his leg. Hasek (our #1) was injured, but at least Osgood was a fabulous 1a. Cleary was also injured during this time. He was a productive cog in the Red Wheel at that time. Like you said, we won the Cup. This gave us unlimited sound bites in which we could use the standard cliches involving "adversity" and other such watch words. At that time, we were fortunate enough to have won games early on so we had a bit of a cushion. Now the injury bug is kicking us earlier. The last few games I've seen the effort needed, but between called-off goals and posts and head-standing goalies and just plain bad puckluck, we're not winning. Things are bound to turn around. I'll worry in April.

Oh Sheahan called up? Better put him on the 1st line while keeping one of our best players (Tatar) in the bottom 6...smh

So you go from my claim on hits per game to fighting majors. Cool. Enforcers dont necessarily have to fight they also put aggression towards opponents through hits. And it's a known fact in hockey (if you play, which i feel doubtful seeing your reactions to a basic aspect of hockey; aggression, aka what the sport is KNOWN for) fighting and hits can curve momentum. Hits can send messages to opponents. Hits make people think twice before opponents go after your star players. Hits are a non-verbal way of saying " you hit my guy, i'll hit you and embarrass you." Case and point http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLX3299cVEg Laperriere hit Lidstrom. Downey took revenge. Lappy was a mouse the rest of the series. Wings went on to continue dominating.

At least Mrazek's Winter Classic pads are awesome

Samuelsson and Cleary are both substantially less valuable than Tootoo, Eaves, and Glendening. Scratching them both on a regular basis would be an improvement.

Could anyone stop the 2005-2006 Red Wings?

When we have Zetterberg, Helm, Weiss, DeKeyser, Howard, Franzen, Abdelkader back in the lineup, in addition to the other players who have missed significant time due to injury like Ericsson, Datsyuk and Bertuzzi, and we still aren't scoring and are losing consistently, then I will get concerned.

Is it that surprising we signed too much depth after all the inuries (most in the league) we had last year? Not to mention guys familiar with our system who have had success here in the past. It's a long season. Plugs (Cleary,Sammy) will plug holes in our lineup as injuries/life occurs but I'm confident the right guys will play come playoffs. Just like they did last year.

Prior posters have said it well. The team is missing three of its normal centers (Helm, Weiss, Andy), and what amounts to three of its nominal top six (Franzen, Z, Helm). That's an entire scoring line, gone. Add to that the extraordinary significance of missing Dekeyser on an otherwise weak defense corps, and it's no surprise that the team isn't generating offense. Find me another team in the league that could handle losing that amount of firepower without missing a step or two. You won't, with the possible exception of Chicago and Pittsburgh. This team iced a power play line the other night of Eaves-Tatar-Cleary. That was the #2 power play unit. Consider that for a moment, and wonder why a goal wasn't scored. Things will turn around when bodies start coming off the IR list. There will still be a glut of talentless, worn-out fourth-liners like Cleary and Sammy, but at least there will be some firepower to help balance it out. I'd rather see the team styled after the Ducks/Bruins former cup-winning squads and have some proper grit on the bottom six as opposed to this can't-score-but-can't-hit-either mashup of soft players without offensive acumen. It's not in the cards this season.

That's awesome that Lucic didn't fight back, especially based on how drunk he appears lol

many reasons for it. helm for example. His body is too small for the style of hockey he plays. he will always be a guy that is fighting through injuries. yes being on the small side doesn't help vs bigger guys. Having a bunch of over 30 guys don't help either. Players tend to get hurt more and take longer to recover the older they get. having guys with years of injury issues just adds to the problem.

They are scary good right now. After our lackluster performance again last night I tuned into them and the Kings. They owned the Kings big time and LA has been on a roll lately. Maybe the Kings had a off night oh well but the Hawks took it to them. I can see the Hawks making it to the Conference finals if not the Cup final. Again. Makes me wanna puke sadly.

Doesn't he have issues with concussions ? I wouldn't jump on him considering we don't even know the story.

Ericsson "went" after McL right after his hit on Kronwall... and after that game he was out with the shoulder injury... He has no balls and this team is really missing some muscles. I don't expect Kenny to trade for the size and muscles... he will "adressed" it during the summer with FA's and in september, we will have the same team without BALLS... Good luck with staying healthy

The wings are one of the few teams without any players who are "mean". Hockey is a sport where hatred and animosity grow especially in the playoffs however there is no one on the wings who is truly a mean player. Tootoo is guys like lucic clarkson Matt Martin pronger etc are. They engage after the whistle they hit to hurt they cross check you in front etc. I am a believe in an enforcer but at the very least I think the wings need more guys who can be nasty

I wanted a youth movement, but not in this fashion. It was supposed to be prospects playing instead of Samuelsson, Cleary and Bertuzzi -- not at the expense of our best forwards.

We have no muscle and this is by design. Our toughest guys might be....Bert?...Big E? ..Abby? I don't know why the disbelief or questions. A lot of fans frequently beat the "call up the young guys from Grand Rapids!!" drum and these are all young, skill, mostly Euro players. Kenny and our staff want it this way. The players we acquire via trade are not tough guys at all (except for Tootoo who we quickly found no use for). They are okay with getting pushed around after the whistle. They are okay with a player getting hammered and with no answer back or retaliation. You see....we are sort of stuck in a quasi time vacuum. Kenny and his staff (IMO) are still stuck on this old notion that USED to work magic for us. That notion is this: play hard, little if any chirping after the whistle. No sticks up. No emotional retaliation penalties. Take your lumps. Take the penalty and...accomplish two huge objectives....frustrate the hell out of the opposing team and make them pay on the power play. Worked like a charm! Gosh, I remember how Homer (Lids, Stevie, even Dallas Drake) used to drive the opposing players absolutley NUTS because he wouldn't retaliate. Malts and Draps, same thing. A little bit of chirping, but never any physical retaliation. It would fester and teams would get so frustrated they would take penalties and end up in the box. Then, we would capitalize with a really potent power play. We Win. It's way different now. We don't frustrate teams like we used to. We don't have a power play that teams fear. People are mentioning Mac, Joey, Bob, Martin, Shanny...I get it. But except for Shanny, we threw out the need for Joey, Martin, Mac type of player when Scotty came aboard. Scotty wanted this type of player...but didn't NEED one. This carried on with Dave Lewis and then Babs. Kill them with skill. We don't have the offensive skill top to bottom to kill like we used to.

Oh, I totally agree. I'm just saying, it's an "unfair fair" system. If two similar crimes are committed, and only one guy is seriously punished...chances are, one guy is a Thornton and the other guy is a Neal. Is that right? Nope. Is it the way it is? Yup.

I don't have a problem with 15 games for this. I do have a problem with Neal - 5 games for deliberately kneeing a defenceless player in the head Clarkson - 2 games for going out of his way to lay a hit to the head on a unsuspecting player, and being a repeat offender. Cowan - 0 games for deliberate elbow to the head, causing concussion on superstar. Honestly for all the good Shanahan uses, they may as well employ Judge Nutmeg and his Wheel of Justice

Rap music really isn't all that cool.