Richdg

This is going to be a tough game. Can we score more than 2 goals?

Way way way to early. Z is the C until he retires. he has what, 5 more years on his contract? Also, just because a guy is a good player that does not mean he is a good leader. Not saying Larkin is one way or the other, but that is something the players will decide within the locker room. We didn't take the C away from Stevie even though federoz was out performing him the last few years he played. Things don't work that way. Now in time, somehwere down the road yes Larkin could get the C. I think him and Dekeyser are the future leaders of this team. Dekeyser will get the A when Datsyuk leaves. Maybe Abby.

way to early to know. The key will be which of these young guys handles the last 30 games of the season the best. There is a good chance that Larkin will hit a wall-he has never played that many games in a season before. The guy that adjusts the best will win the calder. No idea on who that will be....

exept the part of Buff actually playing defense......... As for the cost, who really knows? We have the luxary of having to many young F's-det + Gr. More than we can keep. Same is true on mid level Dmen and D prospects. Next summer Jensen, Sproul, and Oullett all have to stay up or be exposed to waivers. No way we are going to keep all 3 of those guys. Plus the extra Dmen in Kindl and Smith. 2 of those 5 will stay to be the 7/8 dmen next season. Then we have 1 hole that we want to add a #1 or #2 Dman via trade. Way more than we can keep.

We are the same team for 5 seasons now. So that wouldn't be trending in the right direction. Yes we need to make some moves. For the first time in several years we actually have pieces we can move to improve if Kenny wants to. Will he? Stay tuned.....

Why would we want to do that? Our G's are what is keeping our heads above water. They are both playing great. Its not their fault we can't seem to score.

How long of a career did Fischer have? Then he really didn't make it did he....... There was a what 10 12 year gap between the Nick's? A long time. But the rest: Ramsey, rouse, Fetisov, Chelios, Schneider, Rafalski, Hatcher, samuelsson, etc... were all brought into the organization. we traded away the young Dmen that we had: Pushor, ward, Bubble butt, etc... Which makes sense. If you are competing for the cup you can't have rookie mistakes on the BL. if a F screws up in the offensive zone you have time and space to recover. Not in front of your own G. That kills teams.

I prefer Dmen that have already made it to the NHL and proven themselves. When we won cups it was with Dmen that largely came from outside of the organization. Veteran guys. Yes we developed Nick and Vladdy, but for about 15 years that was it. The rest were trades and UFA's. With only having 3 years of control in the minors now it is hard to develop young Dmen. They take time, far more than F's do. Draft the forwards and trade for the Dmen.

he needs to play. GR needs the help too! They are having an even worse time than the RW's at scoring. They are one of the best in the AHL in terms of shots taken. Nothing is going in at all...... That and the G play has been subpar.

Buff doesn't play D. he is big strong and puts up a ton of points. But he doesn't play D. Yes we Goals against is pretty good overall, but much of that is because of our G's. The turnovers, breakaways, guys crashing our net is all on the defenders. Just becasue our G's are healthy and stopping the shots, doesn't mean we don't have issues. As for KFQ, he is hurt and a UFA after the season. So who cares? He is on LTIR and may or may not be back after the holidays. BTW Franzen is not on LTIR right now so we are not cap tight. we could have up to 4 million in space if needed.

In time yes. But as of today all Larkin has done is score the points that Datsyuk hasn't scored by being out with an injury. That is what I am talking about. Now maybe 30 games from now both are putting up points and we are much better. As for Mrazek, yes he looks like a future star. Our G play has been great to date. Does it matter if it is one guy playing every game or 2 guys rotating? nope. Agreed. My focus is winning SC's. not just crawling into the PO's and getting the boot. I want Cups! I would much rather be in the LAK's spot the last 5 years than ours. Chances are high they win another before we do.

This is what many would disagree with. Competitive with what? being one of the top 53% of the league? is that really ok? This is most likely the 7th year that we are not a legit SC contender. 7 years is not a short amount of time. Which is why many join the tank it crowd so the rebuild goes faster. Have we even bottomed out yet? Or is that 2 seasons when now when Datsyuk is gone? All of which adds to the frustrations of many, including myself.

Buff doesn't play D either. Plus Ericsson has a full NMC in his long term big money deal. We can't trade him even if we wanted to. So for now he should be on the 3rd pair with Marchenko. Green and DK on a pair and then find someone to pair with Kronwall. That means Kindl and Smith are 2 pieces we can move. Helm is another piece. He is a UFA and has clones in the system to replace him. We need a Burns type or at worst a M Staal type to pair with Kronwall.

All fans are overly optimistic before every season starts. But that is often not reality. Z, D, and Kronwall are all slowing down do to age and injuries. Which should be expected. I never thought we would get anything out of Franzen-he should never play another game for his own safety. Richards hasn't given anything do to being injured. So while green, kindl, and Larkin have given us more O, it really only balances out what we haven't gotten from others. None of the moves made have moved the bar, just maintained what we were. In the end this team is still a 6th through 10th place team, which is what we have been for 5 years now.

Stats bare that out. We are currently 13th in goals allowed and 9th in PK. Middle of the road for sure. But is being average ok? Right now for the the wailing and nashing of teeth we are the 6th team in the East. Same spot we were in last year. Most of this has to do-IMHO, with the belief that we are not getting better. We are stuck in the same spot we have been for the past 4 years. Good enough to make the PO's-maybe, but not good enough to get out of the 1st round. Just for reference, we are 25th in goals scored and 20th on the PP.

yes Kindl iks better. But he was so bad that anything looks better. his game is O, he D sucks and he falls down all the time. he is a 3rd pair guy for us. I hope some other team sees more than that and we can move him and Smith. neither are getting the job done and we need a top 4 guy to pair with Kronwall. Ericsson is worse but also has a bigger cap hit and a NMC so nothing we can do atm.

This doesn't bother me in any way shape or form. I love the fact that we have 2 very good goalies. having great depth is a good thing, not a negative. I have never understand why so many seem to be one or the other. That is like picking between Z and datsyuk. silliness.....

Continuing on with my earlier post. In the end what I posted in the solution IMHO. It is the solution because we currently are playing guys and putting guys into positions they are not able to perform at. Go back the the Sharks game. Helm was the front of net F on the 2nd PP. That is not something Helm can do. The past few games we have been playing Green and Kronwall together. That is a TERRIBLE defensive pair. Yes they are good when we have the puck, the moument the other team has it, we are in trouble. Neither is a good defensive player. Some want to blame Blashill for this. Ok fine. But he isn't the one that has constructed the roster. When you have holes that is the GM's job to fill the holes. We are now 1/4 the way through the system. we know what we have and don't have. Now is the time for Holland to start kicking the tires and try to make a deal or 2. The advantage we now have is we have enough depth to make deals. Time to start working through the bottom ten teams and see what we can find to help ourselves out.

LW you asked a very good question. What do the RW's need? if you look at the entire organization there are 2 types of players completely missing at every level: big rugged F's that play in front of the other teams net and pound on the other teams D in the corners and behind the net. The second is the reverse of that type: big rugged Dmen that knock over F's in front of our net and pound on the other teams forwards in the corners and behind our net. There is no one in our organization from Detroit through Toledo and the amauter ranks that do those things. Abby is a good all round player and gives his all, but he should be the front of net guy on the second PP with someone great at it on the 1st unit. Kronwall needs a tough defensive Dman to pair with so green and be paired with dekeyser-another strong defensive player. The examples of each would be Backes-a personnel fav at F and Burns on the BL. Guys like them fill in the holes on our team.

We won. Good game. The 3rd goal showed the biggest hole on our team. Ryan-how about that compete level Kenny? beats Glendening and Green is standing there. Instead of putting Ryan on his ass like he should, he tried to hit the puck. That allowed Ryan to skate around Jimmy and score the goal. We don't scare anyone. There are certain places on the ice where a player should expect to get hit. In front of the goal, in the corners, and behind the goal. But not when you play the RW's. Thus F's run at our goal all game long. There is zero pain to our game. None.

The DRW homepage shows Howard starting tonight. Which would be consistant with the rest of the season. Rotating every game.

No one is happy with our start. For anyone to think that is silly. We all want to win. That goes from the top down. every player, coach, Gm, owner, and fan. But this team as built is not a great team. It is an average team. Nearly everyone in the hockey world believes that Babcock is the best coach in the game. But even with him we barely made the PO's and left quickly. Now he is gone-his choice. So if he is the best, then any coach we have is less than that. The real issue with this team is the players, not the coaches. This weekend when wewere on the PP we had Helm working as the front of net guy on the 2nd PP. think about that. A 5-10/180 guy with no shooting ability as the front of net presence. Ok blame the coach for putting him there. But who else do we have? No one. Abby is on the 1st PP, Sheahan has been tried but to date has not shown he can ahndle that job. The point is, we lack talent/ability in some very key areas. Look at our BL. Kronwall is a poor defender. Ericsson has never taken the step to become a shutdown Dman, Smith hasn't, green has never played good D. The only good defensive Dmen we have a KFQ-hurt and Dekeyser-he is till working himself into game shape after his injury. These are just some of the issues. There is only 1 way to fix these types of issues: bring in outside talent. That is on Holland. We do have pieces to do so now. So relax-I know no fun, and let's see what happens.

yes-bad typist.......

Yes the coaching change has had an impact. Same is true with the Griffins BTW. But and this is the million dollar question. With babcock one of the best in the business and all the player familier with his style and scheme, we barely made the playoffs the last 4 years. Blashill is no babcock at this point in time. So why did so many expect us to be much better? The players are the same. Most of the "panic" by fans has more to do with them than anything that the team is doing/not doing. This is and was an average team going into the season.

Really? he is the one on the ice? Could it be, just maybe that our players are as good as some think? is it possible? i mean after all we had the best coach in hockey in babcock and every year we had to fight through the last game of the year just to make the PO's and then get bounced in the 1st round. So with the same group of players and a coach that is not the best coach in hockey, we are supposed to do what? Get better? Or maybe stay the same. BTW the same thing is happening with the Griffins. So changing coaches by itself has an effect and more often than not it is a negative effect. But sonner or later the players have to play. They are the ones that determine if a team wins or loses.