dat's sick

Tatar and Nyquist look pretty much NHL ready, and while Järnkrok is really a top 6 or nothing guy I don't see what's crazy about that line except it probably being quite small and soft. Samuelsso -Filppula-Hudler was a glorious 3rd line for us. Certainly the 3rd we've been rolling with this season is as bad as it gets.

Don't know much about this pickup, but I do know the Devils need another forward or two and they are stacked on defense. Crazy thought, maybe Holland should do some talking to Lou?

I'm not saying I necessarily think those guys are going to lead us to a cup, but there was a time when people said Datsyuk and Zetterberg were never going to lead the Wings to a cup either. But you gotta be real also, Andersson, Abby, Helm and Emmerton are bottom 6 guys. Helm and Abby especially are good at it, but you don't really say Draper and Maltby lead us to cups do you? But they are important pieces, and I think Helm will be a key part of the team for a long time. Assuming he can get past his injury troubles of late. Tatar and Nyquist are maybe not the 2nd coming of D and Z, but they both have potential as top 6 scorers. Maybe not the guys you build your team around but still good players. And you are counting out Järnkrok way too early. He has a big role on his team in the SEL and is doing alright. He is very skilled and is probably the closest thing we have to a possible 'replacement' for D or Z in our own system. He is 9th in scoring this year, and that is on a bit of a struggling team and without last year's top scorer Silfverberg on his line. If you compare his stats to those of Zetterberg's before he came over they're very close. Whether that will translate to the same kind of NHL success is anyone's guess.

Nothing spectacular maybe, but if you watched him closely you could see he played well in all 3 zones. He kept it simple most of the time, but also had a couple of instances where he showed some of his skill. All things considered he had a solid game and if he gets stay up he'll no doubt be able to build on it. He looks NHL ready to me, surprisingly maybe even moreso than Nyquist.

Let's just hope Mrazek does better agains the Blues than McCollum did in his confidence destroying only NHL appearance.

If that's how Babcock handles his goalies we have a problem. What's to stop Howie from saying he 'feels good' for the next 40 games? He needs a rest after playing in all games so far, it's not really about him feeling bad or anything, it's just common coaching sense to let your #1 guy rest every now and then. And if you have a 20 year old backup ypu might want to ease him in against a 'lesser' opponent. But what do I know. If Mrazek plays next game and does well, that will give him a lot of confidence.

Howard's been great or 'good enough' pretty much every game. Even prime Hasek would have had trouble getting us wins when our offense is scoring about 1 goal per game and our defense/PK is so awful. He needs a rest though, bad. I think Babs made a big mistake playing him against Calgary, a weak opponent and a perfect chance to start Mrazek and let Howie refocus and return against StLouis.

Why didn't he start against Calgary? Much better opponent for a kid's first NHL appearance than one of the leagues best teams, St Louis.

Tatar had a really good game. Shame he was 'rewarded' with being demoted to the 3rd line. Guessing he'll be sent down while Cleary is put in the top 6? Lol. Zetterberg's back must be hurting from carrying around the team night after night. A Zetterberg shift is usually a good shift for us. Problem is the other 3 shifts suck, with the occasional good Datsyuk shift. In all honesty Dats should have had a goal or two on those 2 big chances he had, if either had gone in it could have been a different game. Getting tired of special teams dragging us down. Can't keep letting in 2-3 PK goals per game. Can't keep taking stupid penalties. Cleary, Quincey, Kronwall, I'm looking at you guys. PP is still an embarressment. Fluke goal tonight off a broken play, but otherwise it's not even giving us momentum. Why didn't Babs play Mrazek tonight? I'm not blaming this one Howard, but the guy needs a rest already. Is there another goalie in the league that has played every game so far? It would be okay to play him every game if it was giving results, but right now there's no point riding Howie 'til he breaks down. Hoping for a better effort next time.

I don't understand the panic mode here in the last few pages. Trade everyone? Fire everyone? We're still in a playoff spot. We lost on the 2nd night of a back to back, whatever. What sucks the most is that Smith was injured. It's getting quite ridiculous the way our guys can't stay healthy.

Brunner again with a goal too late in a hopeless situation. Still nice I guess. Can't be too surprised we had a bad game. Many people predicted it. We needed to get out of the 1st with a lead to have a chance at anything, but it didn't go. Rest of the game we were flat, flat, flat. We need Helm back and I think it's starting to become time for someone to take Cleary out back, it's obvious he's suffering. Bring up Nyquist or Tatar or Sheahan instead, I'll eat my Datsyuk jersey if anyone of them performs worse than Daniel Clearly Over The Hill.

Lol. Lol. Lol. Our PP.

Well goes without saying.. goal on this here PP or game over.

Babs throwing everything out there, except what I really want.. Datsyuk+Brunner.

Why is Cleary?

Would be cool if our bottom 6 could ever score a goal. Damn we need Helm, bad.

Bert and Cleary look completely out of it today. This had letdown game written all over it so no surprise, but still I have hope we can squeeze out a point somehow. Columbus is not a good team and you can see them having issues defensively.

Uh, what was Kronner thinking? Lazy. And Howie got caught cheating. Game is slipping away.. gotta find some energy.

Winning this one would be pretty huge as far as the early season goes. Would really show we've turned around after the rough start. I'll be the pessimist though and say we get 'only' 1 point, after an OT loss, 3-2.

Hasn't McCollum been playing pretty well in the AHL lately? Then there's Mrazek. We've also had McDonald who has jumped in and played great for us when Howie's been injured. I pray Howard's body holds up, but sooner or later he needs a rest anyway. If Gus is out a long time it's a great time for McCollum or Mrazek to prove themselves.

Well as far as the PP goes, it's still incredibly s***ty. Fact is if we can improve on our special teams this is not a bad team at all, as 5-on-5 we've been doing quite well this season. Kronwall has been making some very bad decisions on the point, but he's still our best PP defenseman. Personally I think that if we have both Pav and Z on the same PP unit, Z should man the point with Pav controlling the play down low or along the sidewall. Brunner should either be in front of the net getting deflections/rebounds, or atleast be hanging around the slot/circles ready for one timers. He's not terrible at the point, but I feel he's somewhat wasted in that position.

Good game! We need to work on our 1st periods and so on but it was good to see them play so well at both ends of the rink and finally get some goals.

Brunner is great with the tips. Put him in front of the net on the PP!

Should have been a penalty on the Dallas player who hooked up Z, instead it's embellishment by Dallas and 4-on-4... sigh..

I feel like it's a mistake to play our 'snipers' with Z instead of Pav. Fil and Z need to be together, they carried our offense last year. Maybe Pav and Brunner can create something.