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well that sucked Oh well, at least it was nice to finally see the new arena and we had great seats, lol.

Can I be honest with you, LGW.com fam? I'm feeling optimistic about the Wings' future. The 2018 draft class. The 2019 UFA class. I see possibilities and they excite me.

wejustneedtogoonarunhere

My man Demon King.

One bad season does not make or break a goalie. That’s just ridiculous to even think that. His career numbers were top notch before last season. He’s improved some this year, but can’t work on fixing his issues fully and getting rolling and get back to where he once was by only playing now and then. Too quick to give up on him. He had a bad season, big deal. Lots of goalies have them. People need to stop thinking one season has made the final decision and he won’t be resigned because of it. The talent he’s shown in some games this season like Washington and the Edmonton shutout shows that elite potential is still there. I’m betting if they have him a few games he’d get settled in and be just fine. He apparantly worked hard over the summer and the team was impressed with his improvement. Let him have at it.

#SquadGoals

Whoops, I didn't realize it was an early game today. Looks like I accidentally made the right decision not to watch.

Um, they have chosen Howard from the start so I'm not sure what you are referring to. Howard has known he's starting the next game, this season, about 99% of the time.

Didn' watch the game, but re: Goalies, the rotation is what is hurting both. How can you get consistent when no matter how you play, you never kno w if you'e playing the next game. It can get in your head. Just ******* pick one and roll with him. Or better yet, trade them both, bring up Coreau for a year long training camp! Tank for Dahlin complete.

Too soon to decide that. And Mrazek hasn’t had the benefit of hanging out in the AHL till the age he currently is either. He’s been in the NHL since he was 22 on a team trending downhill. Howard started his NHL career at 25, the first few with a great/good team. They’re career numbers aren’t even that far apart right now if we’re basing things strictly on that.

Yep, I'm not a huge fan of either goalie, but they need to let Howard rest for a bit and get his head right. Mrazek is not much better but you have two goalies, try and get the other going... the season is already going in the crapper, so do whatever you can. Oh, and whoever mentioned Witkowski earlier... come on! Do you honestly think Witkowski would have made any lick of difference in this game? NO. He's a waste of a roster spot, in my opinion. As bad as the goalies were today, the defense was not great either, regardless of limiting shots. The shots they gave up were defensive lapses and the 5th goal, Mrazek should have had that save, but Ericsson was coasting behind the play and didn't even make an effort to make an extra stride and get his stick into the shooters hands to disrupt a shot/ANYTHING. It ultimately, for me, comes down to coaching and Blashill has to go. I said so after the Montreal game, and I am starting to think that the Winnipeg game was more of aberration than anything else. Winnipeg wasn't ready for that game and we took advantage.

Been saying that for awhile. Jimmy’s on and off play lately should earn him a spot on the bench. Your paying Mrazek $4 million as a backup. Use him, give him a chance to play a few consecutive games and go from there. Never know, might get him heading towards where they want him to be, which is replacing Howard. Someone has to at some point.

The beard alone is worthy of praise. Hope they bring NHL hockey back to KC for ya. My Scouts jersey is one of my favorites.

No joke either. The quality of women wearing Wings gear has gone down.

Your post was pretty informative and I appreciated it. I wasn’t his biggest fan because I personally didnt think he was that good of a fighter. But If you asked me years ago I would have never expected Bootland at 900 games. So props to the guy for being more accomplished than everyone on this forum.

Like Rasmus Dahlin, who has the *potential* to be better than either of those guys... I'm not too confident in us landing Dahlin, but I think we have a much better shot at him, than we do Doughty Karlsson, or any other established elite defenseman. We just need the lottery balls to fall our way. We were ONE number off both the 1st and 2nd overall picks this past draft lottery, but still ended up dropping back two spots. Hopefully we get a little luckier this time around...

He also said that with Larkin and Mantha they're a couple years into it. I disagree that it necessarily takes that long every time though. At least not if the GM is worth a damn. If by some miracle they get Doughty, Karlsson, or another elite D and Mantha and L:arkin develop into a potent 1-2 punch at forward, all the Wings will need is a decent supporting cast. They have part of that now. The issue will be if they have the cap room with the albatross contracts Holland handed out like candy on Halloween.

“Starter for the season” means nothing on this team. Well, it shouldn’t on a team like this with the season going the way it is. Again, to me, the smart move in this disastrous season is to give Mrazek every chance to get something/anything going. There’s nothing to lose and potentially much to gain. This team is a dumpster fire with terrible defense that does neither of our goalies any favors, and Mrazek really is still young; a lot could still change. I don’t think it’s fair to assume he’s toast at this point, and I certainly don’t think it’s wise. 100% agree.

Listening to Holland on the pregame tonight..... Blashill is doing a great job with the roster he has! That statement speaks VOLUMNS about our issues. Another nugget: up until 2 years ago or so I was trying to make the playoffs every year. Is/was Holland that blind? Even if we made it everyone knew we were not going anyway. Not enough talent, aging talent, and a lack of young talent in the pipeline.

I don't think the questions about Mrazek's potential are as cut and dried as his critics are making out. Yes the last 20 months he's been far too aggressive, and his positioning has been off at times. But he was playing at an almost elite level before that, and has still posted very impressive shut-outs intermittently since then despite being awful in other games. I know we've seen many backup goalies fall off a cliff after an impressive run, but Mrazek played his best as a starter. Also worth remembering that by the age Mrazek is now Jimmy had won a grand total of 3 NHL games. Mrazek has won 66 with 11 shutouts. By the same age in the NHL: Ed Belfour - 4 wins 0 shutouts Lundqvist - 67 wins 7 shutouts Kiprusoff - 8 wins 2 shutouts Hasek 3 wins 0 shutouts Cory Schneider 18 wins 1 shutout. Bobrovsky 43 wins 4 shutouts Rask 47 wins 11 shutouts Rinne 1 win 0 shutouts Ryan Miller 36 wins 3 shutouts. This isn't to say that Mrazek will ever be as good as any of the above. But writing off a 25 year old goaltender who has had 2 stretches of being statistically great because he's had 18 months of poor play on a low end team with awful defense seems a little premature. At least we need to give him chance this year to see if he can rebound. No great shock that his stats have fallen off a cliff under Blash...just like half the team....

He probably told Holland he's not playing for an idiot coach anymore

Something this board has struggled mightily with over the last 5-6 years is recognizing that the NHL and every league beneath it tend to be wildly different for everyone sans the elite among the elite. That’s one or two guys every generation, certainly not Jeff “he’s won everywhere” Blashill. Most pros win everywhere before they make it to the pros; it’s almost a prerequisite. For the rest, you really never know how things are going to go. The really crazy part to me was how confident the Wings were in Blashill. Did they even interview alternatives? I don’t remember. I only remember everyone and their mother essentially thinking he was our savior and Babcock was overrated and hurting things here. I was never sold on any of these ideas. Bummer it’s working out like this, but fans and maybe even management need to learn that they have to work with other proven professionals in the NHL sometimes. You can’t assume everything coming out of your system is going to work out for the best. We’ve made dramatically less trades than any other team in the league in recent years. I think the second lowest team still has twice as many trades as we do. This system is not working.

Hopefully the AHL Coach gets fired by Christmas - my gift.

One thing you don't do is tank. EVER. That's the stuff losers like up north Leaf fans are made of. (The NHL helped them with that #1 pick anyways... that is apparent.) There is no guarantees in sucking on purpose. And there's that little thing called integrity. You do not embarrass our jersey. Petr won't get it done. It seems apparent. Howie has been pretty good, but recently? Not so much. None of this matters. They could be the 2nd coming of Hasek and it still would not matter because the team has QUIT on their coach. Period. Zetterberg about to cry on TV is the final straw for me. I need a break from this team. I am so disgusted.