GMRwings1983

Just my observation from over the years. Too many times we play teams who played the night before, and those teams don't seem to look tired. I'm guessing it's because the Wings don't play a style that wears teams down enough. The back to back excuse is pathetic. Everyone plays tons of back to back games throughout the year. It's part of the NHL schedule, especially in this last calendar year, with a shortened season last year and now the Olympics coming up in February. They just have to deal with it and compete harder on a nightly basis. No one can say this is one of the hardest working teams in the league. At least not so far. I put that on Babcock and the players. They should have played harder last night.

Ha. Not when we're playing against teams playing a back to back.

Helm is fast, but he's not a puck moving forward with skill. He's more of a Draper type, dump and chase with speed. He has played very well this season offensively, though. I guess you guys have a different definition of a puck moving forward than I do. We need him back because he makes the team harder to play against.

If Darren Helm is one of your top three puck moving forwards, then this team has a lot to worry about.

Why be tasteless? Dan Cleary is the only completely blameless person in this pathetic display.

LOL. I remember that incident.

They're always chippy games. I wish our games against the Panthers were like that. Don't forget, these are the teams involved in the Cooke/Savard incident, and its aftermath, including Thornton going after Cooke. Lot of history there.

I thought about that. Whitney underperformed, but even he wasn't putting up these pathetic numbers. These are enforcer numbers, scoring wise.

Orpik has been called out before for dirty hits. Also, he's not shy about getting into scrums and chirping with players, but he rarely fights. So yes, he's a disliked player by many.

I will say that it's rare to see an enforcer grab a Joe Sakic or Nicklas Lidstrom type and start pounding away. That's about the only part of "the code" that I agree with existing, namely that an enforcer shouldn't randomly grab a star player and start punching him. In this case, Orpik doesn't count as a star player. He's always played a chippy game. Thornton wouldn't have done that to Malkin or Crosby. But alas, even star players have been forced into fights before. I remember Tinordi fighting Lidstrom a long time ago. Carcillo fighting Gaborik a few years ago also comes to mind. That type of thing is rare, though. I hate to bring this up, but in that sense, it reminds me of Bertuzzi. If Orpik gets up right away, this doesn't even make the nightly news.

Philly definitely wouldn't want him now with his stats. Frankly, I wouldn't want any of these players if I'm a rebuilding GM. If I'm a team making a playoff run, I wouldn't want those players either. There's better options elsewhere, even if cheap vets is what I'm looking for. Weiss they won't trade. Not after giving him a contract only a few months ago in his first stint. We're stuck with our s***.

Thornton also knows he'll have to answer it some day. He's not Matt Cooke. He's an enforcer who fights a lot and he knows he'll fight the Pens top fighters the next time they meet. He just went over the line like guys like Probert, Odjick and Brown would do on occasions. The only thing that has changed over the years, is disrespect from players on high hits and hits from behind. That I will agree with. But an incident like this from a scrum is something that's always occured from time to time.

Well your post was about what the code has become. I'm just pointing out that enforcers haven't always followed the code in earlier eras. Not sure why you think it has become worse than it was before. The code has never been anything more than a word with no real definition.

Which players and for which picks? If I'm an opposing GM, I'd only want youngsters like Nyquist, Tatar or DeKeyser. Maybe Smith if I thought he had potential. I don't see us trading the first several players I named. And no one wants our crap.

You're just now starting to think that? I'd rather have Kyle Calder back right about now.

How come whenever we play someone who played the night before, that team always has energy and it never seems to affect them? Could it be that the Wings play a soft, non-forechecking style of hockey that's easy to play against?

There is no "code" I've seen muggings from he 70's and 80's that make this incident look like kissing. Thornton went over the line, but that's always happened in different eras as well. You can't take that out of hockey even if you neuter players like Thornton. Hockey players in bad moods sometimes go over the line. Orpik didn't help himself any by being Brooks Orpik, one of the most disliked defenders in the league.

Then go watch the Hawks if all you care about is Stanley Cups!

Dan Cleary's teammates are letting him down tonight.

I've seen worse muggings before in hockey. The result is what made it look so bad. I don't think Thornton was trying to end Orpik's career or else he would have dropped his gloves and decked him with a real swinging punch. I have no problem with him being suspended, though. It was a cheap move. Orpik is a D-bag, though. There's a lot of players in the league that would like to do that to him.

He's in good company. Weiss is stealing more for similar awfulness.

If you mix Robert Lang's work ethic with Dan Cleary's skillset, you get what Steven Weiss has looked like this season.

Jason Woolley is playing?

Could say the same thing about Maxim Kuznetsov, Sean Avery, Ladislav Kohn, Jesse Wallin and Jason Elliot's (who?) presence in that photo.

No idea. I'm guessing it looks something like this.