dat's sick

Those little plays shows why everyone should get off Ericsson's back when he makes small mistakes.

Gotta expect a real softie like that once in a while from a rookie.. I'm not even upset about it because who cares if Howard lets in 1 or 15 goals when we can't score even 1? He's kept us in this game and many others this season. This would be a good time to score some goals and bail Howie out so that mistake doesn't matter.

We got this kid Ericsson with a monster of a shot, maybe we should try him on the point? Or maybe not, that would be unfair against other teams if we were putting our best talent on the PP..

Ok seriously Babcock what are you thinking putting Meech on the PP over Ericsson?? Craaaaazy.

Wings look pretty good so far. A PP goal would be nice.

really weird to not have a clock.

I'm thinking Datsyuk will break out of his slump with 3 goals, assisted on all of them by Hank. But getting the W. I. N. is all that matters.

Friday: Florida @ New Jersey Carolina @ Washington Chicago @ Buffalo Anaheim @ Detroit Edmonton @ St Louis Tampa Bay @ Colorado Minnesota @ Calgary Dallas @ San Jose Saturday: Washington @ Toronto Carolina @ Ottawa Philadelphia @ New Jersey Boston @ NY Islanders Buffalo @ NY Rangers Montreal@ Atlanta Anaheim @ Columbus Florida @ Pittsburgh Detroit @ Nashville San Jose @ Phoenix Minnesota @ Vancouver Dallas @ Los Angeles Sunday: Tampa Bay @ Chicago Calgary @ Colorado

I could definitely see personal issues being behind atleast SOME of his struggles. Look at Zetterberg last season, when he had all the contract issues to worry about, and this season. It's not night and day, but it's close to it.

Sad? This is awesome.

Yeah some people just seem to watching the statistics on NHL.com instead of the actual games. 30 points in 30 games is not bad, but he has looked much better than his stats show.

Zetterberg has been amazing this season, apart from the first few games when he was still trying to get going after the groin trouble.

Oh man. This season is cursed.

How is Babcock to blame for Lidstrom hitting the post twice last night? For Bert missing a breakaway? For Conklin making huge saves? For our best goalscorer and our best offensive d-man (this year) being out with injuries? All teams get shutout every now and then.. all teams go through scoring droughts.. it's just that we're not used to it because we usually have scoring depth oozing out our asses, meaning that there's usually someone who is scoring. Now we basically have Hank and Pav who need to get everything done, with the other lines only being able to chip in a goal every other game. With Pav being off his game (how is Babs to blame for this?) that leaves Hank pretty alone out there. Panicking and firing your coach is not what to do in this situation. And it's not what Holland will do.

OR... you could say we're in 9th place. The West, if you haven't noticed, is TOUGH AS f*** this year. Every team can make the playoffs, and it's even closer than it was last year. There are no bad teams in the West, not even the last placed Ducks. One game you might be in 11th place, then you win one and suddenly you're 5th.

There aren't "obvious fundamental problems" with the team. We're getting good goaltending, lately the PK and defense have been quite good for the most part. No coach in the world could make Lebda into a Norris Candidate, Helm into a 20 goal scorer, Leino into a physical beast and Lidstrom a couple of years younger. Babcock is doing what he can with the material we have right now. Babs has taken this team to the SCF two years in a row. Now you want him fired because the Wings are not a top-seed despite their 5 million injuries?

It's getting to the point where I'm not even upset, I just think it's funny. Bad luck like this only comes around but once every century. Oh and why would anyone be called up as anything but a 13th forward? We have Leino ready to jump into the lineup. Pittsburgh has had a lot of injuries this year.

Uhh did you miss that stretch of games where Malkin and Gonchar were injuried and Crosby had like 3 points in 6 games or something? Datsyuk is not a top 10 NHL player RIGHT NOW. I find it hard to believe that this is what we're going to see from him the entire season and the rest of his career though. Something is definitely up (or down) with him, but he's had back-to-back 97 point seasons, and before that back-to-back 87 point seasons. He didn't suddenly become much worse for no reason.. nor can you call him a "passenger". That's really unfair. Last season he carried us a lot of the time when Zetterberg was playing bad, Franzen looked lazy and Hossa had scoring droughts. Years before that he's been a, if not THE, leader of less talented teams. To me it was like he hit a wall when he scored his 97th point last year. He went without a point in the last couple of games of the reg season and looked a bit off in the playoffs, though still imo played good. This season he hasn't been himself for more than maybe 2-3 games, and looked flat out terrible the last couple of games. Who knows what's wrong with him. His skating doesn't look great to me, so I wonder if whatever that injury he suffered in the playoffs is still bothering him, or if it's something else.

Uh yeah sort of, but I hope you're not implying in any way that the goalies were the difference in this game. Howie played amazing.. Conks made some big saves but he also stopped about 30 shots with his chest. It's really frustrating to watch an entire team that looks like they forgot how to score. Even on breakaways they don't seem to score more than maybe 1 out of every 10 attempts. I'm trying to think positive.. our PK is on a good roll. Howard like I said is playing great.. Lidstrom had 2 shots in the post. He's going to score soon. Uh.. 4th line was good.

No, but it's close.

Put Zetterberg with Abdelkader and Cleary at the end here. I'm tired of Datsyuk dragging him down. (kinda joking, but only kinda)

Dive. Lids never touched him. Oh, well, atleast the refs got all the things that went against the Wings right!

*wings player comes in on net* *looks* *aims* *looks again* *aims* *shoots in goalie's chest*

Wings take it 3-0. Datsyuk, Hank, Lids. Thanks, I needed a lugh

Oh come on. He's had a rough start to his first NHL season and you say there's no chance he'll ever become much of a player? 26 is NOT that old, especially not for late bloomers. Look at Franzen. Leino doesn't have to become a speed-demon to succeed in this league. He's not substantially slower than someone like Cleary or Hank. Difference is Leino doesn't have the same strenght. That's something that he will improve. An off-season in the gym with Filppula should do the trick.