kipwinger

Well as bad as our PP has been for about three years now I think Babs just puts the units together at random. Babs: "Ok, first unit is going to be Kronwall, Ericsson, Lashoff, Gustavsson, Mrazek" Tatar: "Coach those guys are all defensemen and goalies..." Alfie: "Seriously, at least two of them aren't even in the lineup right now..." Babs: "That's why you've got to compete..." Alfie: "What does that even..." (Short handed goal) Babs: "PLAY HEAVIER!"

Yeah but he's really big...doesn't that mesmerize you?

I agree with that, I also don't think it's fair to him to have him constantly pushed down the depth chart and out of his natural position just because we've got 2 million centers. I really think we need to figure out 5 guys to be centers next season and let the others pursue their careers someplace else if they want too. I'd flip him to a Buffalo, Edomonton, or Florida for whatever pick I could get out of them and watch as the kid played solid third line minutes for them because he's been developed correctly.

Does anyone else hate having Andersson on the wing as much as I do? Slow and doesn't score...awesome. He's good defensively and at faceoffs, I get it, but if he's not going to play center (where those things matter) then why bother?

I'm not comparing Emmerton and Callahan here because I've never seen Callahan play and by all accounts he's good defensively...but...Emmerton (while not being full time NHL material) is defensively responsible and skates well. Given the way he wants to play the game, Babs' has got mad love for a guy who skates well and is good defensively.

Ok, I know that I brought this up and so it's on me. And I definitely don't want to cut your views short. But let's not make this about Subban, we had enough of it during the Olympics. I'm sorry I brought it up, I just liked the way he responded after taking a hard hit. My bad. Can we go back to Callahan now?

I've always respected the fact that Lucic played hard, but he's clearly one of the dumbest players in the league. I definitely lost a little love for the guy after this. Plus, I think the culture surrounding the Bruins doesn't help. They're like Philly, right there on the border between playing physical (which is fine) and gooning it up because that's "Bruins/Flyers" hockey. Edit: Here's how you take a legal hip check like a man. Good on PK.

I completely agree. Here's Lucic's comments following the game. What a complete ******, he even so much as admits it was a clean hit. Guy sounds like a child. I had an older brother who used to play the "you scared?" and "Chicken!" game...when we 8 and 10 years old. "Whether it's fair, legal or whatever you want to call it, if he wasn't scared, he would stand up and hit me and not go after my knees," Lucic said. "It just shows how big of a chicken he is that he needs to go down like that to take me down. It shows what kind of player he is, and on my end, you know you've got to keep your guard up at all times."

I completely disagree with this. Columbus plays a reasonably physical game, much like the Preds and Coyotes the last couple of years, but they don't "take liberties". They're middle of the road in penalty minutes, fights, a major penalties, and very low on the list of misconducts and game misconducts. Hell their penalty minutes leader is Brandon Dubinsky...not exactly a notoriously dirty player. So unless there's some sort of league wide conspiracy to help out the B.J.'s (not even sure the league knows there's a team in Columbus), they're certainly not being called for any of the "liberties" they take. Edit: And speaking of taking liberties, anybody catch Milan Lucic's little temper tantrum after Alexei Emelin dared deliver a legal hipcheck? Apparently you're required to either A) fight everytime you play the Bruins, or B) Play like Cinderella. What a bawl baby.

Aw s***! That was the baddest fight I'd ever seen until Dallas Eakins and Taylor Hall had their tussle. Talk about no-holds barred, did you see Eakins throw that towel at Hall? Oh no you didn't!

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the two lines of thinking aren't mutually exclusive. Chances are we did overpay for Legwand because Poile would be the worst GM in the world to not make us overpay. He had us over a barrel and he knew it, why not try and get more than you would under normal circumstances? If we weren't so injured he'd likely have asked for less rather than lose Legwand for nothing in July. However, that doesn't mean that Legwand is bad, or wasn't worth the price, or that he isn't playing a huge role in our recent successes. There are a lot of instances when a team overpayed for someone AND it turned out to be a good move. I bet Columbus isn't regretting the Wisniewski signing right now, nor Toronto the Kessel trade. So congrats, everybody is a winner in this debate.

As I said before, if he gets into a scrap Babs will never play him again, and he might actually kill Callahan if he takes a bad penalty and costs us a point. I'm excited to see the kid play too, but I'm just hoping for a sound defensive game and hard forecheck/hitting from the kid.

That's not what he said, and I'm not really sure why you're so relentlessly combative all the time. He didn't say a single thing about Jarnkrok being "useless", just that it's a distraction on this thread...and ta-da, now we're distracted.

The speed is similar, but I don't think it's a great comparison because Ferraro is purporedly much better defensively and does play on special teams.

Yeah, if we were safely in a playoffs position I'd agree with you. But right now I think the only thought in their minds is getting into the playoffs.

Now that you mention it I recall that too, and it was pretty out of character for him. Guess I just whitewashed it in my memory because I've always liked the guy. Both he and Backes are proof positive that you can play VERY physical hockey without really needing to fight (although I guess both do on rare occasions). In my opinion that's ideally how physicality should manifest itself in the game.

Yeah, if he fights Babs will never play him again and if he isn't forced to fight then he's probably not playing his game. I'll be interested to see how this turns out.

Yeah, I feel about Backes the way I always felt about Shane Doan. The guy's awesome as hell but I cringe everytime I think about our guys going on the ice with him.

I mean, I definitely don't think he looked terrible. I just think he looked like he was in a bit over his head, like Sheahan did in call ups the first couple of years. The good thing for Ferraro is the fact that he's got legit NHL speed. If he can keep his focus on defense and pk he'll have a job just because he can skate.

No sense in calling him up, Babs will only play him 5 minutes a game so it's a wasted roster spot.

I can't speak for everyone else but my fascination with him has a lot to do with the fact that he's a huge powerforward who's a stud defensively, chips in 20-25 goals and 50+ pts. a season, hits like a truck, plays hard every shift of every game, is a consummate leader, and doesn't seem overly douchey as a person. But that's just me.

I'm fine with this. Ferraro was ok, I guess. But his speed covered up for the fact that he wasn't prepared for the speed of the NHL game, and the effects that this has on your decision making threshold. He was hurried, and played like he was hurried.

I agree with some of what you guys are saying, but not others. First of all I think it's a bad idea to focus only on yesterday's game and think "well they played back to back and clearly gassed" because it obscures the fact that this has been a recurring problem all season. I do agree that a two goal lead isn't much and certainly isn't safe, but it's the frequency by which we give up leads that worrisome. Lots of teams give up two goal leads, but most teams don't do it as frequently as we do. Finally, I completely disagree with the idea that "this is what happens when you've got a bunch of kids in the lineup" for two reasons. First, the kids are playing better hockey (even defensively) than many of the vets. Secondly, we've mostly had our regulars in on defense, so it's not like we're blowing leads because Almquist, Quellet, or Marchenko are playing regularly.

This is interesting because you're right, conventional wisdom does suggest that we do what we're currently doing, but the result is that we blow leads over and over and over. I guess the question is, does changing the strategy result in few blown leads or more? Or, put another way, are we so bad defensively that this is the best we can do and any change in strategy will only make the problem worse? That would suggest that it's not the strategy but the particular players who make the difference between holding a lead and losing it. But we've had this problem all season (even when we were relatively healthy). A whole lot of those shootouts and overtimes we lost early were blown leads.

Re: the kids. It's my understanding that part of the reason we're playing this type of system (e.g. the New Jersey Devils' special) is specifically because we've got so many injuries and kids in the lineup. Babs is always saying that we have to win this way because our team isn't like it used to be and we can't outscore anyone anymore. It's supposed to be the way to compete when you're not as skilled as everyone else. Yet it seems like when we get the lead and try to play that game we struggle, give up the lead, and when we win it's only because we somehow manage to score our way out of the jam.