kipwinger

It's not some trick of the numbers. Our defense is giving up a fair number of shots. But neither of our goalies are playing out of their minds. So apparently the shots against have been pretty easy to handle. Which is probably attributable to the defense only allowing low percentage shots. Again, try as you might. You're just not going to be able to prove that the defense has been as abysmal as everyone seems to think they've been. At least not up to this point.

As I pointed out in the other thread. Our goalies have been worse, statistically, than our overall defense. We've got a top ten defense in terms of goals against. Our goalies are ranked 15th and 17th in Save Percentage, and 14th and 31st in Goals Against Average.

Sample size only matters if you're projecting to a larger universe. I'm not. I'm saying they've been good so far. I'm not saying they'll be good all season. I'm summing up the 5 games in question, so which other sample should I use?

If our defense is so terrible, why aren't they getting scored on? Let me guess, our goalies are bailing them out? Oh wait, nope. No they aren't. Their numbers are worse than the overall defensive numbers. We've got the 10th lowest GAA, but our goalies rank 14th and 17th in Save Percentage, and 14th and 31st in Goals against average.

I get that, but that didn't happen, so it's clearly not to blame for the last two losses. It's like you're trying to blame real losses on potential shortfalls. For far, in 4 of our 5 games, our defense has been good. How do I know? Because we didn't get scored on much. Seems pretty simple. We've won three times. Another game we lost because of 5 on 5 play. And another we lost because of awful special teams play. To sum up our team by saying "our defense is bad" completely ignores the fact that for 4 of our 5 games, our defense was very good. So good in fact, that we hardly got scored on. Should we try to improve it? Absolutely. But any attempt to try and paint our defense as some bottom tier group of losers (as many folks consistently do) completely ignores objective reality.

Hyperbole. I didn't say any of that. If you're just going to distort my argument then why bother having a discussion. I said our defense had been fine so far, and they aren't the reason we've lost two in a row. My evidence for this is that we're not getting scored on at even strength. Instead, I've placed the blame pretty squarely on the shoulders of our depth scoring, and our special teams. But I find it telling that you're trying so hard to distort my argument JUST to find a way to blame the defense for something. Our defense has been good for the majority of our games so far. That may change, but to this point they've been good. So find another scapegoat until they actually deserve the criticism huh? Edit: Also, my current argument only makes Babcock look better. I'm criticising the offense, something I said was bad under Babcock and would be better under Blashill. Our defense was fine last year, and it's fine this year. We need to score more, and our "offensive coach" isn't getting it done. How does that make Blash look good and Babs look bad?

Sure, all those things are bad. But they're worse if they're leading to goals against. Which are they aren't...so far. That's my point. We're not getting scored on much. So while there's definitely room for improvement, this knee jerk blame the defense stuff is overblown. Because all their potential pitfalls (which you've correctly pointed out) haven't translated into goals against (which you're glossing over). Sure turning the puck over is bad. It can lead to goals against. But if it hasn't lead to goals against (it empirically hasn't...so far) then it's a little hard to blame that for our losses. And that was the only thing I was addressing to begin with.

By your definition of "defense" this is just as much the result of the offensive players performing badly as the defensive ones. It's a tautology. If the offense IS the defense (or a big part of it as you've suggested), and the defense is bad at doing offensive things (we've already determined they're not getting scored on), then what does that really mean? That the team overall is bad at moving the puck and getting sustained offensive zone pressure? I agree. But that can hardly be called "bad defense".

You're selling Kronwall short. Lots of people do. He consistently posts as good, or better, seasons than all the other 1A defenders. Yet he never gets any love. He plays in every situation. Is very good on both sides of the puck. Hell, he had more powerplay points than Duncan Keith AND Drew Doughty last season. And he's an excellent penalty killer. Yet for some reason people say he's not a top guy. I don't agree.

And the special team. Don't forget those. We're currently not really very good at specials teams. We're in the bottom third in power play percentage AND penalty kill percentage.

Saying something over and over without using evidence to support it, doesn't make it true. Except in this case. You've convinced me. Our defense sucks. Because, despite not getting scored on much, they're not good at generating offense. Which apparently is their fault, and not the offense's. I'm convinced. The offense is the defense is the offense. And round and round we go.

Yep. By my standard our defense has been pretty good so far. As evidenced by the fact that we're among the ten teams who have been scored on the least. But you're changing the argument. I was just saying that our goalie, and defensemen have played well through 5 games. Which they have. Not that they can't be better, or that they're a quantum leap above last year's team. Our defenseman haven't taken many penalties and haven't gotten scored on much. Can they be better? Sure. But this tendency to blame every loss on the defense is bullcrap. No you're saying "well, the defenseman might not be that bad, but that's not REALLY defense. The whole team is defense, and in that regard they've sucked". Which still isn't true. Our team isn't getting scored on much. Plain and simple. Whether you're referring to the defensemen exclusively, or the defenseman + the defensive aspects of the fowards' game, or all of the above plus the goalies. We're just not getting scored on much. Could we be better offensively? Absolutely. How? By scoring on the powerplay (for one thing). Something I said a half a page ago.

I don't "trust" what people say. I trust what evidence tells me is true. Last year Chicago was top ten in the league in "shots against per game". And that was through 82 games. I'm WAY more worried about goals against, than shots. And right now we're letting in a disproportionate number of powerplay goals compared to the number we're scoring. Keep trying to pin this on our "weak" defense. But sooner or later you're just going to have to conclude that they're not as bad as you're trying to make them seem. And that we've got much bigger fish to fry when it comes to getting this team playing as well as they can.

It's always convenient to ignore stats when they don't support your argument. Seriously, I do it too. Buppy called me out on it a couple days ago. The fact of the matter is, we're not getting scored on much, and when we do it's often on the powerplay. Our even strength goals against is less than 2 gaa. That's pretty good. However we've given up 4 pp goals (and one even strength goal) in 5 games. That's not great. Now it seems the argument is changing so that we're now blaming the defense for the offensive shortcomings, which is an even more tenuous argument. No matter how you try to paint it, the facts are never going to support this "our defense sucks" argument. At least not through these first six games. They were bad in game four. That's it.

The top three most penalized players on the Wings team are offensive players. 8 of the top ten are offensive players. Our defense has literally taken 3 penalties all season. Our offense has taken 13. So aside from the fact that we're not getting scored on much (at even strength), our defense is also not taking a ton of penalties. But his just further illustrates my point. No matter how good the defense players, people will find some way to inflate their culpability in our loses. Our defense is pretty good. At least so far. Not only are they hardly our "biggest" problem. They're hardly a problem at all.

One thing I'd definitely do is get Kindl back on the powerplay. His best game in the preseason had him on the PP sideboards (i.e. Ovie's spot) and he scored a goal, hit a post, and had another waived off. That's promising. He's always had a good shot, so I'd like to see that utilized on the pp. The PK is too early to tell. It was really good for the first 4 games and then stunk in the 5th. So maybe they just had a bad game and need to tighten up. But I'd be monitoring. Also, I think that as soon as we get the second and third lines figured out our shot totals will go up. We're getting a lot from the top line, and a trickle from everybody else. Getting three balanced lines can't help but increase the total number of shots. For instance, Tatar has 5 shots through 5 games. That's obviously not going to continue all season, his line just isn't gelling right now.

I'm sure they were. But again, if you only give up 1 even strength goal, then defense isn't your problem. I'm not saying we weren't outplayed. I'm saying that "the defense sux!" or "the goaltending sux!" is just a lazy, default, way of finger pointing. That's pretty clearly not the problem. At least not in those two loses.

Maybe so, I didn't see the game so I don't know which PK unit got scored on. But again, if you only give up 1 even strength goal, you've played a pretty good defensive game. Also, as I said, we've got to convert on our chances too. You're not going to win many games in which your opponents score on 100% of their powerplay chances and you score on 0% of yours. And that falls on the skill guys. It's easy to blame the third pair defensemen, and fourth liners. Obviously nobody like criticizing Zetterberg and the rest of the stars. But their job is to put pucks in the net, and they didn't.

We're top ten in the league in goals against. How is the defense the primary culprit? In our two losses we gave up 9 goals, four of which were powerplay and empty netters. I'm not here to explain away our shortcomings or make excuses for the team. But this old "blame the defense" cliche is tired. IMO we really need to find a way to get guys like Tatar, Richards, Sheahan, and Jurco going. We can't have one line consistently producing offense. Also, our special teams need to improve. That game against Montreal has an entirely different complexion if we make good on even one of those powerplays. And obviously you need to kill at least one of those penalties to keep that game within reach. There are plenty of areas to be improved, but blaming the defense is lazy. They've played fine.

I didn't watch this game, just to be clear up front. But from an outsider's perspective, it's hard to believe that our goalie and/or defense are to blame for a game in which we gave up two powerplay, and one empty net, goals. I see that we were also 0-3 on our own powerplay, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say special teams were probably the difference no?

My question is, if you die in Canada do you die in real life?

We've been over this. Donkey work.

Or he was emotional upon realizing that his career is basically over, and the sport that he's literally destroyed his body to play has passed him by? Nah, nevermind. He's probably just a delusional jerkoff.

Thanks for the info. Makes sense to me.

It's not even that I necessarily think she's bad (she is), it's that she seems like she's bad AND kind of an ******* too. Here's another gem I just remembered. "As the NHL trade deadline ticks down to a dozen days leeway, one of the reasons the Detroit Red Wings approach with calm is a gangly young Russian."