dobbles

its funny reading all the hate on prust here. if he had said it about a coach that didn't have such strong ties to detroit, there wouldn't even be a thread about it.

there was a time when no one had any idea that hank and pav were the next sergei and stevie. just gotta put the prospects in the best position to grow into players like that. unless you have a top 10 pick, the player often comes out of nowhere. and i think we do have players that can grow into legit 1st liners. to me, thats the most frustrating part about holland signing guys like bertuzzi and sammy. every roster spot they take up is one less that can be used for a young guy to get some playing time. 'luckily' we had so many injuries this year that many of the young guys did get to play. the more experience we can get our young players while our stars are still around, the more they will learn.

after the toss in the third, we never saw security escort anyone out. i think the tosser made it off scott free.

another reasonable response. however, had we not had extremely bad luck with injuries, nyquist would have probably never saw nhl ice this year. i know its a cop out to play the what if game, but i do feel this is a situation that it applies. there were once again a ton of guys on 1 way deals and nyquist had to go down because he had waiver exemption. having been an ahl fan for many years and a former season ticket holder, i have seen many times where guys stagnate in the ahl because they were there too long. even though they dominate, there isnt much to be gained after a while. has that for sure happened here? we don't know for sure either way yet. i just worry it is yet another example of it happening to wings prospects.

i dont miss that time at all. before the lost season, hockey had become incredibly boring and stale. there was little to no excitement because it was a giant hugfest with all the interference and holding. the only reason people here pine for it is because the wings were a top team. in general, the salary cap rewards well run franchises. because everyone is on a level playing field, its all about resource management. everyone likes to wine that the only way to win a championship is to tank for a long time, but there are only 2 example of that; chicago and pittsburgh. and if you honestly look at their situations, its more luck than a strategy of tanking. chicago was terrible because old man wirtz was an awful owner. the only reason they turned it around was him kicking the bucket. the changes that were made after he passed are what allowed the hawks to actually turn that talent into a good team. and if you look at pittsburgh, they just got lucky to get 2 of the best players of their generation in successive drafts. theres more examples of teams that are bad and stay bad than the 2 that managed to turn around their franchises. think of columbus, the islanders, and the oilers. heck the oilers had the #1 pick 3 years in a row and are still terrible! if tanking for draft picks was an effective strategy, i think we would be seeing something there.

excellent response. i do think having him in the top 6 this year would make it more effective. i think datsyuk would benefit from having another creative offensive player on his line. and the reason why is exactly what you are saying; if you shut down datsyuk that first line is terrible. neither of the other players step up. i think nyquist is young and creative enough to take the extra space given from everyone focusing on pavel, and do something with it. and the added benefit is getting him in the top 6 will make him a better player down the road which benefits the team in the long run. so i guess, even if its a wash this season, it would still be worth it to get him in there and not waste another year of development. heck, think back to last year, he played pretty well down the stretch and all the talk in the offseason was how there was no chance he would be in grand rapids... but yet this year has been mostly wasted with misuse.

i disagree. i think nyquist has the skill to quickly become one of those players. really he has already shown it as he has generated a lot of chances and even some goals with his own skill. compare that to players like franzen, cleary, abdelkader, who's only skill is standing around waiting for datsyuk to do all the work and give them a tap in goal that my grandma could finish off. this organization has been TERRIBLE at putting players in a position to succeed. for years we will have a guy with potential and we leave him in the minors forever and then when they do get a chance, they play 8 minutes a night on the 4th line. sure, i understand that players have to 'earn' what they get, but how can you earn something when you are put in a position to fail? nyquist, and others like tatar, if given the chance to play with datsyuk or zetterberg for more than a couple of shifts, could really show to be effective top 6 players in the nhl. that would allow them to grow as players and then become the type of player that can not just be part of the top 6, but be the leaders once datsyuk and zetterberg are gone.

not to derail yours guys nyquist debate, but as far as lashoff is concerned, i think this is a move that could be for the best. he has spent significant time in the nhl and now can spend a little time in the ahl working on the parts of his game that weren't nhl ready. this is a much more effective development strategy than just leaving guys in the ahl for years at a time. it causes development to plateau. whereas with this route, lashoff got the chance to grow a ton in the nhl as a regular and now he can take a breather, work on some things, and come back more motivated than ever.

lashoff needs to sit a couple games. he was huge at the beginning of the season but has been in a pretty big slump lately. too many turnovers.

I feel like pierre doesnt necessarily know hockey that well, he just knows a lot of hockey facts. every game i watch i want to break my tv because he always tries to play 6 degrees of kevin bacon hockey edition. what i mean by that is he always tries to show off that he knows which players played for which junior team and had some random coach that no one cares about. hes like the worst example of a name dropper. yet i feel like his actual analysis is often not that great. he often tries to lead edzo into additional analysis by proposing theories but i find they usually are off the mark. in my opinion he is an example of someone that is book smart about hockey but not street smart about the actual game. regarding murph, i hate to see him go. a couple years ago he got a decent amount of time on the nhl network wrap up show at night. i felt he was very solid on there. (certainly better than that tool jamie mclennan they have now!) i also hope this does not mean an increased role for darren eliot as i feel he is TERRIBLE with a capital T. i do not like him at all and will actually mute the tv or turn the channel when he is on.

i will pm you with some thoughts specifically, but did want to publically thank you for your response.

until this site decides to crack down on people who are obviously trolls, all threads devolve into this. i don't care if this gets me in trouble for saying this, but this site has turned into a garbage heap of terrible posters. i know sites have to try and be open to anyone, but it makes for a terrible environment for honest and genuine discussion. the day that matt instructs to moderators to crack down on trolling will be the day that lgw takes 50 steps forward as a hockey board. as far as the thread is concerned, i will reiterate that howard is a well above average goalie. 'elite' is such a loaded term these days in all sports. but jimmy is one of the better goalies in the league, and one of the most valuable and skilled players on our team. the defense is atrocious this season and has been for several years. do we have anyone that would be considered a shut down defenseman? have we for a few years? even lidstrom wasn't the best in his own end the last couple seasons. stuart was a strong shut down guy for yeasr, but seemed to be mentally checked out last year so even that didnt help.

i think thats a valid point. i also feel like the players wanted to reject it just to show their strength going into the labor negotiations.

i agree about not using his body at all. 9 times out of 10, when a guy gets his first couple games in the nhl, he is skating around hitting everyone making sure the coaches know hes out there making an impact. andersson was the opposite of that. he was like franzen jr out there. overall though, i do think he played well. i just wished we had someone more physical filling that bottom 6 role.

olczyk is still convinced that the wings are the only team in the league that has ever run a little pick... man that guy is a tool.

if gustavsson is out for a while, i could see joey going down to GR, getting into playing shape, then coming back up so mrazek can go back to GR and play regularly. essentially a conditioning assignment. obviously if gustavsson gets healthy, then joey would just stay down. i assume he would stay in GR and mccollum would go to the E.

composite sticks are a pretty weak justification for having giant goalie pads. its not as if composite sticks have created shots that are 50% better or anything. there were already guys with triple digit shots with wooden sticks. it took chara years to get the speed record at the allstar game and that dudes like 18 feet tall, its easy to see why he can shoot so hard. the only thing composite sticks have done is even the playing field for skaters. they make it easier for anyone to have a decent shot while not really helping the guys that were great shooters to begin with. its not as if we are talking about a similar situation to when they started curving the blades and radically changed the game. regardless, the current brand of hockey is boring. the reason? the league has switched the entire strategy of playing the game. it used to be you went out there and tried to score more goals than the other team. but since the 90's, the game became about giving up less goals. some may say its semantics, but its not. when the objective is to score more goals, you are fine with taking chances, you are fine with making mistakes. because the idea is that you can make up for it by scoring more. when the philosophy is to give up less goals than the other team, then you dont take risks, dont reward offensive creativity, etc. that leads to a less exciting brand of hockey for most fans. sure no one wants to see hockey turn into basketball where you score tons of times. but reducing goalie pad sizes would likely lead to an increase in scoring and could help turn the game from a defensive one to an offensive one.

wish we could say the same for you here....

why is it people always try to compare every goalie to quick now? 15 months ago, quick was still looking over his shoulder at bernier. he had a great year last year and a great playoff run, but its not like he has been a top goalie for a decade or anything... 1 solid season does not make an 'elite' goalie... jimmy howard is extremely underrated by most wings fans. he isn't perfect, but he has made the team a lot better than it would have been with someone else. the wings defense has been crap for 2-3 seasons now and even nick was fairly badin his own zone at the end. everyone has been guilty of poor defensive play. the sheer number of odd man chances the wings give up compared to 5 or 10 years ago is embarrassing.

saw him play in the ahl quite a bit when he was in the quad cities. he was a decent defensive defenseman. he was pretty slow though, when he first got to the nhl i was actually surprised at how well he was doing as i thought for sure he would be a pylon out there.

14 months ago, no one would have said quick was someone that had it either. heck, he was still fighting to keep the starting spot form bernier. i am not trying to implty quick was bad last year. i just think we all need to keep perspective. players can go from chump to hero and back in the blink of an eye in the nhl. especially in goal. there are very few goalies that can be top level for more than a few years. i would love to see mrazek develop into the goalie of the future. but right now he isnt an option and gustavsson is not anywhere near as good as howard. trading him would be getting rid of one of the best players on our team and would leave a hole at the most important position on the ice.

trading howard is not a smart move for this team. he is our best player under 30. he has been an above average starter for several seasons now and for portions of those seasons played as en elite goalie. all the while he was playing behind a team with a pretty sub-par defense. even with lidstrom, this team has been bad in their own zone for a few years. i go back to that play in the playoffs against the preds where 3 guys follow 1 pred player into the corner and no one covers the guy in front of the net. this has happened time and time again the past few years. to me, a true elite goaltender can stop shots that he isn't expected to or supposed to. kipper in 04 is the perfect example of that. there are very few in the league that can do that for more than a couple years. howard might not be in that group, but to me he is in the one right behind it.

considering he joined today and has pretty much only posted in this topic, it kinda feels like he is the writer of the article and just coming to drum up traffic. regarding the topic, sure theres going to be a black area with the wings because they have been successful for so long. fans of other teams assume that wings fans are only fans because they are winning. whether or not its true can only be shown by having lean years which everyone here hopes we can continue to avoid. regarding the hawks, i give them a little leniency. part of their resurgence was old man wirtz dieing. it was hard to be a fan of the hawks when you couldnt even watch their games on the local sports network. old man wirtz seemed to go out of his way to make is really really hard to be a hawks fan. him passing not only allowed more people to get interested in the hawks thanks to the increased exposure, but it also caused some fans to come back to the team after sometimes boycotting the hawks or at least minimizing their fanhood because of the hatred they had for wirtz.

both are fairly equal most years, but especially this year, with so many nhl players in the ahl, the trickle down to the echl and chl will make both leagues much stronger this year. while the chl doesnt have the official agreements, most of the older players can go between the leagues without noticing much difference.

isn't that even a bit of a stretch? i was thinking that my local CHL team brought in someone from the EIHL and they had dominated there and was just a 2nd/3rd liner in the central hockey league.