Buppy

Really, Kip? Joe said nothing about Babs being the best. He even made a point to stress the "among". Yet you feel you have to attack him. Is no one allowed to say anything positive about Babcock unless they qualify it with other coaches who've done the same or better, without you mocking and belittling them? Get over your Babcock hate.

The profundity of one specific, mostly arbitrary, criterion you mean. Q has more wins because he's coached 18 years to only 12 for Babs. They both have similar winning %s. Even given the wins, it's still only two criteria. I think coaching is a bit more complex than that, and it takes more than two numbers to make a valid comparison. And no, I'm not arguing that ALL opinions are equal. I'm saying these two specific opinions are. (Granted, that in itself is only my opinion.) Don't strawman and don't misuse analogies. Even if you think they aren't exactly equal, you say yourself that you believe Babcock is one of the best. So why is it so absurd that someone might think he's better than Q that you're so offended by the suggestion?

Completely missed the point. I never said you said he was a bad coach, nor was I arguing your stance that he's not the best, nor asserting that he is the best or even better than Q. What I was saying is that your opinion that Q is "clearly the best coach in the hockey world" is no less "asinine" than Babcock's "legion of acolytes" believing that he is. One person in this thread made the claim that Babs is the best. That guy, along with Frank, are the only two that I know of on these forums that hold that opinion. You and a few others act like it's the whole world that thinks that way. You're needlessly histrionic and insulting towards a few people that hold an opinion that you don't like, while you do most of the same things you criticize them for. And yeah, I gave Q credit. Maybe you have some creative way of reading the sentence, "several losses to eventual Cup winners between them", and just didn't notice.

Rewriting history? You do know Quenneville started coaching before Chicago, right? Without getting into a debate on Hull-Turgeon-MacInnins-Pronger-Fuhr or Kane-Toews-Sharp-Hossa-Kieth vs what Babcock has had, Detroit was a top contender for only four years with Babcock. Another two or three as a second-tier team, and the last three being middle-of-the-pack. Not much different than Quenneville's tenure with Chicago and Colorado. True, he's had more playoff success in Chicago, but he also had a lot of failures in St.Louis. He went to Chicago with 11 years of NHL coaching experience, including several very good teams in St.Louis, plus a couple as an assistant with the Avs first Cup team. Babcock had two years. Maybe if Babcock had had more experience when he took over with the Wings, we would have had more success. Maybe not. But really, picking a best coach is pretty much impossible. It's too hard to quantify the coach's impact. It's practically impossible to pick a best player, even with a boatload of individual stats to help. There are no individual stats for coaches. Only team results. No two coaches are ever in the same situation, so you can't even make direct comparisons. Best you can do is look at a guys general success level and say "he's one of the best". That's all most people actually say about Babcock, and also what most people say about Quenneville. That one or two people here may hold the opinion that Babs is the best is no different than you believing that Queneville is. It's an opinion and nothing more. Both are great. Both have missed the playoffs only once (so far). Q had a bubble team the year he was fired in StL, but they did end up making it even though they didn't really improve any after he left. Both have made the finals 3 times. Similar winning% both regular season and playoffs. Both have had a PT winner lose in the first round. Both usually have only been beaten by better teams in the playoffs, with several losses to eventual Cup winners between them. Basically the only difference is Q has won a couple big games where Babs has lost a couple, and Babs succeeded in a couple big opportunities than Q was never given. Whether the results would have been any different if the roles were reversed is something we can only guess at. Your guess is no more valid than anyone else's. Personally, I think guessing at all is silly. A team would be lucky to have either of them.

This thread... You know, if my mother were alive today, I would ask her to make me some potato salad. Because the stuff they call potato salad at Meijer is crap. I bet it's not even made by Amish people. Liars.

What's absurd is your obsession with Miller. We have one of the fastest teams in the league, we're having a problem with puck movement, not skating speed. Our smallest line last night was by far our best. Only 4 of our 18 goals have come on the PP. You don't fix our scoring by replacing the 4th line with kids who haven't even shown they can score consistently in the AHL. Quit with the stupid hyperbole. Miller is a good role player, and no one here would say anything more. 4th line winger is the least important position in the lineup. Even if he was a problem, which he isn't, he is literally the least of our problems. The 2nd and 3rd lines looked good for once. Unfortunately they couldn't cash in last night, but if they keep playing like that they will. (I'd rather see Jurco on the 3rd, with Glendening bumping Andersson from the 4th though.) I would like to see AA get a shot if Richards is going to be out, give him a real opportunity rather than plug him in a role he's not suited for.

Obviously it means we'll finish as top seed in our conference, then lose in the first round against a team no one thought had a chance, who will then go on to lose in game 7 of the finals (or lose to Toronto in the 2nd round).

Bowman went 1-5 in his first 6 games here. Lewis was 4-2.

Yes, defense is difficult to measure, even with a much larger sample. But I think we're just nit-picking now over how bad is bad. I think it's been as bad as our offense, you don't. Whatever. However, I do think at least most of the people calling out our defense (meaning our group of defensemen) are doing so for their lack of offensive contributions as much or more than for their defense. I think the core of the problem is in our ability to hang on to the puck, not just as individuals but also as a team (e.g. Moving the puck around quickly and accurately). That's vital to both our offense and defense, forwards and defensemen, ES, PP, and even a little to the PK.

I understand what you're saying, and I'm not talking about projecting anything either. My point is that over a small number of games, goals for/against, because they are infrequent events, are not necessarily indicative of play. You've called out our poor PK and disproportionate GA ratio. But if you change of PPGA by one, just one single goal, then our PK% rises to a very good 85%, and the ratio drops to an only-slightly-below-average 25%. One single play, such as a baseball slide through our goalie that probably shouldn't have counted, should never be the difference between good and bad. You mentioned our offense as being bad, yet judged on the same "goals and nothing else" criteria our offense is much better than our defense. Prior to last weekend you were even commenting on how good the offense seemed. We have one game where we score one goal and suddenly the offense sucks? You have to look at more than just goals to judge how we've played. When you do, it's plain that we've been bad at almost everything. We've just been lucky in terms of goals.

Over the last 3 years around 22% of all goals scored have been on the PP. 30% may look "terrible", and would be if it stayed that way for the whole year, but given it's so early in the year it's meaningless. It's one goal. If your stats can so easily be skewed by just one or two goals, you need to take them with a grain of salt. Shot attempts are a much better indicator at this point since they are much more frequent events. Even that, given how little time we've spent on special teams, isn't very good. I said in the other thread; pretty much everything has been bad this year. That includes the defense. Maybe not as inept statistically as the offense, but just as bad as special teams, and much worse than the goaltending. Furthermore, I think most people would include the PK in the broader "defense" category. Certainly possible to be good on one but poor on the other, but they're not exactly separate. Further-furthermore, there's "defense" in the sense of our ability to prevent goals, which is a product of both our defensemen and forwards (most people I think exclude the goalie from team defense). But I think when it was initially brought up, "defense" was meant in the sense of our group of defensemen, and includes both the defensive and offensive contributions. Bottom line is we can't hold on to the puck. When we lose it, we have trouble getting it back. We have the same problem at every strength. It means we generate few shots, allow a lot, and take more penalties.

That first part isn't actually true. 2.6 GA is not good. 17th in the league, and compared with recent seasons would also be in the middle of the pack. Our team save% is 12th at 5v5, 10th or 11th all situations (war-on-ice and hockeyanalysis differ slightly). Relative to recent seasons, it's high. In the past three years, only 9 teams have finished with a higher overall save%, and none by much (Wings 92.22 .vs highest 93.34). 5v5, our current 93.7 has been bettered only once: 94.04 by Boston. Shots against are high relative to recent averages (likely inflating the save% some), and shots for is abysmal. I don't really want to get into the numbers, only 5 games in they're far too easily skewed. Fact is, pretty much every facet of the game has been bad. Our goalies have been excellent and our GF is good thanks to an unsustainably high shooting%. Everything else has been bad, and almost every player has been bad in at least some respects. The fortunate, or maybe unfortunate, thing is that's it's all related. We have been a terrible possession team thus far. Every issue we have is the result of that. It's far too early to determine if it's a systemic problem, or just a bad stretch. If that gets better, and at least close to what we've done in the recent past, everything else should improve. Save% and GF might drop, but should at least stay pretty good. Individually, Larkin, Pulkkinen, Nyquist, Quincey, and Zetterberg have been our best possession players. The only ones over 46% 5v5. Kindl, Sheahan and Abby not much below. Not coincidentally I think, those players have accounted for all of our 5v5 scoring. Pretty much the same for all situations. Quincey drops a bit, Richards and Green move up. Pulkkinen, Nyquist, and Sheahan, despite decent percentages, aren't creating many opportunities. They aren't giving up many either, but just not doing quite enough to break through the defense. Larkin has been our best at generating offense, with Z and Abby a bit behind him. Tatar has been the biggest problem so far, though Richards, Green, and Kronwall all need to improve. I think it's more an issue of just playing better rather than line combos, but I think we need a shakeup. I can't really come up with a set of lines that looks good to me without Datsyuk. I'd like to see Larkin or Helm with Pulk and Sheahan. Put Nyquist with Z and Abby, but that leaves Tatar and Richards together. Maybe Larkin or Helm could get them going, but that combo has been terrible so far. I don't know. Get well soon, Pavel.

No, the OP is right. The slide rule is based off NHL games. I believe it's 10 games and under, rather than nine, but that's immaterial. But I doubt the Wings are worried about that or waiver exemptions. We could be in some cap trouble next summer, but as it looks now we should be in good shape after that. I'd say he's easily a lock to pass 10 games. Probably here to stay, though a lot can happen in a few weeks. I say give him his own line now, maybe move him back with Z once Dats is back.

I think the requirements for IR is seven days, not games. Don't think there is any game limit. To qualify for LTIR is 10 games and 24 days. Also worth noting that LTIR isn't really a separate list. It's a cap relief exemption for players on IR for a long time. There's no point in claiming it right now, since we're already claiming Datsyuk. There's no benefit, and all it would do is make Franzen ineligible for a while. Teams never use LTIR unless they need it for cap reasons. edit: It may not even be possible to claim LTIR for Franzen right now, since we're not even using all of Datsyuk's. Point is, we can't read anything into the "he's only on short-term IR" thing.

Possibly. Iginla's holding up pretty well in his late-30s. I think he'll get over 700, but not to 800. Maybe pass Hull for 3rd or 4th.

I live in Detroit, but I work afternoons. Though I promise; the next weekday home game with a 1 am start, I'll be there.

More or less yeah. I don't think anyone has a problem with fantasy sports or gambling, but it does maybe give the wrong impression to have a sports team associated with sports gambling.

lol, I smell an "I told you so" coming.

Scientists with their words and anti-liquid agendas.

I can't really be too surprised by anything that happens over the course of a few games. But the Ducks scoring 1 goal in their first 3 games comes close.

No one gets fired for being late once. Maybe if you're just starting at a job. Hell, I've been late so often that my 11am shift now officially starts at around 1-ish.

Not going to get into semantics. My point is that it's not like were getting a bunch of odd-man rushes and breakaways from our speed/transitions. Not a bunch of tic-tac-toe passing and defensemen jumping up leading to wide-open nets. Just mundane, good-work goals of the same type we've seen literally hundreds of over the years. And statistically we've seen less of those chances than we have in recent years. We've just happened to convert an unusually high percentage of them so far. We're shooting 16.9% right now. No team in the post-lockout era has gone higher than 11.9% for a full year. We will not maintain that rate. We're not hitting that rate because we're doing anything special or different than the past. Sometimes you just have good stretches. We had several last year.

War-on-ice has it. High-danger chances they call it. Not necessarily perfect, as it's somewhat subjective. Basically they look at where the shots come from and the situation to categorize shot attempts into low, medium, and high danger. Also, I wasn't trying to predict anything. Just countering Kip's comment that the offense thus far "seems" better.

Speed is not that important on the PK. Good first-step acceleration is, and most fast guys have that, but I'd say even that ranks behind good instincts, awareness, tenaciousness, good stick work, and bravery. AA from all I've heard is just decent defensively, improving but not what he's known for. I might be wrong but I don't think he's even a primary PKer in GR. He'll probably have to start out on the wing, especially if he's up next year which seems rather likely. Probably moves back to center after a couple years if Datsyuk is gone and Zetterberg has declined further. His upside seems to be higher than Sheahan, though I could see Sheahan at #2 with AA #3 at first. Helm has already been switched to wing and probably isn't going back except for injuries. Svech is a winger, might be converted to center but we'll see. Nosek is below AA, probably won't be room for him in Detroit. He's supposedly a good defensive center, more notably two-way than AA from what I've read at least. Could make a good 4th-liner, but more likely I think is he'll be the guy nyquististhefuture will be bitching about us losing in a couple years.

Didn't say you did mention shooting. I mentioned our shot totals because it is a fair indicator of offensive pressure. But since you mention quality scoring chances; we are also near the bottom in HQ chances and below the rate we had last season (in fact lower than any of the Babcock era Wings teams). Furthermore, looking at our goals they weren't particularly great chances, nor really the result of great playmaking, creativity, vision, fluidity, freedom, or even speed. Half our scoring thus far has been the result of a good net front presence, Abby for the most part. Then a defensive turnover led to Pulk's first. Soft defense on Z's first. A lucky roll on Q's EN. Larkin's was a good snipe off a speed rush, but nothing we haven't seen hundreds of times in the Babcock years. Couple of Abby's were off nice passes, but again, nothing we haven't seen before and nothing unusually high quality about them. Our offense hasn't been good. Hasn't been better than it was under Babcock. Which is not saying that Babs wasn't a defense-first coach, nor that Blash won't get better and possibly be more offensive than Babs. But it just hasn't been the case in the first three games. I don't want to further derail this with Babcock discussion. Maybe someone should start a thread for that. Bottom line is I think we need to see a lot of improvement from our offense. I'm sure we will, I just hope it's enough. Abby and our goalies have been the difference between 3-0 and 0-3. I think Larkin needs his own line. I'd be inclined to try Richards with Z and Abby. Some veteran savvy could probably find a way to mesh with them. Larkin would hopefully inject some life into another line.