Richdg

NZ teams do that dance for every national team. basketball, soccer, rugby-where it started, hockey etc.... Both countries are small population wise. NZ has about 4 million total, while SA has many more only about 4 million have the moeny and facilities to play. But SA has produced a few pro players. Olf Kolzig was a south african and our former prospect Willie Coetzee was also one.

AA is out with a broken jaw....... for a while.

no I can't say the who, whats when where why's...... So, he is a very humble kid. Mantha openly admits he hasn't adjusted to the AHL game yet. he is surprised at the difference in speed, strength, roughness etc.... wasn't expecting it to be as big a difference. Mantha thinks he needs a full year in GR. He is fully aware that the entire AHL targets him when he steps on the ice. the other teams game plan for him every shift. Of course all of this is good to hear/see. The game of adjustments is what makes or breaks most pro athletes. can they see what the other teams are doing and then adjust their game to counter it.

No I know, can't say the names. Just people that work there.

Didn't see this posted anywhere. Kaser had pics up of Mantha pumping the iron at the Griffs facility. Looked like reps at 225. Nice! Hopefully he is back soon! On his twitter account. No idea on how to link to it.......

No doubt the RW's O is playing well. We are healthy and playing mostly at home vs. weak teams. Keep piling up the points while we can. We all know this will turn later on. We have a 7 out of 9 road game stretch coming up soon. can we play .500 or better on the road? If we do we will have a nice points total at the end of the year-baring major injuries of course.

Mantha is doing just fine. He is just ending his pre-season games as we speak. Everyone else he is playing against is 20 games into their seasons and their pre-seasons. he is just getting into game shape. Its not like he is performing poorly either. Just not great yet. That will come. He is taking his shoots, making good passes if Kaser is to be trusted at all, using his size. Just what we need.

Contend for the playoffs? Yes. Contend for the Cup? No. That of course means nothing in November. Injuries, trades made and not made, what other teams do will all come into play. We do have the benefit of being in the east which is weaker overall. Fewer dominate teams. But the Isles are much better, the Caps are better, but the Flyers are worse. So it should be a fun ride to the finish.

What some guys have been doing isn't sustainable. Guys are not going to finish the year shooting over 15%. Dman over 10% etc..... Great goal scorers end up in the 12-13% range. of course Weiss isn't going to score on 100% of his shots either. That is why we are discussing the inconsistency's and discussing in other threads the need to continue to add more talent.

So you accuse me of making up stats, then post the stats that prove I didn't make those up, then try to discredit the stats..... Ok. Shanny wasn't a banger. Nor does being a "power forward" mean fighting. Does a player use their size and strength while playing the game? That can mean hits, fights, using the assets to protect the puck etc.... Is Ovie a power forward? Yes. Does he fight? Nope. Is Ryan a power forward? yes. Does he fight? Not much. You get the point. Manthas game is very close to Shanny's. Now does that mean he is going to score 40 goals per year during his prime? No one knows. he could or he could be a bust. Either way it will be fun to watch.

The scary part is we are this inconsistent with 3 F's on fire when it comes to scoring. Nyquist, Tatar and Franzen are all putting the puck in the net at rates that can't be sustained. Wait until the slumps and/or injuries come-which those will at some point.

He is just like Shanny offensively. Shanny was not a banger, he stayed in good shooting positions so he could shoot. Most of his career he averaged less than 1 hit per game. Which makes sense-you don't want your high end shooters in the corners, you want them in front of the net somewhere to get their shots off. Yes Shanny was much more willing to drop the gloves than Mantha ever has been. But then again Mantha is a better skater than Shanny was. now who makes it up first? The RW's said all summer that Mantha was going to be given every chance to make the roster coming out of camp. At no point did they ever say that about Pulks. Now Pulks is a RHed shooting winger that scored 30 goals last year. Yet the guy with 0 professional games was going to be given the chance. Why? I was one and remain a guy that believes if we are going to make a deal, Tatar is the guy to be moved. Value for value. tatar is the most limited overall of all the young F's that have made it to date. That is not saying I dislike him. But to get a legit front of net forward or a good puck moving RHed Dman you have to give up something. No one is going to give us a star for table scraps.

Better yes. But let him score 20 goals at least once in a season before we consider him more than a grinder type-which he is good at.

Youth/age is only part of the issues. As I have mentioned earlier in other threads, we do need a move or 2. there is no one on the team or in the system that can work down low infront of the other teams G and pick up the trash. Haven't had that guy since Homer retired. We need at least 1 most likely 2 guys like that. That would help both PP units and thus more scoring. 2 more good Dmen would also do wonders......

10 years ago in not a different era. Now is mantha as good at it as Shanny? no. he isn't going to become our resident goon nor do I want him to. But he will go if/when needed. it would be MUCH better if we had a McCarty type that could do this instead. But we don't......

We are talking the same thing. Just look at our D. 2 guys well into the 30's in Kronwall and E, 2 guys under 25 in Smith and Dekeyser, and 2 guys that shouldn't be on an NHL roster is Q and Kindl. 2/3's of the D is either young and lacks experience or rubbish (yes I have watching the BBC in America to much lately....). When 2/3's of the very important blueline group is suspect at different times, that does create problems. Keep in mind that I firmly believe that Dekeyser is our best defensive Dman. but he still makes mistakes from time to time.

For average age yes. The entire roster is guys 33+ or under 25.... It does take a couple years for youth to get used to the highest levels of any sport. The highs and lows and the grind that is 82 games.

I see a 3-2 Wings win.

Mantha will move up before Pulks because he does things that Pulks can't due to size. I like Pulks but he is one of about 8 guys that fit the "small scoring euro" description. How many do we have the fit the "power forward" description? No one other than Mantha. Please don't even try to put franzen in that group.... But Mantha needs a good 15-20 AHL games first. 2 reasons: 1 to develop and 2 so I have time to get down and watch him! LOL As for Mantha dropping the gloves, 1 word: Shanahan.

Do the lines: Tatar-Datsyuk-Perron Nyquist-Z-Franzen Jurco-Sheahan-Abby Miller-Glendening-Andersson Cleary and Weiss getting better. For the D: Kronwall-Dekeyser Smith-Petry Big E-Q Lashoff Gets a little better

In baseball most explain the difference between good pitchers and great pitchers is, can a pitcher still get you 7 innings and keep you close when he doesn't have his good stuff. We as a team are good, not great. Yes when everything goes our way we win. But if we have a few guys having an off night we are not good enough to overcome it. The 3 goals per game number is key. we are great when we score 3 or more goals. 2 or fewer and we suck. We can't win ugly games or do the ugly things that great teams do to win. Thus it is hard to put together long winning streaks. TBH we are 3-5 more high end talents away from being great team, on top of replacing those that we will loose.

Because it is early in the season, in an odd way I actually look forward to Griffins games more than RW games atm. It is the young talent - Mantha that I am really looking forward to watching. Hell I don't even care about the Griffs record. Just that Mantha, Pulk, Oullett, Sproul, AA, etc... have good games. Of course if they all are, the record will take care of itself. If we can find 2-3 more studs like Mantha over the next couple of years, then by 2020 we will be legit SC contenders again.

There isn't room for all the prospects. After next season Oullett, Sproul, and marchenko all have to be up or go through waivers. Move 1 if needed. Isn't Helm from western canada? send him home. Top 10 in the conference yes, not in the NHL. As last night once again showed. we will be fighting for a PO spot all year just like the past few years. Maybe make it, maybe not.

Better than anyone expected? No. we are playing were most of us expected. fact is we have won 10 games out of 19. Barely above .500. If the PO's started this morning we are in as the 7th seed. No different than the past few years. This while guys like Nyquist, Franzen, and tatar have been hot scoring goals. They all will cool off and then things get more concerning. yes if he dominates Mantha could be a jan 1 pickup that helps. But he isn't the type of player we need most: front of the net grinder types. We simply don't have any in our system. We need 2 Hornquist type of players. Then another puck moving Dman that shoots RHed. Perron and Petry would be great pick ups for this team. Now what we would have to pay is the question.

It depends on what you consider a contender. Just making the PO's? Then we are that now. But a team that everyone is thinking before the season has a legit chance to win the SC and then goes out and makes a deep run, yes it is going to take a few years. we haven't really bottomed out yet. Datsyuk, Z, Kronwall etc are still here but slowly fading. Once they have been replaced by equal or greater talent then we have finished the rebuild. That will take a couple more years and acouple after that for the new stars to be fully in their primes. On nights that both teams play and I don't watch, I have started checking the Griffs boz score first. I want to see if Mantha or Sproul etc... scored first. The better they do the faster they get to detroit. That is what I am looking forward to so much. getting the whole group together in Detroit and seeing what we truely have. But for those guys to move up, they have to perform.