dat's sick

Some of our problems are hard to solve, but at least we now have reasons to keep watching these games. Nyquist, Jurco, Sheahan and Tatar give me hope. Both for this season and for the future. Soooo close for Jurco at the end. Can we play 20 solid minutes now? Not give them freebie goals like that 4th one? Because if so we have a chance. And YES, Nyquist has to go to Sochi.

Lash is fine as a #6. Not great, but fine. With just an 'okay' top 4 D addition we'd be so much better. Kronner-E DD-DEFENSEMAN WITH A BRAIN Smith-Lashoff That could work alright. Right now I'm so fed up with Q. Can't take him anymore.

What was that. I'm not expecting us to dominate. But that was embarrassing. The only reason I'm not 100% giving up is because the Caps are actually a bad team with bad goaltending and bad defense. But what was that. Worst period ever. Everyone except Nyquist deserves to be benched the rest of the game. Most of all Quincey. I hate that guy. SIGH. And I was looking forward to this game? Wow.

If we want to be a good puck possession team again he should be part of our plans. We may not have a Lidstrom to pair him with, but with Dekeyser or Ericsson I think he'd be fine next year.

Nothing has indicated post-concussion symptoms. I've seen "lower-body injury", Babcock saying he's "skating on one leg", and someone on hfboards posted something about it possibly being an ankle-sprain. I'm not sure why they've been so tight-lipped about it but I guess in this situation they don't want to give other teams any body parts to target. Hopefully he's back in action soon.

Unless we can make a quality pickup, such as Girardi who will most likely be re-signed, then yes something like that would be fine. I'd gladly take one more year of Alfie though. And Glending and Oullet/Almqvist over Kindl.

Franzen has backed out of the Olympics. Guessing he'll be out until after the break then. Right decision, but obviously sucks for him. Could very likely have been his last chance.

Yeah it's pretty disgusting actually. Datsyuk is apparently "skating on one leg" and people question if he's even hurt. At this point he needs to be able to start practicing at 100% really soon or he might miss the Olympics, or at the very least not be anywhere near game-shape in them. He hasn't become a superstar by resting himself into shape.

Sounds like no Datsyuk tomorrow, but he's skating at least. Zetterberg possible. source: Ansar Khan

For all the bad about this game, at least we had lots of chances. Our offense was bound to have a game where they struggle to score but as long as we create chances it's a good sign. Other than that, this one should be forgotten. Hopefully come friday we have Howard and at least one of Pav or Z back.

Defense is struggling but let's not freak out too much. The absence of both Pav and Z hurt tremendously and we do have lots of youngsters and that leads to some defensive lapses. Something should change though. Can't do much about Kronner deciding to leave his brain at home lately, but I'd really like to see Quincey scratched for a while. Even if it is for Kindl. Dekeyser and Kindl played well together last season in limited time, Q is simply hurting DD. Or at least try DD and Smith, and give Q less minutes on the 3rd pairing. Ideally Marchenko would be given a better look but that's not gonna happen.

Babcock is so stubborn sometimes. Plays our best playmaker with Abdelkader and Andersson. Plays the best finisher with Helm and Cleary. 1+1=? Tats-Sheahan-Jurco line is getting exposed, but keep them together anyway. Mix up the other lines.

"hey, see that guy with his stick in the lane?" "yeah?" "let's try and saucer pass it over his stick back and forth"

I would think that was really surprising. Swedish coach has clearly stated he wants the injured players to get a few games in before the tournament. Maybe he'd make an exception for the big stars but probably not Franzen.

If he sits out a few more games he's not going to get a chance to play in the Olympics. MAYBE he has other concerns, such as his short-term health and long-term health.

He sucks, so he's scratched. This is actually a common occurance in pro sports, but I understand if as a Wings fan you're not used to it.

Bert is already sitting and Cleary was going to sit last night. So I don't see a reason to not believe him. The only question is what moves are Holland willing to make? But in the short term I definitely see Sheahan and Jurco continuing to play while Bert/Cleary sit.

I don't know what you're basing that on. There's been a lot of debate in Sweden over how little the players seem to care about the national team. Tobias Enstrom for example declined to be a part of the Olympics to focus on his club team. And like I said, Z has obviously been hurting lately and playing through it. I'm pretty sure both him and Pav see the success of the Wings as more important than a 2 week tournament. I don't know why anyone would want our 2 most important players taking risks with their health, regardless of Olympic year or not.

Serious question: have you been watching Zetterberg the past few weeks? He's clearly been playing through injury. He has had a dozen 'maintance days' as well. It's honestly shameful that people question Hank and Pav.

No word yet I think. Sounded precautionary, day-to-day etc, but I guess we'll know more later today.

#RedWings Babcock: What we’re going to do is talk about it and the best guys are going to play. #RedWings Babcock: It’s not going to have anything to do w/age, it’s just going to be what have you done lately. They’re pushing real hard. #RedWings Babcock: Riley Sheahan, Tats, Jurco, that line was really good. I thought Helm was really good tonight, too. He had some jump.

Lots of good to take from this game. I don't think the 3rd period collapse was due to the old problems of 'we stopped playing' or similar. We simply have Franzen, Helm and Alfie who all have just come back from injury and look like they haven't quite gotten their legs back. They looked very tired. Gustavsson had a backup-goalie like performance, which is what can be expected from a backup-goalie. And we still should have won it. A wrongfully disallowed goal, inches away from winning in OT despite a missed 4-minute penalty, and a coin-toss shootout loss is not worrying to me. This is starting to look like a team. We're producing offense from everywhere. And we're only 3 points back from 3rd in the division, with 2 games in hand. Pav should be close. Z is hopefully not out long. We're going to be fine.

Kronwall played terrible in this one. But be real, this loss wasn't that bad. We got a goal called back for no reason. Refs missed the high-stick on Tatar. We were inches from killing the game in OT. Panthers for some reason play their hearts out against us and pulled out a win, but I don't think they deserved this one. The kid line is awesome, but it could be getting time to switch up the others a bit. Abdelkader should return to his rightful place in the bottom 6, and I think we're seeing that Eaves isn't as great as he looked against Chicago. If Andersson returns on Tuesday I wouldn't hesitate to waive Patty.

I'm happy with the way the kids played tonight. I struggle to understand how we managed to not win that in regulation/OT though, and we end up losing it in SO. Really sucks when every point is extremely important. Alfie, Helm and Franzen all look like they need some time to get their legs. Alfie's giveaway on the shorthanded goal was pretty awful, can't do that when it's a 1-goal game and minutes to go. Monster also managed to be pretty un-clutch for once. Usually he's been good in those situations when we just need 1 or 2 big saves to win. Disappointing. Hope Z/Pav is back for the next game so Cleary can go.

No reason to let these guys back in the game.