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I blame the guy that started the 'Completely healthy roster?' thread

I am most definitely pro-Mrazek, but even I saw that he was still a bit inconsistent over the pre-season. Jimmy played well, most likely well enough to get the start in the season opener. Although I have been on team Mrazek for the past few years, I have said before that from a business standpoint, it may be better for Jimmy to re-take his #1 spot so it cost a bit less to re-sign Petr this summer. I am sure he will still get a nice raise, but it couldn't be too much, could it? Anyhow, I am all for the tandem for this season, unless Petr just takes over in a huge way, then it will be fine to entertain calls at the deadline about Howard, but even if Petr did take over, it still would be a good idea to have them both for the playoffs, if we get there. Despite my past opinion's of Jimmy, I do acknowledge his usefulness and the fact that when healthy, he can be dominant in certain games. The apparent lack of shootouts that is perceived to be this season should help him as well. We've never gone wrong with a 1a 1b tandem before, why not ride it until a decisions HAS to be made!

Having two solid goalies is only a bad thing if you hate one of them and hope they fail so you can "be right" about them on hockey forums and message baords.

LetsGoWings.com Your Official Game Day Thread VS. Start time: 7:30 EST Joe Louis Arena - Detroit, MI Available On: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Projected TOR Lines JVR-Kadri-Winnik Matthias-Bozak-Lupul Komarov-Holland-Hyman Panik-Arcobello-Kapanen Phaneuf-Robidas Rielly-Polak Gardiner-Marincin James Reimer Projected DET Lines Justin Abdelkader-Henrik Zetterberg-Gustav Nyquist Dylan Larkin-Brad Richards-Tomas Tatar Johan Franzen-Riley Sheahan-Andy Miele Drew Miller-Louis Marc Aubry-Daniel Cleary Niklas Kronwall-Jonathan Ericsson Xavier Ouellet-Mike Green Brian Lashoff-Nick Jensen Jimmy Howard (playing full game) Next Game: vs. 10/3, Red Wings at Maple Leafs ; 7:00EST Oops, title should read 10/2.

So nice to finally be able to root against Babcock.

I'm also wondering if they are looking to get him into line up opening night. But because we have all of our centers healthy (except Datsyuk), the only way to have him in lineup is having him as a wing.

Awesome! Good job Evgeny. So far, in 3 games for Cape Breton, Svech has 3 goals and 3 assists, with a +4 rating and 51.8% on draws.

Detroit Red Wings ‏@DetroitRedWings 2m2 minutes ago UPDATE: The #RedWings have signed Evgeny Svechnikov to a three-year entry-level contract. http://redwings.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=781457 …

I feel like something just happened in your pants, and we all walked in on it and are now just standing awkwardly in the doorway fiddling with the buttons on our shirt and not knowing where to look. That being said, I CAN ACTUALLY WATCH THIS GAME?!?!

The one thing kind of throwing me off is that Jurco is skating with the other group, again. He was with Nosek-Ferraro last game, so I'm assuming it'll be the same tomorrow night. Kind of weird to see him leading the team in plus-minus (+6) and stuck with a group that looks to be the 12th-14th forwards. At the very least, you'd think he'd be in over Miele.

Who are you, and what have you done with Leftwinger?

Also, can we stop playing 8 preseason games?

I was at that game, so far he looks pretty decent. Good skater, definitely not afraid to take shots (only hesitated once in Overtime), broke up a few of Saginaw's offensive chances, played the point on the PP, and went 2nd in the shootout. Obviously one game isn't enough to figure out where he'll be going in the future, but he's definitely noticeable when he's on the ice, in a good way.

It was more a basic example of how overrated the pre season and therefore the performance of these young kids is. Larkin is just an example. The most important thing is that he seems to be on the right development track. I'd say let him go to the AHL dominate there with Mantha and be the first call up.

Didn't exactly do anything. I meant normalize in the general sense, meaning try to adjust the numbers to account for whatever you think is skewing them rather than just throwing them out altogether. For example, you say the attention paid to him last year was lax, (though you don't have any evidence of that, other than that it sorta seems like it would be a thing...) but I'm sure you're not suggesting that no one played any kind of defense at all against him. So how much do you think his numbers were inflated that year? 20%, 40%, 50%? It's already a small data set, no need to make it smaller by ignoring a big part of it. What you're doing is confirmation bias. Trying to interpret the data in a way that supports your conclusion. The actual data is this: Year 1: 57gp, 22evg, 6ppg, 78% at ES Year 2: 82gp, 13evg, 14ppg, 48% at ES First year was far more effective at ES than the second, but also much less effective on the PP. The most likely explanation is simple year to year variance that we see all the time, with the truth somewhere around the middle. That middle suggests that he's pretty normal in terms of scoring distribution. Likely to stay close to normal even if you adjust the 1st year numbers.

Hopefully it's not serious. I'm expecting DD-Green to log some serious minutes this year (and tear s*** up)

This team is gonna be so goddamn exciting in a couple years. We'll be the fastest team in the league by a mile.

People were saying this last preseason and I went through all team's injury reports and it showed we were near the middle of the league for number of injuries. I don't want to go through all the teams, but here's some chosen randomly: We've had Helm, Dekeyser, Green and Datsyuk injured. Cleary, but.... Bruins: Chara (undisclosed), Seindenberg (back surgery), Seth Griffith (knee) Oilers: Eberle (Shoulder), Purcell (minor injury) Caps: Backstrom (hip), Orpik (wrist), Johansson, Latta, I imagine again, we're somewhere near the middle again. I do think it's a general trend that injuries are more common with the faster game and bigger size of the average player. I don't think it's an issue with us - it just seems like we get more because we all pay attention to the Wings closer. Anyway, Last off-season the WIngs did an overview strength and condition due to amount of injuries that year (when it was an issue). 2 years ago we were one of the highest in games lost, but that was the year when Z's back forced him out, Dats missed half the year, Mule was out for a concussion, Weiss was out with his injury. None of those (maybe Datsyuk's) can really be traced to training: Mule was hit in the head, Weiss came with his injury, Z's flared up at the Olympics and has been an issue for a long time. Then we also had Cleary, Monster, and Sammuelsson on the team and they've pretty much always had injury problems.

Statistically, it's still one season. Didn't really struggle all that much either. He had 13 EVG. The 56 players in the league who scored between 23-31 goals averaged right around 18 EVG. If you take his first year into account, and try to normalize the numbers instead of just ignoring them because they don't support your theory, he'd be pretty close to those numbers. That he had a couple super hot streaks that year is balanced in large part by the fact that he only played 2/3rds of the season. Normalize his numbers and it puts him around 17-24 EVG that year. At worst you might conclude that he's a little below average at ES for a scorer of his level. Seems more likely that he's pretty normal, with his first year a little better than you'd expect and last year a little worse. If anything I would say his success on the PP last year is further from the norm than his struggles at ES.

Did someone say "goalie battle"?

I am really liking the goalie situation at the moment. Its not too often we have a tandem like these two...I cannot help but think that Mrazek will no doubt be the better goalie at the end up the day but this competition will be great for Jim

Read somewhere that we have something like four back to back nights of games in October and two in November.. that should give both goalies plenty of an opportunity to pull ahead for the starting job early in the season. And if both shine, even better! This is a great "problem" to have

Kip, I don't think Athanasiou has been so great in these preseason games because he's playing center, I think he's just that good. I still do think he would be just as good or better on the wing, and although I think he may play center down in Grand Rapids this season, I think his future in Detroit is as a winger. I agree 100% Xym. I think Larkin and the Red Wings would both benefit from him playing a full season down in Grand Rapids, tearing up the American League. That along with continuing to gain chemistry with the other kids (hopefully Mantha). Another reason I'd like to see Larkin stay down is because, when was the last time a Red Wing won the Calder Trophy? 50 years, that's how long... The last three to win it, have all been goaltenders, Roger Crozier (1964-65), Glenn Hall (1955-56) and Terry Sawchuk (1950-51)... It'd be awesome to see Larkin win it, but I don't see him winning it over McDavid / Eichel. but Matthews and company would be a real possibility, especially with a full season of pro under his belt... Like the past few seasons, probably even more so this season, I'm looking forward to watch the Griffins just as much as the Red Wings. Going to be a great year...

Someone had to put their twenty cents in.

Did you really suggest a cab in a Patrick Kane thread?