kipwinger

As correctly pointed out by the fellas over at Winging it in Motown, this is almost the exact same lineup that was getting manhandled in March. Very risky move by Babs to go back to it right now. I guess we'll see if he's as good as every says he is.

Not to take anything away from Anaheim, they're playing solid hockey, but it seems like Winnipeg has completely lost sight of the fact that hitting (by itself) doesn't win games. They're running around smashing Anaheim at every opportunity, but they don't seem to be doing much else. It's a classic case of tactics becoming strategy. You don't get points for hitting. You get points for scoring. You can use hitting to make scoring easier, or you can run around like idiots and completely forget about making plays. Winnipeg is doing the latter.

Edit: I don't know why I'm arguing this. Smith isn't going to play with Kronwall, so what does it matter. He's going to get sheltered all night long, like he has all year. Read into that whatever you want.

I sure hope that Babcock doesn't make roster decisions based on the notion that "crazier things have happened". You don't take a guy who consistently struggles with minimal responsibility (Smith), and give him a ton more responsibility, and expect that to work. It's the exact opposite of accountability. It doesn't work...anywhere. I'd be all for moving Dekeyser up and dropping Ericsson down. Why? Because Dekeyser has shown that he can handle his current level of responsibility and thrive. So you can probably give him a little more. But I'm never going to be in favor of giving more ice time, against better opposition, to a player who can't hold on to a roster spot with less ice time, and against worse players. Sure, crazier things have happened. But so have MUCH, MUCH, MUCH smarter things too.

Which is why he got scratched for a rookie with 12 games of experience heading into the playoffs? If anything, I'd say he's pretty much exactly as good as I "make him out to be". And suggestions that he should be on the top pair with Kronwall laughably over inflate his value. I've said 2 million times and counting. He's a third pair defenseman with upside. How's that under rating him?

Blashill's not a clone of Babcock. His teams can actually score at even strength.

Too be clear, I'm not even saying that Smith shouldn't replace Marchenko. I don't really care about that. Marchenko has been bad. But I'm curious why we'd go from one extreme to the other. A week ago Smith played his way out of the lineup. Now, not only is he going to make us more physical (he won't), more offensive (he won't), but he's going to be trusted to play against the top lines on the most offensively potent team in the NHL? How does that make ANY sense at all? Can we just put him on the third pair and hope he plays mistake free hockey down there? I think that would be good enough. No it doesn't. Smith and Kronwall isn't a solid pair. It's a third pairing defenseman on a top pair. It's Kronwall plus a mistake prone bottom pair guy, going up against the best offense in the league. Smith was THE MOST sheltered defenseman we had all season, and he was still awful defensively. He was awful with the puck. He was negligible offensively. That's not going to improve by giving him harder starts, against better players. He may be an upgrade over Marchenko. But if you think he's going to better better than Ericsson on the top pair you're ignoring literally every single indicator available and focusing entirely on a best case scenario that existed (maybe) for a couple of games during the regular season a year ago. If Kronwall and Smith were such a good pair, why do you suppose Babs didn't keep them together?

Well that definitely makes him physical. Just like the total badass hitting everything that moves in the videos below. I really hope you don't think youtube videos are an indicator of anything. Hell, there's no videos of Smith turning the puck over on youtube. By your rationale he's probably SUPER smart with the puck too.

No he's not better, he just looks better. It's like back when we had Ian White paired with Lidstrom. The only thing it did was make Ian White look better than he was. But it didn't make him, or the team, perform better. Putting Smith (or White) on the first pair doesn't make him a first pair defenseman. And no matter how much you dress it up, you're still advocating putting a third pair defenseman on the first pair. Kronwall probably makes Ericsson look better than he is too. But that doesn't seem to be working out. Why would it work any better with a guy who's worse than E is?

How is Smith physical? Like, literally what does he do that makes his play "physical"? People keep repeating this, but don't ever substantiate it.

Aaaaaand we're back to suggesting Smith should be on the top pair? C'mon guys. I don't have a problem with him coming back in for Marchenko. Marchenko hasn't looked great. But if any of you think Smith would look better than Ericsson against Tampa's best players you're nuts.

Remember that time Edmonton rushed McDavid into the league, he got hit really hard a bunch of times, and he was never the same again? Oh wait, that's next year. Good luck losers.

You're betting on a Canadian team? In the Stanley Cup playoffs? Lol. That's like betting against the Harlem Globetrotters.

If I was Toronto I'd be all over McLellan and Chiarelli. If they wait too long, and put all their eggs in the Babcock basket, they might actually get him.

Agreed. I sure hope he plays his very, very, best hockey. As far as roster decisions in general, I try to think about the ones that are most likely to happen, and not the ones I'd personally most like to see. Barring a serious injury or two, Ouellet is playing for GR in the playoffs this year. But I don't hate the idea in theory.

Marchenko really looked lost last game. No harm no foul bringing Smith back in. We've got to do something to wake our team up, and sticking with the same old thing isn't going to hack it. I sure hope Brendan's ready. We need mistake free hockey.

Well this has been a tremendously satisfying series. Try as they might, the Sens just can't seem to get past the unavoidable fact that eventually they were going to have to play actual hockey games against Montreal. And in an actual hockey game, with real players, in the real playoffs...Ottawa was just completely, absolutely, 100%, outclassed. Maybe next time they should make some adjustments after the first loss? Switch up the game plan? Identify weaknesses and mismatches? Well, that or spend all our time threatening injuries to the other team and deftly using Chris Neil (Lol.) as a decoy. That's Canadian hockey for you.

He really did have an INSANE season. Seems to almost score at will. Very very impressive.

OK enlighten me. Which things make smith physical?

He's contributed less offense than any defenseman on the team. Are you guys just picking stuff at random? If you want more offense, why wouldn't you bring in Kindl? He did, after all, have more points in fewer games than Riley's brother.

Smith has fewer hits per game than Kindl. Not sure why you keep saying he's physical. He's empirically not.

Here's a crazy though. Instead of trying to shut down/shot suppress the best offense in the league, a team that couldn't be shut down all year, how about taking the puck out of their hands and making their (questionable) defense win or lose this series for them? We're not going to win this series by trying to shut down their offense. Because our defense isn't as good as their offense is. BUT, maybe our offense is better than their defense is. I mean, it's not like they're defensive stalwarts. Or we can just keep doing the same thing over and over.

This game is not an improvement over last game. That's just more Babcock doublespeak. If you "played better" and got murdered 5-1 then you really didn't play better at all. We got dominated just as bad this game as we did last game. Sure the shots are closer, but if you ever believed that we were in this game you're nuts. If we lost then next game 10-2, but the shots on goal are the same for both teams, is that an improvement? Of course not.

Marchenko's having a hard time of it right now. Kid's definitely getting introduced to the NHL playoffs the hard way.

Danny Dekeyser is freaking awesome. Do people pay attention to all the plays he busts up with his positioning and his stick work? He is going to be a very, very, good defender as he hits his prime. He'll probably not score a million points, but he'll be excellent defensively while giving you 35-40 pts. He's like a young Jay Bouwmeester, who's not worth his contract, but good nevertheless.