Lidstrom for life

I guess I didn't explain that well. I don't mean I think this team is as good as last years because its not. What I mean is I think we will make the playoffs and once that happens who knows. I think we are one of maybe 8-10 teams with the skill level necessary to win it all, the way I see the playoffs is all of those teams have a decent shot at winning, it just comes down to who gets lucky with injuries and matchups and who has the hot goalie. Just look at last years playoffs, San Jose was probably the most skilled team but they ran into a hot goalie against Anaheim and went out in the first round. Boston and New Jersey were both on paper much better teams than Carolina but they both lost to the canes. We could win it all or we could get bounced in the first round, thats whats so great (and scary) about the playoffs.

We have just as good a chance to win it this year as we did last year. I know we lost Hossa Samuelson and Hudler but those three combined for a whopping 0 goals in the 7 games of the SCF. We are still one of the elite teams in the NHL and it will just come down to who is healthy and who has the hot goalie.

I am really happy for Howard and I think we should get him as many games as possible this season. Having said that, with his history, I would be absolutely shocked if Osgood wasn't the starter in the playoffs.

I am seriously really confused. You can call Holmstrom and Bertuzzi pylons and say that Z is having a bad year but people can't say anything negative about Datsyuk? I just really don't get it.

I should have known, your lack of logic and incredible ability to ramble fits right in! Seriously though what are we suppose to be talking about on this thread? Is it like Datsyuk vs Zetterberg? Or Holmstrom and Bertuzzi suck?

No kidding. I think there should be a rule like you can't start a thread until you have been a member for at least a week or something too.

Not even on pace for 40 goals? Last year only 8 players in the entire NHL scored 40 goals. You say that as if 30 goals is a terrible season. Datsyuk is playing with two of the worst forwards on the team? Last time I checked Holmstrom is tied for the team lead in goals scored. I know he isn't on pace for 40 so by your definition he is terrible but I think most people would consider 10 goals at this point in the season to be pretty good.

BERTTTTTTTTT

According to an article on mlive, if the wings don't score in the 1st period it will be the 3rd longest drought in franchise history. If we don't score at all this game it will be the longest stretch of time without a goal in franchise history. I typed it, so that means it can't happen now right? Just like talking about a shut out or a perfect game...

Bertuzzi, like the rest of the team, is going to turn it around. He is playing hard and just not getting rewarded. True his decision making is pretty questionable right now but so is everyones, it happens when you are in a slump. Also, he really should not be on the same line as Holmstrom I don't understand that at all, why have two big bodies who aren't great skaters on the top line?

Holmstrom-Zetterberg-Datsyuk Frazen-Filpulla-Cleary Draper-Helm-Eaves Bertuzzi-Abdelkator-Leino Oh wait...

Lebda game winner...duh

LGW

I rip on Rafalski while watching the game more than any other wing (except Lebda obviously) but I wonder if its really all his fault. He is clearly an offensive d man and that was fine last year when we won by scoring 4 goals a game. Now that we need to win with defense Rafalski's game just doesn't mesh with what we are trying to do and it shows.

YES PLEASE!! The kid has skill. Also yay for local guys!

Good luck to him (except against Detroit of course) its to bad it didn't work out for him here last year I have always liked Hossa.

What a friendly post. Ericsson has been fairly solid IMO. He is not without errors, but hey hes a rookie d man so I am pretty happy with him. Abs and Leino have both been up and down but they were two of our better fowards last night against Nashville I thought. And Filpulla is injured...looked good before the injury though, god I miss him.

Theres an article on Mlive saying Babcock is not happy with the defense pairs and it features the best quote ever: "I liked some of them, but I didn’t like them all,'' Babcock said after Tuesday's practice. "So what we’re going to do is have more of a floating thing, have two pairs.'' The top two pairs will remain the same (Nicklas Lidstrom-Jonathan Ericsson, Brian Rafalski-Brad Stuart). They'll play against the opponent's top two lines. Then he'll pair one of those players with Brett Lebda and another with Derek Meech to use against the third and fourth lines. And he'll rotate. "So we’ll almost have an eight-man block with six players,'' Babcock said. "It’s way too complicated to explain, but it’ll be simple.’’

On one of our penalties the refs blew the whistle when we touched the puck and the annoucer said penatly coming up here on Nashville...

This is true, however, I think that is more due to the fact that the wings decided to put their effort into shutting down Crosby with Lidstrom and Zetterberg. No disrespect to Malkin but without Crosby I don't know if he would have been as effective.

My girlfriend and I went to Arby's a couple hours ago. Last night at the end of the game we were screaming for everyone to pass the puck to Z when they pulled the goalie...damn I love curly fries!

No shave November just has to be Zetterberg's best month! Also, thanks for the curly fries!

This. Bertuzzi was easily one of our best players last night. He created several scoring chances, true he didn't score but creating chances for himself and his line is really all you can ask for. When Helm creates opportunities it is because hes amazing but when Bertuzzi does it...well he can't finish so hes lazy and he sucks? No.

Impressive.

Yes the penalty killing is the bigger problem but the team defense in general is pretty bad I agree with you there. I didn't really mean to rip on Sammy (or even Hudler for that matter) I was more making fun of our fellow LGWers that seemed to think a couple players were responsible for everything bad that happened last year. I should have added "lets trade osgood for an enforcer because hes lazy and he sucks" to make that more clear