kipwinger

They couldn't give him ALL the trophies. They should have, but they couldn't. The awards shot would totally suck.

What the heck happened here? Pm anyone?

Well, I don't know that I like Dan Carcillo, but it does help to be reminded that these guys are actual human beings once in a while. The league really needs to figure out a serious approach to reducing head injuries. I think the issue has reached critical mass. At this point it's not a matter of "if", it's a matter of "when". So why continue to pussyfoot around it?

He has excellent form and everything. I just don't know how it happened.

This has got to be a real heartbreaker for Nashville. They've played really solidly in this series and just can't put the Blackhawks away. Any other team in the West and they're probably walking away with this series right about now.

I didn't think you could break your ankle diving. The more you know!

I don't see Howard getting moved. One, because nobody really needs a goalie of Howard's caliber all that bad. Two, Ken Holland (and Mike Babcock's) M.O. is to keep guys around for "competition". Remember two years ago when we had more players than roster spots and cap money? That would have been an ideal time to waive/trade someone and it didn't happen. As long as Mrazek is cheap (and he will be for a little while), they'll keep Jimbo around.

Dirty or not? I say no. I also really like Tom Wilson.

Excellent game tonight. And a big atta boy to Brendan smith. He played a really solid game. More of those and he'll get no complaints from me.

They usually announce the Wings' updates over the loudspeaker at the ballpark. It's always fun to hear them announce a goal and the baseball fans go crazy.

I agree. I don't think we can compete with them no matter how we arrange the lines. But I do think that you can arrange players in order to maximize your potential, even if the ceiling on that potential isn't as high as another team. Babcock's job is to make the Red Wing be as good as they can possibly be. If that's still not good enough to beat Tampa, so be it. But if we're not the best "us" that we can be, then he's doing something wrong. So far, I honestly don't even think he's done a bad job. We had some key injuries, and you had to know that Tampa was coming out strong. Now we're in the adjustment phase. We're very much in this series, but we need to find a way to get guys like Tatar, Nyquist, Sheahan involved. I agree they've looked bad. But we know they aren't bad. So whatever the problem is, fix it. That's partially the coach's job. I'm eager to see what he does from here on out.

I think the Jets ARE that good, I just think their goaltending is suspect. Pavelec is like Howard, when he's on he's pretty good, but he's off way too often. He doesn't seem to be able to make the big stops that the team needs so far in his career.

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.