VM1138

Hopefully the Blues can do what the Wings couldn't in 2013. Don't let them add another historic comeback to their legendary Stanley Cup dream parade.

Mrazek made a couple of athletic saves tonight Howard wouldn't have been capable of making. That's the end of the discussion in my mind.

I'm pissed too but you guys are freaking paranoid. It doesn't take orders from Holland to make a coach favor the veterans in a crisis. They didn't step up but I can at least see the logic in giving them the chance. Beyond that Blashill is just stubborn and not very good at adapting. He's not sure of himself yet and hesitated to make leaps of faith. It's not a giant conspiracy. And seriously, bashing Swedes in general? Hockey fans can be some of the most delusional xenophobes out there. This sucked but Jesus I hope some of you jump off the bandwagon.

This team is so damn predictable and slow with the puck.

No, he's comparing the vitriol fans have for their players. But if Malkin were available I'd gladly open Mr. Illitch's wallet and put a spine in Holland.

Honestly if it's between Pulk and Mantha you go Mantha. Both aren't the best defensively, but at least Mantha brings more than one trick to the show. Mantha can score, has a big body and finds good positions on the ice. To play Pulkinnen over Mantha if you're needing offense is insane. It's like Andersson 2.0. Guy wasn't good enough to play most of the season but now in critical playoff games he's considered an option? Meh.

I think Mrazek can do it. When he had to be he was great in Game 3. There's no one I trust more in the dying minutes of a game to hold a lead. If we fall behind at any point that's where we'll be in trouble.

It's still concerning that we only scored two goals in a game we dominated. We need to capitalize on at least one power play a game.

One thing is clear in my mind: building through the draft doesn't work. It takes 5-10 years to see if you even have anyone good enough, and if you don't you have to start over. I feel like we only adopted the "build through the draft" narrative because we thought we had this pipeline of amazing players. I think there can't be any one strategy you lean on more than the other. You win by trading, signing free agents and drafting. And in sports, winning now is more important than maybe being competitive ten years from now. It doesn't mean much to me when someone says how good we'll be 7 years from now, because if enough drafted players don't pan out (like they haven't for us) we would have wasted all that time.

In his defense he was pretty good that one playoff series on the kid line.

You aren't being negative. That's the pattern they've established many times this year. There's no reason to expect the Wings to string together four wins in five. They haven't shown consistency all year. It was a good game, though.

Smith can't keep it up. He almost made a boneheaded move that could have given Tampa momentum, but Mrazek physically restrained him because he knows how much of a hothead Smith is. He did have a good game, I just seriously doubt he can keep it up.

We are reaping the benefits of being at home. It remains to be seen if we can win without the match ups in our favor.

That's what we will see but I think we should be far more aggressive. The team is t good enough to be conservative. We need more goals and players who can take advantage when Tampa gets desperate.

It's going to suck when the makeup calls start coming in the third and lead to two or three Tampa goals.

You don't sit for over a month because everyone else is good. You rotate in. Smith has sucked and Blashill's pathology games are transparent.

No size in the top six for a game in which retaliation should be expected. Sounds smart.

If Pulks is playing but not Mantha, they might as well trade Mantha in the offseason.

Pulkinnen is playing? Also, remember that this team teases us all the time. So I think we are in for a good win, we will all think they miraculously fixed their problems and they'll drop the next two in stunning fashion. I hope I'm wrong, though.

Hope he finds success there. It's not his fault the Wings kept him around far too long. It's not like he repeatedly blackmailed the Wings like Cleary probably did.

People have doubted Howard's ability to win in the playoffs for a reason. He's struggled with much better teams in front of him than he has now. There's no reason to expect him to change now so why lean on him without giving Mrazek a try?

In one of the games even NBC's commentator criticized the Wings on an attack for not having anyone within ten feet of Bishop when they fired the first shot. Get rebounds and you'll get goals. And they ARE passive. It's like they expect close games and decide to sit back and wait for the other team to make an unforced error. There's no pressure to try and make Tampa make a mistake they can then take advantage of. And if the other team is better than you, they aren't going to make many mistakes without being pressured. Same with the power play. They seem to be waiting for the perfect shot, or else just shoot it after three guys get in the way. Not in the playoffs he wasn't. Mrazek was amazing. Howard has had good games in the playoffs but always costs us a game. Boston was a prime example of "good in one or two games, mediocre the rest."

Me, too. The PR machine has killed sports for me. Paul Woods in the radio is bad, too. We could have a ten million dollar player who hasn't scored a goal in three years and he would say the player was "very good and almost did score." PR makes the pre and post game stuff garbage. I can't even read a lot of sports articles anymore. It's just so dull. All that's left is the actual game.

I would imagine they assume we lose Datsyuk and don't replace him. If we don't, I agree that we are dead in the water. But if we do replace him with someone like Stamkos I think we will be the same, if not a little better than this year because this year had to be a fluke, right?

We needed Stamkos BEFORE Datsyuk announced he's finished. Now we need ANOTHER top level guy. So it got that much harder. If we fix it this year we'd need both Stamkos and Backes, for example. Not one over the other. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk