dirtydangles

That guy left his feet on Tootoo there. Puss. Brunner looks good. Meshing well and not disappearing behind Z and Dats. Not a passenger on the shift. PP looked great. More posts in that powerplay than the whole first period Saturday. Lashoff has looked fine. Haven't noticed him which is good.

if you hate the guy - he's probably the kind of player we need. i hate corey perry but would give anything to have him on our team.

Here's to hoping that Lashoff plays tonight and wins Quincey's job when E comes back.

Projected lineup anyone?

IF we were to trade away Franzen/Flip for a dman I would like this pickup from a "size" standpoint. He isn't a pure scorer but can add size and grit to our foward troop.

THIS. I hate how "safe" our players' jobs seem. You have to perform and earn that right. This isn't a place where vets go to retire comfortably.

Even if there were UFAs available this year - we AREN'T an attractive place to play unless you are 32+. Players like Letang (Who isn't a UFA this year) would be better off signing with Pitts as they are a far better team and can afford him. We have to trade if we want to add anything of worth on D in the next 2 seasons.

I'd like to move for a dman of the future. I'd see what we could do with Phoenix. They are the perfect trading partner at this point. They have a massively deep D and need some better forwards. I would try to get one of: Brandon Gormley David Rundblad Connor Murphy All these guys are pretty much like Smith in that they are ready for NHL but not much experience. I think one of these guys could become a big part of our blueline for the future rather than trading for an aging player. We AREN'T going to get a current top Dman - we don't have the assets. I think the Franzen/Flip kind of deal would work here. Or Tatar + High Pick would also work. I'd be very against trading our first rounder this early though. EDIT: Hell I'd even throw in a vet like Cleary or Bert on top of a fair deal if they wanted them to reduce the logjam at forward. This type of trade is the only thing that makes sense to me. We aren't one dman away from cup contender. Making this trade makes us better for the future, not today, but it would be a price that is affordable.

Too bad babs will never do it.

What I'm concerned of is that Holland will trade for a 5/6 dman and put a bandaid on it and call it fixed. I think we have the talent up front to lose some. Jarnkrok is ready, so is Nyquist, Tatar, Andersson, and even Sheahan could be called upon. The biggest hole is the D. I'd rather build our D back up and plug holes with rookies up front and lose games 6-0 for a year than keep what we have and lose in similar fashion for multiple years. EDIT: Also there is a lot of talent at forward in UFA next year. Holland should shore up the D so potential UFA targets would be more apt to sign here rather than thinking we are on the decline. There are guys like Perry and Getz, and Zajac that could be targets if we were to trade away bigger pieces of our forwards.

After tonight I think one thing is obvious. We need to split up Z and Dats. We just can't match up with other teams the way we are set up right now. Now that mursak is down I'd add nyquist to the mix for the time being with bert out. Filppula - Datsyuk - Franzen Nyquist - Zetterberg - Brunner Cleary - Helm - Sammy Miller - Abdelkader - Tootoo I'd even prefer to have eaves out there in place of sammy to be honest but that will never happen.

Holland isn't a genius. Just drafted well for a while. Maybe a bit of luck. He's a decent GM but has rested on his past success for too long and hasn't worked hard to make meaningful improvements to the team.

There is like nothing available in free agency this offseason on D so it kinda means we have to make a deal unless we want to tank a couple seasons until our d prospects are ready... I just hope Holland makes a meaningful deal rather than a "reclamation" project that turns up like Quincey and under performs. We need actual help.

If we play this bad might as well bring in some youth. Not like some rookie mistakes would have cost us out there.

I don't want to make it seem like panic mode. but we need to add a top 4 guy to our group. its pretty evident through 2 periods that our d isn't just under performing, its just outmatched. quincey isn't who we thought he was and smith isn't jesus on skates.

that sucks. pp looked decent before that.

don't think brunner is ready for the point on the pp yet.

starting to get the breakouts down

settling down now.

Wow just terrible. We are the biggest perimeter team.

NEED TO SPLIT UP Z AND DATS.

We need some size out there. Getting bashed all over the place.

Honestly need to split Z and Dats up ASAP. and trade for a half decent dman. i think the evaluation process on our d is over.

wow. we are s*** without helm. no speed/physicality to match.

Tatar and Nyquist are PPG in AHL. Definitely ready to be called up at this point it almost sickens me to see them down. If we played some players like this with potential they could possibly make others expendable and we could have trade bait finally. Nothing of worth comes from running the wheels off Bert, Cleary, and Sammy. We get nothing of value from them for the future.