kipwinger

We are actually pretty good when we press the pace. Maybe we should do that the whole game. Heaven forbid we try to score goals and lose occasionally rather than, you know, losing more often when we don't.

There's the Wings fans I know. Proacrtively setting the stage to complain about the refs.

MOAR JAM!!!

Anybody remember when Babcock was our coach, and Edzo accused the Wings of "subtle interference" and everybody bitched about it endlessly? Anybody remember when Babcock went to Toronto and we played them and they did the same thing CONSTANTLY? Looks like Edzo was right.

There's just something about his stupid fave that gets my goat. I realize its irrational. I do. But I don't care.

William Nylander has a punchable face. I'm sure he's a really nice kid and all, but when I see him I generally imagine the satisfaction of punching him.

Unfortunately Babs will try to trap his way to victory, so I anticipate this will be a boring game. Ugh, I hate his style of play.

If we play like we did yesterday we will bury these hacks. I hope Larkin gets a hatty and Babs cries himself to sleep tonight on his mountain of money.

Screw Young Floating Mike Babcock. This team needs Joe Cool Jeff Blashill.

I wish I knew whether the last two period against Winnipeg, and all of this game, were the result of some schematic change on the part of the coaches or whether the guys just buckled down and got their s*** together. But this looked like a totally different team than we've seen of late. I did think the defensemen looked more active today, which may have helped, but I don't know if that's the case. Also helps when you win 66% of the faceoffs. Gotta admit I was wrong about keeping Larkin at center for the remainder of the season. Moving Zetterberg back to center has been a good move for the last few games.

I really liked the Helm, Glendening, Richards line today. And Green was awesome all game. When he free wheels like that he's a dangerous player.

I'll repeat it. Even though we didn't get a regular powerplay goal (I realize we got one 6 on 4), I still thought our powerplay looked much better today. More structured. Way less willy nilly, which is how I typically see it. Hopefully we get a little confidence going, and stop playing so worried. This team has hellish wheels. When we use our speed and attack the opposition net we can win games.

Dear Jeff Blashill, Don't change anything. Sincerely, Everyone

C'mon guys. Keep playing like you were. Plenty of time to tie this up.

Speed and tenacity needs to be this team's identity going forward. Aggressive, aggressive, aggressive.

Even though it didn't yield a goal, that last powerplay looked a LOT better. As does our all around effort tonight. Regardless of the outcome I wouldn't chance a thing for next game if I were Blashill.

Can anybody on our team hit the net with the puck? So many missed shots.

It's that whole, "win one for the Gipper" mentality. Apparently winning is easy if you "want it" and if you are losing its because you "don't care". Not, you know, the product of careful preparation and execution of a well developed strategy that plays to your strengths and minimizes your weaknesses.

I love our speed, and our transitions, this game. Now if we could get some guys to play in the middle of the offensive zone. All our offense comes from the rush, which is fine, but we'd be a lot better off if we got shots from the middle when we have sustained offensive zone pressure. Too much perimeter shooting.

I thought we looked really good the last two periods last game. I was hoping we'd build on that.

Didn't catch the first, how did we look?

The fallacy here is that we've got bad players, and that we need to change them. Our players are good, and didn't magically forget how to play from one year to the next. The fact that they're universally all less good than they were a year ago suggests there's a systemic problem. The key is to make the necessary adjustments to get our good players back to the level they've demonstrated they're capable of. What's troubling is that our coaching staff currently seems to have no idea how to do that. In hindsight it would probably have been a good idea to go out and get an established assistant coach with a track record of power play success. But hindsight is what it is.

Its not fundamentally different then saying "if you want Jurco to score more give him 20 minutes a night and power play time". Sure he will score a little more, but that ignores the fact that you then WONT be giving that time to better, more capable, players. The Wings did EXACTLY what you're advocating with Ian White. And while he did score more them team was worse off for it because we had a depth defenseman playing big minutes. Which is a relative loss for the overall product regardless of what it did for White's stat line.

I'm not arguing that he's had the same amount. He hasn't. I'm arguing that he's been given plenty of chances to earn power play time and hasn't. Likely because he's not any good on the power play. And if that's the case, he probably isn't going to fix the problem. He is marginally outscoring Quincey and Marchenko, neither of whom have any power play time. He's just not a great offensive player. There's plenty of other things he's fine at, but your intent to paint him as "offensive" based on his possession numbers and natural athleticism don't ring true. The guy doesn't score much, thems the facts.

I'm all for fixing problems. I am not, however, in favor of replacing player with worse players. For all his good possession stats, Smiths game has not translated into more points for our team. Green, Knonwall, and Dekeyser are all more "offensive". To suggest replacing Green with Smith on the power play is laughable. Sure its bad, but its not going to improve by putting a less offensive guy out there. Green has 9 more assists than Smith has total points. Clearly he's more capable of generating goals than Smith. Look, I'm frustrated with the lack of scoring too. And I'm a huge believer in possession analytics. But they only matter if they lead to more points. And in Smiths case they don't. I mean, if you follow the logic that "if its broke, replace current players simply with different players" then you should also favor having Helm on the power play. Or Glendening. I mean, it can't be worse right? Except it can, and will be, if you take capable guys out of those spots. The goal should be to get our scorers to score more, like they have previously, not replace them with guys who have never done it in the first place.