evilzyme

I remember.. vaguely.... that he wait yes, yes he did.. that man nearly saved our asses against San Jose! The stuff that people say on this forum sometimes... my god

oh my god, thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu helmer get better soon

Why is everyone suggesting we need to get an elite goalie? We have an above-average one right now, that has been improving every single season. At that, he isn't tying our hands with a huge contract. What this team needs to do is start playing like a team. They need the defense to play some defense and the offense to play some offense. Howard will do his job, he's proven he can and will do it. He simply can't handle this workload though, and mentally it has to be frustrating to know that everything relies on you because you have noone the franchise believes in yet. Mrazek will have his chance to play this weekend, we're absolutely sure to see him play in one of the weekend back-to-back games (Unless Monster magically comes back before then). Elite goalies aren't some rapid breeding species, they're rare and they come at a premium, such does great defensemen.

Devils should be able to make a decent run again this year. They've been playing some really good hockey even without Parise, which I thought would've taken them down a notch or two. Seems like they're running on motivation and hate!

No, that's not your point. You said he was average. You didn't say "Howard = Not elite"; you said "Howard = Average" and then you said What? Please tell me what the Mrazek train is? The magical NHL games he played? We have absolute NO knowledge how he is going to play in his first game, nor in the NHL. There is NO Mrazek train and it hasn't even ARRIVED at the station. Once again, "just average" doesn't translate to "not elite". If you're going to start a thread, and try to make a point, please don't backtrack the moment people don't agree with you.

Edzo.... the only words/phrases he can actually say are the following: chicago, blackhawks, chicago blackhawks, toews, amazing 2010, 2010 was the best season, oh my god look at kane, kaner!, look at those hawks, wowzer those hawks are looking good this year, man i love chicago, chicagos a great city, how about those hawks?

I say sadly because he certainly should NOT be our best defensemen. Plain and simple. If Lashoff is our best defensemen, that's just sad. I love the guy, and I think his play has been outstanding. That's exactly why I brought him up, but it is a sad fact when he's our #1D right now. Kronner has looked absolutely AWFUL this season. You can see that he's scared to even attempt to hit due to everything being called, and he looks like a lost duck out there. Right now, he can't be our #1D. He simply isn't shutting down any top lines right now. Ericsson is clearing the crease more than damn Kronner (which i'm loving seeing Ericsson actually moving people). Hell, Quincey has used his body more in the crease than Kronner. There was no excuse to rest your back against Iginla last night. You should NEVER have a forward inbetween you and your tender, you need to be the middle ground. The sad part was, he sat there back against him for a solid 5+ seconds.

I wouldn't say absent, because you can tell he's getting frustrated. Easily within the first and 2nd periods, especially when Babcock was double shifting him with TooToo in the box for 5 minutes. The problem is, they think they can bait the defense to the outside and then cut within the middle on them and you can't always do that, especially when people tend to expect that out of you. Numerous times the past two games, they would simply pass downlow, throw it back to the point try to squeeze the defense out to expand their box but then throw it directly down the boards again. When you start pulling the defense to the outside and expanding them, you NEED to feed someone within the middle. We just didn't have ANYONE get inside their defense to feed to, we were OKAY with staying on the boards. We're getting too pressured, and we can't just expect to out-puck handle it. Last night I saw a lot of heart from Zetterberg (i've been seeing it all games) which is expected due to him being the captain, he's been playing lights out having his team emulate his heart. Pavel was trying hard, but he just couldn't get anything going. It's not everyday you see Pasha mishandle the puck, not beable to grab passes, etc, but my god the puck was bouncing all over and he just couldn't get into his flow. Brunner surprisingly has been getting better and better each game, you can tell he's getting more comfortable. Bert was playing hard, and Clears had his best game this season. Lashoff sadly looked like our best defensemen.

Absolutely they need to change it up within the game, and adopt to how the team is countering their attack. Hockey should never be a static strategy, never. You should always aim to adjust to how that team is playing, and exploit them where you find holes. Sadly though, this team isn't aimed towards a dump and chase either though. In order to dump and chase, you need speed and you need physicality. If you can't win the race to the puck, you better damn well have the body to come out on top when you get there. There needs to be more shooting, plain and simple. I don't care if it's from the perimeter or not, throw it on and crash it. Good things come out of broken, scrambled plays. When the defense is scrambled, and you're only going to scramble them if you get pucks loose and cause havok within the zone, you will reep the rewards. We need to throw them down low, get it in the shooting lanes, make the defense start moving, recover the pucks and reset. If you keep throwing the puck down, recovering and throwing it laterally you'll find numerous amounts of success. We're simply just getting beat to the puck, every, single, time. If you don't feel confident in getting to the puck first, staple gun that man to the glass and wait for your secondary to come help recover it for you, but don't allow them to flush the puck out of the zone.

Passing is a big problem with this team right now, but you need to use it when you don't have the speed to break through the neutral zone. They were just getting caught moving it TOO much before breaking into the offensive zone. Numerous times you would count off 5 passes before they even entered the zone. It shouldn't come down to that. We don't have the speed to outlet pass straight into the zone, so we need to run criss-crosses through the neutral zone. Unfortunately, when you have a big team that can close passing lanes like no other, you find yourself in some big trouble. Calgary did an outstanding job at boxing out the wings and keeping them on the outside, i mean... frickin the outside. we couldn't break inside and get their defense moving. they simply stayed in the hip pocket and stayed with everyone and gave them no space. we needed to spread the ice.

In my personal opinion, big emphasis on MY PERSONAL, I think Jimmy is the type of guy that would take a hometown discount. Basically saying, I think he wants to be a franchise goalie, he wants to be a Red Wing for his career. It's always struck me like that from day one, and honestly I couldn't see the guy going somewhere else. So, with that, I honestly can't see Jimmy asking for some outrageous contract, especially when he can be very judgmental of himself and his play. He will blame himself for losses that weren't even on him, he strives to give the team every chance he can, I love that motivation from him. Hell, he was our only enforcer for a few!

Wow.... WOW! We want to start throwing the blame down range at Jimmy? Open your eyes. Howard has been the one keeping us from getting screwed 6-0 every game. We wouldn't have won a single game without Jimmy, plain and simple. You're right, you know all those breakaways, the penalty shot last night, all those 5 on 3's, all those PK'ers... you're right, he certainly hasn't been there... /sarcasm Please, if it wasn't for Howard, we would be getting DESTROYED. The past two games is simply because of his workload, go try and play consecutive games knowing that there isn't an option to save your ass. There's a reason why Babcock has been playing him consecutively, we NEED him. Unfortunately, I completely agree that Mrazek should've played last night, even if it was after the 4th goal and was simply the last 4/5 minutes. Then again, you don't want to throw your goalie in there only to get lit up for 5 minutes and have absolutely no confidence.

The question is, who in Canada is going to buy me one and then ship it over here? Or does Bud seriously need to come over and install this beaut of a product.

We should sport the winter classic sweaters (first one, not this years(well... yeah... shh)) or the old classic detroit falcon jerseys.

thing gets more and more frustrating. can only imagine how he feels right now. it's hard to stay positive about things but my god he hasn't played in a stretch for awhile.

Man, I know you aren't supposed to air your dirty laundry but the league might as well publicly address the gong show that is happening right now. Atleast let us know that you agree and can understand the frustration of the everything. This year's reffing is absolutely HORRIBLE. I know they're trying to promote more scoring and getting rid of the clutch and grab hockey but all these calls are simply slowing the game down. I can't remember if someone said it here or on HFB but I love the idea of having a overlook ref being all the way up top watching over the game. I believe if they atleast had 1-2 sets of eyes from an aerial view they would beable to clarify situations much better. Along with seeing things behind the play. I would say they could use headsets to communicate from ground level to aerial, but we can't even get the microphones for calling penalties to work.

I used to always see those shirts in my news feed, was actually going to get one sadly. I could totally see why he's pissed off.

He's fine, he said that he simply got hit in the you know where. After 10 minutes he said it was all settled downstairs and he felt normal.

He said he wasn't going to be ready by the weekend, was hoping for next week. Atleast that's last I read. Wings are going to be gassed tonight, but luckily it's a struggling Columbus team. Hope we come out strong and get a lead early; we'll have our feet at the beginning, but near the end of the game is where the fatigue will start to set in. Let's get another 2 boys!

Cleary's on the PP to do the net front presence. During practices he can rail deflections like no other(well, I lied, there are better ). He normally is a workhorse and can hold his own in front of the net. Is it working? Not really. The dude's banged up but to say he isn't trying out there is insane. He's trying as hard as he can, putting it all on the ice. I'm not a cleary lover, and I certainly can agree with some points, but you gotta give him SOMETHING.

He's been playing decent out there this season, atleast the past 4 games i'd give him. His saving grace is the fact that he's used as a center in our system, and our depth there isn't that great. I would say that his value is going up, and he'd be apart of a package, but i'm not sure we want to get rid of the 4th line center with helmer going down so frequently. He's been on the PK also, and doing a decent job. Axe, by the way buddy, this is YOUR thread my man.

right but without helmer it changes numerous roles and natural positions. the bottom 6 needs to step regardless but its hard when you're asked to play a role different than what you are good at.

you guys kill me sometimes. complaining about the bottom 6 when the key element helmer is missing. switches everything. helmer back puts elements back in place.

cleary is a good net front and he can hit tips real good. that's exactly why he's out there