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The problem with your evaluation, is that in 2015 almost every team hovers around .500. You make it sound like this is exclusive to Detroit. This is what you call parity from a salary cap. Just look at the records of the top teams in the east, and for the sake of winning % throw OTL into the losses category. Florida - 22-16 Montreal - 22-18 Detroit - 19-20 Boston - 20-17 Ottawa - 18-20 Tampa - 19-20 Washington - 28-10 (obvious outlier) NYI - 21-18 NYR - 21-18 NJ - 20-19 Pittsburgh - 19-19

So after driving 4.5 hours to get to Detroit and see my Wings play, ironically enough, my hometown team, I get to see them play well for about 20 minutes before crapping the bed. Is there a reason we're paying Mike Green $6 mil to play on the second PP unit? Z looks a little slow out there. Neither goalie apparently wants to be the starter. Did Brad Richards forget how to pass softly? Its like he's trying to break his teammates sticks with his passing. Thank God Larkin made the team. However, problems with the Wings play aside, I had the most AMAZING night ever at the Joe! Anyone that was at the game last night, got to see a good portion of my family. First, the dance off between the brother and sister during the 2nd period were MY KIDS! And then second, the woman on the zamboni during the second intermission, the "First Lady of Hockeytown", was my wife, Maria. Thus, the reason why they played "Maria" from the West Side Story. 10 years ago we were at the Joe for the New Years Eve Wings game and I asked her to marry me. Both were kind of spur of the moment things that just sort of happened. My kids were randomly selected for the dance off and then whomever was supposed to go on the second zamboni with the guy dressed as Abe Lincoln didn't show, so my wife, who was already down there with the kids was like, "I'll do it!!" I was absolutely floored! We won 3 practice pucks, 4 gift cards for Massage Green Spa and a $25 merchandise gift certificate. Since we don't live in Detroit and don't have a Massage Green Spa near us, my wife was just going around Detroit last night and today just handing them out to people. lol She felt bad that I didn't get the ride on the zamboni (I totally didn't care, I loved seeing her out there, plus NOW she's a big Wings fan) and gave me the certificate, so I got a sweet Stadium Series Abdelkader t-shirt. So despite the unfortunate play of our guys, it was a pretty unforgettable night for our family.

While I agree that there's no real correlation between strength vs stick handing and how you hold your stick compared to your dominant hand, there's better ways to respond to his post. Your comment doesn't necessarily debunk anything either because you haven't done anything to validate whether the samples you chose for your argument are representative of the population as a whole.But from a biological standpoint, both strength and hand coordination result from repetitive exercises. If you work out your left arm more than your right, even if you're right handed your left arm will be stronger. The repetition that comes from practicing stick handling and shooting since a player was a young kid all through adolescence and into adulthood will fine tune whatever muscles and neurons they're using to be optimally good at whatever task they have to go through on a daily basis. In other words, if a guy practices stick handing as a right-handed shot his whole life, he's going to be a good stick handler as a righty regardless of how he holds a pencil. My hypothesis as to why there are more lefties in the NHL, especially among Canadian and European populations, is because generally I think players who get into the NHL (particularly children of Canadian and European families, who dream of their child becoming a hockey star) have a stick put into their hand at a very young age, and when you're a two or three year old, you generally hold a hockey stick with only one hand because you're too predisposed with trying to walk upright to handle it properly with two hands and a solid bend in the knee, and its only natural that your dominant hand is the one that you're holding the butt of that stick with. As these kids develop, they've grown used to holding their dominant hand at the butt (see above pertaining to repetition training muscles and nerves) so it's more natural for them to reach down with their nondominant hand to control the blade once they're comfortable using two hands instead of one. I suspect more players who start hockey later in life (after they're well coordinated and holding a stick with two hands and balancing on their feet isn't an issue) will naturally put their dominant hand closer to the blade, where more control is required. Less of these players tend to make it to the NHL because they started hockey at a later age. And more Americans dream of their kid becoming a football star or a baseball star so it's less likely that a kid's parent will put a stick in his hand at 2 than it is a football or a bat. But this is just a hypothesis. I have no idea if there's any actual truth to it.

Helm is neither a big body not as skilled as Abdelkader. He's a check line player, period.

Smith has always had the talent to make an impact at this level...remember his first call up, where conducive pairings gave him less responsibility and he went 0.5 ppg....For entirely understandable long term reasons, Babs tried to force him into being a more defensively responsible D-man, but all this did was neuter his strengths, while he showed no real aptitude for resolving his weaknesses. Now its a case of usage, freedom and confidence and we are seeing the guy we thought we had in 2012. He's always going to be risky, but as has been said elsewhere, you may as well let him play and get the reward rather than shut him down and just have slightly less risk...

I will go ahead and grab up the Kings on the 11th and the Isles on the 25th. It's about time I made an appearance this season.

22 million on two guys until they're 40+. Stupid even if we can juggle the roster (based mostly on hindsight) to fit it in. Hasn't exactly been raining playoff wins in Minnesota since they signed those two. No real reason to think they'd have much more impact here. Put Suter in that blank spot and that defense is still worse than what we have now, and you'd be making it difficult to afford raises for the young guys when they come due.

That would be awesome.We may get to see larkin in it this year though, that'll be cool. It'll just be a picture of him in the hospital bed taken by an 18 year old nurse/model.

I think the ice time of the Dmen says a lot about what's about to happen with this team. 65-47 led today. 52 was the low man do to him being awful. 27 is on his way back. Will Blashill actually sit a core get on this squad of the past? I gotta think Balsh is seeing the writing on the wall as far as the vets-rookie dynamic is concerned. More 21, 15, 71, 2, 25, less 13, 55, abd 52.

Just to make is simple, we had to play Avs before finals. As far as I remember, didn't Kocur scored SH goal in the finals? Darren McCarty scoring a beauty in game 4? Konstantinov huge hit on Hawerchuk... Physicality, speed and skills were all mixed well...

Luc Robataille, Brett Hull, Chris Osgood, Brian Rafalski, Marian Hossa. Hull and Rafalski were right handed shooters. So Holland's 2 for 4 on the right handed UFAs hahaha. Have faith we got a 50% shot our next UFA will be right handed. (I'm not counting Brad Richards or Green but even then its 50%) Alright to be serious. I don't think right handed shooters will make or break our PP. We were the second best PP last year with practically the same amount of R vs L PP shooters. But having a balance imo does help. But I'd rather worry about getting other things we need than worry about handedness. We need a scoring forward (Stamkos? Andrew Ladd?), need a better D-man (Big Buff?) etc etc etc blah blah

I don't give a sh*t about back to backs or how many games in how many nights we play. Can we please go with Mrazek for 5-6 games in a row and let him roll. He is our best goalie...end of story.

We had a success with mixing speed AND GRIT. Scotty was quick on roster needs and repairs (Shanny trade which changed our face and gave us couple of cups, and dlthat trade wasbdone because the Avs were tougher than us). Saying that we were not big and physical and only fast team is WRONG CALL.

Our offense output has gone down every year as Z and D get older, it's no coincidence. They're not guys you build your team around anymore. We have no core players, that's why we're not good at anything. Painfully mediocre

Hank only needs one eye to score...

WJC > NHL and it's not even close this year. Passion, national pride, great feisty games and a lot of back and forth. Finland - Sweden should be another game for the ages. Take a backseat dumbed down NHL

This team is full of guys who just crumble under pressure. It's all in their heads. Kronwall and Ericsson are just the kind of guys who trip and fall when the game is on the line they always have been

Why? I love Mickey.

He'll go and then I'll see him on the news at a local hospital after that 3 on 3 xD

helm on 2nd line...larkin on 3rd...really?

a health team should look like this z dats tats richards larkin pulks goose shehan jurco abby glen helm

I like that he's wearing the magic man's jersey. Maybe Tatar borrowed the invisibility cloak last night. Any more bad Harry Potter/Wings jokes? and....go!