dat's sick

Andersson.... Oh well. Bad 2nd period in every way, too many penalties, eventually it will hurt. Another late period goal, how many of those have we allowed? Get something done in the 3rd, I can't stand another loss + losing Dekeyser. Give us something to be happy about for once.

Okay, seriously, what is like...wrong...with our passing? That was probably 15 passes in a row that went to 'no one in particular'. Eventually it almost lead to a goal for Nashville, we got away with a PK. Wake up!

I don't wanna really go there... ...but are we having a really, really hard time getting a break from the refs this season??

Lines are getting a bit jumbled as we are one forward short.

"30 seconds left, time to throw out Quincey and Smith!" *great scoring chance for Nashville with 5 seconds to go*

Did you seriously make this post just after we completely dominated the Preds for 1 minute, Dats and Z just toying with them? We look good, or atleast alright.

Ouch. Definitely looked like an awkward position for Danny D on that hit, hopefully nothing too bad..

It actually sounds interesting. Focusing on one or two players per team, and following them during the Olympics (best part). It's not like we are flooded with behind-the-scenes shows, as long as it's good I don't see a problem. Not a fan of the many outdoor games, but this at least brings something positive.

I'm not sure Del Zotto is what we need. Another young guy prone to defensive mistakes? I'd rather bring up Oullet or Sproul or AA. We need either high-end talent or a steady veteran #5-7.

I hear you and I assume Babs is gonna think the same, but we can't lose 9 straight shootouts and be afraid to completely change how we do them. Most of the time the 3rd shooter will get his chance, and maybe putting Pav 3rd would send a message of "you have to do better". Can't put all the pressure on Pav, but let's be honest the reason he's close to 50% is because he had an insanely high success rate earlier in his career. Last 2-3 years he can't be at more than 30-40% at most can he? He's got the tools, I just don't think he bothers really practicing shootouts much anymore.

These last couple of games have actually given me some hope. For one, Franzen-Helm-Tatar looks like a line. Mule is good when he's got 2 guys who really hustle. He's streaky but maybe those two with their constant 100% effort can keep him going a little bit most nights. So now we potentially have 2 working lines, all we have to do is try to assemble Weiss, Alfie + scraps into another line that works. Sooner or later all these losses will force Holland to release the Nyquist, and I truly believe he could by himself turn atleast some of these OT/SO losses into wins. And if we start winning some games now we're actually gonna be in great shape because of these 1-point games. Loser points are gonna make us into winners by the end of the year. Maybe.

Babcock finally listened atleast, and put someone else out 1st. Didn't work but keep changing it up. Bert probably shouldn't have shot at all, it's obvious he's trying to be way too clever. One wishes for someone to just go in and shoot like Alfie did. I think that's what Pavel needs to do also, it's beyond obvious the goalies are 100% aware of what Datsyuk is doing and unless he pulls out some crazy dekes that fool the goalie (which he obviously doesn't seem interested in doing right now) he's gotta just suprise them with a shot. Next shootout: Z/Alfie Tatar Pav

On the 2nd night of a back-to-back, on the road, with Monster in net I'm fine with 1 point. Of course the problem is right now all we ever get is 1 point so it'd be nice to somehow pull out 2 points in these winnable games. I thought overall we played well tonight. 2nd line looks really good, but let's not kid ourselves; that is basically a really good 3rd line, what we need is Alfie, Weiss and Nyquist to give us a 2nd line. Dekeyser had a terrific game, easily our best d-man, and it's great to see how his offensive game is developing. Keep it up and Calder-discussion won't be too far off. 1st line was weak I thought. Neither Pav or Z looked very good imo, and they didn't last game either. But they're chipping in a goal here and there so can't complain too much. Just wish they could lock it down defensively a bit harder. Problem I'm seeing is we have too much filler/garbage in the bottom 6. Like I said, Nyquist, Alfie and Weiss should be on a 2nd line and Sammy, Cleary and Andersson should be out of the lineup. Monster didn't have a good game but it is what it is. He stepped up in the OT atleast to give us a chance. We need Howard to find his game and steal some wins.

Pretty decent effort so far. 1st line hasn't been too effective though, both Z and Pav look a bit off.

Road game and Monster in net? Is that gonna be the recipe for success this season? Just win. We need it dearly, not for points but for fan-morale.

Pav should just shoot. He's done it before pretty succesfully. Goalies won't be expecting it as much. Z should take more attempts too, he's clutch and could probably score now that we're in need of points.

What would I do...??? Hmmmm.... "There is no store"... There is no store??? No? Store?? Really? Ever heard of the GRAND RAPIDS GRIFFINS!??? They've got forwards, they've got d-men and they have goalies, they even have coaches! You want overripe prospects? They've got 'em! You want offensive d-men? They have those too! What would I do..

They decided to film a steaming pile of feces instead of the Red Wings, figuring no one would know the difference. They'll cut in some parts of Babcock staring and Cleary falling over and it's gonna be great. So glad I got realdrunk instead of watching another realgood performance by this team. BLARGH!

10 minute 4-on-4 would be ideal, but I guess 3-on-3 could be interesting. As long as they extend OT I'm for it, shootouts are simply not a fun way to end a good hockey game.

Pavel's post-game was great atleast. Regarding Z's pass: "Good, strong proffessional pass, I have lots of time to shoot it in empty net. I need more of this, can you tell him?"

Yeah we definitely need him. Our depth down the middle is pretty bad when we load up Z and D. Honestly our 2nd line looked great tonight, but Helm is ideal as 3rd line C. At some point when Holland decides to do his job, this is what I'd like to see: Z-D-Bert Nyquist-Weiss-Alfie Franzen-Helm-Tatar Miller-Glendening-Abdelkader

Well... what can you say? This game had that feel to it, that we would somehow get screwed out of a win. We deserved to win, we played well enough to win, but we didn't. It's tiresome to even try and make sense of why we didn't win. I too want Monster in net next game though. Howard isn't bad... but the saying always goes that a goalie's job is to win games and Howard isn't doing that. This wasn't a difficult game for him, the team played well in front of him. He needs to make atleast 1 save on the 4 that got past him. Atleast 1. If he makes 2 we definitely win, if he makes atleast 1 he gives the team an opportunity. Hey, we broke the cycle of losing as many as we won. Too bad it was in the wrong way..

It's pretty ridiculous that we didn't manage to win that. Alfie empty net, Datsyuk half-breakaway that very well could have been a penalty/penalty-shot, some great pressure, shots from the D... TIME TO WIN ONE IN EXTRA TIME

I would be freaked out right now if we knew this was Datsyuk's last season. Pretty soon Z & Ds combined goals per game will be the same as this team's.

I have no idea what anyone was doing on that goal. Sigh.