kipwinger

Reilly's brother was recently described by one of our peers as "a dynamic two way defenseman". If Cole punched somebody, he'd be an "elite power forward" in no time.

If I was Erik Cole, I'd come into Detroit and get in a fight the first game I played. If you punch someone your first game, you can be completely pedestrian the rest of your time here and everyone will still love you. Just ask Brendan Smith.

Yeah, suuuuure it is. Because you're so super, duper, ultra smart. Riiiiiiiiiiight. I never condescend, and that's the best way to get people to listen. But I wouldn't expect a girl like you to understand that.

Yeah, I'm fine with it. I've said for a few weeks that we needed another Abby. We got one today. I can't complain. Still think we're in trouble without a scoring defenseman though.

Lol. Holland's overrated because his assistants are the ones who really do all the scouting, drafting, development? If that's the standard, Holland is even better than you think. Because back when he was the Director of Amateur Scouting the Red Wings scouted and drafted Osgood, Konstantinov, Lidstrom, Lapointe, Fedorov, McCarty, Drake... He's held, and excelled, at almost every single job in the organization because he's incredibly competent. No matter what the position, he's excelled at it. To say otherwise is laughable.

I like it. Cole should help play near the crease, which is something I wanted. And we didn't give up too much to get him. Backman made his own bed, so I'm not heart broken about that. Janmark is a good prospect with a lot of upside, but you've got to give to get. I remember when we traded Jarnkrok and sudden he became a "bust" that was too small, or too Euro, or too far down the depth chart. None of that is true, and isn't about Janmark either. But if he had no value, I doubt Nill would have wanted him. This helps us now, without sacrificing much later. I'm fine with it.

I'll expand on this more when I'm not on my phone, but I think getting Nyquist out of the top six is a good idea. I'd love for Holland to get a big winger tomorrow.

Thanks for the link. I stand corrected on the number of times shorthanded. It's definitely more than I thought. Still not convinced that there's a concerted, league led, effort to screw us over though lol.

Can you provide a link on that short handed total? I don't see where you're finding that?

Aha, here's our problem. You're looking at "Total Minutes" stats, which are affected by the quality of your PP and PK. If you powerplay is good, and scores early, you won't have a lot of total powerplay minutes despite having a lot of powerplay opportunities..and vice versa for PK. Total powerplay/penalty kill time is a function of your special teams' play. The number of opportunities is a function of the refs' willingness (or unwillingness) to call penalties. The point of debate was how often penalties are called for and against the Wings vs. other teams, and not how long the resulting PP or PK lasted. So the total minutes doesn't really matter to the debate. We're third in total powerplay opportunities. We're 11th in total penalties against. So we're on the Powerplay more than 27 other teams, and (although not as high as I last heard) we're penalized less than 18 other teams. Hardly proof that the refs have got it out for us.

Where are you getting those stats? Last I knew we had the most pp opportunities, and the fewest penalties in the league. Edit: Fourth fewest penalty minutes per game...http://espn.go.com/nhl/statistics/team/_/stat/major-penalties/sort/avgPIM/order/false Third most powerplay opportunities...http://espn.go.com/nhl/statistics/team/_/stat/special-teams/sort/powerPlayOpportunities

I don't know? And yes, I remember the puck coming off the netting and us scoring. You know what I don't remember? Anybody crucifying the refs about getting it wrong. Or anybody insinuating that the ref/league/commissioner "want the Red Wings to win", etc. I don't recall anybody going on and on about how unfair it was that our goal against Dallas was allowed to stand, despite the fact that Abby clearly obstructed Lehtonen, either. Bad call happen. But our fans' endless complaining about it is (as I said earlier) one of the most annoying things about us. Especially given the fact that we demonstrably don't get penalized much at all.

Bingo. That's because it is.

Is that what I said? Pretty sure I said "Brooklyn is on Long Island". Which is empirically true. And the reason I brought it up was to say that moving to Brooklyn does not imply a name change. They could still be the "Islanders", as they'd still be on the island. Whereas, if they moved to the Bronx (for instance), they'd probably need to change their name as they'd no longer be on an island. The Brooklyn Islanders would still be accurate, and not a geographic anomaly...which was my point.

Brooklyn isn't on Long Island huh? Sure about that? I'll give you a minute to check a map and recant if you'd like?

Because there doesn't have to be a penalty assessed for the league to discipline dirty play. Hence, the term "supplemental discipline".

The league is only allowed to fine him $5K. And there's a pretty good likelihood that it's the NHLPA who placed this restriction on league disciplinarians. It wouldn't make much sense for the league to limit a decision that is theirs to make. It would be a lot like a parent voluntarily putting a legal cap on the number of days they can ground their child (i.e. it would be dumb).

I'm curious about why the maximum fine allowed is only $5,000 bucks and who wants it that way, owner or players? We keep talking about how there needs to be stiffer penalties for cheapshots, but stiffer penalties aren't allowed. So the question seems to be, "who isn't allowing it?". And I'll be a dollar to a doughnut that it's the NHLPA. They're the ones who are losing the money. They're the ones who benefit from curtailing league unilateralism. Why would the owners, league, etc. limit their own power to protect their own investments? Doesn't make sense.

And I don't mind calling a spade a spade. A bad call IS a bad call, no matter who it's for or against. What irritates me is this persistent need to bellyache when a call goes against us, as if none have ever gone in our favor. As far as why we get calls? I don't know. However, I'd venture to guess it's partially because A) we're good, and bad teams (or teams playing badly) tend to take more penalties, and B) we're historically very disciplined (so we get the benefit of the doubt).

Agreed. Bad calls happen all the time. However, I disagree that the number of penalties doesn't matter. If we're taking less penalties, and getting more powerplays, then there is a much lower likelihood that a bad call will effect us negatively. In fact, given how disproportionately we benefit from penalty distribution I'd actually argue that we're SIGNIFICANTLY more likely to benefit from a bad call than be negatively affected by one over the course of a season.

Sure they do. I bet you can't remember a single time in which a bad call disproportionately benefited the Red Wings. Does that mean it's never happened? Or just that it's easily forgotten when it's in your favor?

It wasn't worse. At all. It just happened to a Red Wings so, of course, it must be proof of some league wide conspiracy to let goons injure our stars and get away scot free.

We don't have legitimate gripes about the officiating. That's the problem. We're consistently one of the LEAST PENALIZED teams in the league. AND we're consistently GIVEN THE MOST POWERPLAYS. Very few, if any, teams go to the box less, or go on the man advantage more. Them's the facts. I'd give the theory some credence if we never got a powerplay, or if we were always in the box. But neither of those things are true. But for whatever reason our fans have internalized this belief that everybody is out to get them. Bettman hates us. The refs are throwing games. The media doesn't recognize our star players. It's all bologna. SUPER, duper, annoying bologna.

I know. I really do know.

Read back through our GDT. It's no different. Our insistence that the refs are A) out to get us, B) the reason we're playing bad is EASILY the most annoying thing about our fan base. We'd win the President's Trophy every year if it weren't for the refs and/or Jakub Kindl.