kipwinger

Just to put things into perspective, we're 3-3 through our first six games right now. We've scored 16 goals, and given up 16 goals. Last year we were 3-3 through our first six games. We had scored 12 goals, and given up 10. Our team isn't looking great right now, but it's not like we're in some kind of a dire situation. We'll get it sorted out.

Well Kindl at least looks OK tonight.

Yiiiiiiikes. We are a mess right now. Holy hell. Get it together boys.

Well its nice to see our special team are playing well again. If they don't come around in the remainder of this game I hope Blashill bag skates them to death. I don't mind losing as much if the effort is there. But we just look undisciplined.

Those were my "bold" predictions before the season. I also said that Pittsburgh would miss the playoffs, but that was less "bold" than Montreal so I had to go with the shocker. Either way, Dylark is going to run wild on McDavid's punk ass tonight. Because that's what Michigan guys do. They beat Canadians at stuff.

This coming from Frank. The first guy to complain about how Crosby was the "anointed one" a few years ago. Apparently Crosby is an entitled punk who never earned anything. McDavid? Teams should be privileged just to watch him play, because he's "something else".

Still calling it. Neither McDavid nor Eichel win the Calder, Montreal misses the playoffs, and Kessel scores less than 35. Screw those punks. Dylark is leading us to the promised land.

I wish Dylark were centering his own line, just so we could see him go head to head with McDavid tonight. Sadly, I'm expecting McDavid to have a big game as I don't think Sheahan or Richards can handle his speed in the head to head matchup.

Two scratches in a row for Smith. Blashill says he'll get in on this roadtrip. It would interesting if Kindl scored a couple of points tonight. See if they'd be willing to scratch someone else or if it will always be one of those two.

I don't think we have any actual interest in him or anything. I just heard his name bandied about in the rumor mill, and I like the idea of having another Abby on the team.

Does this make it more, or less, likely that we can fleece the BJs on a trade for Kerby Rychel? That guy has Abdelkader 2.0 written all over him.

I'm actually saying that Dan Boyle isn't a quality defenseman.

Tortarella has a Stanley Cup AND a Jack Adams Trophy. Carlyle does too, but he's the only one on your list with a resume as good as Torts'. The defense on that team was a complete joke. He had three quality forwards and Khabibulin. That's about it. People could say the same thing about most coaches that've ever won. Quenneville, Sutter, and Babcock ALL had as good, or better teams. So did Carlyle. Julien's wasn't significantly worse. I've always hated that argument. It either applies to nobody or everybody.

The man once said of himself: "I'm a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. I'm a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb. I am the world's forgotten boy, the one who searches and destroys." What do you think? Iggy IS a deterrent.

I wish Iggy Pop had a giant Wings logo tattooed on his chest. That would be way more kickass. McCartney is weak...and British. Iggy Pop is the musical equivalent of a prison riot. That's the kind of guy I want representing my team. Oh, and he's from Michigan. Screw McCartney and his Pens sticker, our city's got a better class of musician.

As far as NHL heels go, Torts is right up there with Gary Bettman. His obstinacy, hot temper, and complete lack of self awareness is a model for all those who aspire to villainy. Who has two thumbs and is glad he's back?

Richards had this team playing way above its head for the last three seasons. I think he's got a good future as a head coach in the league, but he might need to coach a more veteran team for a few years before he's ready to helm another young one.

And you were there to explain how the offense wasn't good, after even fewer games. We are all here to talk about the team, and throwing our hands up and citing small sample size is true of every single objective measure we would use to judge the performance of this team. At least up to this point. But I don't think we all want to wait for 20 games before posting again. I get your point. Its a small sample, but what else should we use to judge the defense? Turnovers? We are middle of the league in those. Scoring chances against? Middle of the league in those. Goals against? Middle of the league in those. In fact the only thing that's downright terrible is our shots against. And given that such a small sample size can dramatically skew stats, couldn't we actually be quite a lot better than even I'm suggesting? Nothing other than shots against suggests our defense is terrible. Mediocre? Sure. And that's what I was refuting...over 5 games. But the narrative seems to be "our defense sucks" regardless of how they play. Likely because its fun to point fingers at Ericsson, Quincey, Kind, and Smith.

When I wrote my first post yesterday, ESPN hadn't updated their stats from the weekend games, so our GAA wasn't 2.6. It was lower, and were were ranked 9th in the league. Which wasn't bad. That's what I was predicating my argument on. When they updated based on the Montreal game we dropped to the 2.6 GAA you're seeing now. But you'll recall that Montreal scored two powerplay goals, and one empty netter. So it's not like that drop in GAA was the result of "bad defense" in the sense that our defense keeps being accused of (i.e. turning the puck over, blowing zone coverage, failing to clear the crease, etc.).

I know. I was only ever talking about the five games we played. As I said in both threads, I'm not projecting how the defense will play all season. I'm just saying that haven't been bad through 5 games. Which makes people lose their minds apparently. In the five games we've played, our defense has been the least of our worries. I said our defense looked fine the first give games, and the entire forum acted as if I'd given them a free pass for the remainder of the season.

You keep bringing up the fact that I didn't see 1 of the 5 games we've played like that precludes me from making a general statement out the quality of our defense. Are we only allowed to draw conclusions about the team if we watch all 82 games? Because that seems asinine. For the 5 games we've played, our defense hasn't been bad. We haven't gotten scored on much, and when we have, a disproportionate amount of the goals (30%) have been powerplay goals. I don't need to see all five games to conclude that. I just need to know math. Thankfully I do. I agree. One of the ways to get more shots, and stop the other team from taking shots, is to take fewer penalties and be more successful on your special teams. Something we're currently not doing, and which is adversely affecting the team. Much more so than the "bad defense" in fact.

I really don't know how to make this more clear. Our team's goals against average is slightly above average (statistically). And it's negatively skewed by our bad penalty kill (30% of the goals scored against us have been powerplay goals). So our PK is bad. Not our defense. 30% is terrible. For context, 13% of the goals we've scored have been on the PP. 30% for them. 13% for us. We also have the tenth most penalty minutes per game (most of which were taken by forwards). If you're shorthanded all the time, and you're not very good at killing penalties, you A) Don't get shots, B) Get shot on more often, C) Get scored on more (remember that 30%). Through 5 games, we've been abysmal offensively and on special teams. Our goaltending and defense have both been decent to above average. And that's why we're 3-2. Any attempt to paint some "the defense is just as bad as the offense and special teams" argument is completely ignoring reality. Through 5 games, the defense is the least of our concerns.

Not really. Last year, Chicago had the 9th worst shots against per game statistics. We all know how that ended. Giving up shots isn't a good thing. But if they're low percentage shots, then it's not the end of the world. In general, we've got room to improve defensively. But we're a far cry from the god awful bunch of defensive losers that many are making us out to be. At least so far. If we were that bad, we'd gotten scored on a bunch. But we're not getting scored on. And contrary to popular belief that has nothing to do with how good our goalies are or aren't playing (they really aren't playing that great).

I wasn't using only even strength goals to "count against the defense". The team's goals against average includes powerplay goals against. And that's the number I'm basing my argument on. When I said "we're not getting scored on, at even strength", my point was that a disproportionate number of goals which make up our GAA came came on the powerplay. And our GAA is still among the best in the league (or was when I started the coversation hours ago). In other words, our stats are pretty good (both team and goalie stats). And they're EVEN BETTER if we don't include powerplays. And the reason this is useful is because we've given up a relatively large number of PP goals in our five games. But this shouldn't reflect poorly on the defense (or the goaltending) because getting scored on when you're short handed has little to do with the quality of your defense. Lots of bad defenses have good penalty kills, and lots of good defense have bad penalty kills. For example, last year Carolina and Colorado had top five penalty kills, but they weren't good defensive teams. Our defense has been good. So good that we're not giving up many even strength goals. We're giving up a relatively large number of goals on the PK. Which makes the score look bad, but hardly reflects on the quality of our defenseman over these first five games.

This just in, I was wrong (sort of). We're not top ten in Goals Against. When I started this conversation (hours ago) espn hadn't updated their website from saturday's games yet. It's now updated, and as a a result of the Montreal game, we're now tied for 13th. However, as I stated before. Three of Montreal's four goals were powerplay or empty netters. So they can hardly be attributed to "poor defense". But I did want to ackowledge the change for discussion's sake. I've already discussed shots a bunch of times. So no, I'm not leaving them out. Overall team goals against stats count powerplays too. I'm not holding anything against the goalies and that i'm not counting against the team at large. If you exclude powerplay and empty net goals, our GAA goes down even further. The stats I reported (Goalie stats, and team stats) all include powerplay goals in the totals. I excluded powerplay goals, and empty netters, in my conceptualization of "team defense" because the two are not really correlated. Lots of bad teams have good penalty kills and powerplays. However those things are not indicative of the quality of the team's offense and/or defense.