kickazz

"He's a really good coach," Jonathan Ericsson said. "I'm sure a lot of teams want him." “Our team is not as good as it was,” Babcock said in reference to the team's recent postseason struggles compared to its past success. “It's very evident. We battled our butt off just to get in the playoffs.” Not looking too good for him staying with these comments if you ask me. Then again still speculation.

Well with people ripping on Z and talking about Babs packing his bags and Howard being sent on a flight to Mars because Mrazek is for sure #1. Why would Tortorella not sound unrealistic?

Tortorella

I think having one bad year after having 2 great ones in a row is just too early to make a call. He was at a PPG pace in 2013 and 2014. He was at PPG game pace this year until the later half of the season. It's just too premature to pass any judgement. If he sucks next year. I will agree with everyone.

He was never supposed to be a center. He's a natural left wing forced to play center because the Red Wings don't have any good centerman besides Datsyuk. If we brought a good centerman in Z should just stick to LW and finish off his career.

Zetterberg went from playing a great 50 game season to a crappy end of the year. He started off fine and turned into playing like he was 50 years old. He needs to work on his offseason conditioning in my opinion. It could be the difference maker in his longevity. ^ And that's why I am less pessimistic about Z as most people here are. You need to give the guy a chance to look back at his own season and re-evaluate his performance and what HE CAN do to make a difference next year. It starts with the off season.

Glad to see you went from "he should retire" to "get him another center to play with". Looks like you settled down on that one

Franzen may not appear in a game ever again unfortunately. I hope he does.

Glad to see someone use logic for once. It's just been amusing to see people rant about Z playing poorly when in reality A LOT of players on the roster did poorly. This tunnel vision blame game is getting old. What I'd like to know is: Where the hell was Zidckey's offense? Where the hell was Nyquist? Tatar, stop pretending to be Datsyuk and take the damn shot Jurco... Is this guy a ghost? Once those things have been addressed we can complain about Zetterberg. I don't know why people keep expect a lot out of this 34 year old guy. I expected Nyquist to do a lot better than he did, that's more of a concern to me than an aging star. Like some others have already suggested, Zetterberg can still be useful just like Yzerman was towards the end of his career. He cud be a third line center and excel at it for all that matters. But when your young players can't stick it out through playoffs. That's something that actually needs work and a solution. Nyquist needs to bulk up this off season imo. He's too easy to squeeze out in the corners.

Stamkos the leagues second best goal scorer put up 0 goals in a 7 games series against a team with a weak defense. He's definitely not a world class player and should retire too by your logic. >.> Retire at the age of 25 too! Wooo!

I'm going with a Red Wings win. This team has something to prove now that Kronner got the suspension. All the odds were stacked against them and this suspension is something to feed off of. It's time to go all in. Tampa's probably thinking they can exploit the D without Kronner and hopefully they think it will be easier than expected.

I mean, there was a reason Kronwall wasn't doing his "patented" Kronwall hits as much anymore. It started to slow down when the league became strict on suspensions. I'm sure he knew he had to be more conservative. He probably didn't want to do it even when he did. It was probably one of those "well we're getting our butts kicked, now might be a good time to uplift the team.. But what if I get in trouble.. Nahhh HERE WE GO!". Went for it and did it. Now he's probably thinking "yeaaah I really shud have not done it, I knew those bastards were out to get me. Dammit!"

How ironic would it be if tomorrow's game goes to overtime and whoever the Defencemen that's replacing Kronwall ends up scoring the game winner?

Often times these suspensions can be a blessing in disguise. I can see this team giving it their all tomorrow to make up for Kronners loss. It might just keep them on thier heals the entire 60 minutes.

Love Kronner. Sucks that he's suspended, but I dont think its a big loss for us as people might think. We can still pull it off as long as Mrazek is strong in net. Backchecking will have to be strong.

To be real about it: He hit him in the head/neck. Principal point of contact. And his feat went off a tiny bit. In all fairness that wasn't a clean hit by todays shi**y NHL rules. But because it's first offense I'm hoping it's nothing more than a fine. If they don't say much else about it then you can bet they did the Wings a bit of a favor. But that's definitely an no-no hit according to today's rules. Hope to see Kronner in game 7.

Mrazek wuda had it

Glendening (Luke -Skywalker), Mrazek (Hans), Pav (Obiwan), help us. You are our only hope.

No. The previous poster is correct. From 2002-2007 or so Datsyuk was a pretty bad playoff performer. That's about 5 years of poor playoff performance. He was often criticized for it. (I remember there was even a segment on the local channel 4 in Detroit talking about it) He did not have any major injuries that caused him to "hobble" around. I've never heard of that. He had a knee injury in the mid 2000s but it wasn't anything like what he had last year. His orthopedic physicians and sports medicine doctor are a few colleagues I work with. He CURRENTLY has issues and those only started a few years ago. Datsyuk, despite recent injuries was one of the most well kept bodies and amongst the healthiest in the league. He's actually very well known for his healthy lifestyle and self training. There's a reason he's aged very well compared to other players even at age 36. His breakout performance was in 2007 and 2008. In 2009 he had a terrible playoff record I think it was like 9 points in 15 games and only 1 goal. (But I also tihnk he may have been worn out or there may have been an injury). But since 2009 Pasha picked it up and has been a good playoff performer. Z on the other hand... This may be the first year in his entire career that he's had a piss poor playoff performance. I think that's whats shocking most of us here. Especially because Z never had excuses, he put up playoff points even while he was injured. Hell he even played 2 games in Boston last season only after a few months of back surgery and actually put up 2 points. That's why I've been a bit skeptical about Z. Injuries didn't affect his playoff performance before. Why now? No there's something else that's hurting his play. Maybe the hit to the head from Jamie Benn really screwed up his hockey IQ? Who the hell knows.

I don't think so. I can't speak for Larkin or Nastasiuk quiet yet, but none of the other names are superstar status. Pav and Z are potential candidates for hall of fame and Zetterberg holds quiet a few franchise records. I think with the Red Wings, you can't just give the captaincy to anyone, it's got to be players who are really special in the league/organization. I mean I love Abby, Glendening and Dekeyser but these guys aren't "superstars" like Delveccio, Lindsay, Howe, Yzerman, Lidstrom, or even Zetterberg were in their prime. Although a lot of people have been disappointed with Zetterberg (even me - although I have been giving him the benefit of the doubt and supporting him), it seems like many have forgetten just who he was when he came into the league and all the way until 2009 or so. The guy was probably the most complete player in the league next to Datsyuk the only upside was he did it in both regular season and playoffs. Not to mention he was extremely humble about it. That's the type of captain the Red Wings organization would seek imo. Who knows Larkin could be the guy to be that way.

It was Filpulla. (He was supposed to be somewhat of a prodigy till he under performed in 2013). I believe they just ended up giving it to Weiss when he came in. I don't really see any potential candidates for captaincy on this roster after Z. Unless ofcourse Kronwall ends up sticking around longer than Z does.

I did NOT know about this. LMFAO!

Because Datsyuk might have good hands but that doesn't necessarily make him an all around better leader. Zetterberg was a leader since his juniors when they scouted him and saw his ability to communicate effectively with team mates. If you watch closely Zetterberg is always directing traffic on ice. Especially in his prime. He was also made an assisted captain in his 3rd or 4th year as a wing. (before Datsyuk was).

He isn't healthy, he's missing a piece of his spinal vertebrae in his back. He was treated to just "continue playing" Not to come back rejuvenated.

Yeaaaa unfortunately.