kipwinger

What the hell's wrong with our powerplay anyway? I mean, we've got more skilled players than we've had for 4-5 years and we're somehow worse on the PP. I don't get it.

Is that what's going on? Because Babcock and Holland's own comments suggest that he's not playing because they want to bring him along slowly, but that they've impressed by his attitude and hard work. This seems like another installment of "Frank speculates on something but plays it off like fact".

I think you're on shaky ground here. You're saying get a goal or two at even strength and another goal or two on the PP is "winning hockey"...which it is. But now you're talking about 3-4 goals per game rather than 2 or less...which isn't "winning" hockey. A year ago, 8 of the 10 teams with the lowest "goals for" average in the league didn't make the playoffs. ALL of the top ten did. Granted, one of the teams on the low end (Los Angeles) won the Stanley Cup. Now you can decide all on your own whether we're more like Los Angeles or more like the other 8 teams on the low end of the "goals for" spectrum, but we both know what their roster looks like compared to ours. As such, unless Holland can find us a prime Jeff Carter, Drew Doughty, Jonathan Quick, Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, etc. lying around, it's probably not a good idea to model our game after theirs.

I understand the point you're making, but lets not get carried away. I don't want to win or lose by 4 goals a night. That's not going to get you into the playoffs. But 50% of the 10 games last night were decided by two or more goals. So it's not like offense and defense are mutually exclusive. I'd just like to be reasonably sure that if we're down by a goal we've at least got a chance to come back, and if we're up by a goal we've at least got a shot at being able to score again. As it is, I have no faith in either of these things. And the only way anybody seems to be able to justify our current approach is by pretending we live in a fantasy world were refs don't occasionally make bad calls. Was I the only one last night that KNEW Montreal was going to get the next goal and tie the game? I would have bet anybody on LGW if they had waged Detroit would score again before Montreal scored to tie it.

What's the over/under on "healthy, productive, season"? Because I'll take your bet.

No we didn't win anything. Hypothetically we would have won if there were no such thing as bad calls. Which there are. If a team finds themselves saying "we'd have won if not for that call" too often then they're doing something wrong. So far, this season, it's happened twice in five games. Bad calls aren't going anywhere. They'll be around as long as there are sports. Good teams don't live and die by bad calls. Teams that are barely scraping by do though.

We'll I'll agree that our coach advocates it. But we don't have the personnel to control the puck. By my count we had about four forwards, and two defensemen skilled enough to regularly control play and dominate possession tonight. Part of that is on Holland's head for not acquiring good possession players (as an example, look how good Radim Vrbata is playing in Vancouver). Part of it is on Bab's head for playing guys like Andersson, Glendening, Nestrasil, Abby, etc. the way that he does. Those guys aren't great possession guys because they're not big enough, skilled enough, fast enough, etc. to maintain control of the puck for long. Babs' idea of puck possession (at this point) seems to be "track down the puck as often as you lose it". But you can't get around the fact that you lose the puck an awful lot when you play guys with no hands as often as he does.

Fair enough, but my point's still the same. Regardless of whether he was advocating more scoring (as he was), or less puck possession (as you originally thought he was), I still don't think it's cool to respond the way you did because it makes it seem like he had chosen (from a wide variety of possible alternatives) the one "that never wins cups". Which he didn't do at all. In short, it trivializes his position before he can even give his position. Which sucks for him, but also for you because your posts are typically better than that. You could have had an interesting conversation on it rather than a derailment. And isn't interesting conversation the whole reason we're here?

You're talking in circles. All those teams create more offense than Detroit and still play good defense. You were the one who brought up "run and gun" and how it didn't work. All he did was criticize Babs' preference for low scoring games. You were trying to make his argument appear wrong headed without coming out and saying it straight up. Now you're trying to obscure that fact by changing the subject. The next time someone criticizes Babcock's "soccer" strategy, the correct response should be something along the lines of "what alternative do you propose" and not "So you'd rather we be a run and gun team? The type that never wins cups?". Then you could have a conversation about offensive vs. defensive strategies without all the not so subtle "your position is wrong" inferences.

You didn't say that at all. You insinuated that he must prefer "run and gun" if he doesn't like Babcock's low scoring approach. You also insinuated that he would be wrong for preferring this, since it never works. But I don't see why he couldn't prefer the styles of any number of teams which are as good as we are defensively, and yet much better offensively. Teams like Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Tampa, Montreal, St. Louis, San Jose, Anaheim, or perhaps even Dallas? We're all adults here and we know how to both articulate, and understand, insinuation. No matter how much you deny doing it after the fact. But there really can't be too much positive discourse on any subject if the second he criticizes the coach, you not so subtly pretend as if he's advocating for the dumbest, and least effective, of many possible alternatives.

Right because those are the only two options. EITHER be the Capitals OR score a goal a game. C'mon.

I agree with your point, but disagree with your premise. Our defense isn't fine, and that's partially why our offense isn't fine. Our transition game isf****** terrible. The defensemen can't get the puck up to the forwards consistently, so we never attack the offensive zone with speed (supposedly the big advantage our current team has). They've been fine defensively, but in today's game that's not enough. You need offense from the back end. But I'd love a scoring winger. And to get rid of some of these centers. And to get dopes like Abby off the top six forever. And a GM that would overpay on players that deserve it once in a while. And a coach who didn't act like scoring goals is only an incidental part of the sport of hockey. Those would all be nice too.

Exactly. If your strategy is to win every game by a single goal, then you don't have a large margin of error. There was a time when if we were down by a goal going into the third period, you could almost bank on us getting it back. Not anymore. Nowadays we can't protect a lead going into the third unless every single thing turns out perfectly in our favor because that's the only goal we're getting that night. Get some offense in the lineup or get used to bitching about the refs ALL SEASON LONG. Because there's going to be a lot of bad calls that cost us games if every game is this close. Also, since when did our fan base because so full of complainers? We're not the only team that will lose a game because of a bad call this week. Let alone this season. You don't see good teams getting all bent out of shape because of a disallowed goal, or a questionable call.

They spent the entire 4 on 4 in our zone, and not surprisingly the guy who was absolutely flying for the entire penalty hustled to a lose puck and made a play. I'm not too beat up about it.

I don't remember the last time a Wings defenseman took the puck away from an opposing player in the defensive zone, passed it up to a forward competently, and that forward (along with the others) managed a shot on goal. All our offense comes from the hard work of the forechecks. Kudos to them. But if our defensemen don't start helping create offense, we'll struggle to score, and our team will go nowhere.

I get what you're saying, but I don't think it's so easy to compare the Weiss situation to Zetterberg or Helm. Those guys were returning to a system they knew, in positions they were familiar with, and the absolute confidence of the man dishing out the playing time. None of which is true of Weiss. I don't think (as I'm sure you'd agree) that Weiss gets an unlimited blank check because of this. But two things jumped out to me after Weiss' first game back... 1) "I've never played left wing in my life so that's tough too, trying to figure out the system as a winger. All of that stuff is tough. It was fun to be back in the mix, playing again in a game and hopefully we can do more here coming up." - Stephen Weiss 2) "He got an opportunity to play in a game," Babcock said. "He didn't get a ton of opportunity but at least he got in the game and got some action going. Weisser, it's not going to happen overnight. I'm not expecting a guy to look good in his first game back, in a new position, with the coach readily admitting that they're not giving him much of an opportunity. And then there's this, which is worth thinking about... "But we're happy with him. We think he's going in the right direction. We think his attitude is great and we think he's working hard." -Babs

Too late. I made the exact same joke about Kindl on page one.

Agreed. Never.

Dude, if they'd be good with McGrattan they'd be great with Colton Orr. Ya know, considering he broke Candyass McGrattan's face. And whadda know, Colton Orr (like pretty much every other enforcer) is available this year.

Wait, does he shoot right? This should really lower his trade value eh? Kindl and 7th?

How could that be any more humiliating than their endless mediocrity? At least it would break up the routine of sucking as bad as they do.

So did everyone else.

So, you read that article and interpreted it as "Babs didn't like the Weiss signing"?

So when you originally said "Babs wasn't too thrilled with the signing" what you meant was "Babs wants Weiss to work hard, learn the system, and play responsible defense or else he won't play"? Because those aren't the same thing...at all. Not even the tiniest little bit.

Or skate. They're ******* horrible skaters. Montreal skates circles around them.