Theophany

Somewhere in the press box, Ville Leino was chuckling and rubbing his hands together at a chance to get back on the ice. Either way, I think this bodes ill for our season, though I think we still have a shot.

I don't trust any author that sucks at English as bad as that one does. It's more likely that he's just tired from all the years of playoffs than having problems with his wife because she "doesn't not like Detroit".

That would work better if you were talking about the Hawks. And to answer the thread, I'd go play some golf and ponder what kind of contract Lidstrom will be getting from the Wings. I love seeing the Wings play in the playoffs, but it's not a necessity for my happiness.

The question I want to pose is: would you trade away a prospect or two if it meant getting a star for a year and making the playoffs? Because personally, I'd rather this be a mediocre season than make trades that put the organization in a bad place. It's kind of ridiculous to me when people are after Holland to trade people away just because of a few bad games for talent that's likely to be equally as worthless. Note to Wings fans that think they can be a GM: you're not a GM. Holland is one of the best GMs—possibly the best—ever. You don't know how to run the organization better than he does. Chill and watch the games and stop freaking out. If we miss the playoffs, you're not going to have to kill yourself, I promise.

Anyone know why the NHL Network hasn't been in HD this year? I remember reading something about them switching to HD broadcasts, but I'm not totally sure. Either way, I wish I could watch the games in HD.

Leino's not a super talent or he wouldn't have been playing in the AHL last year at the age of 25. Leino was, however, the best player in the regular season ('08) in the SM-Liiga, so it's not unreasonable to expect him to be able to keep up on the third line. He's been a disappointment for sure, but a surprising one (or should have been, had you been following him).

The original topic is kinda dumb; Ovie/Crosby debates are more interesting. Everyone is pretty much universally against renaming the trophies.

And he needs to use his body more. Guy hits about as much as Lidstrom and he's 3 inches and 30 lbs heavier. As far as who's gonna be gold: Larsson, Abdelkader, Eaves, Helm (Draper 2.0, more speed, less scoring), Tatar (who I keep calling Tater), and Kindl. McCollum too hopefully, but I don't know much about the kid, and I've never seen him play. He's got the coolest mask in the NHL/AHL, though.

How many assists did he have? I think it was something like 3 in the SCF? Franzen's hit was incredibly awkward and smashed his hip between the boards and a 220 lb man. I'd probably be a little hurt after that too. BTW, you need to get to the SCF in order to actually do anything there. The fact that Crosby got his team there speaks very well for him, regardless what you think.

It was the first hit of Witt's career that didn't involve an elbow.

Honestly, you can hate Crosby all you want, but to say that he didn't contribute in a big way to the Pens' success just makes you look like an idiot. I'm one of the biggest Crosby haters around, but even I can say that the guy was one of the biggest factors in the Pens' success.

For your first paragraph: yes, 7-8 goals when you're talking about 30 compared to 40 is a lot. For your second paragraph: you can't really argue that he's not producing with Hank. Our PP is 8th in the league with Bert/Cleary/Leino making up the second forward line. It's pretty obvious that he's produced with Hank. We'll just see whether it translates to 5 on 5 or not.

Sorry that I can detect blatant sarcasm and you can't...? Seriously, the things Carman has said that I've called people are on way too ridiculous for someone to mean seriously.

I'm sorry, but just because Pavel isn't scoring goals doesn't mean that he lost his touch; fully 2/3 of his points last year came from assists. Guess what? Same exact thing this year, but less so because he's missing Franzen. He's also on probably the worst defensive line we have, BTW. Bert is even as far as liability goes in the defensive end, though I would probably put him more on the minus side of that, since he's capable of making some really terrible plays. Holmstrom is probably the biggest defensive liability on this team, maybe second to Leino because he knows what he's doing. Datsyuk can't try and strip pucks on the forecheck because if he does and misses, that creates an odd-man break back into his D zone, and he has to play catch-up. With Franzen or Zetterberg on his line, he can afford to do that on the forecheck, but with Bertuzzi and Holmstrom? Forget about it. Also remember, our focus this year as a team has been defensive responsibility. You're being incredibly two dimensional in your view of what has caused Datsyuk's lack of scoring; apparently he's either scoring or not scoring, and there are no other variables than 'on' or 'off'. Rick Nash is a better goal scorer, BTW. Datsyuk makes his goals look pretty, but Nash gets it done and scores more goals, because that's who he is; he's a power forward, and Datsyuk is a playmaker. Just sayin'.

Nah, what's sad is that you can't detect over the top sarcasm.

Yeah, but out of the 20:21 that he's on the ice every night, how much time is PP? I'm not trying to make excuses for Datsyuk on the PP, but our PP is 8th in the NHL.

Datsyuk is a playmaker. He played with Franzen for 3 games. He's had to deal with Bertuzzi for most of the season thus far. It's only in the past 2-3 games that he's been paired with Zetterberg. Playmakers need other players in order to live up to past performance. He's not Rick Nash, who can score through everyone else on the other team and score regardless of who is on the ice with him. Expecting him to live up to his past performance without Franzen or another scoring forward is unrealistic.

It was really REALLY obvious.

Filppula won't be playing anything but center when he's back. I know people wish otherwise, but Filppula centering the second line (with how we're set up currently) allows Babcock to put Zetterberg and Datsyuk on the first line.

Sarcasm detector fail. Also, correlation does not imply causation, but in this case, being a -19 is pretty awful.

His puck control is fine; he's a dangler. His real deficiencies are in his skating and defensive play. Also, since I didn't address it in my other post, but Datsyuk is doing really well for the kind of players he's been given, as a playmaker. He's got 21 points in 27 games, which is pretty good for being out there with Homer and Bertuzzi for much of the time.

Frankly no matter how good a player is, it doesn't warrant retiring his number league-wide. If that were the case, why aren't 4 and 9 retired across all teams? Howe and Orr are still—to this day—considered two of the best all-time, right along with Gretzky. Leave number retiring to individual teams. If a team feels that 99 shouldn't be worn, then great for them. Otherwise, leave it for the Oilers/Kings/Blues/Rangers (though the last two are lol-worthy) to have it in the rafters. Sarcasm detection fail.

It's mainly his defensive play that makes me scream at my TV. It's pretty terrible.

Dr Rahmani or bust, IMO.

First words out of my mouth: "you're fired."