kipwinger

Look, I don't have a problem with Smith. He's playing well this year. But his offensive potential has not translated to the NHL, and his weaknesses (defensive zone coverage mostly) would get exposed playing 25 minutes a night. I think he's be best as an Oduya, Anton Stralman, type. He will probably not score much, but could still be a decent puck mover and pk guy. And we have to stop with this fallacy that he just needs power play time to start scoring. For the last three years he's been given opportunities to earn power play time out of camp, and he wasn't delivered. For all his offensive attributes at lower levels, he's just not a point producer in the NHL. As evidenced by the fact that he scores less than other guys who don't get power play time either.

I'm still happy. But I do miss Franzen.

He's actually having a good season. He was injured last year and is rounding into form again. Unfortunately he can't be sent down again, so he has to make the team out of camp next season to avoid waivers or a trade.

Smart move. The Grifs likely lose Ouellet, Sproul, and Jensen after this year. Need to restock the cupboard.

I was suggesting that Smith is good at puck movement, and transition, like Green and Kronwall. And I think out team does need better defense to offense transition. In terms of pairing him with one of them, I'm not against it. I was simply deferring to the tendency our coaches have had to put a good puck mover with a stay at home guy. I agree that Smith is better than Marchenko though. Ideally we would have all of kronwall, green, dekeyser, and smith in the lineup filled out with two of the remaining three. I also don't think either Qiuncey or Ericsson are "bad", theyre both good in the defensive zone. But I do think Ericsson throws the puck away too much on the breakout, which is killing our ability to enter the ozone with speed.

Let me put it this way, the fact that these particular guys are seen as alternatives to one another is troubling. Smith is our best possession defenseman (not best offensive defenseman, and there's a difference). Marchenko is a good stay at home guy and pk option. Smith should be competing with Kronwall, Green, and (formerly) Kindl. Marchenko should be competing with Dekeyser, Quincey, and Ericsson. The fact that they're competing with each other is sort of willy nilly. But then again, if taking Ericsson out if the lineup is a non starter you're left with silly options.

Please stop putting us on the power play. Please?

Dude, glorify Babcock all you want. I think we miss Jim Hiller a hell of a lot more than than we do Babs. Give our current team a powerplay that's 2nd in the league and we aren't even talking about missing the playoffs right now.

We were heavily injured for one of those years. Actually, we were second in the league. The team that was first won their division and a playoff round. So I think injuries in general aren't a very good excuse. Plus, we haven't missed the playoffs...yet. So you're putting the cart before the horse a bit.

Babcock's teams were in the EXACT same position the last two years, maybe three. Each year we went down to the final few games before locking up a playoff spot. I don't disagree that the coaching is problematic. It is. But lets not romanticize the past. Babcock was just as bad in recent years.

Its not unprecedented. If I recall correctly Zetterberg was scratched as recently as 2006 or 2007.

Firstly, I was making a large point about how people perceive "defensive ability". Not comparing Tatar vs. Glendening with some point about our roster. Also, Quite a lot of our players are as good or better than Chicago's. Tatar wouldn't crack their roster but Tomas Fleishmann does? Lol. Chicago is better than us because their top players are WAY better than our top players. Not because their secondary players are better. Toews, Kane, Keith, and Seabrook are much better than Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Kronwall, and Dekeyser (?). Much. With that said I think there are a number of ways in which we can improve our lot given our current lineup. And i think there are lots of ways I think we can improve our secondary guys. But we're not likely going to compete for a Cup until we have high end players (in their prime) again. And I'm not talking about good complimentary players, I'm talking about guys who can carry a team night in and night out (kinda like Kane and Toews do). Switch all our none core guys with Chicago's and we're still not any good. So it's not like their roster moves are what's putting them over the top. If anything, the fact that they've torn their team apart three times and won three Cups is proof that it doesn't matter who they put around their good guys, not that they've got some winning recipe for player acquisition.

While I'm definitely not an expert with regards to advanced stats, my understanding is that usage (much like quality of competition) tends to wash out over time and has only a small effect on possession metrics. But again, I'm not good enough with the numbers to verify that. I correspond pretty regularly with the "math freaks" who do, and I'm just repeating what they tell me. And I'm not even trying to suggest that Tatar (or Kane) is better defensively than Glendening. Just that the difference is smaller than people think. Glendenings GA/60 is 2.12, while Tatar's is 2.4. That's the difference of about 16 goals per season. Glendening's TMGA/60 (measuring how much more your teammates get scored on when you aren't playing with them) is .08 better than Tatar's. Both are on the bottom end of the team. That's a difference of about 6 goals per season. So again, not huge, and almost entirely washed out by Tatar's offensive contributions. My only point in all of this was not to directly compare the two players. They do different things, in a different way. I was just trying to cast doubt on the notion that being good at "traditional" defensive aspects of the game is all that much better than just being decent defensively, and good at possession. I picked those two guys because the knee jerk reaction by most would be that Luke Glendening is WAY better defensively than Tomas Tatar. That they're at opposite ends of the "defensive" spectrum. But they aren't really. You could do the same thing with Pulkkinen and Glendening, and Pulkkinen actually buries him (weirdly, Andersson does too). Yet pretty much everyone thinks Pulkkinen is awful defensively, and Glendening is much better.

He is probably no worse. Toews gets the love because he's a center and has the hardware, but on the whole the Blackhawks are an excellent defensive team precisely because they're such a strong possession team. Its their system, which everyone buys into, that keeps them playing in the offensive zone and away from their own net. Hence they don't get scored on nearly as much as they score. This is one of the reasons (not the only one) that drove me crazy about Babcock. He specifically wanted our forwards playing back further in our zone. Making breakouts and transition harder, and making dump and chase more necessary. He even stated at one point that he wanted our team to be more conservative back when Lids, Rafalski, Kronwall, and Stuart were our top four, but didn't do it "because we could get away" with not playing that way. Not surprisingly we had more success back then. A big part of the fall off was on personnel, which wasn't his fault, but its telling that his preferred system would have had those great luck movers playing more conservatively as well.

And I disagree, I think being a good possession player is WAY more important than being a "shutdown" guy...whatever that means. Henrik Zetterberg was good defensively precisely because be was a great possession player. If you recall all his great defensive moments he was playing against centers (Crosby in 2008, Toews in 2013). He wasn't doing anything in the defensive zone that Kane doesn't regularly do. Also, I don't think that being a good penalty killer is some indicator of defensive acumen. Any more than I think being good on the power play necessarily makes you a great offensive player. Drew Miller and Luke Glendening are decent penalty killers, but their "defensive" game is wildly overrated. They play defense CONSTANTLY because they're terrible at moving the puck out of their zone. And as a result the puck is in our zone whenever they're on the ice. I also think takeaways are a wildly overrated defensive metric. Pulkkinen is one of our better takeaway players, yet I don't think he'd be considered good defensively by most. Conversely Datsyuk has lots of takeaways too but because he is so effective at then taking it into the ozone and keeping it there, he is a better "defensive" player. Google "Dave Tippett and thinking about defense differently". Its a great article on the importance of puck movement for effective defending, while also implicitly identifying why traditional notions of defense are so overrated in today's game.

Kanes main defensive responsibilities are to backcheck, pick up the puck carrier if it gets kicked to the point in the Chicago zone, and be available to take a quick pass from the defensemen or diggers and advance the puck up the ice (and keep it there). He's good at all those things.

Someone on the last page said Kane had no innate defensive ability. Which is a crock. People don't understand how defense has changed from the old days. Theres a great quote by Dave Tippett which explains it. Sadly I can't attach it from my phone. But essentially it says possession matters more than traditional "defensive skills" like checking and blocking shots. People think Glendening is a good defensive player, and Tatar a bad one, despite the fact that Glendening plays the entire shift in his zone and Tatar plays in the other end. Same with Kane. Trying to justify hating on him by saying "he's bad defensively" demonstrates an insanely archaic way of thinking about hockey.

Most wingers never get much recognition for being good defensively. They just have so much less responsibility in that regard. Think about Hossa for instance, excellent defensively but never talked about the way Datsyuk, Bergeron, of Kopitar is. So its easy to see why people overlook Kane's defense. That and because " he's bad defensively" has become the most overused pejorative in the hockey universe. But Kane isn't really bad defensively. He's not a future Sellke winner (neither are any wingers) but he backchecks hard and picks up his man on the rush. What else is he supposed to do? He's also such a good possession player that he's almost never playing defense. So what's it matter? "He's bad defensively" is right up there with "Red Wings fans are spoiled" on the list of dumb cliches that irritate the hell out of me.

I really like Toews and think he's a very good player. But Kane is on another level. Toews is one of then 10 best centers in the league. Kane is one of the three best wingers. Despite the fact that its harder to be a good center than a good winger, if forced to choose I take Kane every time.

The comparison is apt. Crosby scored 102 points as a rookie. Toews scored 54 as a rookie. Neither were stalwart defenders. Not too different than McDavid and Larkin's scoring rate and defensive ability this season. And no, I wouldn't take Larkin over Mcdavid. But that wasn't an option. We have Larkin and I'm extremely happy with him. I'm not pining for Mcdavid one iota.

I wonder how much of Pulkkinens success in the AHL had to do with Meile? Because he's making Frk look just as good right now. Also, while Frk is a long, long, way from an NHL player, his shot seems just as good as Pulkkinens, he's no slower (or faster), and his size alone will help him protect the puck better. I will make a bold prediction that he could we a decent third line winger and power play guy one day. Still needs a little development, but he finds spots well, shoots well, and is a decent in high traffic areas. Late bloomer no doubt, but I don't think he's a bust at all.

I don't care if we don't have the next Crosby. We have the next Toews. And as overrated as everyone says he is, he's good enough to win Cups. McDavid is a great player and all, but wishing Larkin was more like him is splitting hairs. They've both got very nice looking careers ahead of them. Who cares if McDavid scores more so long as Larkin wins more?

What a side show. A bunch of 50 year olds jawing about something that happened 20 years ago. Foote should put his varsity jacket on, start blasting "Glory Days", and tell the Wings to meet him in the parking lot. McCarty would be there in a heartbeat given how badly he wants to live in the past.

Holy hell AA is awesome

Glendening out in OT? Jesus Christ.