kipwinger

I mean I saw the 1,000 yard stare on their faces, but I thought everyone had that last night. They were terrible, knew they were terrible, and on top of that they had been physically beaten up for 60 minutes. Hardly a situation in which you'd expect a look of steely determination and not surprisingly nobody (including the veterans) had one.

I could see them trying. I don't now who would take Letang. His contract is the only thing more terrible than his defense. 8 years at 7.2 million dollars. Unbelievable.

He's all but played Letang out of his top line spot in these playoffs. Which is funny because the Pens just spent a fortune to keep Letang and likely won't be able to resign Niskanen now despite his obviously superior play. Anyway, Niskenen is like a young Kronwall (without the hits). His defense is average, and his puck moving ability, hockey smarts, and point shot are all above average.

I have mixed feelings about your post. Sure, fans overreact when their team looks as bad as we have the last couple of games. And obviously, the sky is not falling. You're right, we've made the playoffs a whole bunch of times and in general we're lucky we never have to watch a bottom feeder. But you also make it seem like we should pat ourselves on the back for making the playoffs as if that's some victory in and of itself. It would be...for the Lions. But given that the Red Wings ALWAYS make it, there's some expectation that periodically they'll challenge for a Cup, or make it to the finals, or even make it to the conference finals...none of which we've done since 2009. If it's an overreaction to assume that everything about the team sucks and the Wings are terrible, its an equally bad under-reaction to assume that nothing is wrong with the team, and if not for a few less injuries we'd have been competing for Cups these last few years. I guess all I'm saying is that if you look at it objectively, there is some reason to worry that the team is trending in the wrong direction (e.g. barely making the playoffs, stinking up their first round series' against Nashville and now Boston, blowing 3-1 series leads, etc.)

People may have. I didn't. If you can find any post I've ever made saying that Babcock was the best coach in the league I'll donate a thousand dollars to a charity of your choice. You're right, there are no magic line combos to make us a Cup favorite. Nobody ever said that. But changing the line combos might improve an offense which is currently producing less than a goal a game to an offense that is at least competitive. Which is all anybody is asking.

What makes you think the kids are "shook"? Sure, they're not scoring...neither is anybody else. Their strength all season was their chemistry. None of Tatar, Jurco, or Sheahan played as well apart as they did together. The same is true of Nyquist with Franzen and Legwand; he never produced as well away from those guys as he did with them. Babs has yet to use either of those lines in this series. No wonder they're not producing. These guys aren't a Zetterberg or Datsyuk who can produce no matter where you put them. Doesn't mean they're "shook". It means your coach needs to pull his head out of his ass.

You're talking about Paul Holmgren, the guy who traded Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, James Van Riemsdyk, and Sergei Bobrovsky for Wayne Simmonds, Jakub Voracek, The Schenn brothers, and draft picks. He's definitely that stupid.

Next year's needs? A new coach.

The only thing that I can think of is that the man we know as "Mike Babcock" is actually a performance artist named Skye Rainwater who got his liberal arts degree from UC Berkley. For years Skye had toyed with the theory that the American public was getting slower, duller, and more obtuse by the second. It's not hard to imagine someone from UC Berkley holding such an opinion. Eventually, Skye found an opportunity to prove his theory when Gary Bettman cruelly tricked Marian Illitch into biting an apple from the Tree of Knowledge, thus tearing the organizations' decision makers out of their pre-2005 enlightenment and into the dark age of "parity" and "Mike Babcock". Ever since that fateful day, Red Wings fans have been the subject of hockey's biggest social experiment. The man we know as Mike Babcock (aka Skye Rainwater) does the dumbest s*** possible all the time...yet cleverly misdirects scrutiny by consistently uttering meaningless platitudes such as tonight's postgame "You shouldn’t give up easy access to your blue line" and "The second thing is we got to have a better plan and execution on our power play". Convinced that nobody will notice, his idiotic decision making and meaningless gibberish will continue until one day the Messiah will return, flanked by the Mahdi, and Dale Earnhardt (R.I.P) to vanquish the serpent (Bettman), send Skye Rainwater back to bowels of California, and promote Jeff Blashill to coach the Detroit Red Wings. Blashill's first act as newly appointed head coach, and survivor of the fight between good and evil... REUNITING THE f****** FRANZEN-LEGWAND-AND NYQUIST LINE!

If you've got an analytical mind and you really want to piss yourself off, mosey on over to the box score and have a look at the ice times for various Red Wings. Here's a couple fun things that stand out... 1. Jurco and Legwand nearly had as little 5-on-5 ice time as Shawn Thornton: If these two didn't run a train on Bab's wife to get in his doghouse, they probably should now so they'll at least deserve the punishment. 2. Andersson, 8:17 seconds: If you aren't going to play him why call him up? Surely Bertuzzi is better than Andersson for 8 minutes a night. 3. Kindl, 18:02: Lol. 4. Legwand, 15 shifts: 2 more than Jordan Caron, Boston's worst player. 7 fewer than Brian Lashoff, our worst player.

My point is that if we score at the pace of either of the teams in that series we're probably up 2-1 right now.

Kudos. Tampa Bay scored ten goals in four games and they're on a long, lonely, quiet flight out of Montreal right about now.

Not from the training room.

We did though. We really did. If Nyquist had even 80% of the production he actually put up down the stretch we don't make the playoffs. That's it. I'm calling for his head because the single most productive line we've had all season long has yet to play one single second together, and the same if true of a kid line that night in and night out scored consistently against top six competition...in some cases against the very team we're playing now. Those are the two best three man units that we can muster. And they have not played together. So either Babs is ******* up, or else there's some super good reason to not play his best lines and only Babs knows it (because he's so smart). In which case, where are the result of what is obviously such a great coaching move? He's treating this team like it's Team Canada and he can win a game 1-0 because he's got the best defense and goalies ever assembled. It's not.

Sure, the kid line was great as well. Also not playing together so far this series. And I strongly disagree with the "grinding effort won us games" statement. Look back over our schedule. We lost most of our 1-0 or 2-1 games. We won (down the stretch) when Nyquist, Tatar, or Franzen scored two or three goals between them and Jurco or Sheahan chipped in another. Edit: And the only reason any of those high scoring games where close is because after taking a big lead, we'd "lock down" in the third, blow said lead, and wait for Nyquist or Tatar to bail us out.

Don't worry, I do. For probably the first time in history, you and I agree on something.

The line of Nyquist, Franzen, and Legwand got us to the playoffs. That's it. And they have yet to play one single second together over the two debacles that have been games 2 and 3.

I get the feeling that Mike Babcock truly believes that if you just want it enough, and compete like hell, and bring it every single day, that you actually CAN squeeze blood from a stone.

I agree, I've been saying that since before last Friday but apparently Babs prefers to have a 50 pt. center playing wing on the fourth line.

Who would have thought that a bunch of lines that have never played together before Friday would have no chemistry and look terrible against the best team in the league? Bueller? Bueller?

That one wasn't though. Ugh...our defense is terrible.

Good try, that was Smith.

Aside from lines that make me want to throw up, I'm pretty pumped. LGW!

Considering we've got zero powerplay points in the entire series I'd say your argument is moot. If you want to banish Legwand to the "5th line" for not scoring on the PP, make room for Datsyuk, Nyquist, Tatar, Kronwall, Franzen, and the rest of our top players right there with him. But clearly you think it's better to have a guy who scored more points this season than anyone on our team averaging 14 minutes a game in the post season. If you think it's smart I'm not going to argue with you. But it's no secret that since Babs shuffled the lines the offense that played so well down the stretch to get us into the playoffs has disappeared in the post season.

Legwand on the fourth line again tonight huh? Mike Babcock ladies and gentleman. Only coach in the league to bury a 50 point player on the fourth line while his team struggles for offense. Best coach in the league.