kipwinger

And everybody will eat it up. Because Babcock platitudes are like soma to Red Wings fans.

We were one of the worst even strength teams ALL SEASON long. Injuries are no excuse. I know the powerplay was good all season, but it's a mistake to think it will be just as good in the playoffs. The opposition is better, and you'll get fewer opportunities. Think about it? Do you think our PP would have been as good as it was if we ONLY played against playoff caliber teams? Of course not. Well that's all that's left, good teams. They're not going to get dominated on the PP. And if that's the only way you can score, you're in trouble.

The point was that relying on your powerplay is a bad idea in the playoffs, because you might not get many of them. And we haven't. So I"m not sure what the problem is? Did you honestly think we'd be a competitive team in the playoffs with our track record at even strength? Or did you think we'd just get more powerplays than any other team (like we did during the regular season)? If you did, I'm not sure what to tell you.

And you can make excuses for his system all you want, but if you get the same exact result for five or six years (despite your roster) suggests maybe you need a new approach. Seemed to work well for Washington and Nashville so far. Why is it so hard to believe that maybe there's a coach out there who's system is more suited for the roster we already have? The other option is to fire the GM, team President, scouts, trainers, prospect developers...and replace them with a more Babcockian alternative. Which is brilliant if it weren't for the fact that Ken Holland's organizational philosophy is DRAMATICALLY more effective than Mike Babcock's. For the millionth time. Babcock is a good coach. But he's not the right coach for this team. Get someone else, or get the same results.

I once visited Dostoevsky's home in St. Petersburg. I can't say I blame him for being in pain. He was a creative guy in an uncreative environment. He was like the Tomas Tatar of Imperial Russia.

I'm just telling you how many goals he had. Someone said he had 3 in the last year. Which is demonstrably false. It is a FACT that he's scored 9 goals in the last year. Any other discussion is a discussion I wasn't having.

Why is anybody surprised? We haven't scored goals in the playoffs since 2009. Did people think we were going to start dominating possession all of a sudden? We're doing what we've done for 5 years. In the playoffs all the teams are good, and there are fewer penalties. If you can't control the puck at even strength, you're not going to do too well in the NHL playoffs. Babcock wants to win games the way Team Canada won games. Too bad the Red Wings aren't Team Canada.

He had 9 goals this season. What are you talking about?

How many times do you have to dump the puck into the offensive zone, and then lose the puck battle on the boards, before you try something different? This is the most one dimensional team in the league. We are not Winnipeg, Columbus, or St. Louis. Chip and chase hockey isn't going to work with this roster. As long as Babcock continues to do the same thing, with the same results, we'll never win a god damn thing.

Thank god our "compete level" is where it needs to be. God knows that's what matters.

And Babcock "likes our play". Because they're "trying" really hard. And that's the important thing. f*** this clown.

We should totally just keep trying the same point shot look on the powerplay. It's working really super well. Don't mix it up or anything. Can we please, pretty please, get a coach who actually cares about scoring goals?

Do Jeff Blashill's teams know how to play at even strength? Just curious.

That's a joke right? Lucic is one of the worst possession players in the league for his contract. Part of the reason they blow is because they gave Looch 6 million a year to be a possession killer.

I remember when Detroit used to dominate the puck possession game like Tampa is doing now. Its crazy to think we've changed so much over the years.

Why is our team full of reasonably fast guys so freakin' slow?

Sweet! That means Erin Andrew is going to be back on the market. Thanks for being a sucker, you sucker.

Remember that time that I said it would be a bad idea to make this series all about Subban? I vaguely recall saying that's the exact type of scenario he thrives on. And then everybody said "I hope he gets beaten to a pulp", "kill him", "punch him to death in a fire", blah, blah, blah. And then Ottawa made the series all about Subban. And then he was awesome the next game. Soooo, did anybody want to just let sleeping dogs lie, or do you folks want to double down on the "punch Subban" nonsense? As I said before, you might want to minimize his effect on the game. Not give him a reason to play harder. He is, after all, one of the very best players in the entire world you know?

I understand what you're saying, but it's less imperative for them to have a good defense and good goalie, because they've got the puck all the time. They don't play in their own end. Don't let last night fool you, if we continue to play that way we're going to lose badly. We need to figure out a way to play with the puck, or else we're going to be putting an awful lot of pressure on our rookie goalie. We simply won't win too many games getting out shot 50 to 15. Our offense HAS to show up.

Rowdy Canadians? Lol. Is George St. Pierre going to be there? If not, I wouldn't worry.

Fun fact: Detroit ended the season 25th in the league in even strength goals. We were better than Edomonton, Carolina, New Jersey, Buffalo, and Arizona. We were just worse than Boston, San Jose, Toronto, and Philadelphia. Unreal.

Speaking of which, anybody remember that time Vancouver fired Alain Vigneault and hired Torts? Lol.

In a game with 7 penalties for Tampa, I wouldn't read too much into ice time. It's going to heavily skew toward players who contribute to the pk (hence why Tatar, Nyquist, Weiss, Jurco didn't get much). Otherwise, I'd say we're all better off just sitting down and enjoying the ride. There's not magical set of line combinations that's going to make us play like Tampa did last night. It's a system thing. If we're going to win this series, we're going to win it on the back of our goalie, huge individual efforts by our stars, and flukey garbage goals. And that's fine. New Jersey did it successfully. Babcock has done it successfully in the past. Just don't start thinking that we're going to dominate teams in the offensive zone. We aren't. Look at Babcock's successful seasons in the past. They've all had the same characteristics. Giguere played out of his mind to get to the finals and Osgood played out of his mind to get to the finals. In Anaheim's case they came up short because they had no offense (they got shut out in three of the four games they lost in the finals), while in Detroit's case they had Dats, Z, and Franzen all in their primes, and all on fire, at the right time. To win, we need Peter Mrazek to play INSANE, and two or three offensive players to carry the load. We're not going to win this with dominating puck possession. It's not in the game plan.

I've said it before. We are the least creative team I've ever seen. We are the new New Jersey Devils. Except without all the big badass power forwards they had.