kipwinger

Or even the third line winger that he wasn't supposed to be, but seemed effective at being, and produced as. The fourth line part is the thing that baffles me about this most recent lineup. But like I said above, I'm sure it will last a half a period, so I'm going to try not to get too irritated about it.

Fair enough. To me they're all the same, but I understand there must be some actual variance in their ability. I've just never really bothered to pay attention.

I know you're not defending goons here, but I've got to ask, how is he any different than any other goon? Everybody always says about Scott, "its a farce that he's in the league". But how's he any worse than Orr, Parros, McGrattan, Westgarth, etc.? I remember Milbury going off on Scott and how he's such a disgrace, but he was completely mum on all the other guys in the league who do the EXACT same thing on the ice. I honestly don't care about goons so I don't pay attention, is he a particularly disgraceful goon?

Why not? Babs did the same thing last year in the playoffs with Legwand and we all remember how beautifully that worked out. But don't say his coaching stifles offense. Heaven forbid anyone say that. Edit: In all fairness, I guess I should acknowledge that he's going to change all the lines about 30 seconds into the game so what does it matter? Put Kindl at forward to start the game for all the difference that would make.

The give away for me was the alliteration in the post. Really, Reilly, O'Reilly, Really. ******* literary devices in internet posts, what will the think of next!?!

I think his was too.

1. Not just one quote, he said the same thing four days later here: http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2014/12/red_wings_look_to_tighten_up_d.html 2. I didn't suggest anything about a "strategy change". He's always had the same strategy. When our guys get away from it, and open up, they score more goals and we win more often. When he reemphasizes the system (as I believe he did after his comments), they score less and lose more (or so my theory goes). Babcock didn't change, he just reemphasized something the players on the ice were getting away from. 3. Finally, I'm not sure why this comes as such a surprise. We all remember how Yzerman's points dropped off after he started playing defense. It seems (admittedly speculative) that Dats and Z would likely have scored more often under more offensively open systems. So why is the rest of the team any different? The more you emphasize "defense first" the more guys will prioritize that over offense. Which is a little less of an issue for guys like D and Z who will score either way, but for everybody else who aren't superstar two way players, I imagine being more defensively responsible could easily translate to being a little less offensively threatening. 4. None of which would be a problem except that we aren't winning the low scoring, closely contested games. We're losing them. We're also not losing because our defense is terrible and can't stop other teams from scoring. When we lose it's because we're not scoring much. When that happens six (very close) games in a row, it's a trend. And when I see Babcock emphasizing "tightening up defensively" during our best stretch of hockey; and the corresponding reduction of goals against, reduction of goals for, and six strait loses starting less than a week after his comments, I have to at least consider that those things are related. The only real way to know for sure would be to regress the goals for and goals against to determine the strength of that relationship. I'd imagine almost all teams (with the odd exception of Chicago) would see their goals for fall off as their goals against goes down. However, if the strength of the relationship was greater under Babs' system, then I'd have all the evidence I'd need to suggest his system is prohibitive. Sadly, while I know what type of statistical analysis you'd need to perform, I don't know how to do it...so my theory remains exactly that lol. Because he hasn't been bad at all this year. He hasn't hurt the team on iota so far this season. Which I'd imagine is why the critics (myself included) have had to eat crow on the Dan Cleary signing. So good for Dano. A million dollars richer and nobody's complaining.

I'm pretty sure Sproul was scratched. Three or four games I think. Since then he's responded and he's tied for the lead in defense scoring and his pluus minus has shaped up. He also doesn't weigh 175 lbs. Which is likely another reason Blackman was having a hard time finding a spot on the roster. He's too light to handle a physical north american game. And unlike almqvist, he wasn't producing tons of points.

The goals against average dropped by almost a whole goal after he made those comments compared to the previous winning streak. Add that information to his comments and its not hard to see why I'd conclude that an emphasis was made to "tighten up defensively". That the offense dropped off at the same time could be spurious, but I don't know why you won't even entertain the thought. Look back over all the games played and you'll notice the lower the goals against, the less we are scoring as well. Did Babcock make a deliberate decision to sacrifice offense or defense? I don't know. But based on his remarks and the correlating drop in goals against AND goals for, I don't think its as outlandish a proposition as you're making it seem.

Be still, my heart.

All of which have been committed to memory for quick recall.

Maybe, but in the past we've had more success in the shootout and were still heavily left handed. I mean, Dats, Filppula, Hudler, Bert, Z, Franzen, are all lefties and we were better when they were the regular shooters. But I'd agree that in general teams would be better if they could mix it up.

It's not like he was treated like Martin Frk and sent down to Toledo. He played 18 of 25 games for Grand Rapids. He was given plenty of opportunity to grab a spot, especially considering Sproul didn't start out well and was by no means a lock in the lineup until the last four or five games. Secondly, contrary to the current narrative that AHL veterans are holding back others' development, I'd argue that they're absolutely vital to it. I think everybody would agree that making the Calder Cup playoffs and going on a run is a HUGE boost for young players' development. Every player that won the Calder a couple years ago talked about what an important developmental opportunity it was. You don't make those kinds of runs without veteran AHL guys on the team. Every single AHL team has them because they're important, and we're no different.

Well my thoughts on him are pretty public at this point, but it seems like we're in the minority. However, if he's half as good as everyone else acts like he is then he's not going anywhere. So the only guys likely to be moved are Kindl and Lashoff and they aren't exactly being showcased right now. Although, to his credit Kindl does have roughly as many points as Tyler Myers has lol.

Think of it as a moral victory. Despite the fact that we didn't win most of the games, the opposing teams hardly scored any goals at all.

I don't mind speculating about the team, but I usually do it based on things the GM or coach have actually said (like I did above). I wouldn't want to speculate about showcasing the defense in order to make a trade, because nothing much has been said on that topic. Not to mention, the guy that the management would prefer to trade (Kindl) has been scratched lately, so they're certainly not showcasing him. I don't t know who else they'd be willing to trade. Babs' loves Kronwall, Ericsson, Dekeyser, and Quincey. I think Smith is tradeable, but everyone else says I'm wrong and he's awesome so I'll take their word for it. So it would come down to Kindl and Lashoff, and they've both been scratched in favor of Quellet the last couple games.

I don't think so. It would be contrary to each and every single thing he's ever said about roster management since he's been the coach. Which can be summed up by "Ken Holland manages the roster, I put the best team on the ice that I can with the players I have" [my words, not Babcock's].

If it's an opinion, it's an opinion that the coach of the team shared as recently as November 30th when he said... "We have more players than we've had probably since '09 that can score," Babcock said. "It didn't look like it early, but it does now." http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2014/11/theres_no_shortage_of_power_in.html Apparently we've got more people who can score, and they're shooting less that previous Red Wings teams. However, they're keeping opponents' shots WAY below what previous Red Wings teams did (per the charts in the article). The theory I'm proposing, is that Babs' strategy to keep opponents' shots so low, stifles our teams offensive potential. Potential that the coach himself acknowledges. It's a deliberate willingness to subordinate our offense in order to limit scoring chances by the opposition, which (as we have seen) results in lots of overtimes and shootouts. And I think Mike Babcock is smart enough to realize that this is the likely outcome of his preferred strategy. And it makes perfect sense if you think Mike Babcock already assumes we'll make the playoffs, where there is no shootout. And since he recently said verbatim "in the end they still don't have the shootout in the playoffs", I don't think it's a stretch to believe that's the case. http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2014/12/tomas_tatar_mike_babcock_say_d.html

On Dec. 2nd, the the middle of our best stretch of hockey all season, Babcock said... "We're a pretty good hockey club when we play with pace, " Babcock said recently. "When we don't play with pace, we're not. The thing I don't like about what's gone on lately is we're giving up too many goals. We want to get back to giving up no goals...I don't mind if we score goals but I'm not interested in giving them up." http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2014/12/detroit_red_wings_gameday_7.html We had won four in a row prior to that night, and three in a row afterward, and seemed to be creating offense pretty consistently. I don't know where that went. If you think that they've been fine all season that's cool, I don't want to argue with you. But Babs certainly thought they were giving up too many goals. Since that time we've failed to duplicate the offensive output we were seeing then, and we've failed to get a lot of points that we probably ought to have.

Remember when we won all those games in a row but it wasn't any good because we were giving up too many goals as well? And then we tightened up defensively and started losing a bunch? Maybe we should go back to doing things wrong and winning again eh?

I don't see anybody lamenting the fact that Big Richard Nedomlel wasn't getting his opportunity to shine with the Griffins as a result of being buried behind other guys. That's probably because he's kept his head down, worked hard, and waiting for his opportunity. Not cried about it like an entitled s***head and then ran back to Europe. Screw Backman. I'm excited to see what Richard can do. Put him on a pair with Sproul. Let Nedomlel be the stay at home, Stuart type, and let Sproul fly.

They're both REALLY sweet, but I liked Bobby's better. Agreed with above, it just looked cleaner.

The team, as a whole, is more offensively capable that it was two or three years ago is my point. I'm not sure how to quantify it, but a team with Bertuzzi, Abby, Franzen, Zetterberg, Datyuk, Filppula, and sometimes Cleary as a top six certainly SEEMS like offensively capable that one with Datsyuk, Tatar, Nyquist, Zetterberg, Abby, and Franzen. Plus, our third line is pretty obviously more offensively capable with Weiss, Jurco, and Sheahan. So why is the current incarnation shooting less? Perhaps because they're almost entirely focused on playing defense? The charts in the article SPECIFICALLY represent "shots for AND shots against" as a whole. And this year's team is shooting less, and holding their opponents to MUCH fewer shots. I'm not sure how I'm misrepresenting anything. If you're not shooting, and you're not letting the other team shoot much, then you're going to go to a lot of overtimes. Why are you being so combative about this?

I think you're misunderstanding. I'm not trying to knock his coaching. We're winning, what do I care? BUT, the stats don't lie, and one of your premises isn't correct..namely that the team no longer has "firepower". Babcock himself has said this is the best team he's had since 2009, and between Tatar, Datsyuk, Franzen, Z, Nyquist, Jurco, Sheahan, and Weiss he's got considerable more offensive potential than he's had in the last 5 or 6 years, yet the stats show that our "shots for" is considerably lower than it was during that period. We're shooting less than we did two or three years ago, with WAY more talent. What I'm saying is that we've got an offensively capable team, and yet we're playing a system that is so geared toward defense that the offense is shooting MUCH less than when we had less offensively capable teams. It's clearly working, as we're winning games and holding teams to very few shots. But you can't deny that no shots against, and no shots for, is a recipe for overtime, no?

Sure. But I'll be sure to take all those "I can't stand Columbus (or Nashville, or whoever), all they do is trap and play for overtime" comments with a grain of salt from now on. Particularly since we've got A LOT more offensive potential that we're intentionally not utilizing in order to play this system.