dat's sick

Franzen has been dynamite this game.

Will never get tired of seeing Lids and Homer connect like that. Beauty.

Such a sick goal. It's easy to forget he's been less-than amazing this season when he goes and does that.

I love when he skates along the boards into the offensive zone, stops, turns around, and loses the puck.

He's been losing the puck a bit more often than usual, plus his shots haven't been going in and no-one on his line can score on his passes. But he's not looking terrible or anything. I remember a few years back he said in an interview that he had played "too much hockey" and wasn't 100% in it until later in that season. I think this might be the case here also. He played his heart and soul out last playoffs and it was a tough loss in Game 7, I'm sure as the season goes along he will become more and more excited about the prospect of another cup run and we will see the same old Datsyuk making defenders look like fools.

You mean this guy: ? He's had a rough start to the season but give him time. His goal last night was awesome and hopefully that will get him going. The main difference between Z today and Z from a few seasons ago is that his shots don't want to go in today. He's shooting and shooting but either the goalie makes an unbelievable save or it hits the post or it goes wide. Something has definitely happened with his confidence around the net, his scoring touch. It's not like he's completely changed from the player he was though.

I agree, although I think Pavel is just not 100% right now. Whether it's a physical or mental issue I don't know however. He's still looked pretty good this game imo, especially on defense, but he doesn't have that superhuman ability to hang on to the puck right now.

That's some fowl language you're using but I think you just might be right.

Yeah I missed the first day :/ That won't help me rise in the ranks, I've been doing terrible even when remembering to make the picks

I gotta say I think Eva's ratings are much more reasonable and more in line with how I'd rate them myself. Bottom line though is that right now there are a lot of players that need to improve..

The first 5 games of the season feels like years ago. Games played by a different team in a different time. They looked SO GOOD. What happened in Washington? Did that beatdown make everyone lose the will to live? The team didn't even look bad in that game, for the first 2 periods. Trying to stay calm right now is difficult. Of the big guns, only Lidstrom is playing like expected. He is looking great. But I'm having trouble finding anyone else that I'm not extremely disappointed with. Maybe Howard, but tonight's 1st goal was bad. I have faith that they can turn it around. Hope is not lost. If they get going, they can easily get a winning streak of 5+ games and be right back where they're supposed to be. But they need to turn it on QUICKLY.

We need to get rid of Lidstrom. He just isn't a good fit for this team with his good play. Bring in Lebda, he'd look just right with the other guys on this team.

I knew something good would come out of this losing streak! Best thread of the season so far, and likely a top contender for thread of the season even after 82 games. Well played!

I hate playing against Minnesota, aka The Most Boring Team In The NHL, and I hate it even more since it seems like the coach has told Josh Harding he has one job to do this season and that is to make life miserable for the Red Wings. We need to score 6 or 7 goals on him to crush his confidence. But, that's not possible against Minnesotraps. So I'll go with a 2-1 OT win, Nyquist with 1+1 to cement his position as "Saviour of Detroit".

Pro-tip: most girls don't think it's charming and attractive when guys fight.

It did seem like Columbus first win would come against us, with 2 games in such a short span they were almost bound to win one. With the reasons you mention, mainly Conklin starting and Wiz having his first game, yeah I wasn't expecting a win in this one.

I was very impressed with him the first few games, I think the last two he looked a bit more shaky though. Making some poor decision with the puck sometimes, for example some bad passes on the PP that Rafalski wouldn't have done. Overall I'm happy with him but we gotta remember a lot of guys have looked great playing next to Lids.

His production has been low but he hasn't looked bad at all to me, certainly not injured-bad. His shots aren't going in but that's been a problem for him the last few years, we can only hope that changes. I think it was against Washington or maybe against Columbus when he took the puck into the zone, made his awesome outside-in move on the D and almost got a great scoring chance but chose to hold on to the puck instead and go around the net. He's doing good things for the most part and I'm sure pucks will start to go in for him and Pav at a rapid pace soon.

Actually it worries me that the Wings didn't get more fired up for this game. I can actually accept a loss like this better against a "bad" team like Columbus when the players might not be 100% focused. Against Washington everyone should be on their toes. I gotta say though that they didn't look terrible in the 1st and it just seemed like with every goal that Conklin let past him their energy dipped more and more. They got some of it back with the 3-1 goal but then Conklin took it away again with the 4th goal. It sucks to blame just one guy but really this loss was 90% Conklin. The other 10% is Babcock because I can't figure out why he didn't play Conklin yesterday and Howard today. Makes zero sense and didn't turn out well.

the game was over the moment Conklin let in that 4th goal. The Wings had some momentum, were carrying the play and were back to only 2 goals down, something that's not impossible to overcome. But that goal right before the intermission sucked whatever energy they had right out. Overall not a terrible game by Detroit, mostly just Conklin being kinda awful, some bad penalties and penalty killing, a terrible giveaway by Emmerton and maybe not being sharp enough on the PP. I'd also like to give a +1 to the Cleary bashing. Guy just isn't a 1st liner and while I'm not gonna let Dats and Hank completely off the hook (they need to be better), he is dragging that line down.

Gonna be an awesome game but I'll say one thing: our big guns have to show up. Speaking mainly about Hank and Pav. They've got a few points each and haven't been bad, but nor have they dominated a game yet like they can. It's great that our 2nd line is doing so well but against a team like Washington we need our top players to be our top players and match/outmatch Ovechkin and Backstrom. One team will have it's winning streak broken and hopefully it's not us.. 5-3 Red Wings!

It's early in the season but right now a deadline-acquisition doesn't look 100% necessary. That could change though, I'm thinking defense mainly. We're pretty stacked at forwards so to make any real improvement there we'd have to indeed pick up someone like Parise, which I doubt is possible. Holland will make the right decision though, if a great deal can't be made he'll save the money for the off-season when we might have to replace Lidstrom.

Okay I'm doing horribly. I blame the new way of doing the picks. ...

A game? Already?? Hmm I hope the Wings aren't too tired from those other two games a week ago. Anyway, the Nucks lost last night and will be looking to win this one. Will be very difficult for us, the first real test of this year's team. Good to see Homer in the lineup, he always had a way to get inside Luongo's head. Predicting a 4-3 OT win!

I'm liking these lines for the most part. The Datsyuk line has been pretty quiet but they scored a nice goal and maybe that will get them going. Zetterberg line has had some of our best shifts, 3rd line is awesome, and 4th line is okay but will obviously be changed around a lot.