marcaractac

We are legit a healthy Weiss away from icing the best/hungriest possibly lineup.

I f'in love that Ouellet is being kept in over Kindl.

He had the same type of injury as Abby, so he won't be out for very long.

But... but... they had no indication it was teh mumpz!

Exactly. Not to mention the Wings absolutely dominated the first shootout loss, and it was just more bad luck than anything. Not like they played bad against Florida either. As for last night, I chalk that up to being the 3rd of 3 games in 4 nights. It happens. The team will be fine.

Howie has always been fine on breakaways. They aren't the same as shootouts. Shooters don't have enough time to plan what they wanna do with a dman on their tail. Also, the team controls their own fate with where they are in the standings. Depending on shootout points for a good playoff seed is just stupid.

Last I checked there were no shootouts in the playoffs. /thread

lol. Phaneuf.

Franzen has always been oft injured. Datsyuk had an unlucky injury in preseason that lingered. Smith had a freak infection. Weiss had a sore groin which happens when you barely play any hockey in 2 years. In the off season, Datsyuk got healthy, Zetterberg had already had his back surgery and was healthy, Weiss got healthy, Howard got healthy. Last season players were banged up out of the gate. That was not the case this year. There was bound to be more optimism, paired with the experience the youth on the team has gotten.

He'd probably have a job by the end of the week if not for the holidays being right around the corner. I'll be shocked if he makes it through January without a new gig.

The problem with Weiss is that he has been the player he has been for the last 10 games or so pretty well all his career. And you tend to base him off of a couple seasons of terrible luck. So in his case, he has shown enough to be given the benefit of the doubt. It's not like he had one good season, got his payday, then s*** the bed after the fact. With young players, I hope they keep it up. I understand they are going to go through growing pains. I understand that they are going to make mistakes. But this franchise has been great at developing players. There have been very few one and done players on this team over the years. Guys like Goose and Tatar are definitely proven at this level. They are still young, and might slump here and there. There is no reason to think that they will suddenly start to struggle big time. If Tatar is able to pot 30 this year, I see no reason why he wouldn't do it again. So yes, I would call him a 30 goal scorer. If he were to never do it again, I'd call him a former 30 goal scorer. Unlike Franzen, Tatar has always been a go to guy for scoring. Franzen's scoring just suddenly came out of nowhere. So when he goes through his scoring slumps I see no reason to be surprised. But scoring is what Tatar does. It's what he is on this team to do. As for the standings the last 2 years, those two years vs this one were very different circumstances. Without the injuries that hit last season, this team we are seeing right now could have very well been last year. So the only way to expect another 8th place finish this year is to either be riddled with injuries again, or just have the older players on the team regress and the young players have zero improvement. Hardly a cause for concern. I simply don't put labels on players. I see no point really. Kronwall used to be brutally unlucky with injuries. But things have changed. Helm had his rough luck as well. And of course most recently Weiss. But in neither case did this scream 'injury prone' to me. Just tough luck.

Hank has always had his stretches during the season of not scoring a whole lot. He seems to step it up the more important the game is. Definitely seems to just be pacing himself with the team playing great. I have no doubt he will turn it up when the games start meaning more.

I know he is really good. I was kidding lol.

Maybe he'll know how to play defense by then

Slap shots and elbow drops. weeooooooooooooooooooooo If you look at the standings, they are basically the opposite of where the Pistons are

He was hurt. Now he is healthy. We get it. You want him to fail so you could tell us all how right you are. In the mean time, we are just gonna enjoy this team instead of s***ting on every little thing.

TANK IT

Cleary and Lashoff are both in tonight. Undecided who sits out. Gotta imagine Kindl will be one of them. And probably Andersson.

Helm is untouchable. He is the kind of player teams need to win. Holland would be asking Babs to leave if he were to trade Helm.

Like I said earlier, shades of some of those 2008 and 2009 playoff penalty kills

They killed two 5 on 3's. One was almost a minute long, then no time later another almost 2 full minutes.

This team is basically last year's team except with Hank, Dats and Weiss. We basically added a first line to the team, and it kicks ass. We are no longer affected by Mule's cold streaks. As long as he plays responsible when not scoring, all is well.

What I love is that by the time Dats and Hank are ready to move on ( :(:( ) the kids now will become the vets, and there will still be loads of youth to take their place. This team isn't going away any time soon.

That was some 2008 penalty killing right there

Miller is back