kipwinger

Who said he was hopeless? I hadn't read that...anywhere.

I'm definitely not forgetting, and as I've stated over, and over, and over again...he's going to get better and I'm glad he's on the team. I'm just sick to death of people who either make excuses for him, or whitewash the fact that he didn't play very well. He played like a boneheaded rookie, he'll get paid based on that, and one day down the line he won't play that way anymore (which is a good thing). I'm not against Smith, I just make no illusions about his play thus far. That's about the 2,000,000th time I've said that. In the future it might do you some good to read the posts previous to yours. In this case, the one where I responded to Amato and said the exact same thing that I'm saying to you now. Then you wouldn't have to take all that time to find snarky little gifs to make a point I'd agreed to months ago.

I don't think anyone is saying it's "make it or break it", just that he stunk last year (in Torts' terms), and that he probably won't make much if he has an arbitration hearing. Obviously he's only going to get better.

Considering all teams play roughly the same amount of home games, wouldn't the subjective bias have essentially no effect?

Yeah I agree, he'll get better there's no question about it. And how could he not after last season's performance lol. He'll be fine.

Because he played terrible during that 1/2 season. You could say the same thing about Dekeyser, only he played even fewer games. You know what the difference is? One of them didn't make several boneheaded mistakes each game, while failing to live up to the one thing that got them to the NHL in the first place. Brendan Smith was awful, defensively (which I don't care about as much because it was always a given that he'd need to improve there) AND offensively (which is a worse sin since he was supposedly an offensive defenseman). I'm sure he'll improve. But you can't whitewash the truth. Yes he was a rookie, so is every player at one time or another. But not every rookie sucks doorknobs.

Given how desperately Samuelsson is clinging to that extra million he'll make if he's not bought out, does anybody think there's a chance if we offered him 4 million dollars he'd go hide on that one island with Elvis, Bigfoot, and Tupac?

I came to post the same thing. Atta boy.

Yeah but that's exactly what I'm saying. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that Brunner, with proper conditioning, could get up to around 190 lbs. and certainly get stronger. Which would help him on the cycle, help his defense, and help his shot, and help him when he's playing in the tougher areas. Certainly he was in good cardio condition when he came over, but there's a reason why almost every player gains ten pounds when they make it to the NHL. Obviously some of them are going to grow more anyway because they're young, but Pav and Z both put on about 20 lbs when they got here, and they weren't 18 at the time. Kindl did it too after coming up from GR...20 lbs his first full season. Like I said, there are a lot of perks to being an NHL player and Brunner hasn't really had the opportunity to make good on them yet. So, I'd expect him to improve, though how much is anyone's guess.

That's definitely a legitimate concern, but I think with a full training camp, offseason conditioning, and all the other perks that come along with being a player on a professional club in the NHL, Brunner is only going to improve. How much? I have no idea. But I don't think it's a long shot to assume he'll improve on his transition year. The guy's a good player, and a lot of this contract stuff has soured people on him, but he's not as bad as he's been made out to be by his defectors, and not as good as his supporters. I think tops you're looking at a guy who can basically play Michael Ryder's game. But he's not there yet, and therefore doesn't deserve the money he's asking. For the life of me I don't know why he didn't sign a one year deal and then cash in after a strong performance this season.

I completely agree. All too often though, this "fear the East's physicality" argument boils down to how many penalty minutes are accrued as your previous post clearly pointed out there's no difference in hits or fights. I think when people suggest that our guys will get beat up in the East they're thinking of the dirty stuff. And I couldn't be more delighted if that's the way teams play us all season long. I'd be happy to have an 82 game power play. I'll start worrying when "the East is more physical" means that the East plays a more fast paced, in your face type of game and so far I'm not convinced they do.

Going a little overboard there buddy. Most people don't think Abby sucks, though probably some do, but the majority are just saying Abby wont put up serious offensive numbers. I stated previously that he'll probably produce about as much as Bert did two years ago, which is fine if he does what you're saying and opens up space for the other two. Abby's fine where he's at, and even helpful in that role, but an offensive dynamo he is not.

Let the East rack up penalty minutes against us, so long as our powerplay is better than last year I'm ok with it. I'd be more pissed if we responded with similar goonery. This whole debate reminds me of the Pittsburgh/Philly series two years ago. A million penalty minutes, a million fights, and million goals and arguably the worst playoff hockey since the 2005 lockout. Embarrassing. I'll take our "soft euro" team any day rather than watch Scott Hartnell try to act like a bad professional wrestler (and even worse hockey player).

Huh? p.s. I'm question what you're trying to say and also how you're trying to say it.

This is a little bit over the top. Expecting to win out against good teams in your division is unrealistic. We won zero games against the Hawks last year and zero against Columbus and still made the playoffs. We don't have to beat them every game, we don't even have to split with them. Obviously I'd prefer if we did, but if not, it isn't the end of the world.

I'd say Miller or Eaves have the ability to put up 20 goals on Pav's wing, they've shown some offensive capability even without playing with Pav. Abdelkader simply hasn't shown that so far in his career. I'm not saying he isn't useful up there as a thumper, but I think anything like 50 points is expecting too much given what he's shown to this point in his career. Could he break out all David Clarkson? Maybe, but nobody saw that coming either. Playing the odds I'd say max he's capable of what Bertuzzi did two years ago on Pav's wing, 14 goals 24 assists. And that's on the high end. As I've already stated, if you look back through his season last year you'll notice that he really wasn't a scoring threat despite leading the team in even strength goals. 3 goals in one game, three others bounced in off his body by other players (two of which came in one game). So realistically 50% of his production came in two games and a full third came via just standing around in the crease. Again, kudos to him for getting in front of the net, but it's not like he's tipping in shots or banging in rebounds. Edit: I was wrong on two posts in this thread. Abdelkader's first goal of last season was an empty netter, not a deflection off his body. Just to be accurate, though I still think my point is valid.

All I'm saying is that Holmstrom outperformed Abby offensively at every single stage of his career. He was a more prolific scorer as a rookie, a more prolific scorer in his second year, third, fourth, etc. etc. etc. He played with D and Z in their primes and didn't score 50. Abby is playing with them on the downswing of their careers, and Abby himself is has not shown that's he's offensively capable. As such, he's not likely to score 50 just because he's playing regularly with them. Not that nobody could, certainly Corey Perry could, or any other player who goes to the net and has consistent offensive capabilities. I'm just saying Abby won't, because he doesn't have offense, and they're too old to drag him along offensively.

In the 2008 and 2009 seasons, with Datsyuk and Zetterberg in their primes and having their best career offensive seasons, Holmstrom never had 50 pts. Contrary to what some believe, neither Datsyuk nor Zetterberg are the same players they were then. Those guys will be good this year, but they aren't going to squeeze blood from a stone. I'd love it if you're right, but Abby has not shown the ability to produce even as consistently as Miller at the NHL level, and D and Z aren't at an age where they can still make anyone around them look that good. Hell Franzen has consistently played on Datsyuk's wing for a couple years now and only gets 50-60 pts. And whether you like him or not, Franzen is about 2,000,000 times the offensive player that Abby is. Playing with Datsyuk or Zetterberg is no longer a way to get more out of less. At their age we should be acquiring complimentary pieces to help keep their numbers up, not the other way around. I would have loved a shooting winger for Datsyuk, and to see Zetterberg on Weiss' wing. In my opinion that would be a better dynamic than once again asking those two to play their game and half of everybody else's as well.

I'll be happy IF Sammy is on LTIR for the entire season, IF Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and Alfie don't play their age, IF all the kids perform as well as they did last season (or better in Smith's case), IF Jimmy continues to steal games for us and make our defense look better than it is, IF Bertuzzi and Cleary can be effective, IF Franzen has a very productive year, IF Helm are Weiss are healthy and regain their form, and IF we find goal scoring from guys we didn't know had it in them. There are a lot of question marks going into this season, just like last season. Contrary to what I said all season, Babcock had a plan and got a lot out of a little. He did well. I hope he can do it again because I don't feel really comfortable going into a hockey season in today's NHL when none of our best players are in their prime and all of our young guys haven't show that they can help shoulder the load. It puts way too much pressure on guys like Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and Kronwall to carry the load and none of those guys are going to produce the way they have in the past.

In 2010-2011 Tomas Holmstrom scored 18 goals and had 19 assists, at the age of 35. I don't expect Abdelkader will ever have an offensive season that productive, first line or no. This isn't to say that he can't help up there, or that he's bad or anything else. But I don't believe that he's offensively capable of anything like that. If we recall, of his 10 goals this season, three came in one game, two others were scored in one game when Datsyuk banked goals in off Abby's body, and his first goal of the season was banked in off him as well. Kudos to him for going to the net, but it's not like his "career year" was some sort of coming out party. He played 23 games before he scored his first goal, and then finished strong with a little help from his friends. He was barely an offensive threat for the majority of the games this season and might just as easily have ended with four or five goals as opposed to ten. He's on the ice to clear space for Datsyuk to be better offensively, not the other way around. He'll finish next season with ten or less goals and twenty or less assists, after being replaced by Bertuzzi or Sammy on the top line. Ugh.

Thank God, for a second I almost thought we'd have a young, high energy team. I. Don't. Understand.

Best case scenario we're way deeper than last year. Worse case scenario? Weiss doesn't recover from his injury and provides no more offense than Flip did, and Alfredsson plays like he's a 40 year old. Again, it could be worse (I especially think Weiss will be good) but just once I'd like a slam dunk at the trade deadline or in free agency. The type where I don't have to play "what if" constantly and can rest assured that in all probability player x will produce for us.

...and still no goal scorer. I long for a goal scorer. You know, the kind that consistently scores goals. Other than that, happy about Weiss and not thrilled about anything else. I guess we'll have to see how things go, but again...goal scorer?

I'm not mad about today, but I don't really understand it. They could have signed Weiss, let Flip, White, and Colaiacovo go, and kept Brunner. This Alfie thing makes no sense to me. Can we go a year without spending money on a retread? They fail far more than they ever work.

So here's the deal, I've been camping all week and have no idea what lead up to all this. Why no Sammy buyout? Since when were the Wings interested in Alfie and why? Has Brunner signed somewhere else or is he just taking his time? What's the news on the RFAs? Why aren't they signed? All I know is that we've got 2 goalies, 7 defensemen, and 42,000 forwards. Something's got to give right?