StormJH1

Sigh. I guess I guess I'll just defer to Babcock to decide which of the seemingly dozen fringe NHL defensemen we have on our squad will be the least cancerous to us and go with that guy. I suppose it could be Lashoff. White's right handed shot and experience SHOULD make him the favorite, but he also seems the most gaffe-prone out of the options. Really bummed about about DeKe going down, though if you watched him in Gms 1 and 2, he was getting thrown around like a ragdoll out there. He has great wheels and poise for a guy his age, but he's definitely more Bouwmeester than Chara out there.

NyQuist one is well done! Kind of low numbers for photoshop wars this year - the cool thing about it is that even though it's a lot of the same teams year after year, the cultural references change. (Example: No "Duck Dynasty" references in 2007).

It's all about context. Brunner's goal last night got a pretty emphatic uppercut. But the team was hot at the time, and Brunner had been rumored to be a potential scratch candidate, so I don't blame him for being excited about his 1st playoff goal. Most of the big "controversial" celebrations never bother me. They show a clip of the goal and what comes after completely out of context. The Yakupov thing is the perfect example - they'll show that three years from now and people will be like "why was he celebrating like that for an early meaningless game on a team that missed the playoffs?" EDM had a goal taken away from them right before that and scored again with like 10 seconds, it was a great moment. Why not live it up. The only thing you don't do is the Anisimov thing (rifle/bazooka) where it appears directed at the other team.

Yeah, I am as protective of player safety as anyone, but this particular one might be a legal hit gone wrong. I can't even really figure out where all the blood came from - either from being caught by the shoulder or hitting his head (or a visor cut) on the ice. The hit was maybe gratuitous but I didn't really see a targeting of the head. It also wasn't a late or unnecessary hit because he actually had the puck - kind of like Kronwall's hit on Havlat in the Playoffs years ago.

I wish I could copy that question and submit it individually to everyone in the Wild front office and coaching staff. I believe the answer is either "fighting" or "faceoffs". 37 games this year and failed to register a single point. I'm not sure I read a satisfactory explanation anywhere as to why they weren't carrying Darcy Kuemper along with them as an emergency 3rd goalie, which I believe they changed the rules to allow (didn't that happen with Corey Crawford against the Wings a few years back?). The Wild's AHL affiliate didn't have a game that night, and while Backstrom was thought to be "healthy" before warmups, the backup goalie has M.S. and has been extremely injury-prone throughout his career. It really isn't that far-fetched that Backstrom could pull something and then something could also go wrong with Harding. Harding will apparently get the start in Game 2. While he's an impossible guy not to root for, he's had moments throughout his career where he gets a shutout and then puts up a couple of 4-goal games right afterwards. Kuemper probably would have had more overall success, all sentimentality and multi-year contracts aside.

Yeah, wow. After 73 votes, about 82% of the people on THIS board agree that no punishment should come of it. If it were almost any other player, I suspect that number would be in the 90's. This is a classic example of taking a situation completely out of context. Corey Perry was trying to score, period. Somewhat unexpectedly, he was allowed to walk in on a sharp angle and cut in front of the net. You can see him immediately look back for the puck after the initial save is made. His momentum was actually carrying him into Howard, except you can see him pivot the right skate to try and avoid him right before Kronwall arrives. Perry is jumping because Howard is in a butterfly, and if Perry were to just skate all over a leg at that speed, he'd end up submarined with a either a crossbar or the ice on his face. People watching this in slow-motion GIF see that left leg fly out and assume it's an intentional kick. But Kronwall hit Perry while he was in the air. When somebody hits you in the air from the right side, you need to move something out to the left to LAND on, or you will tip over. While there's no way to prove it, I would almost guarantee you that Perry was going to jump straight up with his feet together like a skateboarder until Kronwall hit him. I hate Perry as much everyone else here, but there's absolutely not evidence of intent to make contact with Howard, let alone to slit his throat with a skate blade. As the poster above wrote, had the result not been so dramatic, this shouldn't even have been called a goaltender interference penalty, since it was Kronwall's push that caused the collision.

I'm of the same opinion. I thought they should've won the game, but it reminded me more of those Detroit games you'd see 10 or 15 years ago where we'd seem to carry the game and then some goalie like Khabibulin would shut us down. I don't even know what the numbers say, but we had the puck possession going and the defense was mostly solid. I actually thought Kindl played well. DeKeyeser looked mostly good, though he got absolutely thrown off the puck a few times behind the net, and I believe a few of those led to really good scoring chances. As a Detroit fan, I'm fairly content with what I saw, but remain concerned about the lack of reliable scoring. But this has been basically true of the Wings since the '09 Playoffs, when we were carried by guys like Cleary. If I were an Anaheim fan, I'd be happy with the Game 1 win, but recognizing that a split at home would be "advantage Detroit" in a lot of ways, I'd be concerned with how much they had to rely on Hiller and how little sustained offensive pressure they had.

I'm actually not feeling too bad about last night's game. Their power play looked better than I remembered it for much of the season, and the defense mostly contained a Ducks team that has both speedsters and skill players. If you remember how terrible the defense was in January, it's night and day from then. That being said, I think there's a reason Nashville sat Tootoo in the Playoffs last year (you know, when they were beating us?). While I was never a fan of Tootoo from the start, I understand there being some arguable value to his "energy" or "message" hits during the course of a condensed regular season. In the Playoffs, though, all he's going to do is draw the attention of the refs. We don't need his fights (he isn't really a good fighter anyway, just better than you'd expect for his size), and while that penalty call on him was probably a little weak, it directly led to Anaheim taking control of the game. Brunner was pretty bad, but I think he's still a net positive in the lineup. If you're sitting someone like Tootoo for Tatar, though, that would make more sense to me. What a sad state of reality for what they paid Sammy before this season, juxtaposed with the fact that they're afraid to put him in the lineup and have him suck. Players like Crosby, or even freakin' Kyle Quincey are rushed back into action with protective equipment, but it seems more likely than not that Sammy would hurt the team if they put him in cold.

Hmmmm. I can tell you from living in this market, if Suter has regrets about coming to Minnesota, he certainly hasn't said anything, nor does anyone perceive that to be true. His first 10-15 games were largely awful. Since then, he's been a Norris candidate. Some people even have him as the favorite (I don't), but I think Subban might win it. Suter's a passive personality - I've compared his body language to Jay Cutler on the ice. He wasn't even the best defenseman on Nashville, so he has no expectations of being an alpha dog and no problem being a "follower." I was very upset last July 4th that we couldn't land either, mostly at Suter. Parise had the much stronger ties to Minnesota, and made his choice to go home. But my initial anger at Suter has faded because of this: If the Detroit Red Wings offer you almost $100 million and you decide you don't want to play for the Detroit Red Wings, I don't need to spend too much time wondering what might have been. I've tried arguing with Minnesota fans that they have cap issues, but they either don't agree or don't get it. They talk about all the money they're going to free up next year because Cullen and PMB come off the books. The fan base really has regretted the Backstrom contract for several years, but I think they've also never experienced what it is to have legitimately bad goaltending. Backstrom is likely gone next year, but I really don't know what the plan is. Harding's career (tragically) is more or less over, they traded Matt Hackett, and Darcy Kuemper looks like a prospect, but doesn't have nearly the track record to just hand the keys to him next year. They wouldn't even play him down the stretch, which probably wore out Backstrom. Wild have about $56 million committed to 17 players next year, and that's ASSUMING they don't resign Clutterbuck, Cullen, PMB, and Backstrom. It is expected they will amnesty (or trade) Heatley to free up $7.5 million. But the defensive corps past Suter and Brodin is pretty scary. This year, the Wild couldn't score enough. Next year, I wonder how they keep pucks out of the net! Minnesota had to pay two players almost $200 million just to prevent them from being a terrible hockey team again next year. They had to pay out contracts so egregious that they are clearly illegal under the new CBA, and exacerbated the animosity in the 2012-13 lockout. They both made about $25 million in salary and bonuses to play for a hockey team that had a negative goal differential this year. Nuff said.

The fighting argument has nothing to do with this. Anybody who wants to talk about how fighting "sets the tone", go find a recording the the Wild's 6-1 loss to Edmonton. Zenon Konopka fought a guy off the draw, Edmonton woke up in a game they had no reason to care about, and scored 30 seconds later. Fighting sets a tone, but one team doesn't control what that message is or what it does to the other team. Was surprised to see Jim Nill leave the organization, but this is what happens to good front offices - they get poached. Good for him and best of luck. Fans here are truly spoiled if they think Holland is washed up or "not trying". We have a playoff team (barely) that is almost entirely based on draft picks, none of which were elite draft picks. Nevermind the fact that we completely reversed are strategy of mortgaging the future for temporary fixes, and still have had a decent year. The young guys PLAYED this year, and at times, they even carried us. I like Yzerman as a human being and he did good work with Team Canada (to the extent he affected that), but the track record in TB is increasingly "spotty".

Such a weird vibe here in Minnesota. This is a "good" fanbase, but it's a very insular one, and they're a bit locked in the past by missing out of 7 years of NHL hockey, and having North Stars and Wild teams that were largely uninspired bookending that absence. That Edmonton 6-1 debacle on Friday did some serious damage to the good will they built up with the July 4th signings and the emergence of young players like Brodin and Zucker. But in a perverse way, I feel like the expectations for the Wild have now suddenly been lowered to fact where people will jump right back on the bandwagon if they even split in Chicago. Nevermind the fact that they competed for the 3rd seed for much of the season, or that it looked like they were going to be anywhere from 5th to 7th a week ago, before they decided to completely back the truck into the Playoffs. There was no doubt Yeo was going to be fired if they lost that Colorado game Saturday, and really, they only got in with the help of a bizarre reversed call on a kicked in goal and a tiebreaker with Columbus. I'm of the popular belief that Chicago is too much for them, but this is the NHL Playoffs. Minnesota HAS talent that can flash at times, but when you spend 196 million and none of it addresses the center position, we've seen time and time again how that is rarely a recipe for playoff success around the league. If I'm just predicting, I say Hawks in 5. But my predictions are garbage, never listen to them.

I had the same thought. Show me a person who said "we might as well miss the playoffs if we're not going to do anything" and I'll show you a person that hasn't thought about all of the fun, excitement, and traditions that go into the "2nd Season". Photoshop wars are classic. I even love it when fans of the other teams hop on an post an anti-Wings one here and there. So far, loving both the "Boudreau as Butterbean" and especially the "Bertuzzi with Shotgun Firing Puck through Duck Wing". But it's still early. Great work!

Yep, Stars lost, Wild won, so let's just focus on the 8th spot (Minny would have to blow some more games to have any chance of being in real danger). I disagree about the "down 3-1 in the Playoffs analogy". We have 3 games left, CLB has 2. They can get to 55 points, while we can get to 56. So we do "control our destiny" in that respect. Also, with a two-game advantage in ROW (and an extra game to get one), I don't see CLB having the tiebreaker either. We have an LA team tonight traveling far east and playing back to back games, while we are more rested and at home. We aren't "in the driver's seat" because we don't have more points than the 8th seed team, but we are also a game behind them right now, so that's deceptive.

When the Wings first signed Brunner, some media people took to derisively calling him "Fabian Brunner", referencing Dallas (and later Detroit) player Fabian Brunnstrom. Brunnstrom had a hat trick in one of his early games, and 17 goals in a 55-game season. He quickly burned out afterwards and is now overseas. At first, the Brunner comparisons to Brunnstrom looked ridiculous. Brunner looks quite skilled and is comfortable with the puck. He's also a right-handed shot, which is a valuable commodity on the Wings. But since then, (and despite a respectable 11G/11A overall), things haven't been as good: http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/players/5713/gamelog;_ylt=Ao.GefTcY5pWI8_l7qQFX.xivLYF Other than the 8-3 Vancouver game (which was just a complete collapse), can you find an "elite" performance in there? He went over a month without scoring a goal, despite being a fixture with Zetterberg or on one of the top two lines (and a lot of power play time). I want Damien Brunner back, for sure. But how do you value him? This guy looks kind of like Jiri Hudler to me. He looks like one of those guys who has a whole box of tools, but doesn't have that ability see what's going to happen one or two seconds later on the ice, like the great scorers and playmakers do. A two- or three- year deal for a modest amount ($2.5 million per? $3 million per?) might be the best for both the Wings and Brunner at this point, though that does leave him a UFA at age 30, which might make it hard for him to ever cash in on that long-term big deal.

That's just the thing - Howard has stolen several games for us this year. It's not like Bryzgalov where Howard has confidence issues stopping pucks shot in his direction - this was a messed up game where he misplayed the puck twice worse than I can ever recall him misplaying a puck in any other game. As far as Howard goes, I can let it go, just like letting it go with Osgood and San Jose in '94 turned out to be good thing for Detroit down the road. As for the overall TEAM, however, inexcusable. They basically scored one goal, since Franzen's was a fluke that never should've gone in. Kipper's reaction to it made me sick - this is a team that shouldn't even care. Kipper will be retired in a week, and they're playing for nothing right now other than pride and to screw themselves out of a better draft pick. You need to clean up games like that down the stretch against non-playoff teams, and they couldn't even get a point. I hate to say it, but I have to be honest...if you believe in hockey "karma", as of right now, Columbus deserves that 8th spot more than we do. I hope to hell that doesn't happen, but it's the truth.

That game was a disaster in Calgary, but ALL goalies have bad games, and when they do, your team generally loses. The 2nd goal was arguably as much due to sloppy stick-handling by Ericsson. The third one was all on Howard, but it is what it is. If this were M-A Fleury or another goalie with a track record of being sloppy out of the net, maybe I'd get worked up about it. The fact is that Howard doesn't have a history with that crap, so we need to get past this one VERY unfortunate loss and grab whatever points we can in the few remaining games.

I thought BEFORE the season and all the injuries that Sammy and Bert were already done being effective Top 6 players. For all the unfair stuff this organization gets blamed for, the MOST fair criticism is their apparent reliance on "crutch" players they go back to (and usually overpay) when nothing else works out. They did it with Bert, Jason Williams, and Kyle Quincey, and probably others. People say guys like Tatar aren't "ready" to be Top 6 forwards on a playoff team, but if their replacement is a guy who no longer belongs in the Top 6, that's even worse because you're riding declining players into their NHL grave, when you could be developing and evaluating young players on the way up.

This is just the worst. So, the Winter Classic now kicks off a virtual season of outdoor games? What about the cost of putting these things on versus the fact that we're going to start seeing half-empty stadiums as they continue to dilute the product. If Gary thinks that he can get 100,000 or even 40,000 fans to go to every one of these now that it's not a one-time event, he's nuts. Not even to mention the risks to player safety as they will invariably play on terrible ice and some of these. The NHL HAD something with the 24/7 lead-in and a real "event" feeling to the Winter Classic. That took a chunk out of that with the lockout, and this will kill the allure even more.

Minnesota's interesting - agree they would be "scary" in the playoffs because they have the goaltending, and Parise could take charge. That being said, while the Pominville thing is "working", they are all of 3-6-1 in their last 10, and Suter has some type of undisclosed injury that caused him to leave a game early, but hasn't kept him out of the lineup yet. Pretty much no chance we play them in Round 1, though, unless we both somehow surged to the 4/5 seeds. Columbus is 7-3 in their last 10 and added players at the deadline. They also possibly have the best goaltending in the league right now, so I do worry about them jumping us for #8. The one problem for them is that their Regulation & Overtime Wins (ROW) total is only 15, which is several fewer than MIN, STL, DET, and DAL.

Well, Columbus beating Minnesota in a shoot out is the worst possible outcome from a Wings standpoint (SAT night) Wild get a point in front of us and another team right behind us gets two. Hockey media can't wait to dance all over the corpse of the Red Wings...really don't want to give them the pleasure. Sent on iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah, that's really all it is. Wings have lacked a legit right handed PP man for years. Even Rafalski, who was a good defenseman and overall offensive player, wasn't a threat to score from back there. He had that low tip-able shot that worked some. They signed White thinking he would just take that role over, but White has even less hockey sense on timing and how to not fire into shinguards all day long.

Or how about the 2012 Kings, which had crap credentials heading in and were an "underdog" in all 4 rounds? That's the thing, the Playoffs aren't a "crapshoot" in the way the single-elimination NCAA tournament is, but it is "The Second Season" for a reason, and what happens in those two months doesn't necessarily correspond to what we saw in the regular season. While people rip teams like Calgary that push for that 8th spot but "never bottom out", the reality is you really want to be in the Playoffs. There's tons of examples of teams that made unexpected runs when they didn't even seem to be that good...'96 Panthers, '03 Wild, '06 Oilers, '12 Predators. Either they came together, rode a hot goalie, or whatever. You WANT to be in the Playoffs. As messed up as this team is, I absolutely don't assume they'd be one-and-done. And since Chicago will be in a difference conference, it'd be great to see that matchup one last time.

I mean, if you look around the league at what other teams are doing, $5.3 million for Howard is not a bad deal. I actually think his overall game has continued to improve over the past few seasons, but that can be hard to get a read on with the changes to defense. Same is true for his playoff performances - he's been mostly very good. Heck, there's been some games this year (the L.A. game comes to mind) where Jimmy absolutely stole the game for us. Without a few of those "extra" wins, we aren't even in the 8th seed right now, believe it or not. M-A Fleury makes $5 million a year. Jonas Hiller makes $4.5 mil. Backstrom is very solid goalie, but Minnesota fans have complained about that $6 mil cap hit for years. I think people look at some of these goalies like Rask and Niemi, but need to realize that if those guys were UFA's tomorrow, they'd get bigger deals than they currently have.

And, again, if you can be so sure that Petr Mrazek will definitely be a Top 15 goalie in the NHL (which is what Howard is, easily), then there are literally 35 goalie prospects around the league for which the same thing can be said. Jacob Markstrom, Darcy Kuemper, Matt Hackett... The best you could possibly hope for is for Mrazek to turn out as good as Jimmy Howard already is.

Wow. Can everybody just calm down a little bit about Petr Mrazek? Mrazek is 21 years old with virtually no track record. He doesn't factor into a Jimmy Howard signing whatsoever. Based on where he was drafted, anything with him is gravy. If he ever becomes a passable NHL backup who could threaten for a starting job, that would be a terrific problem to have. Not quite clear just how terrible the Luongo/Schneider situation is for Vancouver, given that they're leading their division and have tons more firepower than Detroit, even with Kesler in and out of the lineup. I'm thrilled we got Howard re-signed. All the people saying how much money we have under the cap, etc. were under some delusion that Jimmy Howard wasn't going to get paid like a #1 goalie. There's really group of about 10-15 goalies in today's league that make up the "top" goalies in the league. Will Howard ever win a Cup with us? I don't know, but if he doesn't, I highly doubt he will be the largest reason for that. If the AAV is $5.3 million, that's about right for Howard. It certainly isn't a "bargain", though there are plenty of goalies around the league that make $6 to $8 million per that play at or below Howard's level. The criticism about signing guys that "can't score" is fair, but also totally ridiculous to bring up in a discussion about a franchise goaltender. For all the stuff Holland has arguably "screwed up" or "missed" on, let it be known be known that he drafted, developed, and retained a franchise-caliber goaltender without the aid of a Top 10 pick.