dobbles

can you name any big game breaking goals this season??? (please dont use the blues game early in the month. they should have just given those to pavel as he served them up on a platter)

i guess we just differ on what we think franzen should be doing. to me his role is more than just a 30 goal scorer. i would put him at the 40 goal target given his salary, minutes, and linemates. he also needs to be able to generate more of those goals on his own and not just rely on datsyuk making amazing moves and getting him the puck 4 feet from an open net. because of his salary and role on the team, he needs to be an on ice leader. and you can't be that when you float around half your shift and rarely play in your own zone. he often is able to hide in the regular season due to his rep as a playoff performer. as stated in my last post, he was weak down the stretch and invisible in the playoffs this year. thats why he deserves one of the lowest grades on the team.

i think he was spot on with that rating. why? because he wasn't rating on ability, he was rating on expectations. and i think franzen definitely underperformed compared to what the organization and the fans thought he would bring. he only had 2 goals in march when the team was struggling and only 1 point in the 5 playoff games. franzen has established himself as a clutch player and he was anything but that this year. to me, that is the definition of not living up to expectations.

ok, am i the only one that came in here because they thought brendan smith was potentially playing??? i was about to rant about him not being anywhere near capable of replacing any of our top 6!!!!

our defense has been pretty brutal in this series, but lidstrom isn't the problem. while he is not up to his normal standards, he is still playing pretty well.

what a waste. the fine is the equivalent of fining me 14.67 for something i did. that is an amount so inconsequential it has no impact. similar to the clowe incident, the nhl is showing that it does not care about the douchebaggery that is taking over hockey. these guys obviously dont respect each other or the game, so the league needs to force them to respect it with harsh suspensions and not fining someone 1/300th of their salary...

personally, i am fine with people being negative if they really feel the wings dont have a shot. there are unfortunately many posters that just seem to hate everything and they ruin any chance for legit conversation. there are also many posters that come off as fan boi's, so to me, the opinions all balance out eventually... with that said, here is why i am excited: despite all the injuries, only a handful of teams won more games than det. their 48 wins are 3 behind the leaders that had 51. only 2 teams in the west had more wins and stl was only 1 win ahead of us. to act like there is a big difference in us and the top seeds is silly. along those same lines is goal differential. only 3 teams bested the wings +45 as we were tied with stl in 4th. the two best teams for differential are in the east, so vancouver being only 6 goals better once again indicates that the west is a very winnable conference for the wings. goals against average. everyone that talks about this first round series loves to talk about how amazing rinne is. well sure hes a good goalie, but guess who was 6th in the league in gaa? jimmy howard. thats right, rinne was 8 spots lower at a little over a quarter of a goal per game more than jimmy. as i mentioned in the round 1 thread, lots of people are forgetting that the wings gave up less goals this season even though conklin was crap for many of his dozen or so games and negatively impacted the goals allowed. goalie wear and tear. while jimmys groin is a bit scary, he is in a better position for a strong playoff run. stats have shown that outside of brodeur, most goalies cannot play in over 70 games and win a cup. because of howards injuries he is primed for a good run. additionally as far as the first round is concerned, no one faced more shots than rinne and no one played in more games. so can he hold up? sure lots of things scare me about this team as it certainly has been an up and down year, but those are some reasons to be excited and optimistic that we can make a run. though looking ahead a bit, i hope that the yotes can make it through as i would prefer to not play stl in the 2nd round. their goaltending is great and that has always been the wings kryptonite in the playoffs... but i am trying not to get too ahead of myself!

its not that simple... for us as fans, we just look at it like we are playing nhl12 on xbox and want to pick the best player. in real life, they have balance not only which player gives the better shot, but also what the long term ramifications are. perhaps they didn't want to ruin clearys confidence by sitting him a long stretch. perhaps they dont want to get a reputation as a team that gives up on injured players. perhaps objective evaluation of which player brings more to the table is clouded by the personal relationships that exist with the coach and/or management. perhaps there is a hope that if he kept playing down the stretch that when the playoffs arrived he would be able to step it up because of his experience and that he was just laying off a bit in the regular season. maybe the team didn't want to waste one of its post deadline callups on someone to replace cleary unless they absolutely had to. now, with all those hypotheticals, i can also concede that maybe you are right. maybe babcock just thought that cleary at 50% was better than calling up conner, andersson, etc. my main point though, is that it is a much more complicated situation than you make it out to be and there is a very real chance that they weren't totally behind cleary but just had to consider all the implications of making a change.

thats a great point that everyone misses. datsyuk, especially in the playoffs, seems to thrive off the physical game. and zetterberg in a different way seems to get inspired by the physical play. he seems to make his best plays with a guy or two draped all over him. i think the people that assume you can intimidate the wings in the playoffs really dont watch them play. heck, for all the ragging that people do about how the sharks sent us home 2 years in a row, its not because they were some super tough team the wings couldnt handle. its because guys like joe pavelski seem to be able to score against them and the wings came up dry.

i want to state this clearly for people to understand: statistically, the red wings are a better defensive team than nashville. period. now lets look at that a bit: the wings gave up 7 less goals this season than the preds. not a lot over a full season, but still better. now some context: the preds got over 70 games from their starter. the wings got under 60. and while macdonald had a nice run, the wings numbers are skewed by conklins terrible play. at one time he had the worst save percentage in the entire league. so the wings numbers are negatively skewed by a guy that most likely will see 0 minutes in the playoffs. the moral of the story for me is that even with an anchor like conklin on our statistics, we still were better defensively than nashville. sure, nashville has all the sexy names like rinne, suter, and weber, but before howard broke his finger, he was one of the best goalies in the league this season. his injury troubles took him out of vezina consideration. so vandy you can keep whining about disrespect, but any time anyone says something critical of your team, you go into isntant troll mode. early in the thread, you said "say the word and i'm gone".... well, here's the word: either stop trolling and engage in some legit conversation, or go to hf or something with your hot air! (p.s. - continually bringing up 1 game against the hawks and using that as justification of an argument is not legit conversation)

the reason that was so very important to the team for the long term was because it set a very bad precedent because of how high it was. if they gave ericsson that much, and had both stuart and kronwall coming up as ufa's, it would mean that they would want significantly more. when you set the bar too high then everyone else expects to be too high as well. its something that is very important. because to win cups you need to get maximum value out of contracts. and while the cap wasn't a problem this year, who knows what it could be like next year or the year after. heck, maybe we do have a shot at both suter and parise this summer, but not enough cap room??? (long shot i know... just making a point) the other aspect of his contract is his role. teams cannot afford to pay bottom pairing dmen that much money. so is the team implying that his future upside is top 4??? if so, i fear for the teams future. he is not top 4 material. i think he can be a solid bottom guy with a decade long career. but you dont pay guys like that 3 or 4 mil a year. anywho, ericsson has continued to not play up to where he needs. its no coincidence that when he was injured so was our best forward, best defenseman, and starting goalie. so while i do respect babcock, i disagree with him that it was ericsson the team missed. i have nothing against jonathon ericsson; i had the privilege to watch him several times up close when he was in the ahl. but he just is not what this team needs.

still a pretty funny sign! as a fellow witty sign maker, i approve! (when you can make a sign that players are willing to sign after the game, you know you have succeeded!)

i disagree. all season long the wings have had 5-6 game winning and losing streaks. they have played poor when healthy and great when injured. its just been random... OP - only time will tell on the blues. the biggest thing you need is consistency. can't be like the hawks and be a one hit wonder... personally, i think the blues have a lot going for them. lots of players that still have a lot of room for growth and progression. the key will be transitioning away from having to get top notch goaltending every night. you cant expect to have 2 goalies that are like top 5 in stats. the other key will obviously be managing the cap as these young players progress.

while i am not exactly excited about what babcock said, in a way i understand. and also, in the mlive article today he calls out the datsyuk line and the abdelkader line for not being very good last night. in addition, he is moving guys around in practice and that means a million times more than some offhand comment to the media. i was skeptical of babcock when he first arrived, but he has shown himself to be an outstanding coach. i can't believe so many are dumping on him. can't we all pile on hudler or ericsson instead??!?!?!!?

i thought the game was in detroit?

while you may not be as bad as stinky fish taco or whatever his name is, you still are often overly negative for no reason at all. as a person that is always critical of things i like, i certainly have my qualms about the wings (dont get me started on ericsson!) but there is a different between being critical and the often 'troll like' attitude that comes across in your posts. so you shouldn't really be surprised when people attack you. with that said, the wings are currently getting 1.4 points a game. that would mean in 22 games, they are going to get 31 more points. with your anticipated 14-8, thats 28 points. only 3 off. and assuming a couple of those losses are OT/SO, that would make up the 3 point difference. so in this case, you are not really being unrealistic.

i still think ericsson is a negative to this team. i do agree with the posters that have stated his physical play is at least better this year. however, i still think that his decision making is still just abysmal. his defensive lapses are still way too often. especially for his salary. it just scares me that realistically, if lidstrom and stuart both leave, ericsson would be the person they expect to move into the top 4. (i do think they obviously are looking at smith as top 4 long term, but i dont think that would happen next year. its also assuming they only replace 1 with a free agent)

at this point there is really no reason to even consider this year. see if he can continue to make progress for next year, or at the very least, get him to a point where it isn't effecting his life after hockey. its a shame to see him out, but for his sake, i hope they are ultra conservative.

i think once jimmy is back, keep joey up and send conklin down. its not like anyone will claim conklin. at least then he could play regularly and maybe get his game back. sitting on the bench 90% of the time isn't going to get him out of his funk. with how little he normally plays, i don't see him improving anytime soon if they keep him up. conversely, with how much joey has played this year, he could manage time on the bench better i think.

honestly i think it was just that he had a slow start this year. now that he is playing better, he is just starting to shake the negative perception many fans had. his awful playoffs last year combined with a slow start got him in a lot of peoples doghouses IMO. also, regarding all the toughness and hitting, personally, i felt the first couple months abby was not hitting much of anything. i think the last few weeks though as the 4th line has hit its stride more, thats when the points started coming a little faster and his confidence and physical game picked up as well. personally, i hope abby continues to play well and makes the bottom 6 a force to be reckoned with.

personally, i am waiting for a couple more games before making up my mind, but i am really leaning towards conklin not being someone they should keep on the roster. it's unfortunately not even an issue of how good or bad he might be in a night. to me it comes down to the fact that the team is nowhere near as effective with him in net. whether its a lack of confidence, bad luck, or anything else, it just isn't working right now. i certainly concede that a lack of playing time can hurt a backup. however, conklin is 54th in minutes played, so it could be worse. the team is 6th in goals against and howard is near the top in most goalie stats, so its not like the team in front of him is incapable. yet he is near the bottom of all goalies for save percentage. even a guy like macdonald was able to come in and play lights out last night. the problem could be conklin. the problem could be how the team in front of him plays when hes in there. either way, with how tight the central is, its a problem the wings cant afford to let linger.

freshy, you are basically trolling as you are unwilling to listen to an entirely rational counter argument. you do realize people can have a differing opinion than yours and not be morons for doing so, right?

the problem with the concept is that right now his value is lowest. so even if you could get everyone on board with moving one of the most loved and valuable players on the team, you wouldn't get fair value. gm's would be naturally skeptical that his off year is a result of his age and health and that making any sort of fair value offer wouldn't be worth it.

i am optimistic that this will end up being a positive in the long run. conklin can get at least a couple games and then the team will have a much better idea what they have in him and if they need to make a move and/or give macdonald some games to evaluate his abilities. with how much howard has played it won't exactly be the worst thing for him either especially after having to play the all star game when most of the team was off. obviously if the injury lingers or grows into something more, thats all out the window. but as far as injuries go, this might actually be a good thing...

i get more excited when i see the bottom 6 come over the boards than i do the top 6...