dobbles

you do realize that even without all the injuries, that the wings had several young guys that made it into the lineup this year? (helm, leino, ericsson, and howard) and when you consider that abdelkader had established himself as one of the first callups, that was really 5 rookies they planned on breaking in this year. i agree the williams signing was awful, but this really isn't the best time to say the wings aren't getting young guys into the lineup.

he got 91 starts in 2 seasons there. i would say that is a good amount of development. perhaps the wings told him that there wasn't much chance of him getting nhl time in the future, but i think this is 99% on larsson.

i think the key is having a 3rd line that has the ability to score. in the playoffs we definitely didn't have that this year. i have no problem with a 4th line that is super gritty and tough, but you can't just rely on your top 6 for all your production. having a 3rd line that teams have to respect is huge. obviously we aren't going to have hall of famers in the bottom 6 like 2002, but we also don't need hyperbole suggesting that he only 2 choices are HOF players or grinders on the 3rd line. having a quality 3rd line is what helps seperate the decent teams from he ones that can really go deep in the playoffs.

its tough to see Leino playing well for Philly. but its one of those moves that had to be made. had we kept him i am sure we would all still be just as frustrated with him. unlike the Quincey move, Leino was given an opportunity to succeed here and just wasn't working out.

i would also love nystrom as well. got to see him a lot when he played in QC before getting called up to calgary. in a way he fits the wings style as he fights less and has some more skill.

i agree with GMR. williams ended up being the only bad call. though i also recall a lot of folks were pretty high on afinogenov. he ended up having a great year and if i recall signed a pretty reasonable contract. no idea if he was interested in detroit at all, but would have been nice to make that happen instead of williams.

add me to the list that would love to see prust here. i saw for a whole season 2 years ago in the ahl, he's a good guy. i think he has enough fighting experience to help pacify those that are looking for that aspect as well; additionally, he can skate a pretty decent energy checking shift. one unfortunate thing is he had 5 point in his last 6 games to end up with 14 for the season. while its nothing astronomical, it might be enough to drive his price up a bit.

i disagree. the veterans in the ahl are often tweener players that have success in the ahl but never quite could stick in the nhl. maltby has played over 1000 in the nhl and hasn't played in the ahl since 1995. its not very often you see guys with 15 year nhl careers hanging out in the minors their last few seasons. i think a better example of a typical ahl veteran would be a guy like jason krog; he played in 200 nhl games but they were spread out over many seasons and he has been a pretty consistent producer at the ahl level. (i do want to say that it wouldn't be the first time this happened, heck bryan smolinski has been slummin it down in the IHL the last 2 years and chelios spent all year in the ahl. i just don't think its as common and necessary as you imply)

even though it seemed primarily focused on comedy, it is a really good break down of what did happen and what should have happened.

as one of the harsh bertuzzi critics early in the season, i have been happy with his late season play and playoff play. i still have to yell at the tv a couple times a game because of bert, but at this point his contributions have outweighed his poor overall play. when factoring in his salary, he has definitely been a good signing. for a player like bertuzzi who is getting older, its all about being a complimentary player on your line. and i think he has really fit well on the zetterberg line. it had success late in the regular season with flip and then blew up last night with franzen. i would have never said this at the beginning of the year, but i would be ok if he was brought back. however, i don't think he merits much of a salary bump. he has said he would play for less here, so why not get him a contract similar to this years? many folks seem to think he will want 2-2.5 mil and i do think thats starting to be too much.

man journalism sucks these days... pretty awful article.

i don't live in the detroit area so i am not super familiar with the pistons history and personnel moves, but i can say this: basketball is 90% individuals and 10% team; hockey is about 90% team and 10% individual. i think trying to make comparisons between the 2 is pretty useless. in basketball you can move 2 guys and all of a sudden your team has a totally different look. additionally, its hard to worry about the wings possibly blowing up the team when so many of the core players have super long term contracts. even if folks feel holland had a bad offseason last summer, i still don't think he would consider trading guys like datsyuk or zetterberg. even if he felt it was rebuild time, how could he ever get a decent trade value for some of the best players in the league? also, with those monster long term high dollar contracts, it would limit who would even be able to take on our top players. i guess i can see how this would feel similar to the results of the pistons, but i think the comparison is apples to transmissions so to speak...

i think people are putting too much into this Yankees comparison. i think 99% of the people that use the comparison mean it only in terms of their ability to win year after year. i don't think its supposed to be an across the board comparison that means Holland matches up with Brian Cashman or that Ilitch is the same as Steinbrenner. it is just used to make a comparison to another team that often gets universally hated for their success. obviously that 02 team brought comparisons to the Yankees in terms of buying championships, but that's not why most use the Yankees analogy IMO.

i know its a bit different, but when we had our ahl team here, i had season tickets right next to the opposing team entrance on the glass. the backup goalies would always sit down in the entrance as the benches were fairly crammed. we would regularly talk to the backups. al montoya was a huge ****** but most guys were pretty cool. i have some pictures of jimmy sitting right next to us, but don't think i ever talked to him specifically.

i think are several reasons people dislike the wings. a few have been mentioned, but just to make my list complete i will include them anyways: yankee syndrome: been commented on tons already. referee/league favortism: even though most of us would disagree, people still think that the wings recieve way too many calls in their favor. personally, i can think of 2 big reasons for this: holmstrom and eddie olczyk. holmstrom because people like to think he gets away with too much in front of the net and don't realize how many good goals get called back; olczyk because he and other announcers always talk about how many illegal picks the wings run as if they are the only team in all of hockey to ever try to do it. fans: all teams have bad fans. we are no different. but the bad fans are always easiest to remember. and when lots of people are looking for reasons, this can be a convenient one. europeans: unfortunately, theres still a lot of fans that think all players need to come from alberta and get 80 fighting majors a season. there is a lot of dislike for the european 'sissy' hockey the wings play. i personally think its bubkus, but lots of folks really think its legit. attendance: regardless of reasons, fans see the empty seats at the joe and instantly assume that wings fans don't care. i felt this was a separate issue than just fanhood in general. those are just some thoughts off the top of my head.

you're totally right! i forgot about the lockout when listing the years!

yeah, in 03, 04, and 06 the team that beat us lost in game 7 of the finals. the senators had to go and mess that streak up by losing in 07!

certainly cant place the whole loss on williams, but i think he was pretty ineffective on the PP tonight. and considering how crucial special teams were in the outcome, thats pretty important. also i think having abdelkader on that 4th line would make it much more effective as a hard working energy line.

have you guys never heard of sarcasm? while it wasn't laugh out loud funny, some of them were decent for a smirk. i didn't read the comments to see how dumb the fans are, but the article itself seemed pretty innocent. though as someone else noted, the part about holmstrom was super stupid as it wasn't his stick. stuff has to make sense to be funny, and that part didnt make sense.

that team needs to dump sutter. he caught lightning in a bottle once and has since done nothing. they have no prospects and don't have any early round draft picks this year. he keeps mortgaging the future for the present, but each year they fail to do anything.

you sure about that? last year baseball started on april 6th as it was a monday which is the same week as this year; the wings have their last game this year on sunday april 11 and last year it was sunday april 12th. so aside from the days of the week shifting the dates back a day, both seasons had the exact same schedules. i know its a super minor detail, it just made no sense as schedules were the same last year. (also, perhaps the free preview was the 2nd week of the season? maybe thats how it got to be playoff games? don't want to say you are remembering it wrong, just the dates dont match up)

thats what the norris is given out for. however, what other people are arguing, is that as a defenseman your primary concern should be defense. so that is why all around players, or defense first players are talked about more than mike green. additionally, to point out times that +/- fails as a stat, it was noted that ovechkin has an awesome +/- rating, but i think we all know he doesn't exactly excel at defense. unfortunately theres not black and white stats for a defenseman like there are forwards. its pretty easy to pick the best forward when someone scores 70 goals and has 150 points. but for defensemen, it can be tough' you can look at things like +/-, points, TOI, blocked shots, even strength goals against, etc, but often times you need to watch a lot of their games to get a good idea.

man them goons aint lookin so great now....