kipwinger

Is that you Frieza?

Or maybe he's about to go super saiyan?

Queensryche is The Cult if The Cult A) sucked, and B) was an all chick band.

I know he "fought" Simmonds the other night, but for the last two or three weeks I kept wondering when he was going to punch someone. Maybe he wouldn't have been waived if he'd been more punchy.

How many fights did he have for the Wings again? Edit: Legit, non-rhetorical, question BTW.

Why are we siding with the Axis again? I mean, I get that some of you righties may romanticize the Third Reich and all but my grandpa didn't get his ass shot off in France for nothing bro!

If we plan on sticking to this whole WWII metaphor, wouldn't some American and Russian prospects come along later and kick the living f*ck out of the Nazi? Maybe we should trade high on Seider early, like right before Alamein (his NHL debut in this metaphor), because it'll only be downhill from there?

Yeah, I understand where you're coming from. I just think it's so easy to find adequate goaltending through trade/ufa that I don't see why you'd ever bother taking one that high. There's always a Murray/Fleury, Holtby/Grubaur, or UFA Lehner out there looking for a home. Build a contender first and some goalie will be dying to play for you when you're ready to go all-in on a Cup.

I'm not sold on the fact that Babs had all that much to do with the two-way play of those two guys. There was a strong two-way culture on the Red Wings before Babs got there. I think he demanded that they play defense, and taught them how he wanted it done in his system, but I think they were already bought in because guys like Yzerman, Lidstrom, Fedorov, etc. were the team leaders when their careers started and they all played that way.

Another argument might be that you don't need elite goaltending to win a Cup so why waste that high of a pick?

He's making a World War II reference. Germans charged (blitzkreig) at the French, who subequently surrendered. Read a goddamn book.

I don't think they're top heavy at all. In fact, they have awesome scoring depth. Outside of the big four forwards, Kapanen, Johnsson, and Hyman all scored 20 goals last year. That's 7 forwards with 20+ goal upside that can be spread out over three lines. Since then they've added Mikheyev, Kerfoot and Spezza. They're SUPER deep offensively. As far as stars playing soft, maybe. But that's not really unusual for young players. People said the same thing about Dats and Z when they were young. Hell, you can look back through old LGW threads and see all sorts of similar complaints about those two in various idiotic trade proposals. Same old story, they play "soft", they're selfish, they don't play defense. Anytime anybody wants some nebulus criticism to bash a player they don't like it's one of those three. Premier talent almost never enters the league playing a fully rounded game. They've never had to. And most of them haven't learned (yet) to play a tough game either. Again, because they've never had to. Then they get a little older, develop more, have more coaching, and become everything everybody says they aren't (a la Crosby). Maybe the three of them will turn out to be Alexander Semin 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0. But I doubt it.

The entire "Toronto just wants to play offense" narrative is completely contrived. One of the first things Keefe did after taking over was change up the defensive scheme because TO had been terrible defensively. Dubas is also on record as saying that (I'm paraphrasing) he'd love to have the biggest, meanest, grittiest, most skilled team in the league. But if he can't have them all then skill is the most important of those things. As I've stated elsewhere, Tampa is one of the most potent offensive teams in the league, with a coach strongly committed to analytics, and nobody claims they only play "one way hockey". Nobody competent enough to get a job coaching in the NHL thinks you don't have to play defense. It's about competitive advantage. If your game changing talent is defensive, maybe shot suppression and shutdown goaltending becomes the cornerstone of your team. But if, like Toronto, your elite talent is offensive (I'd say Tavares, Matthews, Marner, Reilly, and Nylander qualify here) then it's probably not unreasonable for a GM and coach to want to take advantage of that in their game planning.

Wow, so it wasn't even behind closed doors? Yikes.

I tend to think that if you've got that kind of personnel you don't have to sacrifice one for the other. Look at Tampa last year. Obviously high octane offense, but they weren't a bad defensive team either. The Leafs have that kind of talent. I think the challenge for every coach if figuring out the right combination of offense to defense that best suits your personnel. If you've got no offensively capable players you kind have to shut things down defensively. If you've got lots of high end offensive players you probably have defend a little less. I'm not sure if TO were defending too much or not. What I do know is that their elite offensive talent wasn't changing games the way it should, and that their personnel on defense were better than their collective effort.

I totally agree, but I just don't think it's a personnel problem. They weren't very good on the powerplay all season either, but I don't see anyone saying they lack good offensive players.

I don't agree with that though. Aside from Muzzin, Ceci is also a solid defensive player, and Babs couldn't shut up about how much he loved Reilly's game (and we all know Babs can't stand an all offense player). Of the two young guys, Liljegren is more offensive (and he's still in the AHL rounding out his game) while Dermott is a solid two-way defender. Only Barrie is what you'd consider a pure "offensive defenseman" and you need some guys like that, otherwise your powerplay will suck. While that defense isn't top five in the league, it's certainly top 10-12 and should not be used as a scapegoat here. In years past we heard over and over and over about how to win a Cup you need elite talent at center, a true 1D, scoring depth, and a goalie that can keep you in games in the playoffs. The Leafs had all of that under Babs. As someone said on Twitter, he was handed a Ferrari and complained that it couldn't win a monster truck rally. On top of that, he is by all accounts a huge prick so players didn't want him around, and finally he threw his GM under the bus at the end of last season. Add all that together and you have a recipe for what transpired. Edit: Forgot about Justin Holl, who is also a solid defensively responsible defender, with a little bit of offense. A lot like a Dekeyser.

As one might expect, I have no interest in Babs. I think bringing him on would probably improve the team, but only marginally given our talent level, and we'd end up looking a lot like the Wings from 2012-2015 (i.e. a handful of decent players grinding games to a halt to win). In a more general sense one has to wonder about Babs' overall approach after this debacle in TO. That's as winning a roster as you're ever gonna get, and to have the results he's had has to leave you wondering what's going on? He's got all the offense a guy could ask for, in all different varieties. I'd agree that moving on from guys like JVR and Kadri was perhaps short sighted, but it's not like they were replaced with bums. Their defense WAS weak a couple years ago, so Dubas went out and acquired genuine top four talent in Muzzin, Barrie, and Ceci and they've done well developing Dermott and Liljegren as well. Their goalie situation isn't great, but their starter is good and I think it's pretty thin to blame this dumpster fire on a backup goalie. Like I said, this is as good a roster as most coaches will have in their entire careers. Which brings me to... Peter Laviolette. Won a Cup in Carolina with absolutely nothing. Went to the Cup finals with a good, but not spectacular roster in Philly and lost to a dynasty team. Then took a good, but not spectacular, Nashville team to the finals and lost to another dynasty team. He's actually done what Babs always gets credit for (i.e. win with thin rosters), he's got just as many Cups as Babs in just as many tries, and is the only guy to ever beat Babcock in the Olympics (for people who think that matters). If he's available, I'd be more than thrilled to see Laviolette behind Detroit's bench. I've been a fan of the guy's for a really long time, and I'd love to see an offensive coach take advantage of this team's speed and skill going forward.

Couple of weeks ago I was talking to my dad complaining that the Wings are so conservative that they'd rather have a guy who has no chance of scoring than a guy who has no chance of defending. I was lamenting the fact that there are always guys available who can score, but who can't do much else; and that rather than stockpile 200 Darren Helm types we should maybe take a flier on a guy with offense. I was thinking another Vanek...so basically Jason Spezza. And then we traded for Perlini and Fabbri. So they did the exact thing I was asking for, but in a way I wasn't. So I sorta HAVE to like these trades...but I don't feel good about it.

Bowey looking pretty good in that sequence.

But why not use Ericsson for that?

I don't mean this in a s***ty way, real question: Why is Alex Biega on this team?

NBC on-ice guy just said "your level of comfortability". Yeesh.

I genuinely like them both. At least they're both sensible. I'd rather see understated sweaters than something like that last one the Wings wore. WAY too much going on there.