roboturner

No, no you're right! I absolutely fully acknowledge and agree that meaning is subjective! I don't disagree that some fights have more (or less) meaning than others due to the situation and that's not what I was arguing. I was just looking for some more clarification on your position. And I asked a couple of questions about it because I don't understand why you think that and instead of answering any of them you picked something else in my post and responded with af****** picture. And yes there actually is something else to say besides the picture, because the pic doesn't give me any information (other than you just don't want to explain why you think the way you do). So I'll ask again: Why do you think a fight over an injured friend and teammate is "more fun" as you put it. Why do you think showing respect after a hard fought battle reduce everything that happened leading up to it "meaningless" i.e. Handshakes after Playoff rounds or occasionally after fights. (You have to know that a lot of those guys give each other props when the refs finally jump in) That's all I wanted to know! I'm not looking for af****** 20 page essay I just wanted a little clarification. Edit: This is getting a little heated, Y'all know I don't hate any of you guys, I just love in depth discussions and I hate bad arguments that are lacking support or are full of fallacies. (and I have an admittedly abrasive personality when taking the pain meds I take for my back) I'm just gonna leave these here

Thanks for addressing my questions with this beautiful and elegantly worded response explaining your position. Its probably going to take awhile for me to digest all this information and reassess my position.

I understand the last part is my own opinion of how meaningful it was. I understand that a fight over bad blood is more meaningful than one over two guys that bumped into each other in a contact sport. I don't understand how you think a fight over an injured friend and teammate is "more fun" as you put it. I don't understand your claim that is was "meaningless - (adj) without meaning, significance, purpose, or value; purposeless; insignificant:" just because they showed some respect for each other after it was over. Do you think that every playoff series that ends in a handshake line loses it's significance just because they acknowledge each others hard fought battles afterward? When a guy like Mariano Rivera goes around to every ballpark during his last year as a pro and gets acknowledged by the OTHER TEAM'S FANS for what he did during his career, you think that's "meaningless" to him? or to you?? Even if you personally don't find it meaningful doesn't mean it has no meaning to anybody.

You think a fight due to bad blood is "more fun"?? Can you elaborate on how going after a guy while your teammate and possible friend is lying on the ice unconscious is "more fun" than one where you are fighting with mutual respect and pumping up your team and crowd? "meaningless" because they got their teams and crowd into the game, then showed some respect for the guy who spent his career sticking up for his teammates and is retiring after this season?? Is that how you define the word "meaningless"? I think the word you're looking for is "meaningful". This was more meaningful than most hockey fights I've seen.

Yeah but I think what they mean is that he costs us more that he steals. Not that he's NEVER (not a single time!) stolen a game. Like how people say Smith or Quincy ALWAYS make boneheaded plays. They don't ALWAYS make boneheaded plays EVERY time they get the puck or they wouldn't ever have gotten to play in the NHL. But they make enough to overshadow any good things they do. Or how Sammy ALWAYS shoots into a goalie's chest. Or he Always shoots it 2 feet wide of the net. It obviously can't be both!

I agree that he's helped us manage the injuries. But it doesn't mean we can't pick apart his (sometimes) dumb decisions. This is the same guy who wanted Cleary and Bert over Nyquist and Tatar. Where would we be right now if he hadn't changed his mind?? Where would we be if he had changed his mind sooner? I can say with almost certainty that we wouldn't be in the scramble that we're in now. (Unless you think Bert and Ernie would have put up the points to help us win games that Goose and Tats have. I can't imagine too many rational people would think that.) If anybody around here complains after a loss, they are labeled reactionary and not worthy of giving their opinion. If you complain after a win, you're told to shut up and ignore the problem cuz it didn't cost us the game. Is there any time around here that people are allowed to discuss the problems of this team without being told they aren't a "true fan"?

Good! I'm glad he played well! I saw that quote from him about (paraphrasing here) that its time to start playing better and not just talking about playing better. Just wish they could have that mindset when they first start talking about playing better. (sidenote: just because he won the game tonight doesn't negate that fact that he has been pretty bad this season and I (obviously! ha) believe the criticism was and still is warranted until he can prove that this all was just a fluke) I don't recall anyone saying he never steals a game for us. You either: Steal a game & win Play standard game & win Play standard game & lose Give up untimely/stoppable goals in a winnable games & lose (costs us the game) (and a few more scenarios but not really important here) Ideally a goalie would steal many more games than he costs us (the other scenarios don't really matter i.e. wouldn't be his fault if we lost). If he at least had a 50-50 average there I would be ok with that (not really but I wouldn't rag on him as much or as harshly). I have no idea how many Howie has of each or any idea how you would go about figuring that out this far into the season without throwing away your life watching replays of this season's games. But it feels like this season he's cost us way more than he's stolen for us. (and yes he has stolen a number of games for us and he has cost us a number of points in the standings)

Haha I guess so. I'll preface this by saying that I didn't watch the game (no cable = listened on the radio while reading Game of Thrones) so I can't comment on how he looked, but i am glad he got a huge win for us tonight, and in the shootout no less! But you also have to take into account it was against the 2nd worst team in the league (although one that is, as a few stated in the GDT, probably quite similar talent/production wise to our current line-up, which also needs to be accounted for). All in all, I'm just glad we got the job done (including Howard)

I have read it. What do you think is going to happen when you have 50 people in a discussion and only one place to discuss it? Some will talk only on topic and some convos/arguments will naturally shift to include someone else while still being most relevant to the earlier topic. It only makes sense that he is compared to his predecessor. You know like how Aaron Rodgers discussions can at times turn into Rodgers vs Favre. It's not like Osgood played in the 70's, he just stopped playing a few years ago, and for the same Team! There are a number of players currently on the team that played with both of them! Again, would you like to start another thread and have Two Jimmy Howard Threads?? Go ahead I'll post in both. But you know damn well that the conversations will end up being about the same thing that could be discussed in one thread.

How are we supposed to measure whether Howard is any good if you don't compare him to other goalies?? For being a discussion board you Mods sure hate discussion taking place. I don't really know what you guys want. Should we start a goalie comparison thread, one which will inevitably lead to Howard being discussed. Then we would have TWO Howard threads! Or would it be reasonable to discuss that in this thread? You know, the one specifically about Howard.

Ok, I was thinking you did something weird with the actual numbers, but now I see it's just an average of their rank. Thanks for clarifying!

Don't worry, this is exactly why we signed Dan "The Hammer" Cleary when we had no space for him. His irreplaceable leadership qualties should really shine through in this situation and then everybody will quit bitching (or quitching hehe) and finally see why it would have been stupid not to resign him.

Yeah you don't really get it. Games Played Points Alfie 53 37 Nyquist 40 32 Tatar 56 26 Bert 50 15 (-16 by the way) Cleary 52 8 (-11 by the way) We wanted the young guys on the team not because they are young, but because they contribute more than Cleary and Bert. Thats the main point here. Alfie isn't in that category of old and useless. Alfie is 3rd on the team in points! He contributes to the success of the team. You want to get rid of the 3rd leading scorer because he's old? So yes, we are being consistent. We consistently want players who contribute, and want to get rid of the ones who don't. It doesn't matter how old they are.

I agree that SV% & GAA are the best way to measure. I'm curious how you went about combining the two stats. From these rankings it does appear that Howard is not as bad as his current #'s suggest. However, his current SV% & GAA rankings (as I've pointed out a couple days ago) are waaay below these rankings. If his current numbers stay where they are for the foreseeable future his career rankings are going to drop dramatically. And thats the main point here. It's not that he was wasn't good before, but he's not very good RIGHT NOW and we don't want to be stuck with a goalie who continues to be so bad. I understand the want to look at his past numbers, but those have no bearing on how good he'll be in the future. Absolutely no bearing. All it shows is that he was at one time capable of putting up good #'s, not that he'll continue to/or return to putting up those numbers. All I'm doing is pointing out that *if* he continues to play like he has this season, then we'll need to make a change. There's already so many aspects of his game that people aren't high on (as has been discussed in the past couple of pages), and if you throw in having bad SV% and GAA numbers with those things, it just doesn't make sense to keep playing him. And no I don't have a solution (like playing Gus or Mrazek, although I would like to see more of Mrazek), I'm just pointing out that we might have to make a change soon. Once a decision that a change will need to be made occurs, you can start assessing other options.

I realize those guys are gone, but I don't understand why the coaching staff can't see what was going right in those days and try and get our guys to do the same. Is it really that difficult to find/coach players that are willing to at least try some of these things. Edit: This isn't really relevant to Howard's play anyway. I was just pointing out that there are other factors contributing to our current play.

I took it to mean his poke-checking ability is below that of a minor league goalie. And its probably true. There are so, so many little things Howard could improve at, but he won't because he just doesn't want to put the time in. This whole post! (didn't want to quote the whole thing) Howie seems like he has huge confidence issues. It seems like he doesn't feel comfortable doing the little things a goalie should do. Sure, he comes up with a huge save every once in a while (even those are few and far between. I don't count when a goalie snatches the puck up & flashes the leather, only to look at the replay and realize the puck had no chance of going in the net. Great reflexes, sure. Just not a huge important save!) But, that shouldn't have any impact on his ability to do "other" things a goalie should do. I just saw they are thinking about removing the trapezoid. Is it really going to be beneficial to have a goalie who refuses to leave his crease and couldn't set up our D-men with a good pass to save his career? Or are we going forward with a below average goalie (at stopping the puck) and way below average at most other things. Every single time he gets the puck behind the net he either drops it and wastes a bunch of time during a power-play, or he fires it up the boards at waist height towards hopefully one of our guys who can't catch the pass anyway because it's at their f****** waist!! Look, there's alot of things that this Wings team used to be great at that they for some reason have gotten away from (puck possession, those Lids to Homer screen/tip play, Seriously why haven't we tried those recently? Nobody took any notes while Lids was here?!). So there is obviously more to blame for the wings struggles than who's in net. But that doesn't mean you just ignore the problems in net, or pretend they don't matter or that they don't even exist!

It probably wasn't quite as bad as this picture makes it look. Players routinely leap over the bench before the other player has gotten off. That's just standard procedure in any level of hockey. Looks like 3 for sure are headed off the ice, maybe 4. But still, there were 7 guys on the ice ready to make a play. Not good any way you look at it.

We're not attacking him over today's game. That would be stupid. We're attacking his overall numbers for the whole season. They aren't good. I understand the want to look at each goal against individually and say "That one was tipped, not his fault." or "Not getting any help from the defense, not his fault." and in some instances that true, not all of the goals he gives up are his fault. But at some point you have to look at his overall numbers and realized he's just not getting it done. When he signed his new contract he was paid as a Top 10 NHL Goalie. Most of his stats currently rank him in the 30-40s, not Top 10. The guys record is 13-25 (Don't be fooled by the W-L-OL stat. A win is a win and a loss is a loss!). THIRTEEN AND TWENTY-FIVE!!! That's not the kind of record and not the kind of stats you want out of your Top 10 Starting Goalie. If it was one or the other that was bad and the other was reasonable, that might be more acceptable, but as it currently stands its just not good enough. The Team is already struggling enough as it is, we don't need a shaky goalie w/ confidence issues added to it.

Yeah I agree with all of this. It just seems like after 5 years in the league someone could have worked with him after practice or something so he would at least have some kind of passing game. I would add that he holds onto a lot of playable pucks that end up giving great scoring chances when we lose the ensuing face-off. If he played it a bit more there would be fewer face-offs for that kind of stuff to happen and we might be able to catch someone on a bad line change. That's why I said this isn't just a reaction to a single recent game but a look at his stats for the whole season. It was maybe a reaction to the last goal where he looked ridiculous. But mostly it was to looking at his ranking compared to other NHL Goalies. I was just kind of shocked to see he was ranked so low in most categories. I don't see how it would be beneficial to the Wings to keep playing a Goalie who ranks so low in so many categories.

Time to bump this thread with an Update... ***This isn’t just a reaction to the game today but rather Howie’s season as a whole.*** Here is how Howard ranks in some categories. (as of 3/9/14) Wins: 30th with 13 wins......Top 19 goalies all have 20+ wins Overtime Loses: 1st with 10 (yes 10! overtime loses, not good) GAA: 40th (after taking out a few guys who played less than 10 games) SV%: 40th (again subtracted the guys with less than 10 games) So what we have is a goalie who is CURRENTLY 30th-40th in terms of numbers compared to other NHL Goalies and has the most overtime/SO loses (meaning he isn't very clutch when the time comes). I stressed Currently because you can argue about what he did in the past or what he might do in the future, but RIGHT NOW he is not very good. and nowhere near ELITE, unless you consider being the 30th best goalie in the league elite! 30th-40th doesn't even get you to Average, Thread title should now be Howard = Well Below Average And I understand that it's not 100% his fault, the rest of the team has some impact on these numbers, but that only gets you so far. I mean Ryan Miller was putting up better numbers in BUF and they have a really s***ty team. Most of the other goalies in the league have to deal with: the same kind of bounces the same kind of deflections and to some extent the same times when your offense doesn't show up that Howie faces, so that's no excuse for his #'s being so low. Bottom Line, we need better goaltending if our team isn’t going to be scoring too many goals, Howard just isn’t getting the job done. *Important* Just because some of us posters are criticizing his game doesn't mean we are rooting for him to play poorly. I sincerely hope he turns it around and has some good games and if he does I'd be more than willing to applaud him for it. I'm not trying to bash on Howard or place the team's struggles solely on him, but given his current #'s the criticism is warranted and a discussion about where the team should go at the Goalie position moving forward is also warranted. I'm more than willing to give him the time to prove himself again but if he is still struggling like this through some portion of next season then a decision is going to have to be made regarding his future with the team.

Dear god what was Howard doing on that 3rd goal. Com'on guys it wasn't his fault he was sooo out of position. Everybody knows it was a ghost of MSG that pushed him out like that cuz he would never be that far out of position on his own /sarcasm

Here is how Howard ranks in some categories. Wins: 30th with 13 wins......Top 19 goalies all have 20+ wins Overtime Loses: 1st with 10 (yes 10! overtime loses, not good) GAA: 40th (subtracted a few guys who played less than 10 games) SV%: 40th (again subtracted the guys with less than 10 games) So what we have is a goalie who is CURRENTLY 30th-40th in terms of numbers compared to other NHL Goalies and has the most overtime/SO loses (meaning he isn't very clutch when the time comes). I stressed Currently because you can argue about what he did in the past or what he might do in the future, but RIGHT NOW he is not very good. and nowhere near ELITE, unless you consider being the 30th best goalie in the league elite! Edit: And I understand that it's not 100% his fault, the rest of the team has some impact on these numbers, but that only gets you so far. I mean Ryan Miller was putting up better numbers in BUF and they have a really s***ty team.

Well for one Mrazek can actually play the puck which by itself is going to limit a number of goals that Howard would normally give up due to his extreme lack of puck-playing ability. Seriously, I never thought there could be a goalie that was as bad a puck mover as Howard is. I thought it was just because he was a rookie and kind of nervous that he never played the puck early on but its been YEARS since he been here and he still sucks at it.

Does anybody else think this is mostly due to other teams not wanting to trade with us?? Thats quite a drop off from other teams. EDIT: Average of 109 trades per team. And we had 33. Perhaps other teams just jack up the prices when the wings call, I mean every GM knows that for the last 23 seasons we've been buyers and not sellers.

Jimmy has to put more of an effort in. Once his stick got knocked out he just gave up on the play.. It's so pathetic watching his lack of effort sometimes. And he refuses to handle the puck like a normal goalie which leads to far more defensive zone faceoffs and for more goals let in off the draw.