truebladearmy

Babcock strikes again. Now if Hudler scores, we're set

It is amazing that we can mix and match like we do. It's a luxury that we can afford to move things around to get guys going. It's nice to be winning games while you experiment with line changes. It sucks when you're forced to shuffle lines just to win, but it's pretty cool when you're just shuffling lines so you can win "Better".

I think Hudler is an NHL capable player. It's when we got guys making considerably less money than him, but producing more offensively that I get a problem. You pay guys a certain amount, under the expectation that they will be worth their paycheck. Hudler has been far below his pay grade for the entire season. If he was a fourth liner who we picked up for half a million, I'd say "Give him time", and "Lets see". I don't think Hudler is worthless. I think on many teams he would be a second line player, and I fully believe on the right team, under the right system, with the right line-mates, Hudler can be a 60-70 point guy. He isn't doing that in Detroit at all, however. There is a point at which you need to stop looking at potential, and start looking at production. Hudler, IMO, is past the point of seeing him for potential. He needs to start putting up points fast, and playing in more key situations, otherwise I wouldn't be surprised to see Hudler on the trading block before long. Hell a place like Edmonton, he could be a 30 goal scorer I bet. I like Huds. I just feel "At this time", that it might be in both our interests and his interests, to consider other options. Or at least, start considering them.

Calgary has been really shakey this year. They just got a win so they probably won't have much desperation. I don't expect a walloping in this game, I think it'll be pretty well played both ways, but Detroit pulls out a 4-1 win. Zetterberg, Hudler, Cleary, Bertuzzi -- Iginla. He's about due a few goals.

Don't know about him, but with modern technology, I once checked my face book from a canoe. Amazing world we live in now.

This is why I cannot WAIT until we play the East. I hope they show that much effort in the third against Detroit. We'll have Modano with a hat trick and s*** Pooor effort by the Caps. And they're running neck and neck with us for the LEAD of the NHL. They have one bad game and they just went home early. That's amateur.

It's amazing seeing Tim Thomas making .959 Sv Pct, with a 1.37 GAA this far into the season, with 4 shutouts and 10 Wins. And a lot of it isn't really Boston's defense, it's straight up Thomas playing near perfect games every night (And perfect games 4 times out of 10 wins). Now he would stand alone if not for the fact that you have Garon with a .951 Sv Pct, and a couple shutouts himself. In a league where right now Detroit is averaging damn near 4 goals a game (3.63), and Washington is (3.62), yet there's still 4 goaltenders with GAA's below 2.0 Even Howard, who I would honestly say has looked better for us than anyone since Hasek in 2002 (And right now I'd play Howard over Hasek), is posting phenominal numbers. Yet, even though Howard is posting numbers that a few years back would have had him in the top 5 of multiple categories, he's ranked like 10th overall in Sv Pct, and GAA. I don't know if I've ever really seen numbers like these from so many goalies in a single year. And mostly they're all young goalies. What changed? How are goalies getting so good, so fast, so young? And oddly I think scoring in the NHL is higher than it has been through most of the last decade. It would seem that average goalie numbers would go down. Maybe because the younger goalies are being trained to adapt quickly to all the post-lockout rule changes faster, and younger. Hockey sped up a lot. Teams didn't use to generally average 30+ shots a game. I think young goalies just simply face more shots in their teenage leagues, and more shots in their minor league teams. Like they come to the NHL with more experience off the bat. I'm high...I don't know if that made sense.

Yeah, the adthde and the channelsurfing feeds are pretty crappy tonight. They're usually worse in the first period and get better as the game goes on though. For the first period I'm just going to listen to it at http://redwings.nhl.com/club/RadioPlayer.htm?id=2010020275 2nd period I'll try the feeds again. They're usually up and running better later.

Lol, reading the opposition GDT is funny. Different teams fans all have totally different attitudes. If you go to the Wilds board the people actually seem pretty well mannered and knowledgeable. But not a single person over there is predicting a Wild win. It's like....they seem defeated before the game has begun :-p

Nice. Ignore my previous post then I think they just don't want Backstrom to get scored on 7 or so times

Backstrom has been good. I think Wings will blow them out unless he decides to have a 36 out of 37 save game like he did against Carolina. Shutout San Jose, 36 out of 36. He went 37 of 38 against Tampa. 27 out of 28 against Anaheim. He's been pretty hot lately. Coming off two wins where he allowed only 1 goal in each game.

Jimmy Howard is 12th in the league at a .922 save percentage. Last year that was what the 6th place Goalie finished with. He is also eighth 8th with 2.22 GAA. Last year that would have tied him for 2nd. Five goaltenders have a Save percentage higher than the highest total last year. Granted, only a quarter of the way into the season. Slot for slot (Ie, if you compared this years 10th best goalie with last years 10th best goalie), 29 of the top 30 goalies have higher save percentages than their corresponding counterpart last year. That means as of right now, 29 of 30 goalies ranked 1-30 have a higher save percentage than the 1-30 top goalies last year. Here's the kicker. Number 30 in save percentage this year as of right now, is Jaroslav Halak at .906 The 30th slot last year finished at .907 I go with save percentage, because that's the most fundamental stat of a goalies skill. GAA can be a number of factors, to include shots taken, defense, etc. What does this mean? Nothing really, except that the top 30 goalies this year are stopping a higher percentage of shots than the top 30 goalies last year, minus number 30 which is Halak. If, as it's implied earlier in this thread, only the top 4-5 goalies were doing better than goalies last year it would be one thing. To have the top 29 goalies doing it. Sure, numbers could drastically change as the year goes on. But usually by about a quarter of the way into a season they stay pretty consistent.

Goals Per game, 2nd with 3.62 Point Percentage, 1st, with .781 Goals against per game, 6th with 2.44 Power Play 11th in the league (Up from 15th a week ago), 19.4% Penalty Kill 10th, with 84.6% (Up too, but I don't know from what) We're winning 52.2% of our face-offs. Every Center we have is over 50% Total goals in first Period 15, ranked 19th overall. Total goals in second period 23, ranked 3rd overall. Total goals in third period 18, ranked 9th overall. OT goals 2, tied for 2nd overall Goals against first period, 14 for 11th overall Goals against second period, 14 for 8th overall Goals against third period, 11, tied for 2nd overall Just some random yet interesting stats. Shows our scoring is pretty low in the first period, and our defense is the weakest in the first. Like we start every game after a night of boozing and have to work it out of our systems. The second period is when we get most of our goals. The third period we seem to really tighten down defensively (Lately by firing an out of NO WHERE offensive), and do alright in goals. It's just fun to look at some random numbers by period. When we out-shoot a team, we win .800% That is first in the NHL. When we are out-shot by a team, we win .600% of the time anyway. We have out-shot 66% of our opponents. I bet we have out "Missed shots" every one of our opponents :-p

That type of game is not just "Two good teams". That type of game is an example of why the East is nothing like the West. I can't wait until Detroit gets to play some of these East powerhouses. Otherwise, it was a pretty exciting game to watch.

Well, Detroit is also the 2nd best team in GA for the 3rd period right now. Detroit really does start slow, and pick up the pace. It's kind of nice. It's like, if the opposition does just so happen to score 1-2 goals early off, there is absolutely NO loss of hope that Detroit will tie it soon. Try being New Jersey, and getting scored on first. Might as well just forfeit. I do agree that Detroit is only bringing it for "parts" of every game, and somehow winning, but I don't see that being a bad thing. It means they find a way. A W is a W. The fact that they are winning in so many different situations, is a very positive sign. Sure, this was the first 3-3 game 40 minutes in, and they exploded. Sure, you can't "count" on that type of production, but they've been doing crazy stuff to win all season. No two games look the same, but they're the same outcome. That means to me that they're not just a "good" team, who is better than their opponents, they're a team that can find a way against any opponent. It means even on a bad night, someone will step the hell up and do something. Realistically, I was thinking about it last time I posted a prediction on these boards. I was trying to think of who on the Wings would score. And normally when you do that there are 2-3 safe players to pick. On Detroit right now, you could even pick a 4th liner and have a good chance of being right. I ran into a dilemma, and I thought OK St Louis has lost a lot of games. It's going to be close. I want to predict a 3-2 win. Then when I got around to thinking of who has high potential to score for Detroit, like 12 names came to mind. I clearly would look like a special ed student if I called a game of 12-2 though. But getting 7-2 this game, is pretty freaking close as far as high scoring goes. We're lucky. Detroit is a very talented team. Sure, no Ovechkin, and no Crosby, but damn......the overall....talent so far. I like it. This Detroit team is surprising.

My conspiracy theory is that a lot of stuff is happening this year that doesn't usually happen. I think the NHL press is just getting a lot smarter about bringing oddities to highlight reels. That, or I'm just paying more attention this year.

Hot as of late is an understatement. At the rate he's going They're going to have him on the top line again soon. No way he would ever sit a game for the Hudler we have this year.

Total goals in second period 23, ranked 3rd overall. It's just funny to think, so far you've been able to count on Detroit to pick it up and get a lead in the second, and so far this year they really have locked down third periods. I just think it's cool when the stats on paper match up with what you're seeing on the ice.

6 of the 8 bottom teams are Eastern Teams, if you view the standings by the entire League. 3 of the top 4 teams in the league are in the East. Detroit leads the NHL in Points earned per game, however. Teams ranked 5 through 22 are pretty mixed in total points. The numbers are skewed though, because how points are earned and whom they are earned against is a factor. If 6 of the 8 bottom teams are from the east, then teams like Washington are just steamrolling them (Which, they are). Meanwhile, Detroit is on par with Washington and hasn't played a single game against the East yet. The fact that nearly every cup goes to the Western team of the finals, is indication enough that the West is the tougher conference. Pittsburgh got lucky and even then it took them two tries, and an overtime in a game 7 to win a cup. Even Pittsburgh is on the decline though. Too many big name stars and not enough balance in the East in my opinion. Many of those teams aren't capable of fielding four effective lines. Not that everyone in the West can either, but it "seems" IMO to be a lot more balanced down the rosters in the West, and a lot more top heavy in the East.

*Jots down this idea* You think you won't, until it's 9pm one night 2nd Intermission and you can't understand why you suddenly crave Little Ceasar's for no damn reason. Advertisements are designed to work through subliminal repetition. If you don't "Notice" them, it's often an indication that they're doing their job.

Lidstrom at 1.06 Points per game, even without a point tonight. Rafalski is at 1.00 points per game. That gives us two defenseman on pace to break 80 points. They are ranked 1st and 3rd respectively in PPG so far for defenseman. Datsyuk and Zetterberg on pace for a 90+ point season, but unless they pick it up a little offensively they're shy of a 100+ season. Bertuzzi and Cleary on pace for 80+ points Franzen on pace for 70 points. Even Abdelkader would be on pace for a 50 point season. Note: These stats off their PPG production, if they had played a full 82 games. Some people are already shy on games due to injury and surgery (Rafalski, for example). But damn, we have some depth this year. Complete opposite of last years start.

Bertuzzi is currently #1 in the NHL in +/- I am convinced Detroit has started implanting cybernetic parts into our older players.

Where are all the "Put Homer on the 4th line" people at this year

And so fast too. Halak looking really shaken. He might be experiencing a bit of a Sophmore slump. This isn't helping his confidence. Detroit seriously hit the turbo button here in the last 10 minutes of the game.

Blues getting dirty. What a recovery by Detroit.