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Congrats!! Bring extra batteries to take pictures of the cathedral that is Joe Louis Arena. After the game I think you should make the same choice we've all made at some point, American or Lafayette Coney Island. The Post Bar is cool and some players go there after games. I saw Chris Pronger, and assorted St. Louis Blues there long ago and got to try on Jason Williams 2002 cup ring. Maltby and Draper used to hang there long ago. Oh, and if you go to Windsor Ontario you'll want to know the answers to certain questions. What is your business in Canada? The correct answer is not "To fund the revolution." Do you have any weapons? The correct answer is not "Sure, what do you need?"

As a fan of the Red Wings since the mid-80's i've always wished to see a game in person. I live in Maryland so coordinating a quick trip in, has typically been a challenge to pull off. But that day is finally coming. Me and one of my best buds are going to the April 2nd game against the Bruins. (unfortunately he's a Bruins fan, but a hell of a guy, so i let it slide). Anyway we are flying in that morning. I'm not familiar with the city at all, game day routines, post game hangouts, etc. We are gonna stay in the city, close enough to the people mover to get us to the Joe so we won't need a car. Can anyone suggest places to go before the game, things to do after the game, must do things, etc. Sorry so long winded and vague about what i'm looking for, i just want to make sure my first visit to the Joe is a memorable one. thanks! By the way, i did splurge and we are sitting on the glass around the blue line.

Lets go Wings! I'm sitting on my couch wearing Gustavssons blocker from last season in honor of his start tonight!

Not sure if anyone noticed or mentioned this already.... but, with his 2 goals last night, Datsyuk tied Slava Kozlov with 853 career regular season points. When he gets his next point, Datsyuk will be the 5th highest scoring Russian NHL player of all time behind only Sergei Fedorov, Alexander Mogilny, Alexei Kovalev, and Alex Ovechkin.

Gonna try an effective method from last year... The wings suck, they are an absolute trash team that got lucky a few times this year and will never win in the playoffs. Jimmy is average and will never win a playoff round again, without Z this team is useless, Tatar and nyquist are hot garbage. Babcock is the worst coach ever and he's going to Toronto, and Dan Cleary is on this team. Go wings!

W

Only one piece of advise... Keep your head on a swivel. That's what you gotta do when you find yourself in a vicious cockfight!

HOW DARE YOU

#yesitwould

Dekeyser-Petry would be a #nice defence pair.

Monsters Hall of Fame

Yes Howard will be the starter. Thank God there are no shootouts.

Agreed, Dats in amazing. But how insane is it that Ovechkin is ahead of a world class player like Datsyuk and he's only 29? Dude is an absolute freak of nature.

This is what I was saying. Q being out could force Holland to make improvements, getting a #3/4 type guy, which improves us while Q is out and still helps when Q comes back.

This is such a debatable issue and, for good reason. There are those who support Jimmy and simply cannot understand why fans hate on him so much and then, on the flip side, there seem to be those who want Jimmy gone. Me- I am kind of in between. In the 2013 playoffs there is no doubt that Jimmy was a big reason for the Wings success. I mean we nearly made it to the conference finals. Jimmy has the ability to steal us games, see Chicago for instance. There is no doubt he is a good goalie. But what separates him from guys like Lunquivst, like it or not, is that he doesn't win the games that matter. He has been our starter in the playoffs since 2010. Since then we have not made it past the 2nd round. Lets look at the playoffs since 2010: 2010: Lost in the 2nd round to the Sharks in 5 games. If memory serves me correctly, we were dominating game 3 of this series until Jimmy let it an awful goal by Heatly and we ended up losing that game and ultimately the series In that series, he let in quite a few soft goals. 2011: Lost in the 2nd round to the Sharks in 7 games. Jimmy was significantly better in these playoffs and cannot be faulted for losing this series We simply did not have enough guys going. 2012: 1st round loss to Nashville in 5 games. Embarssing series by the entire team. Unfortunate that this was Nick Lidstrom's last season. Jimmy was not very good as with the rest of the team. Note for these 3 seasons, JImmy had excellent Dmen and still never got past the second round, like it or not he didn't. 2013: 2nd round loss to the Hawks in 7 games. Great playoffs by Jimmy. 2014: 1st round loss to Boston in 5 games. Jimmy did not play much, but was good in game 1 but was not good in game 2. Now it is hard to assess on Jimmy in last year's playoffs but I can say I felt much more confident with Gus in net. As I said, I don't dislike Jimmy. He is a good goalie- not great. He is a team player, he never complains and is not afraid to get rough. All good qualities. BUT, he has never gotten us past the 2nd round in 4 years like it or not. Now I am not saying we need to get rid of him. But what I am saying is that I think this is going to be an important playoffs for him. Not necessarily whether we win the Cup or not but if he gives up bad goals at bad times, then I think the team might look at changes down the road. I am not basing this off of his last couple games because he just came back from injury and we all know he is far better than that. Realistically, however, this is a very important playoffs for Jimmy Howard in my opinion.

I'd rather he get the surgery now. He'll be back in time for the playoffs, lots of guys in the minors could get looks, and Kindl hasn't looked horrible since he's been back.

I think 4 pro scouts is around the norm. I did some random checks to see: Habs have 3 http://www.gohabs.com/staff.htm Looks like Pens have 2 http://penguins.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=56530 Not sure why you would need more. Every NHL game is televised - you would pull tape any player you're targeting. If it's during the season send them to watch the one player intently for a while. Having a scouting dedicated to watching every NHL and AHL seems overkill. We have enough arms in the organization that they'll know most players in both leagues. I mean, the coaching is watching tape preparing for each game and Blashill and company are doing the same in the AHL. As for the players you mentioned, we knew them quite well. Sammy obviously played here and Babs coached Commodore. We knew what we were getting. Injuries made the these signing a lot worse, but that's not a fault of scouting - we definitely would have known Coliacovo's history of injuries. They were signings made with limited options and I think that has to be taken into account.

Howard will start the next two years at least, mraz will start backup duties next season. After that, they'll split time for a year.. riding the hot goalie. Then consider trading howard during/after that season when he has one year left on his contract. That's what I think anyway.. depending on the wings' cap situation and if Mraz develops like he's expected to. To answer the original question though, yes. obviously howard is our playoff goalie. He's had a couple rough games.. it happens to all goalies; especially ones coming off of injury. There's plenty of time for him to get hot before playoffs start.

Yes. He is.

Let's go wings.

Then Howard will have to face another 10 shootouts this season. Do you want that on your conscience?