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Thanks for the GDT compliments. Anyone else remember the hilariously awful NHL Guardian campaign a few years back?

I'd be pretty disgruntled after not having won a Cup since 1967.

The long suffering Maple Leafs' fans ought to be saluted each and every game for being the most fickle, arrogant, and entitled group of fans in all of professional hockey. Hard to imagine why a guy like Phil Kessel wouldn't be interested in saluting a bunch of folks who were calling for his head after a 37 goal, 80 point season. Ditto for Kadri. And Reimer. There's only one salute these s***birds deserve, and it involves something other than a stick in the air. Maple Leafs fans, you are the problem.

WANG DANG SWEET POONTANG

Everywhere you go is Kentucky!! 😳

Some people always think the grass is greener. In the NHL, that means blindly assuming every rookie/prospect is better than the devil you know.

When in doubt I whip it out, got me a rock n' roll band, IT'S A FREE FOR ALL!!!!

s*** on Cleary all you want. ...and I certainly did this off-season. I didn't think he had a whisper of a prayer in making this roster let alone being a guy that has made his time worthwhile. So, a nice helping of crow for me. Sure. Serve it on a big ******* platter. ...but HEATLEY?!!! GTFOH.

If I had to guess, I would say that the age distribution of our team may be playing a role. One one end, we have our current core of Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Kronwall, all on the wrong side of 33. They're still great players, but the Wings cant lean on them as heavily as they used to, and I don't think it fair to expect them to string together win streaks entirely on their shoulders. And on the other end of the spectrum, we have our up-and-coming core (give or take) of Nyqvist, Tatar, Sheahan, Dekeyser, etc etc all south of 25 years old. They're great players, but not quite in their prime, and not quite experiened enough to be the leaders of this team. If you look at the players that we have between 25 and 30 years old (which I'm arbitrarily defining as prime years just based on the notion that folks in this age range tend to have a few solid years of NHL experience under their belt, and are still young enough in most cases not to have lost a step or be plagued by injuries) we have Abdelkader (27), Andersson (25), Glendening (25), Helm (27), Miller (30), Nyquist (25), and Smith (25). Four of those seven players are on our fourth line. I think its also worth pointing out that even though I arbitrarily picked 25-30 as prime years, based in part due to NHL experience, Glendening, Andersson, Nyquist and Smith have all played less than 140 NHL games, which means that sweet spot between solid skill and durability, and solid experience is going to be delayed a few more years in these guys. But who knows whats really going on. I just took a look at the standings at NHL.com, and right now there are only three teams currently riding 3-game winning streaks. Everyone else has streaks smaller than that (or losing streaks). Theres also 23 of 30 teams within 10 points of eachother league-wide. I don't know what each team has looked like streak-wise over the course of the entire season so far, but teams are more closely matched than in the past, which can also be playing a role.

Puckloo If they don't like hockey then obviously you get sick for 3 hours in the bathroom with the mobile device of choice and a charger. Make disgusting noises so they leave you alone! Wings hear your sacrifice and roll 3 in a row!

what a great GDT for the guys who love this stuff... it's a work of art, Mikey. This will be my last game until next week to watch, as I am going to visit people who don't like hockey over Thanksgiving. They'll get all pissy if I disappear for three hours to watch the Wings. Worse than being locked up in the Joe Louis bathroom with Pee-air, for sure. Wings need to win for me, as I am sacrificing watching them for the next two games. LGW!! We shall prevail...

I'd put Abdelkader there now. He isn't playing like a grinder anymore, he's making offensive plays.

Mantha will move up before Pulks because he does things that Pulks can't due to size. I like Pulks but he is one of about 8 guys that fit the "small scoring euro" description. How many do we have the fit the "power forward" description? No one other than Mantha. Please don't even try to put franzen in that group.... But Mantha needs a good 15-20 AHL games first. 2 reasons: 1 to develop and 2 so I have time to get down and watch him! LOL As for Mantha dropping the gloves, 1 word: Shanahan.

No we don't but what's your point? Do you want our top prospect fighting? I sure as hell don't and I'm pretty confident that no one in Red Wings management want him to either, and that would include Blashill and Babcock as well.

Ya I would've liked to have seen him back but we wouldn't of had room for cleary and the possibility of Alfie coming back.... So ya no room for a second line center who partially Carried us to the playoffs.

Yeah, but after that was said him and Babcock both corrected it to top 9, or a scoring line.They just said they weren't going to call him up to be a fourth liner. And WANGOOOOO TANGOOOOOO

It does make me excited for what's on the horizon. edit: for the record, I think its worth mentioning that while we haven't put together a long streak of victories in a row, yet, the Wings are still right in the thick of things, with the teams around us having played more games. This implies that we probably haven't experienced the losing streaks that some of these other teams have endured also.

We need a second line center. They've got a Jumbo one.

I'm putting this here because I didn't want to start another thread. But did anybody else see Jim Nill absolutely fleece Doug Wilson on that Brendan Dillon for Jason Demers trade? Apparently if you've got a half assed hockey player, but he's bigger than 6'3 and 220 lbs. you should call the Sharks. Think they'd take Kindl lol?

I think everyone's put up some solid strings of games, but I don't think anyone has been able to really consistetly get going. Tatar is currently on fire, but he was cold in the beginning of the season, and right now it seems like Tatar is the only one who is producing. Nyquist has 3 points his last 10 games, but at the beginning of the year every puck he touched hit the back of the net. Zetterberg has been cold lately, Datsyuk hasn't been playing. Really, the only line that has been able play with some consisteny throughout the season has been the fourth line. And I think you really hit the nail on the head in your title in that the Wings have been inconsistent. Maybe not collectively, because there always seems to be at least one player who's pulling the wagon (and there have been plenty of different players to pull it already), but in terms of lines and individual players, they've been pretty streaky. Well, aside from the fourth line in a shut-down role, and actually Abdelkader has been bringing it every day, too. I'd add Smith to that list as well but hes missing time right now, which isn't helping the Wings out. Everyone else has been either really hot for several games, or really cold for several games, and at a loss for any better reason I suspect that age distribution may be at least partly to blame. Its almost like they're taking turns being the on-ice leader. Right now Tatar is playing hot, so he's pulling the wagon. Next week its going to be Franzen, and then Tatar will disappear.

Rebuilding/retooling team that isn't as skilled as it used to be, so inconsistency has to be expected. The team lacks gritty guys that can provide energy and change the momentum with a huge hit or blocking a laserbeam of a shot.

Don't know if it's a good idea to throw Weiss immediately against Top 6 competition. He will need some time, probably at least the rest of the season, to adjust. I also would change Abby and Jurco. The former is playing great right now while the latter isn't consistent enough to be Top 6 material yet. Giving also Dats is back I'd roll with : Nyquist - Zetterberg - Franzen Tatar - Datsyuk - Abdelkader Sheahan - Weiss - Jurco Miller - Glendening - Helm

There might be some smack talk between us during the winter Olympics. But after the displays in Pittsburgh and now Toronto, It's pretty clear we have each others backs, and view each other as brothers.

If you don't like a thread, DON'T POST IN IT. 1) By posting you're only keeping a thread you don't like more active. If few people respond, the thread quickly gets bumped down the page by more active threads and the problem takes care of itself. 2) By posting about whether something is threadworthy or not, you derail the conversation and reduce any chance the thread had at actually becoming a meaningful conversation. It becomes self-fulfilling. "I think this thread is stupid so I made a post saying as much. Now we're talking about how stupid the thread is. After multiple posts about how stupid this thread is, the thread indeed has become stupid." I've cleaned up the thread. Please don't drive it into the ditch again.