DatsyukDangles

Are you kidding me? We're on a record setting streak of consecutive playoff appearances and you're saying the coach needs to go? Laughable. If we're battling for the 8th seed every season and never winning Cups, fine. But one season where we're battling for 4th instead of 5th or 6th and all the sudden the coach can't reach the players? Come on, man.

Two nights ago we blow out the Jackets and everyone is saying how great we are, tonight we get caught looking ahead while on the road and all the sudden Babcock is a lousy motivator and we're the worst team to ever make the playoffs. Let's try to keep some perspective here, folks. We played a bad game and assumed we were going to get 2 pts and got embarrassed. We buck up and play well Friday to beat Nashville and all is forgiven.

I still think we overpaid for him, but the profanity I've launched at my TV thanks to his play during Wings games this season has been considerably lower than seasons past.

I have to say, I've never been an Ericsson fan, but he had been playing much better this season prior to his injury. Hopefully he can keep it going!

Yeah, I think the panic should be tempered here...especially if you saw the first CBJ goal last night. It was pretty obvious that we weren't even trying to stop them on that one.

I hope you're not one of the people that was saying we should try to get Semin then

Love to see us trying to get Holmer the hattie.

Pretty good...got his first goal on a beautiful pass from Datsyuk, nearly had another but fell victim to a nice glove save.

I knew it was a bad idea when Holland signed Scott Norwood to a 1-year contract...

Yeah, I doubt that interview is going to keep him from feeling like a million bucks right now...just made me lol a bit.

Anybody else find it funny that Nyquist gets the FSD interview for his first career goal and all they want to do is ask him about playing with Datsyuk?

Here are the overall win percentages for those years: 2006-2007 -- 61% win rate 2007-2008 -- 66% win rate 2008-2009 -- 62% win rate 2009-2010 -- 54% win rate 2010-2011 -- 57% win rate Throwing out this year since the sample size is only 4 games, that's a pretty weak correlation. The only case you could make would be 2010, but even then the difference isn't *that* big. In fact, the two years that we had the most fights (2007 and 2009), we did worse in games where we fought.

Lol. Ericsson and Conklin for Roloson and Lecavalier? Maybe we can throw in a puck bag for Stamkos while we're at it.

I think rotation E, Kindl, and Commodore makes the most sense, though it sure seems like there are no plans to rotate Ericsson. I like Kindl, and he can jump in and make a great play in the zone, but I feel like every game he has that one play that makes you cringe. And usually you can tell it's coming before it happens; you'll see him look to make a bad pass, you'll see him jump in on a bad pinch, etc. For now I give him the benefit of the doubt since he's young, but I did the same thing with Ericsson when he started and he still makes boneheaded plays.

Zetterberg looked good on the assist to Filppula, but after that I thought there was something a little off with him today. Same thing with Helm; they both looked like they had problems controlling the puck throughout the game. Good thing Howard activated Beast Mode and Filppula and Datsyuk stepped up their games today. With how much we turned it over, I found it kind of funny how relieved I would feel whenever the puck made it on to Lidstrom's stick.

I'm from Baltimore originally and, in addition to catching all the Wings games, I watch the majority of the Caps' games. I would not want Semin. As some other posters have mentioned, the guy has a terrible work ethic. He's taken something like 14 stick penalties this season and leads the caps in PIM. Come playoff time he vanishes. Given that trade scenario, I wouldn't want to see Cleary go to get Semin. If we had a straight up trade of Hudler for Semin, maybe, but for the cap hit we'd take I really wouldn't be interested in acquiring him.

I agree with you here, I was impressed with how White played last night. Still disagree with you on Ericsson though. In open ice/center ice, Ericsson isn't bad. What kills me about him is how he plays the puck in his own corners and in the transitional game. The guy just makes so many dumb mistakes. I also agree with some of the other voices -- if Ericsson is taking up as much cap space as he is, I'm not ok with not noticing him for a game. If he's going to sign a contract as big as he did, he better be getting noticed for doing SOMETHING well.

I like to think I'm usually pretty reluctant to criticize "controversial" players after just a few games, but Ericsson is my one exception. Having watched him since he's come up from the GRG, I just haven't seen him improve much, if at all, over the course of his NHL career. And I haven't seen anything in the first four games to suggest I'm going to have any different opinion about him this year. I see the guy make stupid plays in every game, whether they're minor blips or major screw ups. Maybe he's out of position, maybe he gets caught on a bad pinch, maybe he makes a stupid turnover, or maybe he takes a bad angle toward the boards and as a result misses a chance to play the puck; but it's always something. I don't consider it good if I "don't notice Ericsson," because he's the only player on the roster for whom I haven't thought to myself "wow he made a good play there." Usually the best I can give him is "well, he managed not to screw that one up." My prayer is that he has a stretch where he somehow "turns it on" and ups his trade value while some other team is hurting on D men. I'd really rather not be stuck with him on the Wings.