kipwinger

Soooo if we lose this, does that mean Mrazek sucks and he's only average?

I know he sucked until Dylan Larkin made him look super duper good. Screw this kid, he's trying to cash in on one good season that a rookie center gifted him.

Well I missed this one. How'd we look? I mean, clearly four goals and a shutout means we looked good. But anybody got a run down?

Is mike Babcock still our coach? If so, it won't be so cut and dry.

Could be worse. Columbus is so beat up that their assistant coach is even injured. He has to get surgery to fix a torn tendon in his arm.

Do they have a stat for straight up possession? Like, literally how many minutes (per game) one team has the puck?

I remember that Glendening was really strong on faceoffs at the beginning of the season. I think he led the team in FO% for a while. But I don't remember how everyone else was looking.

I don't know why not. We played our best hockey, against the toughest competition, on our West Coast trip. Marchenko was in on defense, and Mrazek was in the net. I'm not saying it a guarantee or anything. But we can clearly win with those guys in the lineup consistently. And what do we have to lose? The fragile chemistry that's earning us all these points right now?

Well, it depends on whether you'd actually be willing to change the defensive roster a little bit. If you're married to the six guys we've currently got playing, then yeah, you've got very few options. However, if you're willing to consider replacing one of those guys with Marchenko, then you're got some pretty good options IMO.

I mean, I'm not in love with Andersson (nor would I hate Cleary either), but he's not costing us games. He's a plug, sure. But pretty much every team has a cheap guy on the fourth line who's easily replaceable. Not really an issue as far as I'm concerned. Again, Andersson isn't the reason we're in a slide. That said, I never want to seem him doing anything other than being a fourth line winger. If your third line center is hurt, move Hem or Weiss to that spot. Don't promote Andersson (as Babs has been doing). On my team he's either a fourth line winger, or he's on the bench. We've got better options everywhere else.

Well I wouldn't put Zidlicky with Smith and I wouldn't put Cole with Abby. To me those guys are too similar to play together. I don't really think it's the most efficient allocation of resources.

Z-Dats-Abby Tatar-Sheahan-Cole Nyquist-Helm-Jurco Miller-Glendening-Andersson

Well I'm going to speculate and suggest that Holland probably didn't acquire those guys expecting them to be utilized the way they have been. But that 's just me.

Lol. I'd take Lesnar. He's a Paul Heyman guy.

You can't have it both ways. Injuries can't be the reason you're no good one season, and then health the reason you're no good the next. I mean, I'm all for deconstructing narratives in an attempt to get at the truth, but I think we've got to safely assume that in general its ALWAYS better to be more healthy than less healthy. There may be the occasional exception, but for the most part, the premise "healthy=good" is pretty much a starting point.

I think realistically we'll see this: Tatar-Pav-Helm Abby-Z-Cole Nyquist-Sheahan-Pulkkinen Miller-Glendening-Andersson/Jurco I'd add that this lineup is dumb, and won't do a whole lot of anything. But that's what we'll see, because Mike Babcock (for the time being) is the coach of the Red Wings.

Are you insinuating that our competition is so much better than last year, that despite a largely healthy lineup all year, and despite growth from key young players (Tatar, Nyquist, Sheahan, Dekeyser), we're no better or worse than we were a year ago with a team full of injured vets and rookies? I don't buy it. Montreal and Tampa are in roughly the same shape that they were last season (i.e. tops of the division). Boston is worse. Toronto is worse. Buffalo is worse. Florida is better (but beat us each time we played a year ago anyway). And Ottawa the same or slightly better. I don't see some sea change in the quality of competition within our division. Particularly when we're, across the board, a much better team (if only because of our health and the growth of young players, nevermind our new additions). And even if all those teams improved dramatically since last year, didn't we? Didn't we hear over and over and over how good our team really was, and how it was only the injuries that were holding us back? Didn't we hear how Babcock dragged us into the playoffs despite an AHL roster, and just wait until next year? Didn't we watch as everyone blamed our shortcomings on Bertuzzi (gone), Cleary (not playing), Sammy (gone), Kindl (rarely plays), Quincey (much bettter)? How aren't we better?

I seriously don't understand what the hell is going on with this team. I don't expect us to be the first in the division, or conference, and didn't expect that to start the season. So no big loss. But I also didn't expect a late season collapse either. We're a better team, across the board, than we were a year ago, or even two years ago. Five 20 goal scorers. Bigger. Faster. Healthier. Oh the defense is bad? How's it worse than it was? Dekeyser is better than a year ago. Quincey is better than a year ago. Kronwall's not worse. Smith's no worse. Zidlicky is a huge upgrade. Only Ericsson is playing worse than he did a year or two ago. Goaltending? Same deal. Jimmy's not been great since his injury. But he wasn't great a year ago either. And this year at least Mrazek has been good enough to win games. AND Jimmy was only bad for the second half of the year. He was excellent to begin the year. We're a better team. A healthier team. An improved team. In every regard. And we're getting the same result. I don't understand.

Didn't someone ask before the game why Smith gets criticized and Dekeyser doesn't? Lol.

That was a mirror image of the Hartnell goal against Columbus. Zidlicky needs to take that pass away and Smith needs to take the guy wide open in front of the net. That pair is a train wreck.

I'm expecting good things from James Tiberius Howard tonight. We're good.

Not me. We aren't getting either of them so what do I care if they're the next Crosby or the next Daigle? f*** Connor Mcdavid!

Yeah wouldn't want them too worn out to keep up their current level of play. That could be detrimental lol. But in all seriousness, good point. I hadn't even looked at the upcoming schedule and was talking as much about all the days off the last two weeks as I was about the current one.

"There's always concern, but when I look at our last little bit of games here I like how hard we played," coach Mike Babcock said...We came out, we were organized, we came after them, Babcock said. They scored. We didn't score as (much). I thought (Coyotes goalie Mike) Smith made some real good saves for them." Genius.

Dan Cleary will come in and be our best player in the playoffs. He'll do it on heart alone. Because that's what he does. And while we won't win the Cup, the long playoff run will be exactly what Mike Babcock needs to become the highest paid coach in the NHL. He'll enter next season at the top of the mountain, ready to bring his revolutionary new message to the team. The message? Try harder. Try like Dan.