stormboy

i just posted this in another thread because it caught my eye when i was looking at stats for something else, but here's copypasted what i uncovered: "i was just poking around NHL.com's stats, and minnesota is second best in Times ShortHanded and has the league's second best penalty kill. overall, this means that that they have half or less PPGA as 5 teams, and are a fully 20 PPGA behind all but six other teams. if our powerplay is our best weapon, i suddenly to NOT want to meat these guys in the first round...or ever." this has probably been stated elsewhere, but i didn't realize up until now that minnesota will not be pushed around by powerplays. damn. as i also stated in that thread, our 5-on-5 has been good this year, too: 3rd best in overall ratio. but s***.

i'm not sure how related this is to the actual topic at hand...but i just thought it should be noted (though it probably has already) that, according to NHL.com, wings are 3rd in 5-on-5 goals for/against ratio, and we still have the league's top ranked powerplay. obviously our PK needs a lot of work, but according to those first two stats (and again, i emphasize the according to stats bit--grab a grain of salt) our PK is really the only thing that's really weak right now. also, and this is TOTALLY off topic, but i was just poking around NHL.com's stats, and minnesota is second best in Times ShortHanded and has the league's second best penalty kill. overall, this means that that they have half or less PPGA as 5 teams, and are a fully 20 PPGA behind all but six other teams. if our powerplay is our best weapon, i suddenly to NOT want to meat these guys in the first round...or ever.

hmmm...according to the stats i'm looking at now, florida has allowed 11 less than detroit while playing one more game. the stats i'm looking at say this: let's leave out the top- and bottom-ranked teams in total goals against, assuming boston is unusually good and atlanta is unusually bad (feel free to disagree with this decision). team 2 (jersey) has 179 TGA; the eleventh ranked team (florida) has allowed 205. that's a difference of 26. between 11th and 21st (us) is a differential of 16. the differential between us and the second-to-last place team? thirty-six. what this says to me is that the top few teams are really good at stopping goals; the bottom few are really bad at it. other than that, the middle of the pack is not separated by that much--this supports your point, i think, in saying that, in the middle of the league, you can drop a large number of ranking spots by allowing only a few more goals against. i don't know...i guess i've seen enough to believe that a rocky GAA in the regular season is not enough to condemn a team to certain playoff defeat. and whether or not it makes that much difference, it's not as if we've been getting out-played in a ton of games this year. i think that calgary game is an example in which we didn't really get out played, but still lost. ozzie let in two very weak goals, and conks understandably allowed ONE in relief. they put us away with an ENG...the game tallied 5 goals against us, but it's not like we just got beat around the whole game. while you certainly cannot guarantee that ozzie will not let in those two soft goals in a playoff game, there's no proof that he WILL.

yeah, he actually wrote the script for the film based on personal experiences. sidenote: i had no f'king idea what this thread was about when i clicked on it. i'm alright with that. i'm going to say yes, we'll get 300...we've got 8 games left for one of our guys to get a hat trick, so that's one of the eight right there. i hope and expect us to score about a thousand goals tonight *crosses fingers* how common are 300 goal season? i know it's the "new" NHL and everything...just curious. like how many team goals did wayne's teams have back in the day?

i think someone should start a thread about the wings finally having their destiny completely under their control...i'm pretty sure (as others have said) that this is the first time this entire season that we've actually been in first points-percentage wise. i just didn't want to do it because i was afraid that i was wrong... unfortunately, i think this achievement of ours has more to do with the sharks playing poorly lately than us playing extraordinarily. either way...

i agree totally, and would also say that they'll be a better indicator of what a potential playoff matchup will look like between those two teams. that is to say, i think our last two games against the preds (and the sharks' last two games against the ducks) will be a much better preview of a playoff series than the rest of the season series to this point. if either ranking team (sharks or wings) get swept in the last two games by either one of these teams, i'd start getting pretty afraid. that being said, there's a reason they actually play the playoff series.

intelligent post. thanks for not being STOOpid (which is my default opinion of opposing fans). anyway, i generally agree with your conclusion about what the ducks' and preds' players would want for the first round draw...i would honestly not be too worried about either, though certainly think both would be a solid challenge--the ducks always seem to play of really tough, i think because they still remember being able to push around physically, and so they always get their hitting hats on when they play us; the preds because they have a great goalie, and we tend to make good goalies look great and great goalies look inhuman... so we'll see. i appreciate this thread because, if we do keep it updated, it will give an increasingly-accurate picture of who we will likely play, rather than who we all would prefer/not prefer to play. while those discussions are interesting and worthwhile for fans to have, it obviously doesn't matter at all at the end of the day... looking at the OP's post, i'm guessing the pack will break up a little bit as several of the bubble teams play each other shortly. then again, we could get a lot of three-point games and such and keep it really close. also, i assume this has been mentioned elsewhere (haven't browsed yet much today) but, correct me if i'm wrong here, i think this is the first time that the wings actually control their own destiny completely. we are even in games and points with the sharks but ahead in wins--so if we win every game for the rest of the season there's no way we can lose first. that being said, despite our slight edge in home games, the sharks have a pretty cake schedule the rest of the way, assuming they can handle the sharks. flames are a playoff team, but, despite beating us, have also been getting kicked around a fair amount of late.

to me...take out maltby, put in helm (as noted) and that's lineup i can get behind.

so you're saying the ice will never allow our players to fall for fear of a downey retribution? BRILLIANT!!! personally i'm going to have to disagree with the slippery/gravity AND enforcer arguments and say that the reason that so many of our players are falling down is because obama was elected president so clearly crosby is his secret lover and all of north america is going to hell--ice at the hockey arenas first and foremost.

this prediction i agree with. this made me laugh. well done on both accounts.

i think it would be cool maybe for the opening game, or the first game in each city. i wouldn't do it for the whole series, but i think it would be cool i'm too lazy to look it up, but does anyone know when the last original six matchup was in the SCF? edit: just so we're not getting ahead of ourselves, you could make the hypothetical being any one of det/chi vs. bos/NYR/mon in the finals (i think they're all in the playoffs as of right now).

chances are he'll have a few point-less games between now and the end of the season; he's had 4 point-less games in the last 12. however, he's had 4 multi-point games in that stretch and has ten points on his current 6-game point streak. if, say, he gets three points on friday, that would mean he'd only need ten points in ten games--very doable. (the three-pointer of course doesn't have to come on friday, but if he gets one big game in the next few, i'd say there's a very good chance of it happening.) i'd say the next few games are very key. if he goes two games without a point (unlikely, but has happened plenty of times this season) then he'll need thirteen in nine, which will be a real stretch, though, again, not impossible. i'd love to see it happen. if he gets 97 this year, you can count on him getting 107 for the next two years.

so we're looking at, hypothetically: Franzen-Datsyuk-Cleary Hossa-Zetterberg-Hudler Sammy-Meech-Draper Kopecky-Lebda-Maltby ? or do you go Sammy-Meech-Kopecky Draper-Lebda-Maltby so you can roll at least three somewhat descent lines (at this point i'd rather have kopy in over malts and even draper) and give the fourth line very sparing minutes? needless to say, we're going to need the top two to log a LOT of minutes tonight. i should check the GDT to see projected lines...maybe they've got something else cooking.

yeah, just read that...thought it was pretty good. i thought the point about them playing teams right now that are seriously battling for their playoff lives is a good one. yes, the wings are professionals, and it's their job to give 100% effort each night, but i loved the bit that was like, Rangers lose one game, they drop from 5th to 9th. Wings lose a game, and their lead in the central is cut down to a mere 15 points. while it's obviously really hard to expect a team in detroit's position to put forth as much effort on a daily basis as most other teams, the big question is whether or not they'll be able to step up to that new level of intensity come playoff time.

i addressed this basic idea at (probably-over)length in the "sjs drops the ball" thread...and again, i see you're point and am not saying that it's wrong. and i'm not saying i'm NOT nervous at all about the playoffs, it's just interesting to me that you assume that the wins' offense will be adversely affected by the playoffs but their defense will be none improved by it. i agree that you can't just "flick a switch" but we've got a lot of guys who have tasted a lot of playoff defeat and a good amount of playoff victory--they know what it takes, and they know what happens when you don't give it your all. i'm not saying you can just flick a switch, but i have to believe, with the amount of skill and experience this team has, there will be a new resolve in the playoffs. and, just for the record, i do expect our GAA to be up this year from last years' playoffs, but i certainly expect our GFA to be up as well. it's basically the same offense plus hossa. sure, they might not all be pretty, but i expect to see more 4-3 games and perhaps even some more 5-4 games than have been seen in recent detroit playoffs. whether we'll be on the winning or losing end of those i can't say, but i bet there are a lot less 2-1 games in detroit series this year.

Stat: Rank. Goals For: 1 Shots on Goal: 1 SOG differential: 1 Shutouts: T-6 Powerplay %: 1 Goal differential: 4 Wins: T-1 we've had four 5+ game winning streaks. obviously there are a lot of defensive stats (penalty kill, save percentage, GAA) that make us look like we've played poorly. but i have to say, arguing we've "played like crap all season" is a bit of a stretch.

i'm not saying you're necessarily wrong in your statement, but i think this arguement is at least worth debating. i think this is an extremely pessemistic and unfair way to look at the outcomes of tonight's games. (let me note here that i agree that we essentially let in five goals last night--the game did not end in the way that a playoff game ended, and there's no reason to think that either team had the edge if continued play had occured. thus, i will assume that we had five goals scored on us last night.) but here's my argument (it doesn't really flow in order, and i'm really tired, but see if it all makes sense together): 1. based on last night's game, i'm hearing, "we better watch out for the flames!!" and "any team that lets in 5 goals is not going to win a playoff game." 2. if this were the playoffs, some team would have won 6-5 after some amount of overtime. letting in five or six goals is such a bad sign for us, and shows us that we should be afraid of them, then the implicit assumption is: a) other teams (e.g. calgary) will tighten up their defense, and our high-powered offense will never put up 5+ goals against a good team, and b) we will NOT be able to tighten up our defense c) thus, the flames would have likely won this game 5-2 or something. 3. furthermore, you're comparing the STL-SJS game and the DET-CGY game. i didn't watch the SJS game, but because the score was 2-1 until an empty-netter was scored, i assume it was a game that was much more tightly played by both teams. there was probably a lot less room on the ice and everyone was probably making the safe play all the time instead of high risk/high reward type plays, which i think we saw in the DET game. 4. thus, you're saying that tonight was effectively a 5-2 defeat of the wings at the hands of the sharks, because that is the amount of goals scored on them in their respective games. they were obviously different kinds of games, and let's not forget that the flames who we are supposed to be all effing scared of now also let in five goals, which you yourself implied is a playoff defeat, even though the flames won the game. sorry for the numbers--i'm just trying to organize my thoughts. when i read you're post, i am instantly grumbling and saying, "that's an awful--and not necessarily accurate--way to look at the situation," and i'm just trying to itterate clearly why i think that. i simply don't see many playoff games going the way tonight's game went. and if you want to argue that the flames will tighten up their D in the postseason while we will be unable to, i think it's worth noting that the wings have 205 total GAs this season; the flames have 206. obviously not a significant difference, but provides absolutely no reason to think that calgary will suddenly only allow 1-2 goals max a game while the wings will still routinely be letting in five or six. i just get tired of the argument that's like, "well, we're in first place points-wise" [though not win-percentage, i understand] "right now, but we're not going to do well in the playoffs if we consistently let in this many goals." i agree that if we let in 4-6 goals a game in the playoffs, we won't go deep, but right now there's not reason to assume that's the case when the flames have played as bad or worse defensively than we have all year. this has nothing to do with you, and sorry for such a long post, but i remember a post before a playoff series last year (it may have even been before the playoffs) that said, "their scorers will be ready...will ours?" i just don't why everyone assumes that every other team will be able to flip a switch for playoff hockey but the wings will play exactly the same as they have played all year, minus the scoring. edit: sorry i kept mixing "tonight's" and "last night's games..." i work third shift so last night is still "today" for me, if that makes sense. i don't go to bed for a few more hours....sorry if that was confusing.

totally agree with the bolded part. i see that it might be possible to get both hossa and franzen without trading filppula, and losing huds, etc. etc., IF everyone got signed to long-term contracts to ala dastyuk and zetterberg to lower their yearly cap hit. i guess then--*if indeed this is possible*--do you want to lock up dastyuk, zetterberg, hossa, hudler, franzen ALL on front-loaded, long-term contracts. seven years from now having all those guys with cap hits that are above their value (zetterberg will not be work a 6 million cap hit in the last years of his contract) might severely hamstring the team. i could see a situation where we have all these old guys getting paid too much that we can't get rid of and having no room to actually get guys that are good THEN. that being said, no one has any idea where the cap will be in seven years, so i guess it's all kind of a crapshoot, even IF it's possible to keep everyone by using really long deals.

if i didn't know better i'd think you were knew here. tootoo hate is probably the most unifying topic on this board.

this is exactly what i think, esp the bolded part. it's just really hard to argue that conks is not the better goalie right now. but, yeah, if ozzie does start, i'll just argue that the league is due for a 3.00+ GAA goalie to win the cup.

yeah, i mean obviously i'd like hossa to be back--we could use the offense vs. calgary (plus he's on my fantasy team ) but at this point i'd rather make sure he's 100% healthy and take no risks in getting re-injured this close to the playoffs. i'm fine with the new goalie rotation system--especially if it means we see conks against the flames on thursday. this may have been discussed elsewhere, but is homer on the 3rd line just until he gets back into better game shape? i just don't see him having as big of an impact with sammy and kopy--plus i just love seeing the DHZ line out there. i'm guessing they're just keeping his minutes down and trying to lower the amount of abuse he takes right now...also, fitting that he got a goalie interference call his fist game back.

great thread.

the wings had absolutely no reason to pursue a new starting goalie in the offseason. osgood has just won us the cup and played lights out hockey for the entire playoff run. they got a capable backup and a pure goal scorer. there is absolutely no reason why holland & co. should or would have been thinking about a goalie in the offseason. sure, hindsight is 20/20, but the premise of the argument that we should have gotten a goalie instead of hossa is completely flawed and nonsensical.

i'd like to see huds and filppula on the top two lines (huds 1 with datsyuk, flip 2 with zetterberg) and see sammy and kopy knocked down the depth chart. who knows if the lines that have been projected will stay together any amount of time tonight. then again, kopecky has been playing well as of late so who knows? i haven't gotten a chance to see the big rig play yet--looking forward to that. i'd like to see flipper stay hot and huds get some quality time with results tonight. big night from houdini as well. wings squeak this one out 2-1 or 3-2 IMO.