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It's likely Mantha probably did say something like this, I've heard many of his interviews and it does sound like something he would say. However, I don't really get the point of this thread... It could have easily been added to the already existing Mantha thread, and without being able to provide a source, it makes even less sense to post. Anyhow, Mantha should start the season in Detroit, if he starts in Grand Rapids, Ken Holland is a moron. He is that good, he definitely doesn't need time to adjust in the minor league......

My everlasting memory of Brunner.

Brian Rafalski wasn't "great in his own zone either", but I don't recall anybody complaining about his 40-50 pts., transition game, and powerplay ability. Not every defenseman is a two way superstar. Doesn't mean they can't be exceptionally valuable to the right club. Also, Yandle's "defensive shortcomings" are overblown. He's not bad defensively, none of Phoenix's defensemen are. Tippet is a defense first coach, and he plays a defensive system. Yandle's as good or better defensively than probably three or four of our defensemen. It's just a label he got suck with as a 20 year old that dummies keep repeating ad nauseam to justify not wanting him. Is he a shutdown guy or two way superstar? No. Know who else isn't? Kronwall. Smith. Karlsson. Shattenkirk. Wisniewski. Subban. Faulk. Ehrhoff. Burns. Edler. etc. etc. etc. Yet all of them are good players and none of them are liabilities. Neither is Yandle. I'm sick of this "he's not great in his own zone" argument. Not every player on a team needs to excel two ways. Also, the argument is usually only used to malign players we're already convinced we don't like, considering more players than not do not excel at the two way game.

Yes I completely about Ericsson. He is back to usual steady self. He has been very solid. It also makes one believe that his finger injury truly affected his off season and the start if this season.

Google translate just makes it worse, don't even bother.

Next to the amount of words wasted on the waiving of Colton Orr and Frazer Maclaren, that's the most text I've ever seen spent on two players who matter as little as these two do.

Of course its totally acceptable to call out anyone who gives the puck away and it leads to a goal. Everyone does it reguarly in the GDT, including when Howard does it. Hell, this whole thread was made to bash Howard in the shootout and here we all are. As far as I'm aware, nobody ever bashed on you or your posts for doing that. What people disagree with is relying on a "statistic" that is entirely subjective as an objective way to rate a goalie, especially when its clear that you're not interested in comparing him to the rest of the league, but rather trying to paint him in a bad light. "Bad pass" was never defined, neither were a handful of other statistics that you came up with. Who decides what pass is considered "bad" or not? You? And even if you came to some objective way to quantify a bad pass goal, there exists absolutely zero data on any other goaltender in the history of the NHL in these statistical categoreis, so any values that are obtained, whether objective or otherwise, still have no value because there's no way to define what's considered an acceptable range/poor range for bad pass goals or whatever else you were looking at. Maybe Howard actually has the best bad pass goals against in the league. But all you were interested in was counting how many times he let those goals in, and not determining how that value compared to other goalies. As for the next part of your post, wherein you bring up "really bad starts" from that website: Its a s***ty name for a statistic (and it also made me lol), but in the website they clearly quantify "really bad start" as "A performance where the goaltender failed to attain even an .850 save percentage." That's objective. Under their definition, nobody can argue whether Howard has a "really bad start" or not. The author of that post is also using his statistics to compare different starts of Howard throughout a season/career and then coming up with a conclusion after the values have been analyzed. What he didn't do is come to his conclusion first, then make up stats to try to support his predetermined conclusion. ANYWAY I think Howard's problem is just as psychological as the rest of the Wings at this point. They all expect to lose, and teams that verse us in the SO expect to win. And it shows in their body language. We aren't seeing those creative dekes (or any dekes), and everyone is more comfortable just shooting the puck. I'm not a goalie so I don't know how to read a goalie's body language as well, but I imagine that Howard isn't playing the shootout with a lot of confidence right now. Maybe that means he's playing too tight to the net, or he's trying to react instead of predict too much, or vice versa. All I know is that he hasn't always been this poor.

No doubt. Stupid suck ass media. All they do is speculate and fear monger. Not the kind of thing frankgrimes is into. Nope. No way. Errr....wait "I'm already prepared to see him coaching Crosby & Co. next year" - frankgrimes

Strongly considering banning Jimmyemeryhunter for posting something so offensive on the forums. That video is clearly a violation of some rule and I want that minute of my life back. (Yes. I made it a minute).

When the wings shooters actually start scoring consistently in the shootout then blame can be put on Howard. Just in general this team is terrible at shootouts. With scoring and goal-tending.

Howie has always been fine on breakaways. They aren't the same as shootouts. Shooters don't have enough time to plan what they wanna do with a dman on their tail. Also, the team controls their own fate with where they are in the standings. Depending on shootout points for a good playoff seed is just stupid.

I wouldn't give up athanasiou.Dudes a beast and could potentially be a top 6 center, which as you know, we are going to need. I know you have to give to get, but I just don't think its worth it. Myers is good But he's not going to take us over the top.

Last I checked there were no shootouts in the playoffs. /thread

No problem. Has the honorable Samurai you are you kill yourself with the Wakizashi of course. Nothing new on the Babcock front then. We'll have to wait and see till spring it seems.

It's ok to bring up a bad play, but to keep track of that as just more useless ammunition against him was more torches and pitchforks than constructive. If you had continued to do so you'd have likely found that it had not contributed the GAA in any significant amount. I believe that was the criticism, people were just piling on Howard in an unwarranted fashion.

Damn. I thought this thread would be about former NHL'er, Moe Mantha. And his awesome moustache.

I wish this one would die... especially after reading this: http://www.thehockeynews.com/blog/forget-mike-babcock-speculation-focus-on-tyler-myers/ "And this is where things get interesting. I’m told the asking price from the Sabres for Myers is prospect Dylan Larkin, a roster player along the lines of a Riley Sheahan or Tomas Jurco, and a first-round pick. That seems like an awful lot for an underachieving player who still has five years on his deal with a cap hit of $5.5 million per season." Seriously? Larkin, Sheahan/Jurco AND a 1st? No thanks.

I agree. Callahan has always had the ability and mindset to play a gritty bottom six role, but just needed to add some polish to his game with the puck. At the AHL level, he's performed on par and even exceeded the production of skilled players the Wings have attempted to "mold" into gritty bottom six guys. Guys like Kopecky, Ritola, Mursak, Emmerton, Nestrasil and now Andersson.I can see Callahan filling a role similar to what Drake and McCarty brought during the run to the 2008 Cup. A role that is pretty much vacant at this point...

Damn, that's what I get for not reading all the way to the end. I saw that post and thought for sure I'd be the first to comment lol. Well played.

Ya but his bad pass save% is almost perfect

+10 points for originality

Being negative is easier than being positive. It's also easier, as a sports fan, to ***** and moan about current maladies then it is to be pragmatically optimistic about the future. No one knew that Weiss was going to turn it around this quickly. The same way no one knew that Sheahan, Tatar, Nyquist, Jurco etc would be so valuable to this team so quickly. The thing is, there were those of us who "hoped" this would happen, who "hoped" this team would be good and maybe even contend again while Datsyuk and Zetterberg were still players. But there were certainly those of us who seemed to be hoping for failure. Either as a way to promote some sort of "I told you so" agenda, or maybe because of just plain old sports-style masochism.

Weiss was injured for about as long as Brendan Smith was making boneheaded mistakes in the defensive zone (the lockout season and last season) and I didn't see you "labeling" Smith a turnover machine or f*** up. Why? Because you don't want to think that about Smith. Just like you do want to think that about Weiss. Because you'd rather be right than be accurate. You can say "I've always said I want to be wrong about Weiss" but your entire body of work here on LGW suggests otherwise. Which, I suspect, is why people respond to you the way that they do. I said the same thing you did about Helm's shooting percentage and wasn't called negative. Again, why? I'll tell you why. Packaging. If you don't want to be perceived as negative, then stop presenting your thoughts in a negative way. If you don't care, then why make this thread?