number9

He finished better than Roman Cervenka in the KHL, who recently transitioned to the NHL with Calgary and then defected back to Russia. Cervenka was on pace for 35 pts with a bad Calgary team. Malykhin is MUCH younger then Cervenka (And younger than Brunner was when he came over) and we are obviously a better team than Calgary. If he truly wants to come over to play with Datsyuk I would be very pleased. It would a cheap EL contract too.

Our leaders right now: Franzen, Alfredsson (I can't decide which is lazier at the moment) I would say Legwand, but he's too new to the locker room. I wish wish wish Weiss was healthy right now. He seems to be more comfortable on a team with a depleted roster. Joking aside, this would have been a great time for him to step in, find his groove, and lead. Edit: I forgot Kronwall obviously. Do we have Swedish refs in the NHL yet?

Almqvist has 42 points in 57 AHL games btw. Assist machine. Might be the setup man at D we've been needing. And can't lie, kind of excited to hear Daniels say "Almqvist to Nyquist, and he scoressssssqvist"

Pulkkinen is the obvious next forward call up, leading the Griffs in goals and points at the moment. But has anyone seen Almqvists numbers this season? I know many of you have considered shipping him out in a trade, but damn he's proving to be an offensive force as a Dman. Despite his size I'm starting to favor him over Marchenko, Ouellet, Sproul and Jensen. Blashill said at the beginning of the year that he's undersized and would have to find his niche as smart puck mover if he's ever going to make the big leagues. He seems to be taking that to heart. We might have a Torey Krug on our hands.

A question I have is do we re-sign Monster? And for how long? If we don't Mrazek gets more NHL playing time and we get a lower cap hit. The problem is who would be our third guy? Coreau? He hasn't been good since leaving college. Paterson? Too young. Re-sign McCollum? Who's found his form again this season. Gotta think Gustavsson will get re-signed, but I doubt he'll want a 1 year deal. Another 2 year? I for one might be ok with giving McCollum another try

In injuries with players with big cap hits (aka important players) we're number 1 this year

A friend of mine is a bartender at a bar in Grand Rapids that the Griffins frequent quite a bit. He's met Teemu a couple of times and said that he's incredibly nice and friendly and down to earth (unlike others he's met, like Smith, who he says used to get wasted and run his mouth like he's hot stuff) he's also spoken with Glendening a few times, who he says is also very classy and soft spoken in real life. He said to me that he asked Glenny about Pulkkinen, and all Luke had to say was that his slap shot is unreal and is "the best he's ever seen" He works as a bouncer as well and experienced Chris Chelios coming into the bar about a year ago as well. He said he took Chris's ID before looking at him and said "hey, your Chris Chelios" (as an excited fan would) Chris apparently responded "Glad you can read" and proceeded into the bar lol

Why are we even discussing this? This is akin to acquiring Crosby, he's not going anywhere, and the Preds have stated that outright

It's insane. Any injury prone team doesn't get this many injuries to key players. The gambler fallacy in me says this has to turn around at some point...

Rich, I was so fond of discussing +/- with you, why do you ignore our counter points? Do you really believe E is better than Kronwall?

THIS TEAM also doesn't have Datsyuk and Zetterberg right now. Lol We're not going to win the cup every year just bc we have a good team. You act like bc we have x y and z we should win the cup. That's not the case. Vancouver has iced a great team for a while and still hasn't earned a recent a cup. Does that make them bad? Does that Luongo bad? Schneider? No, there's a lot of luck involved. Just bc Howard hasn't carried us to a cup yet doesn't mean he won't coast to a cup in the future. "Toronto did this, Nashvillve did that" Remember when we took the Stanley cup champs to game 7 in the 2nd round last year? You can't compare most runs cause everyone faces different teams.

You say you know it's a team stat but then judge his play based on it.... Doesn't make others look good? He makes Ericsson look real good out there and E is probably a #4 guy at best. Shea Weber is every fan in the leagues defensive wet dream and he's like -14 or something right now. With the poor season we've been having everyone on the team should have lower +/- You simply cannot use that stat to judge any one player

A positive post??? C'mon guys even Rich thinks Howard is good

Simply put, having another Homer and Lids would be great. Zetterberg - Datsyuk - Holmstrom Rafalski - Lidstrom Was a sickkkkk PP unit Homer screened the goalie and tipped in shots from Lids and Raffi. He also took a Dman out of the play so Dats and Z had more room to make magic. Unfortunately 3 of those stars are gone. Leaving us with only 1 QB in Kronwall (who isn't as good as Raffi or lids at shooting and puck movement) and Franzen who's better utilized around the net, not in front of it

That's the thing. Babcock is trying to play a gentlemens game, but not everyone is going to treat us like gentlemen. Torres just came back from injury and I think it was McLellan who basically said it's been great to have him back because even though he hasn't been hitting that much, other teams are looking over their shoulder again when they play us.

Rather have him than Kindl for sure. Lashoff just seems pretty blah so far. Not bad, just blah I wouldn't mind it, 4 million is pretty cheap for him and the cap should keep going up over the years, so in theory that number will look better and better as the years go on. Still risky though yes.

Kindl Quincey and Lashoff are all just fillers. Wouldn't be mad if any of them left

Neal and Neil are two different guys, but I know what you're talking about. Enforcers don't prevent injury. But if I was an opponent coach playing the Wings I would tell all my guys before the game "Look these guys are all soft finesse players. Don't play their game. Play physical and aggressive with them, and just go balls to the wall on them... they're not going to stop you." We need some more BIG guys that wear down the other team and let them know they can't go balls to the wall on us.

Mrazek didn't get it done last game either. Our D is piss poor right now and I wouldn't expect any goalie to put up top 10 stats with it. Lundqvist isn't an ordinary starter... He's up there with other elite guys like Rinne. His top 4 D also isn't as bad as ours. McDonagh - Girardi Staal - Klein Leafs have had baddddd goaltending not good. I also like there top 4 better though. Phaneuf - Gleason Gunnarson - Franson Nashville has always been strong in net and at D, especially when they had Suter. And they have an elite guy in Rinne. Jones - Weber Josi - Del Zotto Smith is equal to Howard IMO. They're top 4 is better than ours though Yandle - E-Larsson Michalek - Morris None of those teams have "gotten it done in the playoffs" either though, so what's your point?

Then why is above average minor league goalie Mrazek not starting every game?

True true. I kno it has to an end sometime. This would just be sucha a crappy way to end it (injuries).

Nope. LGWers live in the moment. Mood swing to mood swing.

At the end of the day I love this franchise bc we always go to the playoffs. We piss excellence. If we don't make it I'll still be a diehard fan, but it will be hard to take the "streak is over" bs from the media and other fans. We've always been a prime target for haters, and I dread the day they have ammo.

Soft puck possession style means lots of soft injury prone players. We really need a few Matt martins who can up the teams energy and also let other teams kno they can't play balls to the wall on us or they're gonna get run over . We can't be ALL class

I heard Pevs asked to go back in the game when he was in the locker room. Love that guy. He'll do Nill proud