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sweet. That comeback reminded me of Mike striking out in the 10th frame to break 200.

I’ve been here a loooong time and you’ve been a pud the whole time. If you were going to get under my skin it would have happened years ago.

Yah, his style revolved around players being extremely sound defensively and playing up and sown the ice as a unit. And that's what a team like 2003 Anaheim had to play like due to a lack of overall skill level. But the Red Wings were one of the most skilled teams in the league when Babcock had them. When you have guys that can beat defenseman 1 on 1 (Dats, Zetts, Franzen, Nyquist, Tatar, etc), it's detrimental not to stretch the ice and make the other team keep their forwards at bay. When both teams are playing so conservative, then you're just down to a coinflip on who gets the breaks. And we lost that flip in 2009. In hindsight, that was a bad M.O. considering our team was a lot older than Pittsburgh's.

As far as his on-ice coaching my biggest issue with Babs was that his game plan was always to clog up the game to the point that nothing was happening and then count on individual moments of brilliance from his stars to provide offense. Offense was entirely incidental to his game plan. During his tenure as coach think about the Wings' breakouts. As soon as we had the puck we'd circle back behind the net and move forward as a 5 man unit instead of stretching the ice. That's insanely conservative. Likewise, there's a quote (I'll try to find it) where he says something to the effect of "I don't want Lidstrom playing as much in the offensive zone". The problem is that the deeper you go in the playoffs the more likely that the other team will have some pretty high caliber stars too, and maybe they'll be the ones providing the moments of brilliance. Secondly, because offense never factored into his strategy he didn't have any good way of generating it in the event that something bad happened. Datsyuk is hurt? You're screwed. Down by a couple goals? You're screwed. Opposition has a hot goalie? You're screwed. Powerplay not scoring? You're screwed.

People also forget that Rafalski was basically a cripple at that point. That goal where Jordan Staal blew by him to score was the turning point of that series. You could feel the new life that goal gave that team going forward.

im so busy dealing with @kipwingers jealously i cant find time to spend the American gift card

Nice to see FLA pull off a win at home.

What a f*cking finish.

my turd

You can have him. My pud will always be KRsmith

awwww somes ones jelly, ive been shockingly honest with this board - and the discord knows my full name and occupations

@kipwinger would like that wouldnt he lol

Huuuuuuuge goal!

Yeah - since I don't know/follow any of these prospects it's just interesting to read different takes/opinions. EDIT - I totally forgot the #1 reason why I enjoy watching the NHL Draft...MILFS

That's as reasonable as anyone else's list. I remember there was chatter about Seider in the lead-up to draft day. People think the pick came absolutely out of nowhere, but there were people on the HF boards and some bloggers saying they'd be surprised if he didn't go top 10. There are some players in this draft class that are being talked up in much the same way. Idk. Whatever happens, it'll be interesting. To be fair, that "Not sure he's a center at the next level" thing is E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E. Everyone and his grandma says that about everyone who isn't a consensus top-5 pick. Even goalies and defensemen. "He's an agile goalie. Probably not a centerman at the next level, but..."

Reunite the former Blues; Tarasenko - O’Reilly - Perron.

I do too. You're better off filling your amateur scouting department with guys who have A) good judgement, and B) a track record of successful talent evaluation and then let them do what they're good at (finding players). Aggregated scoring tends to put different variables on equal footing with one another. And when you do this you get bad results. Across almost every single variable a guy like Joe Pavelski is worse than a guy like Alex Semin, but one of them is good and one isn't? Why? Because all characteristics aren't created equal. Why is Patrice Bergeron better than Tyler Seguin? He shouldn't be if you go through the list of traits that scouts evaluate. He's really only better in two ways, he's smarter and more competitive. But that makes him better overall. Modern hockey analytics does this same thing (treats all skills equally) and over the years I've become very skeptical of analytics for this reason. Look at possession metrics (which are based on shot attempts). You might have two guys on a line that backcheck, win board battles, fight through checks in transition, and gain the offensive zone. Another guy does none of that but shoots any chance he get (Think Brett Hull or low rent versions like Mikael Samuelsson or Teemu Pullkkinen). At the end of the shift they all get the same possession score, but the cumulative effort it took to generate that shot isn't shared equally. The first two guys did A LOT to contribute to the success of that shift. The latter guy did one thing. Who's better? Now, who should you draft? Depends on what you need.