Carman

Excited about Zetterberg, and hopeful about Cleary, hopefuly Dan can get back on track we are going to need his offensive side much more than his grinder side with our current roster.

Babcock is an elite coach. People that think he can't coach a roster without great players are going to be proven wrong this year. He has his own problems without a doubt, but his pluses far outweigh his negatives. And he is young.

It would just be a rental, no way they would resign him for next year.

Yeah Atlanta is going to have to add more to that for a great Canadian defenseman.

Far from it, he'll be fine. What we all should be focusing on is the improvement of Jimmy Howard. Not the phantom "decline" of Chris Osgood. Osgood will be there when it counts, that's for sure.

Gah, what is the fascination of picking apart the teams he's faced in order to deflect attention away that he is putting up very good numbers at the NHL level. Jimmy Howard is playing fantastic for Jimmy Howard, with as much as he is struggled with consistency at the NHL and AHL level it is completely insane to me how there are fans that want to see Jimmy Howard not progress. He needs these starts much more then Osgood does, he needs the experience of having the team rely on him for stretches, the playoffs are not right around the corner. There isn't a reason in the world to pull a young developing goalie that is playing great in favor of a veteran netminder in the middle of the season. Osgood will get his chance when Howard inevitably has a bad game, until then he can keep practicing, collecting a pay check and keep his mind focus on his task of helping Howard progress and getting ready for the playoff run. Right now we are winning as a team, that's what should be the story. Not the current back-up going to the press crying about playing time. We all know what Osgood can do, now is the time to find out what Howard can do. This year has enough struggles without having to deal with a situation that is due to personal frustrations. Osgood would have a point if the team was losing, and Howard was the reason. But that is not the case. I'm not mad at Osgood, he is competitive and to be honest this is made out to be a much larger deal than it is. It has already been taken care of in the locker room and Osgood won't be harmed one bit from being sat some games in the middle of a season, especially when the goalie in front of him might be the future of the team and is winning games.

Another good game by Howard. He's really winning me over. Lidstrom is looking a lot better offensively.

Fact is Howard is hopefully our future. He is playing well, and until he trips up he should be in net developing. We need to know what we have with him, so far he is responding with very good games behind a beat up Red Wing's team. Osgood will get his chance, but until then he needs to be a good teammate, because the last thing this team needs is someone starting issues when they are playing well. Howard has the potential to be a great goalie, and quite frankly can play at a level that Osgood has yet to reach in the regular season for a long time. Osgood is not the best goalie for carrying a team and stealing games especially at this stage of his career, Jimmy Howard might just be able to do that, and I'd say his ceiling looks to be much higher than Osgoods at the moment. Osgood's not going any where, but there is no reason to change something that isn't broken, he'll have plenty of time to get into playoff shape towards the end of the year there is no reason to be urgent about getting a veteran playing time over a rookie goalie in the middle of the season especially when the younger goalie has performed well.

Lidstrom has been firing the puck a lot better the last two games. Doesn't matter that he's not getting the goal, he doesn't need to prove anything besides the points.

Ok, replace it with "decent". Same idea.

Hey you're assuming that Chris can still be an elite goaltender. I'm just joining the party.

Howard has just been a lot better in every way then Osgood. Osgood needs to retire and become an equipment manager for Jimmy, maybe even a personal chef.

Roenick is similar to Don Cherry in terms of actually taking what he says seriously that is.

This thread makes about as much sense as this. Oh that's fun!

Agreed. Between the Homer Osgood fans, and the rabid Osgood haters. I'm actually looking level headed in this thread.

I'd root for it not to go into a 3 point situation and go into overtime.

Probably because it gives people fuel to use against Osgood. They real answer is somewhere in the middle, Osgood isn't playing as badly as the stats look and doesn't deserve much heat, yet Howard deserves the playing time as he is getting the job done. No reason to take anything away from either goalie. Except the fact that Osgood made a public comment out of frustration. But even that is just because he is competitive and it's good to see that he wants to be better. This is not a big deal, the leadership on this team won't let this become one. So in closing, Howard has been good, Osgood will be good and Babcock's going to play the goalie he feels gives the team a better shot any given night. Howard is hopefully our future, and Osgood is hopefully back to playoff form. End of story.

Jimmy Howard should be on the team. Such a travesty.

They are truculent and belligerent. They will physically assault all those soft European teams. Miller is the best goalie in the game. Easy Gold medal for USA.

Yeah he hasn't played well, but I'm not sure if that's more of his fault or just a poor team effort. It's hard to stand out when you are getting beaten 5-0 a couple minutes into a game. All in all this doesn't mean a whole lot in terms of development for him, it was just a confidence test more then anything. If he can come back to the AHL and still play well that's the most important thing for him.

Exactly, then why does he have to cause a scene when the team is actually winning? He will get better, most reasonable fans understand how Osgood plays by now. But it still doesn't erase the fact he hasn't played well so far. We expect him to "play better". But we also expected him to "play better" earlier in the season.

Not seeing a whole lot about Lidstrom. I thought he looked a lot better offensively today as well. Defensively he is great as always, passing was terrific, but that shot still doesn't seem quite there. Datsyuk had a great game, Homer and Bertuzzi both got there chances, but they both need to work on the dumb penalties even if the refs are awful. Fil and Leino deserve a couple games together, both played really well together and it's been the first game Leino has actually looked confident in a long time, even before he scored. Helmer is just amazing, one of the best energy players in the league, enough said. Howard had a bad goal, but still made timely saves against a pretty good team and got the win. Janik is great, physical and knows his role. Doesn't make many mistakes or take chances and would really love seeing him up here over "you know who". Ritola also is playing well, would of prefered not to see him fan on a wide open net, but it happens. He is hitting, passing, and shooting. He'll be sent down once players start getting healthy, but I look forward to seeing him full time soon enough. Draper, Maltby, May all had good games especially Maltby and Draper the PK was fantastic and they created a couple good scoring chances as well. Really had their legs going. Enough of my late night sort-of drunk ramblings. Good night, and good win boys. Winning games seems much more fun when you have to win them

Yep, I've never said Osgood won't come around, I'm not like the other crazy people who say he just sucks and is never going to get any better. I give Osgood credit when he does well, and I criticize him when he's not doing well. I'm glad he's been a Wing, and respect what he has accomplished. But just because of what he has done doesn't mean I'm going to make excuses for poor play when I notice it. Osgood will start playing well I'm sure, but until he proves it to Babcock I have no problem with Howard winning games right now, and I don't know why there are fans working diligently trying to find ways to make it look like Howard isn't playing as well as the stats say. And actually go to the depths you go to defend Osgood yet attack the rookie net minder was insane to me.

All the more reason Osgood shouldn't be outplayed by a rookie so far this season.

I'd say the current month is always the most important so why no?