kipwinger

We haven't lost since Franzen made is statement. Coincidence? I don't think so.

He didn't really do much good or bad last game, and he was good today. Keep doing that and I'm happy. I'm all for Smith turning into something good, it's not like I want the kid to fail. I just don't see any need to make excuses for him when he's playing badly. I get the feeling that some fans feel like if they say "Smith is playing like s***" that he'll magically disappear. It's ok to criticize him when it's appropriate. It's ok to praise him when it's appropriate too. Go look at the GDT and you'll see a big "atta boy" to Smith with my name on it. If he keep it up he'll get more. And if Quincey has another stud game like he did in Pittsburgh, and plays almost thirty minutes with HUGE pk time, I'll praise him too. Because it's not against the law to say something good about Quincey either.

Boooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

You're new, so let me break off a piece of advice for you. This is sort of frowned upon around here. Disagree all you want, Lord know I do, but don't act like this. It creates a combative atmosphere that has a tendency to spiral out of control. We don't want this forum turning into the comments section on Mlive.

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Jesus Christ, that dude can shoot his face off. He reminds me soooo much of Phil Kessel.

We probably agree on lots of things, I'd imagine. Just not Brendan Smith.

Sheahan is a hellish good passer.

Apparently Mickey is drunk or has finally completely lost it.

I'm not sure you're making the point you think you're making. If Quincey doesn't get PP time, and he's terrible (as you're not so subtly insinuating), and Smith needed powerplay time to catch Quincey, then what does that say about Smith? Why don't we just say it was a good goal and leave it at that. I'd hate to have to suffer through another of your ham-handed attempts at being clever.

Atta boy Smith!

Na, the penalties were enough. The fines were within reason. A suspension would have been over the top.

Jesus you don't pay attention at all. Smith CAN'T have outstanding passing skills if he leads the defense in turnovers...which he does. Also, he has three more points than Quincey but leads the defense in offensive zone starts, Quincey has the lowest number of those (meaning Quincey has to go 200 feet to score and Smith has to go 75). It makes a difference. Finally, Lashoff is better defensively because not only does he lead Smith in categories related to defense (hits, blocks), but he also plays on the PK, which is entirely about defense. How convenient that you "don't care about stats" when EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM defy the argument you're trying to make. Smith's not very good, and if you believe the hype (despite all the evidence to the contrary) then I don't know what to tell you. It's not "picking and choosing" when EVERY stat says Quincey is better. Seriously, the only stats that favor Smith are assists (Smith has three more) and penalies (Smith have five less). Literally EVERY other stat favors Quincey. I'm not picking and choosing s***.

Yeah the difference is that most rookies do at least one thing pretty well. Tatar scores, Lashoff kills penalties, and Dekeyser is good defensively (and better offensively than Smith too). Smith's an offensive d-man who doesn't score...or play defense. People don't expect Tatar to be great defensively, people DO expect Smith to be able to pass and play offense and he's not good at that. As noted above, he starts in the offensive zone more than any of our other defenseman and still only barely scores more than Quincey who starts in the d-zone more than any of our defensemen. Keep making excuses for Brendan, you're only proving my point. The stats don't lie. He's not very good. And the more you try to make it seem so, the more you show that you're going to defend him no matter what the truth is. Here's a thought, why don't you tell me all the ways that Smith is better than Quincey, or Dekeyser, or Lashoff...and I'll post links to tell you how wrong you are. Or I could just do it for you... Smith's gritty: Lashoff and Quincey have more hits and blocked shots. Smith's Offensive: Quincey has more goals, and Dekeyser has more points. Smith's safer: Nope. leads the defense in turnovers. Smith's versatile: Nope, doesn't play any special teams. Smith only does one thing better than the rest of our defense...turn the puck over. Everybody else has at least one thing over him. But keep telling me how good he is and how bad they suck. Dekeyser and Lashoff are both rookies, why don't they suck as bad as Smith defensively if it's merely a product of being young? Lashoff's better defensively, and Dekeyser is better offensively AND defensively (while playing fewer games). Being young's not an excuse. Smith is young AND bad (right now).

Nice try. Quincey doesn't play on the powerplay, and he still scores as often as the offensive dynamo Smith does. Smith's an "offensive" d-man who doesn't score. At least Quincey's a defensive d-man who plays defense. Edit: Oh man, I just looked up our teams' offensive zone starts. Looks like Smith gets more O-zone starts than anyone on the team other than Lashoff. Wanna take a guess who gets the most D-zone starts? You guessed it...Quincey. So not only does he do his job better than Smith...his job is actually quantifiably harder to do that Smith's too.

This is what I'm talking about. You're using turnovers to criticize Quincey and willfully ignoring the fact that Smith has MORE of them. It is a FACT that despite almost 3 fewer minutes on ice per game (average), Smith still has MORE turnovers. And here you are saying Quincey's bad because he turns the puck over too much. Am I eating crazy pills? Quincey plays more even strength and special teams, has more hits, more blocked shots, fewer giveaways, more takeaways, more shots, more goals, and fewer missed shots. Smith has five fewer penalties, and four more assists than Quincey. That's it. In no other way is he a better player, and yet everyone around here will defend him to the death and blame Quincey to the moon. Smith didn't piss in my cheerios. I do, however, get frustrated when purported "intelligent" fans A) don't see that Smith isn't all that good (yet), and B) blame his mediocre play on someone else (as if his failure to shoot, hit, block shots, pass, or take the puck away is somehow Kindl, Lashoff, or Quincey's fault).

100%

I thought they were going for the Staal Ovechtrick?

I think they're talking about moving Eric Staal, not Jordan.

Are you insinuating that our offensive attack is unimaginative and at times formulaic? How dare you! To get over my anger I'm going to go watch youtube videos of the Wings force feeding point shots on the Power Play with no success and then silently weep as I pine for 2008.

I'd honestly like to see Z-Dats-Jurco. He's a big strong kid, and he's really good on the boards. Plus, Nyquist-Sheahan-Tatar are murdering it.

Based on what you've just said I can conclude that you think interference makes a guy "dirty" and also that you think Kyle Quincey is a "dirty" player (since you just used "Q like" to explain why Orpik is dirty). Quincey is not a dirty player. Also, interference doesn't make one a dirty player. If you feel differently fine, but I question your logic. Also, for a guy who "loves hitting from behind and taking guys knees out" he has remarkably few penalties every year, only topping 70 PIMs once in the last seven seasons. He also has only had two major penalties in the last six seasons despite playing huge minutes in almost every game and not ever missing serious time with injury. He's just not dirty dude, no matter how hard you hate the Pens.

To an extent I agree with you, in the sense that I REALLY WANT Howard to stand on his head. It would be super nice if he did. But there's no substitute for quality play in front of the goalie. Look at Ryan Miller. The guy's a stud, a veteran, a guy that can steal games for you, etc. etc. etc. Except he wasn't stealing games for Buffalo, he was getting murdered. You could say the same things about him as we currently do about Howard. Then, all of a sudden, he goes and plays on a real team with real hockey players and he's a superstar again. And it's not just that he's benefiting from St. Louis' system, because he's playing better than Halak or Elliot did with the same team. When we talk about goalies "stealing games" it's easy to think that top flight goalies can play behind HORRIBLE defenses and win games all by their lonesome. That rarely happens. Usually when a goalie steals a game it's because either two very good teams, or two very bad teams are playing and the goalie ends up being the difference. When it's a bad vs. a good team the goalie rarely overcomes that.

Weiss is a really good player. He's going to be good here, he's just had a run of crummy luck with the injuries. Also, I'm not sure that he can be bought out (since he was signed after the lockout). Well, he could be regularly bought out, but they couldn't use a compliance buy out. And he has an NTC, so he's definitely not getting traded. So it's probably him over Legwand (who hasn't been bad at all).

I'll agree that he's better than he was last year. So is Brian Lashoff. But Lashoff doesn't get his own special thread and unlimited praise/excuse making. Despite the fact that, unlike Smith, he actually contributes to this team in critical situations (read: Penalty Kill, the one thing this team seems to excel at). I guess if we're to the point in which "Smith f***s up less than a year ago" is somehow worthy of acknowledgement, then so be it. But I'm still not sure why so many people are just dying to get that off their chests.