dobbles

it doesn't matter how many times you use the term 'highly motivated' as all teams are come playoff time. fact is, the wings still have a better team than most you mention there.

i think they need to switch the pairings. because quincey-smith is terrible. they seem to bring out the worst in each other. i think we have 6 good D in that group, we just have to make sure to put them in positions to succeed. and i don't think the team has done a very good job at that. to me the most exciting thing is that with ericsson out, the top pairing still looked solid. so perhaps ericsson can go to 2nd line and play with smith or something. just anything to switch it around. smith scares me because i worry that he will never learn from his boneheaded play, but i have to give him the benefit of the doubt until he is given someone else to play with. i am also of the opinion that if our young players keep growing that quincey has no future here. perhaps even move him at the deadline as opposed to losing him this summer. (this is the last year of his contract right?)

in all fairness, the season is only 16 games old and the have had a 4 game winning streak and a 3 game streak. if anything, the team appears to be super streaky... 2w / 2l / 4w / 4l / 3w

i havn't had much problem with ozzie so far but i was watching one of the weekend games and in the intro when they had the up close shot of him and ken, and ozzie looked soooo awkward and uncomfortable. i'm sure it will take a little while getting used to have that camera right up in your business like it is for that shot.

i doubt it. they have 2 young goalies that they need to evaluate and see if they are going to be in their future plans. reto berra just played his first nhl game after being acquired in the bouwemeester deal last year. i think calgary will definitely give him a long look to see if they have a something. macdonald played solid for them as a backup last year. i think they kept him around to have some stability with 2 young goalies. however, they weren't getting much out of him this year and decided to go with the 2 younger guys.

this feed is terrible. tried sd and hd same problems. even tried drum's site and he seemed to have the problem too.

personally i feel this is getting blown out of proportion based on the bad rep scott has after the kessel incident. while the hit certainly was pushing boundaries, it wasn't super late, and its not like he had his elbow sticking straight out trying to clothesline someone. to me it was a reckless hit, not a dirty hit. i don't like goons, am not particularly fond of fighting, and dislike scott from his days with the aeros in the ahl, but i just feel like he is being made an example of since he is a nobody.

i've been disappointed in weiss thus far. what tempers my expectations though is that i often ended up disappointed in flip as well. i just worry we will be saddled with his contract for several years and never able to bring in the extra pieces needed. i'm optimistic that it is still just an adjustment period. i guess the other thing i think about is i still haven't seen a lot of line combinations that really look like they work. aside from the first line and it being carried by two of the best forwards of their generation, there just hasn't been a lot going on. as much as i hate guys like cleary or franzen for their apparent lack of effort, when it comes down to it, if we can put them in positions to excel, then its fine. unfortunately right now alfredsson is the only guy to join 13 and 40 with more than 5 points. i know 11 games is a small sample size, but its still 13% of the season. just think about how important the last few games were last year. i dont want to get to april and think back to points we missed out on in october because we only had 1 line capable of scoring goals... i should also point out that right now, 13 and 40 are the only plus forwards we have. sure +/- is everyones stat to hate on, but at the root level, it means that none of our other lines are scoring more than they are giving up. thats a scarey thought.

that boston game i think is more of an example of what i am saying. in the first period they had 3 ES shift. tootoo had the shortest shift of the players 2 times and in the example you cite, he changed before miller who had an equal length shift. for the rest of the game, he changed with the rest of his line. i understand that 1 minute shifts are considered long these days. but i guess the point i am making is that overall his shift length is among the lowest on the team. and addiitonally any long shifts he has either the rest of his line is out there just as long and/or they all change at the same. time. that does not imply that tootoo stays out too long and is hurting the team. i looked at the philly game for good measure. in that game there were no shifts in which he had the longest shift for his line. nor did it look like (at a quick glance) that he had very long ones in that game. i will stop posting after this as there is little reason to continue to move in circles, i just think that the assertion is false and all the evidence tends to support my position. have a good day!

its apparently impossible to refute what you're saying as its based entirely on what you notice... ken and mick made mention of a long tootoo shift last night on the broadcast. i'm sure that was fresh on your mind, but i think you are making a long term statement based on that one situation. i looked at last nights shift charts, and ther was only 1 shift in the game that tootoo was out there more than a couple seconds after his linemaes changed. that was his first shift in the 2nd period. it did end up being a 86 second shift roughly. it was a sloppy change both ways with miller getting on later than tootoo and glendenning and then glendenning getting off before tootoo and miller. if i get more time i will go look at other game logs and the shift charts to see what i can find. but 1 long shift is an outlier not a pattern. you were making an assertion without any justification. it ended up being pretty innaccurate. i would call that posting false information. sorry for using the word rant in my first post. it unfortunately distracted from the rest of what i was saying.

nice straw man. i dont think i've ever seen someone on lgw advocae for 15 minutes for the 4th line. most people feel its reasonable to see the 4th line get close to 10 minutes and not just 7 like tootoo does. sure he doesn't play on the pk like his linemates, but sometimes after a special teams shift, you put a broken line out there to get fresh guys on. its not like we would be inventing some brand new concept. on topic: those 2 games were huge for gustavsson. it should help his confidence immensely. also, it will hopefully convince babcock that he can actually sit jimmy once in a while. even though it was the first wek of the season, it was already unfortunate that the first back to bak we had howard started both games. if they genuinely dont want to overuse howard, they have to start early and give him nights off. in their first chance of the season they didn't do that. i am hoping that these good performances will give them confidence to make the better long term decisions going forward. (and yes i know it was only 1 situation and its a long season. its not over reaction, its just evaluating what we have seen thus far)

wow, someone posts entirely false information, but you take issue with my choice of adjective in correcting them?

First off, Tootoo averages 39 seconds a shift this year. The only people with lower are Glendening and Tatar. I hardly think shift length is the problem. Don't let facts get in the way of a good rant though! Also, what player would have been mor eeffective with those 7 4th line minutes he gets? I'm not sure how many goals a guy is expected to score in that role. He goes out there, takes the body, grinds away in teh offensive zone when possible, and is a pest. What else do you expect from a 4th liner with less than 19 minutes played this season????

wow you guys are a regular abbott and costello eh? here's what i don't get - the training camp lines yesterday already had tatar fighting for a spot on a line as he was slotted in on the 5th line. that was even without cleary. so why are you guys mocking the very real possibility that signing cleary pushes tatar down another spot on the roster? regardless of ones opinion on cleary, tatar, or anyones contract, this is a very real subject, and one that is worthy of a conversation. yet all you guys can do is mock the topic? i would hope for better here at lgw.

you are right. the contract is obviously one of the more important things. i think most people would be accepting of a 1 year deal at a reasonable salary. but if they are offering anywhere close to what the philly deal was rumored to be, then i think you will see a lot of very upset fans. then as you mention the other X factor is potential moves. personally, i just dont see a lot of opportunity to move players. thats one of the reasons i have been against the signing. if we had player that had a high chance of getting moved for decent assets in return, then go for it. but i worry we are stuck with cleary, sammy, and bert. and i just think having all 3 of them on the roster makes us a weaker team.

its a shame too... after all this time, i was finally working my way back from the uwe krupp disaster!

for me its seth jones. i just would like to see a young top 5 defenseman take the league by storm. its been nothing but forwards lately. to me its seems like the last top 5 d pick to get significant hype was hedman. (maybe adam larsson) i could care less that its for the preds, at least they are out of our division. but i just want there to be something new for the league to be excited about. and i guess i should clarify. i'm not implying that no good young dmen are out there. just so few have even played in the nhl the year they were drafted. let alone play well. so thats why i think jones having a good year would be afresh new story.

i guess not everyone understands that babcock is human and can make a poor decision regarding the value of a player. just because babcock likes him doesnt mean hes the best option or a good fit for the teams future. can you guys seriously come up with some better material???? if anything, shouldnt everyone be pointing out ad nauseum that 'if cleary was so great and such a playoff warrior he would have been signed by now. obviously ken holland is smarter than all of you'????

i think the thing that is still worrysome is the line tatar is on would not be one of the top 4 lines. obviously camp can be a fluid situation and things may be totally different tomorrow. but seeing where player are slotting in shows which players they project on which lines. so as it stands they are trying bert on the 3rd lin with the 2 kids and then the emmerton line would be the 4th line. then that leaves tatar on a line with a couple guys that most likely arent with the big club this year. so he isn't getting the chance to develop as much chemistry with the roster guys, isn't getting a chance to show what he can do with nhl caliber linemantes, etc. its obviously not the end of the world or really even a big deal. its just not putting tatar in a position to succeed. i would have hoped that his play in the ahl playoffs would have earned him that.

to me its not so much that he is a fringe wing, its just that he is terribly awkward in his commentating. i will mute the tv when hes talking i just find him extremely annoying and poor at his job.

the problem is that the playoffs are a small sample size. so you get statistical anomolies that may not represent what truly happened. so the numbers need to be given context. you have to use what you know from the past to best predict what can happen in the future. barring injury, we can all safely assume a guy like steven stamkos is going to score like a bajillion goals from the exact same spot on the ice. because he has proven over a long period of time that he has the skill set to make that happen. conversely, we cannot count on dan cleary scoring half his goals by deflecting them off his butt. events like that are more random and flukey and lend to outcomes that are not going to carry through over the long term. so everyone wants to point to the fact that cleary was 2nd in scoring in the playoffs. well thats great and i am thankful for what he gave to the team (especially considering the injuries) but i can't sit here and be confident that if we retain his services (especially for 3 more years) that he is going to be able to contribute on a consistent basis like he did in the playoffs.

c'mon that is such a cop out argument. your post would have been stronger without it. look, everyone knows babcock is a great coach. even on a site like this with the full spectrum of opinions, you see very few people that dislike babcock. so its not that people think hes dumb or should be fired. but to imply that someone is wrong because they have an opinion that is counter to what babcock has done is just asinine. the man is just as capable of mistakes as anyone else. he is capable of allowing his personal feelings to cloud his judgement. he is capable of playing favorites. and he is capable of just plain making a bad decision on the attributes of a player. look dan cleary isn't as terrible as some on this site make him ou to be. but he also isn't as valuable as others on this site make him out to be. his value is somewhere in the middle. but to many of us fans that are happy to see him gone, it was just about allowing an older player that is on the decline to go somewhere else so that we have more room for yonger players on the upswing. everyone here wants to see the wings win as many games as possible. we just all have slightly different opinions on how to make that possible.

i think bringing it back would be a bad idea. as much as many of us on here would love extra hockey in the summer, it wont do anything to grow casual interest, and it will just wear out players even more in the era of training and/or playing 12 months of the year. additionally, as far as the nhls strategy, i think the european idea is a waste. its not feasible to expect players to regularly travel around the world for games. its just a gimmick. all that extra travel and time shifting just leads to greater player fatigue which results in more injuries and a lower quality of hockey. not to mention they are running the winter classic into the ground by having it 37 times a year now. in a couple more years, the oversaturation point will hit and the league will have managed to kill the best idea its had in half a century. the league is its own worst enemy. the support hockey has is from fans that realize just how talented and exciting the players at the nhl level are. year after year, the league does a terrible job of showcasing that. we will continue to be a 2nd tier sport until there is a massive leadership change for the league.

i like the parks and rec reference in that illustration. time to set up some cross marketing initiatives between the team and the show!

i think there are several different ways to look at this. but to me it has to be smith or dekeyser. we need one of them to permanently earn a top 4 spot to solidify the 2nd pairing. the first pairing was good last year. and since both ericsson an kronwall are veterans, there is no reason to think their play will slip significantly. so both just need to play this season like they did last year and our top pairing is solid. additionally, for whoever ends up in the 3rd pairing, they just need to play to that role. much less is expceted. but whoever ends up on the 2nd pairing will need to grow a lot. because right now we hav 4 guys that all have question marks. quincey has played a lot of top 4 minutes in the nhl, but has just struggled so much since coming back. i am a quincey backer, and he did play well down the stretch last year, but i still worry if he is relied on as the 3rd defenseman. kindl had a great year last year and really showed his offensive side off. but i still worry that defensively he might be best suited for a 3rd pairing role long term. i hope i'm wrong as i really like kindl, but he would have to have another breakout year to legitimately become a 2nd pairing guy. and then smith and dekeyser i lump together. both have tons of upside. smith has yet to really look solid in the nhl, while dekeyser looked great but only for a very small sample size. so while either of them could grow into a legitimate 2nd pairing player (even as fast as this year) it is also possible they both struggle and are on the 3rd pairing or in the case of dekeyser, down in the ahl. so thats why one of them would have to take it. as they have the biggest ability to make this years D corps a success or failure. personally i voted for smith. because we have seen such a variety in his play. so that makes him the x factor because he out of anyone has the most wide open season for expectations.