GoWings1905

Hossa: 63 points in 65 games Franzen: 50 points in 65 games How exactly is that anything near the same rate? And Hossa is an elite defensive forward; no clue where you are getting his effort has decreased. I saw him back-check effectively more times in today's game than Franzen ever has. I'll take Hossa's "reduced effort" over Franzen's floating. Effort should never come up in a debate comparing someone to Franzen. The ice crew skates harder than Franzen does. Thank you. I would plus this 100 more times if I could.

I feel ya and I'm a big Cleary fan. I think he's still banged up, but it's frustrating to watch him play and not generate much of anything offensively. Franzen is the worst of the bunch though IMO. Helm and Miller bust their tails every single shift and Franzen won't even put in the effort to win a puck battle along the boards. He skates around with no sense of urgency. I just don't understand why he gets excused for being so damn lazy during the regular season because he turns it up during the playoffs. You can play hard during the regular season and still be considered an even better player during the post-season. Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Filppula all do it.

I really didn't think the Red Wings played poorly at all considering the circumstances. Not easy to beat a desperate team with your best player at forward, defense and in goal missing. Frustrating loss regardless because I hate the Blackhawks and the points at stake are so crucial. In saying that, I thought the Red Wings carried most of the play and were the better team. Once again, an inept powerplay cost them a win. Like many others here have stated, I frickin love Brendan Smith. He's quickly becoming one of my favorite players. He looks so composed and comfortable and he's been much stronger defensively than I anticipated so far. Smith's ability to move the puck is flawless. His passes are crisp and usually right on the mark. I'm by no means an Ericsson hater, but I'm starting to believe there's no reason not to let Smith continue for the playoffs. With the Quincey addition, it makes Ericsson's role even less significant. It goes against Holland's typical philosophy and I'm not expecting Ericsson to gets benched, but man I am beyond impressed with Smith. I will also echo the comments about having too many passengers at forward. Every time I see Hossa it makes me even more depressed to watch Franzen lazily float around. Does Franzen ever win a puck battle? Chicago is beyond horrible defensively and the Red Wings have scored four goals in the three losses to the Blackhawks. That truly concerns me come playoff time having so many streaky scorers in the top six. I like Bertuzzi and Hudler, but both are practically invisible for stretches. Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Filppula are going to have to carry the offense for a deep run.

I don't think San Jose is as good as last year and I think the Red Wings are a much better team than the one that lost to the Sharks last May. That being said, I wouldn't want to see them again in the playoffs. Some teams just matchup better with others. IMO if the Red Wings have to go through both San Jose and Vancouver in the West, their chances to advance to the final drop greatly. I have a lot of respect for what both the Blues and Predators have done this season, but I think the Wings would beat either in a series (though it wouldn't be easy). Vancouver is the biggest threat overall. The Canucks are very deep and the Sedin's always give Detroit fits. Special teams are the biggest concern for me down the stretch. The powerplay worries me more than the penalty kill. Too much talent to not be over 20% and frustrating how inept it has looked for stretches. I voted for Z to have a huge playoff just because he's Henrik Zetterberg and that's what he does.

I'll give Inge a chance (for the 40th time), but I seriously doubt it. Though anything will be a rebound from .197 with no power. I truly believe the only reason he's even around this spring is because of the contract. Danny Worth is equal or better defensively at this point. If Raburn can just make routine plays at second, I want him starting. His bat would be a huge asset at the bottom of the order.

Yeah, definitely agree with you. 1-7 is sick and probably how it will look on Opening Day. I have no idea what the logic is to starting Young in left either with Dirks playing, but I will just pray this an exhibition-only event. Honestly my biggest hope in Spring Training is Danny Worth makes the team over Brandon Inge. However, there are probably 5.5 million reasons working against me. I think if Leyland is intent on splitting Raburn/Santiago at second base, it makes more sense to keep Worth around. He can also rest Peralta at shortstop and he's excellent defensively at third too. I'll let it play out but I seriously think the Tigers need to just end it with Inge. Prince reportedly hit a HR 611 feet today. Yes, 611. I have my doubts about the accuracy, but my goodness that's insane. Have fun AL Central pitchers.

Gutsy win. Wasn't pretty, but tough to expect that with Datsyuk and Lidstrom out. Zetterberg has really stepped up the past couple games, same with Filppula. I thought Kindl had a really strong game, which is nice to see with Ericsson out for awhile. Smith and Janik were both reliable too. My only real complaint is Hudler still on the point. I'm guessing having no Lidstrom and Quincey necessitated the move tonight, but that needs to stop. Just throw Stuart or Smith back there to be safe. Hudler's speed is a huge liability; I'm thinking at least half of those eight short-handed goals against this season have been a direct result of Hudler. Huge two points regardless. Need to grind out as many as possible with Pavel out and make a big run when he returns for first overall.

"We had nothing going on." Well yes, that's what tends to happen when you float around.

Nice move by Babcock getting Franzen away from skilled linemates. Hopefully playing on a line with the two hardest working forwards on the team will get him skating a little. Really excited to watch Smith play tonight. Need a win big time even with a depleted lineup -- the Blues are tied for first now.

The Blues have been close all season. I don't think just because Holland didn't make a move today that is suddenly going to propel St. Louis ahead of the Red Wings despite everything you listed. The Blues have a lot of road games remaining and they are just as bad away from home than Detroit. The Red Wings are still the best team in the division. Would adding Paul Gaustad today have been the deal-breaker to winning the Central? Fair enough. The Blues do play very hard every night, but the Red Wings will ramp up their intensity when it counts. It may be frustrating for us to watch as a fanbase, but the regular season isn't going to fire up a bunch of veterans that have gone deep into the playoffs for a large portion of their careers. The Blues have their flaws too: the biggest one being they don't score many goals and that wasn't addressed for them at the deadline. My main point is that I don't understand the mentality that doing nothing today is going to cost the Red Wings the division. They are two points from being the best team in the league. This is a very good hockey team as constructed. I would have preferred a move today as well, but the extreme doom-and-gloom is an overreaction.

What the hell did St. Louis acquire today that suddenly makes them better than the Red Wings?

Franzen better light it up. He should have all the energy in the world. He's been on vacation since last May.

Completely agree. I think getting the top seed in the West at least is imperative for the Red Wings. I'm still willing to bet the Sharks win the Pacific and finish third in the conference. If no upsets occur in the first round, it would be huge to have the Canucks play the Sharks in round two and get one of those teams out before the conference final. I wouldn't say it could never happen, but I don't like the Red Wings chances very much of having to go through both San Jose and Vancouver to win the West. I didn't have very high expectations going into the deadline, so I'm not totally surprised Holland didn't make a move. The only trade that happened that I would have been happy with for the price is Pahlsson. I thought that was a very fair deal and Pahlsson could have been a huge upgrade as the 4th line center over Emmerton. It's a shame the Canucks, Sharks and Predators all got better today, but I can't be too upset when Paul Gaustad goes for a first rounder. I will say this about having so much cap space though: it was fine the Red Wings didn't overpay last summer in a weak class. I applaud Holland for not throwing out horrible deals and compromising the Red Wings short-term ability to pursue better talent. That being said, I will be very disappointed if the Red Wings don't go balls out for Parise and Suter this summer provided both make it to free agency. I know their trademark is to try and sign players under market value, but there needs to be exceptions when the players are right. This team desperately needs a goal-scorer no matter what and a top-pairing d-man should Nick retire. I can tolerate the "right deal wasn't there" from Holland at the deadline, but there's no excuse to not spend that money in July, especially when no assets need to be given up in free agency.

Just so everyone is aware, there appears to be some scoring issues on the site that need to be fixed. Dan Bylsma picked up on this after last weekend, as there are at least two obvious errors where people got fewer points added to their score than they actually earned. I contacted the site administrators and hopefully the errors will be corrected shortly. I will post an update in here when I get some feedback and a resolution. Thanks! Weekend Picks

I could definitely see Pahlsson being the forward acquired tomorrow. That just screams of a Holland-type move. I would prefer Moen or Gaustad more, but Pahlsson could step in as the 4th line center and kill penalties/win faceoffs which would be an upgrade over Emmerton. I know the asking prices are out of control, but I doubt Pahlsson would ultimately cost too much relative to the market.

I wonder how many games now this season we've said "The Red Wings played well for 20 minutes but it wasn't enough." Way too many for my liking. I put some of the blame on Babcock for this loss. The top-six wasn't effective the past two games and it took him way too long again tonight to put Zetterberg back with Filppula and Hudler. Z had great chemistry with them before and Franzen brings down just about any line he's on lately. It might not have mattered, but Babcock basically threw away two periods with the team playing terrible before he made adjustments. Speaking of Franzen, he's a disgrace to everything good about this franchise. His effort makes me sick. I hope he is humiliated about losing ice time and being relegated to a non-skill line in the third period, but I doubt it. I don't think he has enough pride to generate a work ethic even when his coach basically just told him his performance wasn't and hasn't been acceptable. Especially without Datsyuk around, Franzen should be stepping up and generating some offense. Instead he has everyone here (myself included) clamoring harder for a goal-scorer by the deadline. I still think this is a really good hockey team, but it would be a mistake to just stand pat by Holland IMO. I will acknowledge getting that top-six forward will be very difficult, but it needs to at least be seriously explored. Either way getting a big, gritty forward that can kill penalties and bring some energy to the third or fourth line is essential.

I didn't even notice the Burrows celebration at the game. I was watching Luongo fall to his knees and pretend like he won something important. The Burrows stunt was obnoxious even for a diving jackass like him. The Canucks do realize the streak was already in place right? Their win didn't suddenly stop history. If the Red Wings get the Sharks and Canucks both in the playoffs, I can't imagine how many times the Wings will end up short-handed.

Just got back from the game. Incredible atmosphere and a really good game between two excellent hockey teams. Bummer to lose and see the streak come to an end, but the record has its place in history now. I hate the Canucks. I really wanna play those tools in the WCF. Luongo celebrated at the end of the shootout like it was the biggest game of his career. Not to mention all the diving and other garbage the Canucks pull. I will give them credit where it is due though -- they are a very deep team, up front and on defense. The Sedin's dominated all night. I know they flop around with the best of them, but their puck possession and cycling is near impossible to defend. Miller-Helm-Abdelkader were just spectacular together. Best line by far as I thought both of the top two lines looked poor except for a couple stretches. I'm sure the GWG and playoff performer crowd will throw their stats back as usual, but Johan Franzen is a joke. He may be the most infuriating player I have watched in a Red Wings uniform. If Franzen had half the heart of Helm or Miller, he could score 40-50 goals with ease. I'm so sick of watching him float around and make lazy passes nightly. The duration of his contract makes me cringe; I wonder how lazy he will be five years from now. I hope the Red Wings find another top-six forward somehow at the deadline. The powerplay is still pathetic too. Way too much skill to not score goals. They really aren't even creating many quality opportunities right now. Oh well, time to start a new winning streak on Saturday.

Typical road game. A few minutes of strong effort and the rest was garbage. Howard and Filppula were the only two players that looked interested at all. Why is it the Red Wings continue to try and skate through four guys stacked at the blueline? They waste so much time on the PP trying to even enter the zone because everyone wants to pass into traffic instead of dumping the puck in and going after it. It's fine if Datsyuk is out there for the entry, but otherwise it just looks like a trainwreck. Big game on Thursday. Should be well-rested and ready to play hopefully.

I guess I don't really like or dislike this trade. It's just kinda meh. At first glance, I thought the first round pick was definitely way too steep for Quincey, but after reading through the comments, others have made strong points here about the pick being quite low anyways. I do agree this seems to a be pre-cursor to another move at the deadline, likely involving Kindl. His play hasn't been too sharp for awhile now so the reasonable explanation would be the Red Wings keep dressing him to showcase him for a trade. I still hope the Red Wings can swing a deal for a Moen/Gaustad type player to help improve the PK. The price and availability for a top-six forward seems completely unlikely for Holland to pull the trigger at this point. I think the worst part part of the trade for me is this signals Stuart is almost assuredly leaving this summer. Quincey is a decent enough d-man, but he isn't Brad Stuart. I really don't think Quincey even brings similar attributes to the team, so the speculation he's going to fill Stuart's role puzzles me a bit. Ericsson plays more like Stuart than Quincey does. Depth on defense is never a bad thing to have. I trust Ken Holland to have made the right decision in a move like this. Just hope this isn't the one and only deal he makes in the next six days.

Weekend Picks

Thanks for clearing it up for us that the streak is going to end sometime. I'm pretty sure opponents have been trying for over three months to beat the Red Wings at JLA to no avail. Best of luck (not really) to your diving team tomorrow.

I reckon "One Goal" isn't the Blackhawks slogan for their goaltending.

The A's are going to be pathetic still even with Cespedes. I really don't understand the move at all -- they trade away quality pitching all winter and then go and spend big money on a relatively unknown product? I know they are trying to move to San Jose and maybe the angle is to have Cespedes around for that, but they are years away from being anywhere near decent even with all of the prospects they acquired for Gonzalez and Cahill. I kinda believe the idea too that the A's will just trade him for prospects (if he pans out) a couple years from now when they are still irrelevant.

Very proud of this team. They earned it tonight with a strong effort. People can write off the record if they want, but the fact is the Red Wings just made history playing in the toughest division in hockey at a time when there has never been more parity in the league overall. Not to mention, all the wear and tear from travel they have endured since the start of December. The longest home win streak since the lockout was 14, so it's not like teams have even come close to approaching the Red Wings feat recently. Awesome night -- one of those games you will never forget as a fan. This is special.