dobbles

i am giving up my support of the red wings. i have lost all faith in ken holland.
good night and good luck.

last game: 17:34 and 3:28 on the pp
previous game: 17:33 and 2:35 on the pp (most pp time of all players)
previous game: 17:53 and 3:14 on the pp
we have been seeing a lot of dan cleary lately. over 17.5 minutes a night of him the last few games. that is was i was referencing. its not about being a meme or being funny. its about being frustrated with how bad our team is and how we keep playing %&*# players like cleary all the time.

i think cleary deserves to be suspended for a few games for sure. and that definitely makes me happy because we are better without him. i hope he gets a few games an the team plays well and babcock and holland finally see he is part of the problem not the solution.
additionally, for all the talk about cleary being a character guy and a great locker room guy and a great veteran presence, i think its fitting he committed the douchiest act a wings player has committed in recent memory.

i think cleary deserves to be suspended for a few games for sure. and that definitely makes me happy because we are better without him. i hope he gets a few games an the team plays well and babcock and holland finally see he is part of the problem not the solution.
additionally, for all the talk about cleary being a character guy and a great locker room guy and a great veteran presence, i think its fitting he committed the douchiest act a wings player has committed in recent memory.

I'll add some context since I watch a lot of Griffins.
Callahan is playing lower in the line up than guys like Ferraro or Sheahan. He usually plays with someone like Triston Grant. He doesnt get regular PP time (did get some when there were call ups) but does play the PK. Callahan is outscoring Sheahan and Ferraro while getting way less opportunity on the PP and with less skilled linemates. Hes essentially playing the exact role he would in the NHL on grand rapids, whereas Sheahan and Ferraro are playing more of a scorers role.
Callahan is arguably the most trusted winger down there defensively. Hes out at the end of games when the other team has the goalie out and everything. Overall I do like how Sheahan has played since his call up and he has looked great, but between Callahan and Ferraro I'm not sure who should really have the edge. Both are fast (Ferraro has elite speed) but Callahan adds more of that rugged play and seems to put the puck in more.
All three should be on the team next year. They all deserve a chance. Callahan looks like a better play than Tootoo down in GR. And if the wings want to be tougher you need to keep Callahan. Hes cheap, homegrown toughness that you dont need to overspend on in free agency for guys like Tootoo

You guys are calling out Howard? Looking at the recap video on NHL, it looked like Howard gave the Wings a chance to get back in there. Sure the 2nd goal he would like to have back, but how about those PP saves, a 2 on 1 save, lack of defensive coverage in his own zone? Then you have Bert miss a wide open net, Tatar as well near the end. The 4th goal was one hell of a shot, not many goalies are going to stop a snipe that close and with so much time to shoot.

Not only do I log onto LGW at least once per day and have never heard Callahan referred to as Dirty Harry, but LGW isn't meant to cater exclusively to hardcore forum posters. Nicknames are supposed to make it easier to discuss the team, not to prove how funny and clever you are. Making up nicknames that no one else uses is obnoxious and unnecessary. Watch...
It looks like Yellow Mustard is going to miss some time after catching that elbow last night against the Sabres. Its really bad timing too, because our defense already thin with Big Poppa out with a concussion and Bandit serving his 5 game suspension. I would say this forces us to call up someone from GR, most likely Billy the Kid or The Player Formerly Known As Steve. We might be in trouble on the back end until we get some regulars back, since this leaves the Boogeyman as our #1 defenseman. And you know what that means!!!!
Boogeyman - Hot Topic
Heebie Jeebies - Dances with Wolves
My Little Pony - Agent Orange
~&~ (The Player Formerly Known As Steve)

cleary led the team with 2:35 on the pp
then again he now has 53 minutes of PP time this season with no points to show for it, so i guess its not surprising...

I've never been a Burke fan. Yeah he won a cup with the Ducks but he also put Anaheim in a bad cap situation and then hightailed it to Toronto where he made countless mistakes and now he moves to Calgary to run another franchise into the ground. I might be in the minority but I never understood the fuss over Burke's skills as a GM.
Props to Ryan for Calling Burke out on his BS. We at LGW have seen plenty of Ryan over the years and I'm sure most of us can agree that he doesn't lack intensity. Maybe there's some personal animosity between Burke and Ryan while they were in Anaheim.

the problem is that they had yet another first round pick bust. trading him for some sort of asset is the quality move. thats not to say nemisz cant develop in another org an at least contribute on an nhl level, but right now he had very little value. heck, we picked mccollum 5 picks later in that draft. think he would get any legitimate value back in a 1 for 1 trade?

Howard is amazing for most of his career, has a bad stretch of games, and now people want his head. Unbelievable.

so we spend 3 minutes chasing our tails in our own zone, then we finally break into their zone and cleary draws a penalty?!?!?! way to go grandpa dan!

You should use some of that high school logic you seem to be so full of and reevaluate my post, as well as your own OP. I don't care if Lapierre took liberties before, during, or after Downey's response, and based on your premise that an enforcer's presence prevents injuries, you shouldn't either. You asked us all a question in the title of this thread, "Why the Red Wings get injured." You immediately follow that up in the first sentence of your OP with "Because they have no legitimate enforcer." Your argument can then be summed up as 'enforcers prevent injury'. High school reasoning. You also said in your OP that "If there were enforcers, teams would think twice before laying the hits on star players." Again, that reinforces your assertion that the presence of an enforcer would prevent injuries to Red Wings. Downey was dressed and actively used during the game when Lapierre hit and injured Lidstrom; ie Downey the enforcer was present. Based on that example (one which you actually brought forth to the discussion), it is clear that your argument that an enforcer's presence prevents injury is effectively refuted. Downey was present. Lidstrom still got injured.
As for the fight providing momentum and sending a message to the Avs, again I invite you to reread your original post as well as mine. We aren't discussing momentum-shifts or message sending. I never mentioned it. Your OP never mentioned it. That is not the topic of this thread, and if you were interested in discussing that as the premise of your argument, you should have made that clear in your OP. I expect better from someone who is so competent in high-school level logic to bring up irrelevant points to the subject as a response to my retort. It's as Kip mentioned in the first page: you keep changing your tune. Now, if you want to discuss whether the utilization of an enforcer shifts momentum or sends messages to the opposition, you're more than welcome to make a separate thread on those topics, assuming LGW can stomach yet another enforcer thread. But whatever you do, don't bog this already shallow thread down with multiple topics of discussion. Lets stick with injury prevention.

Ahem. Let us quote the book of "kickazz", chapter 7, post 140...

Yes, I can see how one might confuse "hits" with "fights" when you yourself said the lack of an enforcer was to blame for our injuries.
But to go back to the stats...
Matt Martin (LW, NYI, 6'3" 206lbs) far and away leads the NHL in hits, at 165. Yet the Islanders sit at 86 games lost to injury. If, by your argument, big hitters translate in fewer injuries, why are the Islanders right around the NHL average in games lost? Or Tampa Bay, at 123 games lost, when they have Radko Gudas' 112 hits? Or Toronto, at 97 games lost, when they have Cody Franson's 110 hits?
At best, the teams that have some of the league leaders in hits are among the NHL average in games lost. It still appears that the numbers aren't backing you up.

Not case and not point. That took place in a regular season game, and Laperriere tried to run Downey later on in the game. Downey did not play a single game of the playoff series between the two teams; Laperriere did, and his presence went unnoticed.
Your point has even less merit given that the game in question was the last of the season series between the two teams. Detroit won that one 4-0 also, by the way.

You mean like how Orpik thought twice about hitting skilled winger Loui Eriksson because of all the big, bad, enforcers that Boston has? Or perhaps how James Neal didn't even consider kneeing Marchand in the head during the same game for the same reason? And certainly nobody would consider taking liberties with Phil Kessel with Orr and McLaren on the ice for Toronto.
I completely agree with everything you just said.

If Ryane Clowe is worth 4.75 million per year, then Alex Steen is worth 100 Bazillion per year. Just sayin'.

its not about comparing the two as players. clarkson signed a contract coming off a career year he was unlikely to repeat. he got inflated value meaning the contract has a high probability of hurting the team. the steen contract appears to be the same scenario. we see it all the time with guys having big years before signing a contract. recognizing these scenarios and not overpaying is key to being a good gm and putting together a good team. buy low, sell high, right?
with the new cba, max contract is 7 for FA and 8 for re-signing a player, correct?
either way, 3 years is still very short compared to what we normally see.
perhaps its the first sign that gm's are finally going to have to be smart now that the cba closed so many of the loopholes that allowed bad contracts to disappear?

19 days ago you were saying these Red Wings were better than the 2002 team. Maybe don't ride the highs and lows so much when it's still December and there's lots of hockey to be played.

To all the Howard bashers out there take a good look at this game, it doesn't matter who the goalie is if the team defense sucks.

I think if we could only ice a lineup looking like this: Jurco-Datsyuk-Alfredsson Miller-Andersson-Tatar Cleary-Glendening-Eaves Bertuzzi-Sheahan-Samuelsson things would turn around. Very balanced lines, each line has a scorer (Alfie, Tatar, Eaves, Sammy) a great puck-carrying center and a playmaker. With this our 2nd PP unit would look something like: Cleary-Tatar-Eaves Kindl-Sammy and I can't imagine that not being an effective unit.

i would love to see this team with more grit. guys that finish checks and play a harder style. thats why i think tootoo deserves to be on this roster.
but unfortunately, all we get to talk about this year is how we need more fighters to protect our stars. i think dabura hit it on the head perfectly. having tough players on your team does NOT prevent cheap shots. it just gives fans some sense of payback to make us feel better. teams that play tough still get injured. teams that play tough still have dirty plays against. it sucks that datsyuk took that elbow from cowen, it really does. but would having mcgrattan on our team have stopped it? doubt it. it was an in the moment, stick out a body part to get a piece of a guy type move. heck, boston is the poster child for tough teams and yet neal did IMO one of the dirtiest things all season by kneeing marchand. neal doesnt care. he wont have to fight anyone. or if he does it will be some hugfest like all the other crappy fights in the nhl these days.

Man, you guys. It's not even that I necessarily disagree. But you're just so predictably silly about this.
Yeah, no one ever takes a run at your guys when you've got a tough guy in your lineup. (Lemieux-on-Draper, McLeod-on-Kronwall.)
And yeah, a fourth line with Orr and Westgarth and McGratton on it is definitely something we should do. Then, when the offense dries up even more and opposing teams exploit that unholy clusterf*** of a "line," we can all get on Holland's case because ZOMG WE'RE NOT SERIOUS ABOUT WINNING. WHAT OTHER TEAM HAS THREE ENFORCERS AS THEIR FOURTH LINE?
Dressing a fighter, in this day and age, is pretty much a waste. I get the argument for it, and I don't totally disagree. But, if John Scott is gonna take out Loui Eriksson, he's gonna do it. If James Neal is gonna knee Brad Marchand in the head, he's gonna do it. Having an enforcer just means you get to respond after the fact and make some kind of silly "statement" that doesn't really need to be made in the first place and isn't going to do much good. (ZOMG! Our guy who gets paid to take issue with transgressions takes issue with your transgression! What a statement!) Because, honestly, in all our years of not dressing an enforcer, how many times has a guy taken a clear-cut "run" at one of our soft Euro stars and badly injured him? We're talking, what, maybe five incidents? Which is probably at or below the league average over that span of time. Because, again, enforcers don't really deter. They just make "statements" after the fact. And then it happens again, and they get to make another "statement," after the fact.
This isn't the '80s, guys. This isn't the Norris Division. There aren't 18 fights per game. Today's game is not nearly as rough-and-tumble and dirty. It's won mostly with speed and skill. Why are the Avalanche winning so much this season? Because they're fast and they can score in bunches (and their goalies have been great). We can't score to save our lives, so, if anything, we might actually need more skill. Certainly we need to be more fleet of foot.
Not that I don't think we need to get tougher. We do. But we have to be reasonable about it. It has to be a change that'll help us win more games and ultimately win a Cup. Not something to make us feel like bigger men, because, ho ho ho, now we have a face-puncher to hide behind! That's how a man takes care of business! He hides behind a hired gun! I'd rather have more overall team toughness - though, again, we need to find a way to score more. So there has to be a balance. Not saying the two - skill and toughness - are mutually exclusive. I'm saying, basically, you can't just load up on one-dimensional tough guys and think it's going to make things a whole lot better, on any front.
If it were up to me, I'd take a good look at Ott and Westgarth this summer. I'd almost never dress the latter, but I'd have him just in case things get ludicrous and an actual statement has to be made. Or I'd play him with Datsyuk and Zetterberg. Because that'd be awesome. (Not being sarcastic.) As for Ott - he's a pain in the ass who's not afraid to mix it up, throw his weight around, drop the gloves. Ott and Westgarth. That might be a nice first baby step on the road to getting tougher as a team.
I think most of it actually comes down to Babcock. He needs to preach a tougher, more aggressive and intense style. We generally play with no life, no oomph. Or, we'll have little flashes of intensity, but that's it. That has to change. We, as a team, have to bring it. Every shift, every game. We have to push the pace. We have to play to win, not to "not lose." We have to win those little battles that add up over 60 minutes. We have to be engaged and electric. I'd take all that over throwing three fighters into the mix.