krsmith17

Griffins have been the better team in the majority of this series. A combination of Korpisalo playing great and McCollum playing like s***. Blows my mind that Coreau hasn't played the entire playoffs so far... Aubry! 4-3... Russo!!! Tie game!

Mantha! 4-2...

McCollum f***ing sucks!...

Your point is that we don't have a single primary scorer or secondary scorer?... Great point!

Holland was interviewed during first intermission. He basically reiterated the same things he said during the closing presser. Trying to get younger. Youth need to take step forward and take on bigger roles. Expects some new faces from here (Grand Rapids) to make the Wings roster out of camp. Mentioned the obvious one's, Ouellet and Sproul as well as Jensen and Tangradi?... Trying to get bigger. Going to continue with the same philosophy of drafting and developing...

Bertuzzzzzzi!!! Bert has been a playoff beast. Maybe he can be our Justin Williams... Milano makes it 2-1. Hate it but that was one of the prettiest goals I've ever seen at any level...

1-0 Monsters... power-play goal...

Game 4 about to start. Must win tonight...

What would that have to do with anything? He was here last season for a short time as a consultant. Fedorov left on bad terms as a free agent while Oates was traded, and much more recently as well. Most rational fans and more imortantly management don't hold anything against Fedorov, why would they hold anything against Oates?

I disagree that a three way trade involving Hamonic was our only chance to land Trouba. It's obviously a long shot, but Winnipeg aren't exactly hurting on the back end. With a solid top 4 locked up long term and Morrisey ready to step in, I don't think they'll necessarily be looking for a top pair guy in return... 1st round picks are very valuable, which is why I'd be reluctant to trade one away, but for a top pair defenseman like Trouba, I would for sure. Obviously they would want more than a pick, but maybe a Nyquist / Tatar and Ouellet / Marchenko would be enough to get it done. Maybe not, but the point is, I don't think the Jets would only listen to offers including a Hamonic type player in return...

Thanks for closing that case... Apparently if a player doesn't score he is considered a "ghost"... It doesn't matter how many offensive chances he produces (he produced a lot), how many turnovers he creates (more than any player on the team), nothing else matters except points in hockey... I bet no one would guess that the soft Euro had 11 hits in those 5 playoff games, while hard nosed Glendening had 4... Keep in mind, I am defending Nyquist, but I would also trade him in the right deal. I'm not in any way saying that he is an elite player, but he is a good secondary scorer. And for a team that struggled as much as the Wings did offensively he was one of the few bright spots...

I wasn't sure where to put this, but apparently Hamonic has rescinded his trade request. So I guess the need to head back to Western Canada (close to home) isn't there anymore, and he's content to stay in New York... I guess the only reason this would be at all relevant here is for those that were looking at three way trades to land Trouba...

I'm assuming he's taking over the defense and penalty kill? Now we need to go after Todd Richards or Adam Oates to run the forwards and power-play...

Wow, good call kickazz. I like this hire a lot. Good stuff!

I'm not a huge fan of signing Radulov but I'm not completely opposed to it either. If it happens I wouldn't be too upset, if it doesn't that's fine too. However, I think there's a zero percent chance we become sellers at next years deadline. Holland will do whatever it takes to get the Wings into the playoffs in the final season at the Joe. That kind of scares me though... The last thing this team needs is another trade that sees us giving away prospects for one month of a past his prime player ala Legwand / Cole...

I don't think Okposo will get anything close to $7M, I wouldn't expect him to get anything higher than $5.5M. And sure, if 8 points in 11 games is considered disappearing I guess he disappeared... You must be thinking of a different player? Okposo has a ton of skill and plays a heavy style game that is good for playoff hockey. But like I said, I'm only going after a top 6 winger like Okposo if we trade away a couple forwards to upgrade the defense. That isn't likely to happen, so I likely would stay far away from free agency as well...

I do agree that we need to add those three pieces, although I think one or two of the forwards can be added from within over the next couple years. I don't see us being contenders for another couple years regardless, so I'm okay with waiting to see what we have up front in Larkin, Mantha, Athanasiou and company, rather than looking outside the organization for now. We should however be looking to acquire a defenseman via trade. I think Stamkos ends up signing in Toronto, but we should at least make him a competitive offer. Outside of that, there's not a single center that I'd want us to go after. If we end up trading away a couple high end wingers in trades to upgrade the defense, I'd offer Okposo a contract, but outside of him, again not much out there. The only other forward that I'd be remotely interested in would be Boedker, but again only if we're trading away a Nyquist or Tatar... There's no chance St. Louis let Backes walk. Either way, this rebuild is another year or two away from being complete. If we can make one big trade this offseason to land a top pair defenseman and continue to draft and develop, I think we'll be in great shape.

Who said secondary scoring isn't important? I agree that it is very important, especially in the playoffs. I simply said secondary scoring isn't / won't be an issue going forward. If Larkin and Mantha can be as good as most of us think they will be, that would take care of our primary scoring. That leaves us with some combination of Athanasiou, Abdelkader, Nyquist, Tatar, Jurco, Pulkkinen and whoever else as our secondary scoring...

Secondary scoring is not the issue, the issue is that we haven't been able to rely on our primary scorers, and that is due to the team being in transition. The primary scorers of yesteryear can't get it done anymore, and they need to pass the torch onto the new core, who we hope to become our new primary scorers... Our team scored 8 goals in 5 playoff games. That's awful. Nyquist had one point on those 8 goals, which is probably not good enough, but since when is your third line players supposed to be the ones that carry the load? I believe that once we have a legitimate first line threat that can contribute game in and game out, that the secondary scoring will be able to pick up the pace as well. Our power-play also went 1 for 25. That's pathetic, and the biggest reason we lost that first round in my opinion. If we had a more potent power-play, everyone on that unit would have had more points and you can be guaranteed that Nyquist would have been on that list. Regardless, Nyquist was one of our most dangerous players all series, he just didn't produce enough. I think his lack of production is mostly due to the state of this team, rather than him just not being able to get it done in the post-season... Anyway, back on topic... LAT 0 vs. RUS 4 Datsyuk had an assist and one shot on goal and Marchenko had one shot on goal. SWE 2 vs. CZE 4 Nyquist had a very bad game stat wise with no points, no shots on goal and a -3 in 16:05 time on ice... "I'm so sick of this guy", "Nyquist sucks"... FIN 3 vs. USA 2 Pulkkinen had one assist and one shot on goal in 10:45 time on ice.

I really like the sounds of Todd Richards and Doug Houda. I also like Adam Oates, but just curious of the reasoning for the "Please God no" comment? I think he'd be great for our power-play...

This is the last I'll comment on this because it is somewhat off topic, but that's basically my point kickazz. Our team as a whole had a down year, and Nyquist didn't exactly meet expectations, but I wouldn't say he was bad. The power-play was awful, and that is what effected most players numbers, probably most of all Nyquist'. Nyquist was one of our top point producers, and was top 5 in virtually every offensive category, but yet he's the one that fans get on the most. He's a secondary scorer and he's done a very good job providing secondary scoring.

Have you seen Paterson play Pat? I seen him play one game and although I wasn't all that impressed, I didn't think he looked too bad for his first (or second) pro game. What gives you the impression he will be a career AHLer?

That's my issue though, I keep hearing that Nyquist had a "bad" or "terrible" season when it's not at all accurate. Nyquist had 43 points, which was good enough for 5th on the team in scoring, only two points behind 3rd (Larkin and Tatar). This after seeing a fairly significant decrease in time on ice from the previous season. The entire team struggled to score, but Nyquist was the furthest from the team's biggest issue. Our power-play sucked d*** and that's where Nyquist's numbers went to s***, where again his minutes were slightly decreased. Believe it or not, Nyquist actually outscored his previous season 5-on-5. He had 31 points this past season and 30 the year before in, despite playing over 100 less minutes...

Nyquist has been one of, if not the best player on Sweden so far in this tournament, and still gets s*** on by Wings fans, as he has been all year... Nyquist is a very good secondary scorer, but for whatever reason some people will always expect him to be more than that...

Yeah, McCollum has been in Grand Rapids for 8 seasons if I'm not mistaken. I'm not quite sure why he got the start over Coreau, but he has been decent so far in the playoffs. I think McCollum will be a career AHLer, but Coreau may have a future in the NHL as a backup.