GMRwings1983

No, they're not. Howard has had one good playoff run in his career, and even then, he didn't get us to the Conference Finals. On top of his mediocrity, the defense is too unimpressive. If healthy, this is a team that can finish in the top 4, but they're not built for the playoffs. They showed that last year, even though they got healthy by playoff time.

Really sad to see Vinny Lecavalier playing on the 4th line with a bunch of scrubs on a non-playoff team.

Helm, Datsyuk and Weiss on the same line? The helicopter line. No wings.

Good to hear Bill Clement doing the commentary.

Meh. He didn't really say anything too bad. Shanny didn't have management experience and he is a "hockey politician". Not like Chelios called him out for sleeping with a teammates wife.................................

Didn't see this anywhere. Apparently, legendary Russian coach Viktor Tikhonov also passed away last night. Two coaching giants both gone. I'll always remember Quinn from the 1994 Finals. Tikhonov, I'll always remember from stories about his strict rule over the Russian players and influence on international hockey. http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/hockey/longtime-nhl-coach-pat-quinn-dead-71-article-1.2021780

Can someone please infect their hand on Dion Phaneuf's face?

This team is not going to succeed until it gives Dan Cleary some real linemates. It's brutal to watch him playing with these scrubs.

Funny how a guy named Holland ends up burying the Wings.

That was worse than average from Howard.

No I haven't. They must be overriping in the minors.

Hockey existed before the 90's. Besides, he's not the top PPG player in the 90's in the playoffs. He scored the most points because the Wings played the most games. Not trying to diminish his accomplishments, but top 5 all time is an exclusive list.

Don't even mention Tootoo. He got no kind of real chance here and ended up being a pointless signing. Besides, he's not a big forward. I'm talking about forwards over 6'3 who can play a physical game. Holland never looks twice at those, whether they can contribute offensively or not.

We never have either type of player. Holland just doesn't like physical forwards who fight, whether they contribute or not offensively. Holland probably faints at the sight of hockey fights.

And it's phased out on LGW too. About 5 years ago, there were countless pro-enforcer posters on here. Now, they're phased out and replaced by this crowd.

Someone finally picked up one of our jobbers off waivers. Seems like that never happens.

He was very good in the playoffs, but not even close to a top 5 all time playoff list. That's too praise worthy.

I just don't see this as a big deal. If you fight when you're up 4-0, someone can consider it pointless and selfish. If you fight when it's 2-2, you can be criticized for putting yourself in the box for 5 minutes in a crucial moment. Alternatively, someone could, if they choose, argue that a defenseman should never fight, because it puts his team down to 5 defenseman for at least 5 minutes. There could be an argument against fighting in every scenario. If you fight when you're down 4-1, then I guess the other team's player is selfish.

I like this Joseph Conrad like paragraph, but do you really think Smith had time to analyze all this in the heat of the moment?

Maybe Foligno said something about Smith's mother. Maybe something happened earlier in the game between those two. Who knows why they fought. There are plenty of fights during games that are blowouts, and it always takes two to tango. Smith didn't do anything selfish by fighting. Selfish would be a retaliatory penalty that costs the team a powerplay goal. Smith wasn't thinking about getting potentially injured, nor should he, so I wouldn't call it a selfish decision because he got hurt. It just happened.

You'll get over it.

Hooking isn't fun, though (no prostitute jokes, please ). If you're a Wings fan, fighting is technically not a part of the game anymore. We're like the old Soviet teams whose coaches instructed them not to fight back against the Canadians. Smith did nothing wrong. It was just bad luck he got hurt.

I do bankruptcy law, so he would be a fun case for whoever gets it. I know Michael Vick filed for Chapter 11. Johnson is the same thing. Like others said, it's not unusual for athletes to blow their money.

Why? That's what he decided to do with Chara. Foligno is hardly the second coming of Link Gaetz. Fighting is a part of the game, even if 80% of modern Wings fans don't understand that (thanks Kenny). I think McGrattan could put enough people in their seats to fix Detroit's bankruptcy problem.

Didn't Joe Kocur once infect his hand after KO'ing Jim Playfair in a preseason game? Pretty sure that's what happened.