VM1138

St. Louis is one of those teams that should be better than they are. Maybe Hitch in charge will be what the team needs to finally click on all cylinders.

If they wanted to toss Nash our way I wouldn't sneeze at it. But I have a feeing they are just going to switch coaches and hope that works.

I wonder how Franzen would react to being sat? Would it mess with his confidence? Or would he come back possessed and with a chip on his shoulder?

I wonder if Flip was trying to find a way to pass!

Brunner looks great out there. He better stay up. It's only a matter of time before he scores. As far as Franzen goes, he has an assist. We're so hard on him but he's sill up there with the best this season in points. He won't lead the league, but he's still respectably high.

Unbelievable. If the Wings lose this game I think panic will officially set in. They're playing out of their mind. And Brunnstrom-Helm looks gooooood.

Not only do I want a win, I want Brunnstrom to dominate. I know it's unlikely, but I want him to turn into the 2nd liner we need, and FAST. Is it so wrong to hope for a miracle? A lucky break the Wings haven't had in 3 or 4 freaking years?

Agreed. The trouble is that this team is much better than it looks. There's just been too little change the past few years, they're probably too comfortable. They're certainly not hungry anymore. This isn't the first time in the last three years this team has suffered in the goal-scoring department, and the top forwards have stayed the same. The team just needs something to give them that extra push to become a championship caliber team. A good sniper is that move. And then maybe a grittier bottom 6er. But the sniper is absolutely essential. And if we can see this, Holland can see this. He will do what he can, but we shouldn't be too hard on him if he can't, he has to play by the other GMs rules.

Semin could be good, but why would Washington trade him? Let's think realistically here, Columbus is one of the only teams in the league that might be willing to trade away a big name, depending on the return, division rival or not. Multiple picks seems excessive...but what about a 1st Round pick? The trouble is we don't have anything anyone wants, so we might have to dip into picks to get anyone. Flip + 1st Round? Or Flip + 2nd rounder? The pick might not be a bad idea if Nash has a few years left on his contract. Plus, it allows Columbus to get another 1st round pick and continue rebuilding their team. Let's face it, we're going to have to overpay for a division rival, but we need a sniper badly enough.

I certainly hope there's a trade coming, but that is pretty weak evidence. There are scouts all the time at games and usually it ends up as nothing. And White won't be traded. The article makes it seem like that because it's about him, but I think it was just bad journalism, throwing in the bit about the scouts. Holland doesn't do that, and White has been really good for the team. If we lose White our defense gets worse. The defense is acceptable right now, but it's sort of stretched thin. We can't afford to not have White.

Franzen had three more goals last year than Hossa and two less points. Hossa has a tendency to be invisible, too.

I hate myself for even considering this, because I know Franzen will be clutch again in the playoffs...but I kind of wonder what a Franzen/Hudler or Franzen/Filppula trade would get us.

A trade will be made at some point this season. Even when playing good the team is still lacking something and Holland knows it. But a trade right now is unlikely. No one is selling.

I wish we could get Nash. I was thinking he'd be a good fit and might be what we need, but there's no way we get him from a division rival when we have so little to offer. What about poaching a superstar from the KHL? Is that an avenue worth pursuing?

The Wings have not only become predictable, allowing virtually every team in the league to neutralize us (even in games we win) to a degree, but the players are too cozy with each other. A message needs to be sent. The team doesn't have to be blown up, but being sub-500 ever is unacceptable for this team and this talent. A new player would also mix up the threat level a bit and throw other teams off. The problem is, there's no one to trade and no one to trade for. Teams aren't selling right now.

Unlikely this early in the season. No one's going to want to give up one of their top players when they're not out of the playoff hunt. I thought their excuse for sending Nyquist down was weak, too. They would rather have him up when things were going good and not have him exposed to the slump. Then why call him up to begin with? And all I hope to see from Commodore is some life. Calgary likes to take liberties, if Commodore can hit a few guys hard maybe he can set the tone.

Babcock is still one of the best coaches in the league. He's intense and he does make the do punishing skates and practices...though maybe not enough. They key difference in coaching styles between Babs and Bowman is that Bowman was f-ing insane, which made him unpredictable and kept everyone on their toes, players and media and opposing teams alike. Unfortunately I think Babcock has gotten to be a little predictable, especially when facing McClellan. It wouldn't kill him to start mind-f-ing with the media to make it harder for the other coaches to figure out his game plan. Benching a few people would help, although Bowman had a lot more depth to work with when he benched people. EDIT: Also, I think the "stay the course, don't overreact" attitude has hurt the team. It used to be helpful that the Wings never panicked, but now it seems they go right from frustrated to defeated instead of feeling any urgency. Talking about bounces not going their way isn't the same as "we need to stop turning the puck over and start working harder at going straight to the net, several of us in particular." And that probably breeds complacency.

There's only so many line combinations they can go through before they realize there is something fundamentally wrong with our forwards. Whether it's practice, lack of hustle/heart, all hitting slumps at the same time, or whatever, line juggling will only get you so far. The Wings will eventually bounce back, but I think they will still be lacking the thing to push them over the edge into full blown Cup threat, a sniper.

Did that guy seriously elbow ram the guy who was down in the head repeatedly? I didn't just see that, did I?

I kind of hope he does. He struggled in his last turn here, and it's logical to think he'd be worse now, but he puts up respectable numbers in Europe. I'm sure that could translate into some success as a backup. At any rate, he'd be cheap and I'd take him back in a heart-beat just for old time's sake. Got nothing but love for the Dominator.

I think the standings are going to look dramatically different by the end of the season. There's going to be more position flipping than normal, I think. You know Detroit won't stay below average, Boston will bounce back and make playoffs, Chicago will falter, and on and on.

So why doesn't Babs mix up the lines accordingly? Instead of having a possibly-injured Datsyuk center the top line, why not put together a new top line with Zetterberg up there. Babcock hardly ever experiments with putting someone on Datsyuk's Wing unless it's to rotate Cleary/Holmstrom/Hudler. Why not something like Abdelkader-Datsyuk-Bertuzzi, something drastically different, for a second line effort? You've got grit-razzle dazzle-a player who would benefit from Datsyuk's slowing the game down.

What concerns me is that they just don't seem to get it. They seem frustrated, but they don't seem to think there's anything they can do to win except cut down on penalties and wait it out. I don't think I've heard one player call the team out for ridiculous turnovers or lack of hustle. And the bad passes, has Babcock even addressed that? All I've heard have been "we just have to wait it out" to "we need to practice shooting more in practice." When you make it to the NHL level, does practicing shooting really matter? Shouldn't you know how to do that by now if you're a highly paid top line scorer? As for Datsyuk, I see what you mean, he looks a bit different out there, but he's still putting up points, unlike Zetterberg. Everyone just needs to step it up. I actually think the lack of panic may be hurting the team, they appear not to be willing to recognize their faults go deeper than just coming out with more jump in the beginning of a game. By the way, I missed the game, but no one has mentioned Nyquist at all on the radio or here. How did he do?

Did they lose any high profile players in the off-season? I can't recall right now, but they're basically the same team, aren't they?

For starters it appears Flip has been demoted to third line duties, so that's a start in the mixing-things-up department.