Lonewuhf

Me? Cleary to you is like Hudler is to Eva... Cleary has been terrible, he's failing passes, he's failing fighting for the puck, he's failing on his dump ins, he's failing on scoring. The only thing he's not failing at is playing on his ass. Of course you turn this into a Hudler thread. I will not encourage this with any other response. For the record, Hudler started on a line with Franzen and Fil, which was the best line. He didn't start with Dats.

Actually no, Cleary just makes whichever line he's on worse. If you're watching the games I'm not sure how you could dispute it.

Side note, anyone else notice that the game after Cleary was taken off the 1st line and put on the 2nd the 2nd line started sucking and the first is doing well? Coincidence?

No, but everything else has already been said on these boards. He said it like 6 times last night and it progressively got worse every time he said it again. By the last time I was ready to throw my TV out of the window (of course, this could also be that I was pissed off at the Wings' play as well). Either way, wtf, he's been part of the Wings for so long and he doesn't know what one of our top defense-man's name is??

Do you watch the games? Fil has been BY FAR one of our best forwards, and hardest working. Also check the stats page. 2nd in points, tied for first in +/- (I realize +/- is lame, but still makes a point). If you're going to make us read something that long, at least put correct information in it.

What? Franzen and Fil are the only reason we have 19 points on the season. We don't need more 'depth', we need our top paid players to show up. Franzen and Fil should stay on the same line until this happens, otherwise we're going to be losing a lot more than 6 in a row.

And while we're waiting, we're still out of the playoff race. As much as I hate statistics like these, something like only 9% of the teams out of the playoffs by Thanksgiving actually get into the playoffs. We can't wait any longer, our top players need to be our top players.

Cleary not only doesn't improve the line he's on, he just downright hurts it. He gives up the puck too often, his passing is terrible, and all he does when entering the zone is shoot it in then lose it. I don't understand why he's still getting top 6 minutes. Also, on Homer, yeah, he may be giving it his all, but that doesn't mean he deserves top play time. Helm gives his all every game but he's not put on the top line. Yeah, he sits in front of the net, but if you put someone skilled there, we shouldn't even need an in front of the net presence. Not very many teams use players in front of the net because they simply put players who can score on the line. I realize we don't have those players right now, and like someone said above, it's the management's fault for not acquiring them.

You realize he was injured during the first part of the season, right? That may be part of why he didn't play those games >.>

I had to get mine online as well. Sure seems like this is the season everyone was wanting out of Fil.

So after the last game vs the Wild, I've come to the decision that coaching is still a problem. I'm not nearly as confident in Babcock anymore. He's consistently giving players chances that have proven time and time again that they don't deserve them (Cleary, Holmstrom), he refuses to put players together that have worked incredibly well in the past (Dats and Fil), and in the last 5 minutes of the game, he played the same line for seemingly 80% of the time. I don't care how good a line is, those players are going to be too tired to be effective. We need better decisions behind the bench. We need players who are consistently playing badly to be pushed down to lower lines, so at least they get hungry for top line minutes again. Currently we're just handing players playtime who don't deserve it. Players like Helm and Fil, who are working their asses off every game aren't getting chances they deserve either. They've been two of the best players this year, and two of the players that are giving more effort than pretty much anyone else on the team. Dats, Z, and whoever isn't working. They played great for one game, but just plain haven't worked for a long time now. Z still has 3 points and a -4 and yet was given nearly 24 minutes. I don't understand how it works if players who are working hard are still not given opportunities when other players are playing like this. What kind of motivation is it to work hard if someone who's not producing is still given nearly 10 minutes more per game than you and much more PP time than you? Edit: I'm not bashing Z, I'm just saying he hasn't deserved the play time he's gotten recently. Other players who are playing badly are getting time taken away, but Z is just handed more play time every game no matter how he plays. Same thing goes for a few other players too.

I'm not sure how you can say so definitely that coaching isn't part of the problem. Shots on goal mean nothing, quality shots on goal is the only thing that matters. Yeah, we have a lot of shots, but a lot of them are crap. I'm tired of hearing the "wait x amount of time before panic" crap. There was a problem with the team and if I feel, as a fan, that I want to vent my frustration on a discussion board made to do exactly that, I will. The system seems exactly the same, so I don't know where you're getting this new system stuff, and we only have 3 new players who play any substantial amount of time (White, Emmerton, and Kindle, and Kindle is used to the Red Wings system). Players are playing s***ty, it's the coaches job to fix that, or to stop rewarding those players. Babcock is continuing to reward s***ty play and it's irritating. He's been doing this for a couple of years now. I have a bad feeling that as soon as Bert comes back he's going to get thrown back in the top 6 with top minutes again. Oh, and I by no means feel that he's a bad coach or that he should be replaced, but these problems have to be addressed or bad play will continue throughout the season.

This. We make up for (or at least in theory) the lack of top 3 or top 6 offense by having a much better than average scoring potential on the bottom 2 lines. Expecting 2 50 goal scorers on top of the depth we have is completely unrealistic.

I clearly said I haven't been happy with some of the things he's done for the past few years, not just the previous 5 games. I still stand by everything I said in the first post. Babs rewards players who don't deserve it, and punishes those who don't deserve it. If you somehow can disagree with me, fine, that's your opinion, but I guarantee most of the posters here don't disagree.

I don't think many here would rate Z over Hudler right now. They have the same amount of points, Z gets paid over twice as much as Hudler and gets ~10 mins more per game in ice time. There's NO excuse for this. However, I do think Abby should be rated above Eaves and Emmerton.

You've bashed Fil in pretty much every post you post, what's your deal? If you've actually been watching the games you'd see that he's consistently one of our hardest working players.

NO, Crymson smells bad and isn't funny and I hate him!

It's pretty sweet how Babs just completely ignores the problem and continues to do things that are ineffective.

True, but Cleary has been s*** just in general, plus it makes me feel better to direct some of my rage at him.

-.- I said you of all people, and simply meant because you spend a lot of time on these forums.

If you don't want to read people's thoughts, gtfo off of the forums. It was a well thought out, well said post, and your s***ty response literally makes me want to stop posting in these forums. Responses like yours frustrate me as much as anything that's happening on the ice. That said, excellent post gcom. I actually completely agree, and when the Wings were down after just the first goal I felt exactly the same. I have a hard time caring whatsoever about this team anymore, and it's been growing for the past few seasons. I've been watching the Wings since 1990 and I've never been so disinterested in watching them play. I feel like the "top" players on our team all of a sudden just stopped caring after they got their big contracts (coincidence eh?). There are only a few players I enjoy watching anymore, and I find myself yelling through the TV and the s***ty play I see from the same players day in and day out. I don't know the answer either, and like you said, I'm not sure it matters. The lazy play I see every night now almost makes me embarrassed to be a fan because the team seems to not give a s*** about their fans. Shuffling the lines every night is obviously not the answer, I think part of the answer is getting the lazy players off the ice, though I know this organization has too much loyalty to certain players for that. Shrug, as much as I hate to say it, I may take a break from the hockey season.

This was already posted bro, you of all people should have known this.

And another night of giving s***ty undeserving players too much ice time.

Fil was either on the 3rd line, or him and Dats had to make up for Clearing giving the puck away every damn time he has it. I cringe every time Cleary, Bert, Franzen, or Hudler touches the damn puck. That said, yes, Fil still needs to shoot more, but at least he's useful when he's not shooting, unlike those 4 shmucks. OT: F*** YOU DUMP AND CHASE GAME (CLEARY, KNOCK IT THE F*** OFF). F*** MOST OF THE PEOPLE ALREADY f***ED HERE. In all seriousness, why the f*** are we rewarding these four players after they've played like s*** this entire fricken year? It's now too far into the season to be pulling the "it's only X games into the season" bulls***. This team has a problem, people who REALLY don't deserve it keep getting way too much fricken ice time, and people who are playing well are shafted. How many damn times do we have to give Cleary, Bert, Franzen, and Hudler chances just to see em failing miserably? I don't care how much they get paid, they're failing hardcore and until they're demoted to 3rd and 4th line, or sat entirely, they're going to continue failing because they have no sense of urgency whatsoever.

Larionov played with infinitely more talented players than Fil is set to do on the 3rd line.