Z and D for the C

I think that's more indicative of this team's overly devoted system to have a low skill/big body for net front presence on every single power play unit. I'm not saying that's a bad thing but if you have way better players to put on the PP play them.

Most likely their performance in ice hockey games, if I had to wager a guess.

I'm getting triggered.

We missed the playoffs a single season. The Red Wings should just be dissolved and the city evacuated. There no hope. Life is a meaningless spiral of dysfunctional malaise. Burn your remaining jerseys for they bring nothing but despair as the Red Wings are no longer the very best team and are now filled with over-dramatic cry-babies.

Better, but again, that's not the point. We're second to last in the East, saying we'd be "better" isn't saying a whole lot. We could continue the steady decline under Babcock or try to change something up to get a spark back. Obviously it's not working with Blashill but hindsight is 20/20

These posts are a bit old but bear responding to... This team, based on the roster, should 100% be a playoff team. I'm not saying that they are a cup contender or should even get out of the first round, but based on the talent we had this season, we should absolutely at least be a playoff team or at least fighting for a spot. I think our poor goaltending had a huge impact and if Howard had been healthy all year we'd be much closer to the playoffs, if not in - but Blashill is getting nothing out of this team and his system is clearly not geared towards the NHL success. His tactics may have worked in the AHL but they are clearly not working at all at this level. The Red Wings before him were a puck possession team, now we just wack and chip at the puck and hope it goes somewhere we want. Believing that Babcock's voice is stale and that Blashill is a bad coach are not mutually exclusive by any means. It's well known that a coach's voice will over time lose impact on a team, and that was, without a doubt, happening to the Red Wings. Why do you think Babcock was one of the longest coaches to stay with one team? Because coaches don't last that long and for this exact reason. We needed change, but just because we needed change doesn't mean that any random person will mean an improvement. Blashill is not a good coach, but that doesn't mean we should have kept Babs.

My impression of Mrazek is he is a fundamentally poor goalie. He's had flashes of brilliance but he has terrible positioning and overplays the puck way too much and he's constantly getting burned on it. He is super aggressive to compensate for being an otherwise poor goalie so either he overplays the puck and gets burned a lot or he stays in his net and can't make saves. His play style may have worked in the AHL, etc where players aren't as good but it's not transferring well into the NHL except when he was inexplicably hot last year. Not to mention he is clearly a drama queen and has an attitude problem. I even see it when he handles the puck behind the net - he gingerly slides back to the goal as if he thinks his passes are so perfect that he doesn't have to put in effort to get back in net - and it's burned him multiple times. Not to mention when he got pissed off a Helm for having a puck deflect off him accidentally. Clear attitude issues. My extremely brief impression of Coreau (from this past pre-season and the few games this year) is that he is a fundamentally sound goalie but still has some growing to do. I'll take the fundamentally sound goalie over the goalie who is flashy but has poor fundamentals. As for Howard, he may not be the best goalie in the league (I mean that literally, he isn't the best goalie in the league) but the fact is he is an elite goaltenders despite how much people may dislike him and be in love with Mrazek just because he's young and flashy. Howard has at least a few year left of being elite. We can't keep both Coreau and Mzarek long term so I think we should ride Howard for a few more years until Coreau is ready and let Las Vegas have Mrazek. I don't claim to be an expert on goaltending, but this is just my instinct and my opinion.

Everything you say is 100% true, however that doesn't explain anything from OP's post. We can't pass, we can't win a puck battle, we can't skate the puck through the neutral zone. These are things our team should be able to do even though we don't have superstar level talent anymore.

Why should a city that couldn't previously support a hockey team get first dibs? Just because it's Canadian? Because it snows? That logic is backwards. While I don't agree that the league should expand I think it's a lot more fair to say a market that hasn't had a chance to have a hockey team deserves one before one that has already had a chance and has failed. As for new markets in general I don't think the "we should never try anything new and just keep things the same as they always are" argument is a very provocative one. Trying and failing is better than not trying at all.

"This team might fail, let's put it back into a city where a team already has failed"

Mrazek isn't the only reason we've been losing, but he's sure not helping us win and Howard, in every game he's played, has. give how 60-70% of the starts for a couple weeks and see how that goes. Also, he need to stack our top 6, we don'e have the skill at offense to spread across three lines which Blash looks like he's trying to do. Have a third line of Abby, Z and Helm and stack players with some actual offensive ability (sorry, Z is just too slow at this point) and try to get some goals. We need Vanek back.

He over committed "a bit"? His entire body was outside of the crease, leaving the net completely open. And he does that constantly. Mrazek shouldn't be benched because he lost a single game, he should be benched because Jimmy has been far superior and Mrazek thus far has been questionable at best.

If Mrazek could go a game without constantly giving our opponents a huge change because he way over-commits and leaves the net wide open, that'd be wonderful.

All they care about is "The Streak" and it's hampering us. Stop caring about "The Streak" and play for yourselves. It's like they try as hard as they can to just get into the playoffs and once they keep "the streak" intact they stop caring. I honestly wish we'd just miss the playoffs so we stop hearing about meaningless streaks and stats. The longest streak is pro sports was cool when we knew the Wings could do some damage in the playoffs. Now they're just flat in the playoffs because they've reached their goal.

If Nyquist and Tatar can step it up (assuming they're on the roster), we'll be better. Everything else is about a wash, I'm thinking. Maybe Neilson will lose the puck a little less than Datsyuk did last year. Vanek might be better than Richards but I'm not holding my breath. This is of course assuming no trades.

I feel like we've been saying that for years and it never happens.

No one is fit except for Dan Cleary, so we'll have to bring him back.

Helm scored 26 points playing with our best players last year..if he ended up at 3.85m/yr how the hell much did he think he was worth? Holland makes the occasional nice move but these kind of signings are just embarrassing.

Yes, that's why he sucks as has to go. How is this hard to understand? (I'm being facetious) I can't tell if you're serious. Who is our equivalent of Toews, Kane, and Hossa?

Even if he did, should he really have his number retired? It's close..but he wasn't anything like a Lidstrom or Yzerman. Maybe if he led us to another cup.

This was pretty obvious. He hasn't been emotionally in the game for a while I don't think and has slowed down significantly. Return or not, we still lost our #1 center of 5-10 years ago. Thanks for the memories, wish it could have ended better.

Yeah who cares about the fans, what do they do for the team. The Red Wings would be way better off without all the fans that spend thousands and thousands of dollars on tickets.

Someone should compile things other teams' players have said about coming to the Joe Louis Arena and then replace it with the new name to show how ridiculous the "LITTLE Caesar's Arena" is. I love the Illitchs obviously but I thought they actually cared about respect and tradition.

Curses out reporters? Tirade? I think that's over exaggerating things. He's pissed and is showing some emotion, it'd be nice if someone on the Wings showed some emotion over their losses sometime and maybe there wouldn't be so many of them.

LOL, if you lose a series in 5 games you don't deserve to win anything. Being 'close' to winning a single game is one thing, but if you are 'close' in 5 games and lose 4 of those, you're not close to anything but a few rounds of golf.