stormboy

re: the whole long-term strategy to get a lower signing...that sounds a little too Machiavellian to me, although if you look at the evidence, it supports the theory. i personally don't think it's true, but at the same time, i wouldn't be totally surprised if there was something of that thought process there. *shrug* but, yeah, hard to argue with 9 points in two games between those two, including a couple of game winners. again, i don't think this is true, but part of me wonders if in some way this has been babs' plan all along, for a different reason. last year, the league knew that DHZ was one of the top five lines in the league (with the only better lines--perhaps ottawa and tampa--were supported by more or less dummy casts) and watched them all year long. they watched tons of tape and structured their team strategy around stopping that line. this year, babs has been juggling the lines all season. we've stayed real near the top of the league (have we ever dropped below third or fourth?) although not playing our best hockey. now, we've got DHZ back together and an even better supporting cast than last year--only the league hasn't been gunning for the eurotwins + the demolition man all year. as others have wondered, i'm curious whether part of the (verbal) agreement with hossa was that he'd be playing with either datsyuk or zetterberg. i think it's become pretty clear that hossa leads a line very well, and perhaps plays better when he's the main guy on the line. i don't think he was playing in the shadow of datsyuk or zetterberg, per se, and the local fans definitely adore him (though it's hard to say he is loved more than dats or z by many), but i think there might be some psychology for him where when he's THE guy, he plays better. and that doesn't have to mean THE guy on the team, maybe just the guy on the ice. so when he's out there, he's more of less thinking, "it is up to me to get this done," so he gets it done. whereas, playing with 13 or 40, maybe there was some part of him that was falling back on them as well, and he wasn't taking charge quite enough. man, when homer and franzen come back, leino will likely be gone, but roll 40-13-96 and 21/26/11/51/37-93-81 and that's looking really good to me. with leino gone, i'd put hudler on that line, but really cleary, flip or sammy would probably be fine. it's interesting that by adding hossa, the DH(strom)Z line should still probably be our top line...with hossa and franzen playing well, we really have a hell of a second line, too. hudler's been a bit cold lately, but i think has the set up capability to make plays for hossa and franzen. sorry for the long post...it just seems like this should have been an obvious solution all along. hopefully hossa is happy with "second line" duty and will continue to dominate. who knows, maybe he and franzen will develop wicked chemistry and that will be part of hossa's reason for staying! i think you can tell when our boys are having fun. they win. and score a lot. as for me, i'm just riding the high right now...

like others have said, i've gotten a bit annoyed this year with mick *constantly* bitching about weak calls. i just feel like, okay, mick, we get it. you don't like the calls. in the "good old days" that wouldn't get called. the one thing i do forgive about it is that he *usually* calls it both ways, with a slight bias for the wings. i remember a few games ago hossa clearly interfered with a guy (checked him before he got to the puck) and the non-call led directly to a red wings goal. off course mickey wasn't pissed about it, per se, but he did make it very clear that the other coach totally had a right to be angry, as that was a totally blown call. so i do appreciate that, but the same complaint over and over and over again gets old. sometimes i feel like ken actually gets a bit annoyed when he's like, "well, mick, it's the way it is." *shrug* i do appreciate, though, that they don't just jerk the league off like VS does -- they actually point out when they disagree with things. also, after every single goal, mick goes, "i think that hit something in front," even on goals where it clearly didn't. overall, i really love ken. he makes the calls really exciting when both teams score. i HATE it when announcers don't say anything when the other team scores other than maybe a monotone "that was goal scorer's fifth of the season" a few seconds later. he still gets more excited for the wings, though, which as a home-town announcer, is his right and in fact his job. some of the mick one-liners are amazing as well. i swear he sits up in the broadcast booth with a bottle of jack. it seems like he gets crazier and crazier (drunker and drunker) as the game goes on. love it. and for the record, i like jon keating.

hmmm...i assume then we don't sign kopecky either, then. Z-D-H sammy-flip-huds abdelkader-leino-helm malts-draper-cleary ??? maybe swap cleary and 'kader? or do you go with sammy on a lower line to bump leino up to the second line? then we'd have leino-flip-huds sammy-helm-abdelkader malts-draper-cleary as our bottom three? maybe we'll pick up a legit enforcer with our extra cap room and do something like: leino-flip-huds sammy-helm-cleary malts-draper-fighter ? i'd still have worries about that bottom line, unless the enforcer is an ott type that can also play a bit. hmmm... at the same time, i guess if we don't sign hossa OR franzen, we'd have quite a bit of space so maybe they'd go out and get another top-six forward, making it (maybe) topsixer-flip-huds sammy-helm-leino malts-draper-cleary it's also unsure what grand rapids boys will be up next year, in any case...

1. hossa - done. 2. franzen - done. 3. datsyuk - should get his 20th this afternoon. 4. zetterberg - won't be far behind four for sure. 5. hudler - only needs three, but has gotten off his goal-scoring kick from earlier in the season (currently riding an eight-game goal scoring drought). he will almost certainly, though, get to the 20-goal plateau before season's end. 6. sammy - he's currently "on pace" for 21 goals. he has been known to go through wicked cold streaks, though. if he gets a couple of goals in the next few games and only needs 5 tallies in his last 20 or so games, he should be set to net 20. other than that, 7. holmstrom - even if he gets back for the last ten games (which i doubt) there is almost no way he'll get six more goals. count him out at this point. 8. cleary - scores about .18 goals a game. with 31 games left, his pace is for about five more, for a total of 13. he'd have to really, really heat up to hit twenty. with homer out, he should get better minutes with better players, so there's a possibility. if he doesn't get real hot real soon i'd count him out. lidstrom, rafalski, and filppula have no chance of reaching 20. we'll almost certainly see five this year, likely six. seven is doubtful. unless homer comes back early and cleary heats up like a mad man, there is almost no chance the wings will have eight twenty-goal scorers this season. for comparison, other teams' likely number of 20-goal scorers, by my estimation: sharks: 1. marleau (done) 2. setoguchi (done) 3. clowe (done) 4. boyle (probable) 5. michalek (possible) 6. pavalski (possible, but not likely) 7. thornton (possible, but very unlikely) bruins: 1. kessel (done) 2. savard (done) 3. ryder (almost certainly) 4. krejci (almost certainly) 5. wheeler (possible, perhaps likely) 6. chara (possible) 7. wideman (possible, not extremely likely) 8. lucic (probably not) capitals: 1. ovie (duh) 2. semin (done) 3. green (likely) 4. fleischmann (pretty likely) 5. backstrom (possible, but not likely) 6. laich (probably not) 7. kozlov (uh, no) 'hawks have maybe six guys that *could* get twenty, but likely not all of them will. they only have one right now. in short, the bruins are the only team who has any kind of realistic shot at 20 goals, and it's not likely to happen. so don't feel too bad when only six our our guys close out the season with a score of lamp-lighters.

thread = perfect pavel. funny, but absolutely true. i love that quiet confidence. pavel rocks my face off.

i guess my question to this is: a fight takes two. what about the other guy? obviously the argument for keeping helmets on in a fight in the whole smacking-your-skull-on-the-ice thing. that being said, if i'm Guy A and Guy B wants to start a fight, do i not have the choice of saying, "Guy B is wearing a visor; i don't want to fight him." if all the Guy A's around the league go public with these sentiments, anyone who wants to be a legit fighter will be shamed into not wearing a visor, hence lowering the danger. *shrug* or so it seems.

it is not my desire to get into conflicts on this forum, but it was funny to me that some guy quoted your post saying "talk about saying nothing" and then someone quoted that post saying only "ditto." how is saying, in effect, "i want to say something that someone else already said," not saying nothing? ...which is ironic because he was seconding a comment which bashed someone else for not saying anything. it was also interesting that NFK's original "talk about posting nothing..." comment contributed absolutely zero to the conversation. your comment may (or may not) have gone with out (explicitly) saying. obviously, it depends on whether teams with better waiver position want him. still, there were suggestions, at least in the article, that he might report to the AHL affiliate, meaning NO one, not the caps nor the wings nor the sharks nor boston (the teams, i would guess, who have the lowest waiver positions) would claim him, which suggests that teams lower than the caps may or may not take him, meaning there is a possibility that he could still be available to the caps. either way, your post was at least directed towards the topic. to that end (talking about the topic, i mean), i honestly feel bad for manny, at least on a personal level. the question of whether or not he's an NHL caliber goalie i think has been answered, and in some ways is still being answered. how many starting goalies have there been in the history of the NHL that have not won cups? the vast majority, it would seem. because manny does not seem to have what it take to win a cup, does that mean that he is NOT worthy of being an NHL starting goalie? that's debatable. he's gotten contracts, which means NHL clubs deem him better than their other available options (which, i'm sure, include thousands of goalies across north america and the world who would love to play in the NHL). now he has put on waivers. maybe his time is just...done. he had his shot and couldn't live up to it. either way, on a personal level, i feel bad for the guy. i am generally outspoken about my own failures, so i feel like i can identify with him. it's one of those cyclical things where you say, "i'm awful," then you think, "since i said i'm awful, no one is going to trust me or want me," which then of course makes you think, "wow, i'm awful." maybe someone with that mindset can't be an NHL goalie. i still feel ******* bad for the guy.

i also think it's worth pointing out that even with all of our defensive and goaltending struggles, we're still in the top third in goals against average, league wide. obviously we're capable of being better, but it's not like we're in the league cellar, goals against-wise.

i don't think dj88's statistics are skewed, per se: he wasn't making the argument that both goalies are playing equally well--see the bolded part of his quote. yg1340, while your interpretation of the statistics, or rather the stats you chose to point out, show that conklin is much more likely to allow only two goals and is quite a bit less likely to allow three or more. however, since the wings have a goals for average of about 3.6 right now, the goalie allowing three or four is a pretty big distinction. dj showed that both goalies have allowed four or more goals (all above our goals for average) in just over a third of their starts. obviously, the goals for stat is an average and we have a lot of games with three goals for and a lot with four goals for. in that case, it is obviously important to have a goalie that is more likely to allow two goals than three. but generally speaking, they both allow more goals than we usually score with similar frequency. i don't think the point of dj's analysis was that both goalies are playing equally well. just my couple of cents.

Me! Marian Hossa's goals this year: 28 Dallas Drakes number of goals all of last year: 3 Sooo, with my magical calculation, I'm going to subtract hossa's goals from drake's goals (since that was the only roster change up front) to see how many goals we would have scored this year had drake been on the roster still, instead of hossa... Magical calculation: 3-28 = -25! That would mean as a team we would have scored 25 less than we've scored this year! All of a sudden detroit becomes the the team with the 11th best goal differential just above florida. So, even though our defense has taken a bit of a hit as of late, we are letting up a few more shots per game, most of the skill lies in the top two lines. I'm getting sick of how so many coaches, players and even fans seem to tell hossa he's doing a good job. We are always hearing how hossa "should have shot more" or "wasn't getting any bounces", but rarely gets trashed even though it is fairly clear he hasn't had a hat trick this year. I think I almost threw up when mick was talking after tonight's game about hossa saving them in the first! What a joke. Something is definetly up with that guy, he has four goals in two games, I want my Drake of old sad.gif Long story short, hossa needs a few weeks off to get back to basics. Instead of scoring three goals all season he has scored twenty eight already. With Drake being retired, use this opportunity to bring up draper or maltby and give them some starts on the top line. We may need one of them come playoff time. Hopefully we won't and Hossa will use the break to clear his head and get out of this terrible goal scoring spree! Arg, I'm so glad our offense is way better than last year, sorry for my rant.

so what are the lines looking like then? franzen-z-hossa filppula-datsyuk-cleary helm-hudler-sammy malts-drapes-kopy ? or does one of clearly/filppula move up with franzen-dats-flip/clears as the second line?

yeah, i guess the question is for me...like, what was the ref thinking the second he blew his whistle, you know? 'cause i agree that injury shouldn't have a bearing on the call, but more the intent/undisciplined nature of the offense. i wonder if the ref immediately thought, major + game, or if he was only going to call a 2 min. minor until the blues player got up. either way, i don't think he was faking. IMO, there are only a few players that are really divers in the league. this isn't soccer, thank god. glad he's not hurt, we survived the game, hopefully lils isn't suspended. if not, then i'm over it. plus, it will make lilja's PIM totals go up, which might make it look like he's more of a badass.

i honestly have never thought of cleary as fast as all, for as much as he's getting mentioned here. i've never thought of him as SLOW, per se...but just average like hank or sammy or someone. hossa's speed is undeniable...i'm not sure who would win between him and lebda in a footrace, but hossa obvioulsy has ten times the power. last year i would have put draper in the running, but not this year. i think datsyuk has the best acceleration of any wing, but not amazing top speed. on the other side, i'd say lilja or chelios are our slowest skaters right now...though i feel like hudler is pretty damn slow as well. maybe his acceleration is just crap because of how short he is.

i was thinking the other day that i haven't seen a lot of lilja-bashing threads on lgw, and decided to check some stats. it is interesting that lilja is tied for second in +/- among our seven/eight d-men (depending on whether you count meech as the 8th) at +9--tied with rafalski and second only to lidstrom. he has a better +/- than hudler, filppula, sammy, and cleary. i realize that +/- isn't an all-telling statistic, but i think it says something about lilja's tighter defensive play lately. i haven't seen nearly as many giveaways from lilja as i have kronner and rafalski. he's blocking shots, making some hits, and even scoring a little bit (he's on pace for a career high in points). just thought i'd point out that lilja's actually playing pretty well for us right now. anyone else agree/disagree?

i'm not saying i disagree with you entirely, but having a guy with tons of PIMs obviously hasn't done much for their position in the standings...

i guess i missed the part where mindfly didn't know what offsides was...obviously that was part of another conversation. it seemed that you were making fun of him for quoting that rule when it seemed like nobody else knew what it was, either. sorry i misunderstood.

dude, wtf? this is a really obscure rule that i had never heard of before--it sounds like most people here hadn't heard of it either. anyway, if that's the rule, then i guess it makes sense. the weird thing is that if the goal was scored, that was a stoppage in play. why did the linesman not report it then? i thought that once play started again, no matter what happened, they couldn't go back and change things. and, if the decided that it was really important that they do that, why not reset the clock to the time when the penalty happened and negate the play that had occurred in the meantime. that makes no sense to me. i'd be pissed if i was a sharks fan and they missed the call, but i'd be way more pissed if i was a hawks fan and the refs went and retroactively changed the game. that is messed up.

honestly if we had a younger version of draper and maltby, i'd gladly take them. i think we have a new version of drapes--his name is helm. malts, the agitator, i'm not so sure. it seems that downey is the closest thing there is to an agitator in our system, but it has always bothered me that downey will basically play five minutes a game, have one fight, throw one big hit, and then be a waste of a roster spot. if there we could get someone who could actually play a bit (like drapes and malts could in their day) and add that edge...i would love to have that player.

agreed. i think it's hard to place a value on a player like drake from last season. yeah, he had one good run with us and wasn't a part of our core. i think the wings brass hoped kopecky would fill that void...up until this point, he hasn't. downey did impress for the one game he was up, but he really hasn't been given a chance to prove himself this year. we really don't have a hard-ass on our roster right now, and i think i'm beginning to side with the folks who feel that that sort of player would really be a boon to our team.

someone had to.....

i guess i don't understand how these two statements fit together. i was saying that as a second-line center, flip MIGHT produce 20G, 50P, but i don't know that, and neither does a GM who is risking paying him 3m a year for more than just the rest of this season if he trades for him. i agree--and as you stated--if he got 20 minutes a game with good wingers, he might just get 20G and 50P. but then your second statement seems to suggest that even if filppula was a 20G 50P player, he wouldn't be worth 3 million. why, then, would you say that a GM *isn't* taking a risk by signing a three million dollar player that by your own admission shouldn't be worth three million dollars based on the performance of other players. maybe i'm misunderstanding/missing something that you're saying. i've had a few...heha...so maybe i'm in the wrong here. but it seems like you're saying: a) filppula, with a 3M contract and with proper ice time should get 20-30-50, which would not be a risk for a GM b) all players who get 20-30-50 are not worth 3M a year. help me out here.

OP, i see your point, and as a fantasy owner i've been keeping my eye on anderson for most of the year. he seems to do pretty well, but seems a bit inconsistent. last several games, goals against (oldest first): 0, 5, 0, 4, 1, 1, 5, 3. seems a little up and down, yes? also, maybe it's just me, but i see goalies as playing like s*** as soon as they come to detriot. it doesn't totally make sense to me, as we win way more games than we lose and obviously won the cup last year, and aside from that f***in' edmonton loss have done pretty well all recent years. even still, as long as i've been watching hockey (which hasn't been that long) i never feel safe when any goalie we've had has been playing, other than (mostly) ozzie last playoffs. i just have a feeling if we were to, say, trade conks and a pick for anderson, i would be really surprised in he came in here and started playing any better than conks or ozzie. i'm not saying it couldn't happen, i'm just saying i would have absolutely no confidence in it until i saw craig steal several games for us. yes, conks lost the last game for us (caps), but he came in and played well against dallas. yeah, he let in the second shot, but he came in after a period and after that goal shut the door. he's been a bit up and down, too, but at this point, as armchair GM, i'm not ready to move conks and hope to god that someone like anderson does better. if we're going to trade a roster player and a pick, we should get a soon-to-be-UFA bone-crusher (e.g. a younger version of last years' drake) to help us through the playoff grind. i've been as pissed off as anyone about our goaltending, but i don't think that getting another goalie is the best option for us right now. i'd like to believe that a trade for anderson would help us, but i just really don't. that's just me.

it would be interesting to see stats about goals against per minute of PK time. that, of course, wouldn't even tell the whole story, because if lids is out of position for a goal, lilja gets a PK GA, and vica-versa. i can honestly say that i haven't noticed lilja being out of position on the PK as i have some of our other d-men, but i've also seen lilja make some good defensive plays on PKs, including a lot of blocked shots. one of my biggest gripes all year as been that a lot of goals against, powerplay or otherwise, come from a guy controlling the buck behind the net then passing it out to someone on the periphery of the crease for a tap-in. it seemed like no one was clearing--or even covering--the guy in front of the net. lilja has been stronger there than most of our guys this year, including lids. but, yeah, i'll keep an eye out for that. our PK has been brutal as of late, so i'm guessing a lot of people are out of position a lot of the time.

yeah, lebda's got 4 goals this year (career high is five) and the same number of points as lilja. he's also climbed back from a season-low -9 rating to a decent +5, for a guy who doesn't score a ton. he he beats stuart's +4 and kronner's -5. (kronner also has double the amount of points that either lilja or lebda have, though only 13 of them are at even strength [which is still more than lebs or lils at even strength].)

almost everyone's talking as if holland can just flip a switch and trade filppula for some draft picks or something. i don't think it's out of the question that some other team would want val in a first or second line situation. if they're really weak down the middle, they might think that filppula will be worth 3 million a year playing alongside two good wingers. you could argue that he's not worth 3 million on the wings because of his role, and that he might be worth three million in a different role on another team. but i just have a hard time seeing another GM being willing to take the risk, especially since val's not going to be a UFA at the end of this season.