PavelValerievichDatsyuk

So, Helm is our leading scorer and Larkin is our enforcer. Weird year so far.

Nike!!!

Got to take advantage of 15 guys on their bench

Won it too.

Haha. Larkin

A local steak chef is a Wings fan.

Agreed, but Howard's going to play some games this year. Might as well take a hot streak. Backup goalies do play more than one game in a row. Edit: Actually, scratch that. Early in the season you don't want to shake Mrazek and he's been great as well. Also, our success this season depends on Mrazek being lights out.

Z back as center Larkin on the wing might be a good thing to get them going, but I hope they switch back at some point in the season. AA should be in over Ott or Miller. Kind of surprised that Howard didn't get another game after his great performance. Edit: Didn't notice Sproul in there. Good to see him get in there, but Marchenko should be the one out. XO been solid from what I've seen Also, Sproul and Smith looks like a really bad combo to me. They're both risky offensive guys. should be: Smith-Marchenko Ericsson-Sproul

Pavalec was demoted by the Jets and is playing in the AHL so I'm sure the Jets wouldn't mind moving him.

Didn't watch the game, but just watched the highlights and the 2 big breakaways were both clearly Smith's fault. He's been good so far this season, but he seems to still have these huge mistakes.

Looks like Abby's having a disagreement with the ref

There's a bunch of players in the league with names that sound like they're the bargain bin knockoff version. When I turned the Panthers game and they were mentioning Malgin I thought there was a big trade I hadn't heard about.

Let's Go Howard!! Show off your trade value, er, I mean skills. Lines according to MLIVE: http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2016/10/red_wings_lineup_vs_rangers_ji.html#incart_river_index "Tomas Tatar-Dylan Larkin-Henrik Zetterberg Justin Abdelkader-Frans Nielsen-Riley Sheahan Gustav Nyquist-Darren Helm-Thomas Vanek Andreas Athanasiou-Luke Glendening-Drew Miller Steve Ott (healthy scratch) Tomas Jurco, who had off-season back surgery, skated after practice. The defense pairs: Danny DeKeyser-Mike Green Brendan Smith-Xavier Ouellet Jonathan Ericsson- Alexey Marchenko Ryan Sproul (healthy scratch). Niklas Kronwall did not skate. In goal: Jimmy Howard (starting)" Second line is pretty ugly. Either AA should switch with Sheahan or at least switch Tatar and Abby to give that 2nd line a finisher.

So 5 fights and none of them was Ott, right?

Throw your green hats!!!!

There's quite a bit of irony here. You're named after the character who was always offended because Homer wouldn't remember/use his real name.

That's on Green.

Liking how Vanek and Nyquist work together.

Obviously I didn't mean just don't sign 3 players - These guys (minus Ott who I shouldn't have included) are higher cost UFA options for the spots they fill. Don't sign them and give the spots to prospects saves you cap space. I'll do the math: Even if we just didn't sign Vanek: Vanek's 2.6+Smith's 2.75 = 5.35 (a.k.a. room for Fowler's 4 mill + 1.35 is more than enough for Pulkkinen or Mantha or whoever takes Vanek's spot) I was off when I included the option of trading Marchenko, but that probably wouldn't be likely anyway. The main guess is that Ducks wanted Nyquist anyway, so there's no need to worry about cap issues since Nyquist's cap hit is bigger. You would just have to make space on the D end. The larger point is that it seems like a forced connection between Abdelkader's contract and making space for a trade.

If you're going to keep using the Lapointe comparison I'll keep pointing the differences. A very key difference is that Boston gave Lapointe 16 million for 3 years. That was 2001-02, so with inflation, I think you should consider that as somewhere over 6 mill per for a caphit. If Abby was asking for that much I'm sure we would have let him go. A player making 4.25 is not the same situation. You discount "intangebles" (a misnomer) but if you were to go with the cheaper option to get that production, they wouldn't have the toughness, ability to win board/netfront battles, PK ability, leadership, that Abby provides and I think the line and team would be lesser for it. I don't see how you can claim overpaying Helm and Abby as a roadblock to making a trade. We had 3.425 to throw at Vanek, Miller and Ott. If we were planning to leave room for a traded salary, we could have just not signed those guys. Fowler makes 4 mill - with whatever player we would trade for him seems pretty sure to work in that case (eg. Smith or Marchenko+a prospect would fit the cap situation)

Let's get one in the Win category!!!

I was just fact checking. Lapointe had more 40+ seasons (3) than Abby currently does. Abby has more seasons (2) around 20 goals or more 3 seasons if you count the lockout shortened season. I doesn't make sense, to me, to say had those 2 seasons and then "never came close to 20 goals or 40 points again." when in fact his outlier seasons were 3 in row rather just the 2. That's just cherry-picking the end of the run to make it seem like more of an aberration. For what it's worth, Lapointe only played 59 games in the season after these 3, so I'm sure there's an injury in there that explains some of the drop off.

First of all, Lapointe had 3 40pt. seasons in a row. Also, if you want to use that comparison, and just look at goal scoring, Lapointe had only 1 year significantly above his usual 15 goals, in 00-01 with 27 goals. Abby already has a year with 23, 19, (and maybe you count 10 in the 48 game lockout shortened season) so there's more of a track record for higher goal totals.

I think I like those lines. Vanek and Nyquist showed some pretty good chemisty and Z needs someone with speed to do some leg work for him. Reuniting Z-Lark-Abby (with larkin now at center) could be a good idea and Abby shouldn't be on the 4th long term, but those are good from what I saw in last night's game. Helm wasn't very good, but I'll give him more than 1 game to get reaccustom to the center position. Gendening was the only centerman above 50% on faceoffs (he had 60) and we need to get guys winning face-offs. Helm was a good faceoff guy in the past when he played center. Good to see Ott out and AA in.

Liked Vanek and Smith played well. Nyquist had some good moment Next game I want to see AA. Who's out in his place? my vote would be Miller. Larkin, Tatar need to be better.