Gusto

From the 5 or 6 Phoenix games I've watched this year, OEL has looked like the best defenseman in the league. Mind you I haven't seen much at all of Letang or Karlsson.

But the opposition scoring a goal, and you being on the ice aren't independent events. Sometimes the former is going to be because of the latter. And like I said there are many reasons why the two events may be coincidental, but how big does a + need to get and how small does a - need to get before the coincidences get considerably overtaken by the quality of play. Kronwall also plays a lot with our best players and so should be on the ice when we are scoring goals. The two might not cancel each other out, but the point is in large enough numbers +/- starts to mean something, and over ~20 games a difference of 17 is not insignificant. +/- does piss me off a lot too. So often I catch myself thinking; "Pav is going to pick up a minus there for no reason and someone is going to use that to give a Selke to Kesler, Bergeron or Towes"

It's not a damning statistic but the fact is if you're a defensemen and you get a minus, there's at least a good chance that it was due to your poor defensive play. You can come up with a laundry list of reasons why it might not be. But at what point does the disparity between Kronwall's -6, or whatever it is now, (moving up from a shocking -10 before last week) and Quincey's +11 indicate that maybe someone is doing a better job at keeping the puck out of their own net? And it's not a mathematical identity. 11 > -6; therefore, Quincey > Kronwall. But you can come to some qualitative intuitions based off an imprecise quantitive metric. On the bigger picture. I think it was a mistake for Babs to say earlier in the year that the defense was Kronwall and then a committee. Kronwall's play was poorer for it and the committee showed no initiative. I haven't once in the past week seen Kronwall gesticulating and directing traffic in his own zone only to find that his man is now open and receiving a pass on route to scoring a goal.

They get to the cap floor and don't have to actually pay him anything. Both teams did well out of that bizarre situation.

What are you talking about? Kronwall and White have caused all the goals tonight. Kindl has got shots through and Quincey has been solid.

He had another bad looking play earlier in the period, but really Ericsson handcuffed him with a bouncy pass while he was against the boards.

You can ***** about Q and White all day long, but Kronwall is just the worst.

With a whole line of PP forwards out, I'd like to see Brunner off the point.

Exactly my thoughts.

It was after 6pm. What is he, a farmer?

Now what naysayers?

Flip derping all over the place on that PP.

Must score here.

How does one differentiate 'I am retiring from hockey', body language from 'We just got eliminated from the playoffs' body language?

You've made this GDT bearable.

Nope. "You're not wrong, Walter, you're just an *******."

If the objective was to take the puck into an end-zone behind the crease, we'd be stanley cup champions.

Yeah, what's the deal with this? Does Babcock cop any heat in the local Detroit media for some of his decisions the past month or two? In Australia a local sports team in trouble like this would be having trouble with the media not just Joe Punter on the street.

LeftWinger isn't here so we've got to neg someone

Another huge positive of Lids coming back is Stu and Kronner not having to play ~25mins a night look a lot better. No D-man has played more than 20mins tonight.

It's because you don't actually make any points that are refutable; just blanket black-and-white statements. If someone says something is good/improving then you read it as "The wings are the greatest!" and passive aggressively try and throw it back in their face. I don't think anyone has really been saying 'things will be perfect with Lids and Dats back', they've been saying; 'things will get better with Lids and Dats back'. With those two out the wings just haven't had the tools to get the PP and PK on track, now they're here, we can start getting it back in shape. It doesn't mean it's going to be a top-10 PP tomorrow.

We could be playing poorly for a start.

On the plus side, San Jose will never win again.

Good couple of shifts for Nyquist

Flip and Z are the new eurotwins.