txhoo12

I somehow have a bad feeling that babs might still split hank and pavel once alfie and weiss come back. Hopefully its not permanent as I love that pavel, hank, bert line. I could see him icing something like Cleary Pavel Bert Franz Z Alfie Nyq Weiss Tatar Miller Helm Abby I wish something like this would actually pan out though... In the end, a line with Franz Weiss Alfie is simply too slow. Franzen gets pushed and plays better when hes around fast high-motor guys like helm, nyq, etc. Cant help but be reminded of this... haha “We just have to find a way to keep up with Helms in the middle,” Franzen said. “I’m going to look really slow next to him. He’s a great athlete. He just flies out there. To our eyes his legs look like the same like they were before, but he’s still the quickest and we need him.”

kindl...

yeah, that second one was a Helm TO. Q gets a pass for it this time...

Calamari anyone?

Weiss was out there (and would have gotten secondary assists) for a couple well set up shots by our defense in the third per, pretty sure they were lashoff and smith. As usual, he has been dominant on faceoffs winning ~65%

Second line was much better with Weiss than Franzen. Shame that cleary couldnt bury that one...

YES! I was hoping I wasnt the only one who caught this hahaha

BERT

Weiss needs to learn how to backcheck...

I think the biggest frustration people had with flip was that he was afraid to SHOOT THE PUCK. Weiss may not look as smooth as out there but if he can get us 20-25 goal seasons as opposed to the ~15 we got with flip, I call it an upgrade.

I (like most people around here) am a huge Danny D fan but Im not sure I would file this one away as a "great" game for him. Solid maybe but not quite great. Its nice to see him get that assist and log huge minutes but he had a few rather painful giveaways in our own zone that nearly led to goals. I think E had a cleaner game tonight, but overall, our defensemen deserve alot of credit for hanging in there with a short bench. Also, nothing satisfies like Franzen scoring against colorado...

Lifelong wings fan and long time lurker here... Few thoughts going into this game: 1) Alfredsson gives us a HUGE boost in the powerplay. Reminds me of when we had another legend playing point for us... 2) As mentioned above, Id like to see babs play bert on top line with Datsyuk. Those two seemed to always have good chemistry and a knack for "finding" eachother (and the net). Not to say that I think its a terrible idea, but I am still not quite sold on this Abdelkader as top liner thing 3) We all love to hate the old guys here, but the fact of the matter is that Sammy is a RH shot and can actually put the puck in the net which is something that the majority of our bottom six can't do. I know, I know hes getting paid too much, always hurt, slow, etc.. whatever. I also like him playing point in second PP unit. 4) Still waiting for the Tatar-Anderson-Goose line to make its debut. That will be a downright nasty third line.