dat's sick

Those were great but are really played out by now. One million parodies along with one million official ones and I think it's time for something new.

This is a joke right? Are we gonna have a MacDonald/Conklin tandem heading into the playoffs?

So far he hasn't been very good. I like his shot though, and I won't pass judgement on him until our defense is healthy. Right now his role is bigger than it will be when Lids and Big E are back.

Washington is a mediocre team at best this year, we're at home, Datsyuk is back.. we should win this. I look forward to seeing Nyquist with Datsyuk. In theory they should be a great match, I hope it works out in reality.

The thing I don't understand is, why don't they bring up Nyquist and/or Tatar and/or Conner and sit guys like Holmstrom, Cleary or Bert a few games? I'm not as worried as most seem to be, but I do think they need to shake this losing streak fast and some guys might need a break to get their gear in order.

Is it just a coincidence that you call out the two players that managed to score in our last game? Imo people are making too much of this current slump. Yes SLUMP. That's what it is, not some major problems with the team. We got a few injuries and either because of that or because the planets have aligned, the team is in a bad stretch. But if it wasn't for St.Louis complete refusal to lose any game, we'd still be very close to the Conference lead. We just gotta realize we are in a SICK division this year. The Blues, Preds, Wings and Hawks are probably 4 of the top 10 or even 8 teams in the league. And the Blues especially are looking unstoppable. This bad stretch wouldn't be so terrible a normal year, but now it hurts because the other teams in our division are almost never losing.

I'm going to be so disappointed if we can't get our hands on atleast one of Parise and Suter. Nashville and NJ won't be happy to give them up, and a lot of other teams will be after them. But Detroit is a good place to go, and let's say Lidstrom stays another year.. you tell Suter he'll play with Lids, and Parise he'll play with Datsyuk. How many teams can offer something like that, as well as a lucrative contract? This will be one interesting off-season.

2 goals 1 assist. Z has been tearing it up the last few weeks.

Amazing play by Fil. That was truly Datsyukian. 60+ points looks like a sure bet now, I'm thinking he'll end up with 65-70, but with Hank and him playing this well both of them could get over 70 points.

I think this one wins that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOnXZpPwkoU But certainly this hit, and a few others Kronner has had this year, was beautiful.

The fact that those guys probably won't play out the full lenght of their contracts is more of a good thing than a bad thing. Signing them to a shorter deal would have meant higher cap-hits. That said, I don't expect Z or Franzen to retire anytime soon. Both will probably play until they're 35-40, barring any big injuries. Whatever it is that is bothering Z at the moment it can't be too bad, because he's been awesome for a while. Actually, apart from the first 15-20 games of the season he's been very good for us. I don't have the numbers but since christmas he must be well above a point-per-game, right?

He acquired Quincey at the deadline. Cup winning move? Not sure. But in 07/08 we added Stuart and that worked out well. I think the team looked plenty hungry last playoffs. Especially Datsyuk. Don't forget our loss against SJ was the closest playoff series of ALL TIME. And I'm willing to bet we would have given Vancouver a run for their money. Sometimes going onto this board is liking visiting the Twilight Zone. How can there be so much doom and gloom about a team that beat the all-time home winning streak and is 3rd in the league in points? If we get through these injuries to Lids and Pav with a decent record we're gonna have a shot at 1st in the league down the stretch and will be in a great position for the playoffs. Decent matchups, preferably not Phoenix and SJ again, and there is no reason whatsoever to think we can't make a run for the cup.

Yeah, they really figured us out. So much so that we're 3rd in the league and have a chance to win the President's Trophy and will be one of the favorites going into the playoffs. Damn it sucks that everyone knows how to shut us down.

The Wings have the 2nd best goal differential in the league at +51. This is despite that according to random LGW poster LeonardSankar, they have terrible PP, terrible PK, bad defense and a lack of secondary and clutch scoring. Imo, this is the best the Red Wings have played since the 07/08 season. Yes, even better than in 08/09, when they had a stacked team and got away with a lot of bad habits because of it.

Not sure, but I probably haven't. Would be great to see for sure, I love these in-depth looks at players.

I don't think Franzen has been nearly as bad this season as many here seem to think. However I really miss those dominant performances by him, where he would completely own the game and be a danger everytime he's one the ice. Can't recall a single game like that by him this season.

30 goals as a D-man is more impressive than just being about a Point-per-game. Also, Karlsson is still a high-risk player. It try to watch Ottawa every now and then and every time I do I see Karlsson making atleast a few stupid plays per game that lead to odd-man rushes or breakways for the other team. Even just looking at highlights from their games you'll see many occasions where the other team has a good chance and Karlsson is the 4th or 5th Ottawa guy getting back in the defensive zone. He's having an awesome year but all that offense DOES come at a cost. If it was Game 7 of the Cup Final, with 1 minute left and the score tied, as a coach I'd be really, really hesitant to put Karlsson out on the ice. On the other, I would do everything I could to get Lidstrom out there as much as possible. Adam Larsson is a more likely heir to Lidstrom's throne imo. I find it more likely that he will start putting up better offensive numbers than Karlsson becoming a good shutdown D.

Hadn't seen that. Awesome, awesome stuff. Thanks for posting.

Actually neither Weber or Chara are having super impressive seasons. Imo Weber has been good enough for a couple of years now that he probably deserves a win, but if Chara wins it will be even more of a reputation win than when Lids won it last year. Karlsson is having a beast of a season though. He doesn't seem to be slowing down either. To me, he's not even close to good enough defensively to win it, but if he keeps putting up these points the voters might not care since guys like Lids, Chara and Weber will be so far behind. Lids is having a great season though, even though he's not producing offensively like he has in the past. I think the voters will also look at how a guy like Ian White comes in and gets paired with Lidstrom and suddenly has a career year.

Hossa was awesome in the regular season. He had a mediocre playoffs though, but both him and Datsyuk were playing injured I believe (Hossa had surgery in the off-season). I agree with the sentiment "settle down" though.

Vancouver did not get better by adding 11 points on the year Sammy Pahlsson and moving away their future face of the franchise Cody Hodgson. Actually, most Vancouver fans are pissed about this deadline. And are people really saying Holland will make 'excuses' like "Quincey is our deadline deal"?? Quincey WAS our deadline deal. And it was a better one than any of the teams around us did. Obviously Holland tried to do more but look at the deadline as a whole.. basically NOTHING happened.

Personally I think it was a dick move by a guy that is the supposed leader and face of the franchise, to request a trade and then give only a very short list of teams that he accepts a trade to. With the parity in the league there are a lot of teams with a chance to win. Even Columbus made the playoffs and were looking good just a few seasons ago. Personally I wouldn't really want his huge contract here as the chance he'll live up to that money is small.

They lost in the 2nd round last year in Game 7 of the closest playoffs series of all time. Against the team that has give them the most trouble the last few years. I see only San Jose or Vancouver being serious threats to Detroit. And hopefully we don't face either of them in the 2nd round.

If it's true about the list of teams Nash gave Columbus, and that he refused to go anywhere else, then he has only himself to blame.

The difference between being eliminated in Game 7 of the 2nd second round and making the SCF is smaller than many people think. If we get better matchups in the playoffs, i.e. avoid San Jose, we could win it all with the team we have. Hell, even if we face SJ we could beat them because this year we are playing better and they are playing worse.