nawein

I'm the other way around from you on that one. Petry is what Marchenko should and probably will turn out to be, so we don't need them both. Plus I like Backmans offensive skill set, I think his ceiling is higher and I really believe if Backman was 20 pounds heavier he'd be an NHL defenseman today.

Neither of those two are prospects.

Pretty sure all the guys call him Nesty, that's where it came from. I know Tatar does at least, I've seen it on his instagram.

It's not like they haven't watched these guys play for years. These "crappy exhibition games" are a part of the evaluation process. So is training camp. So was last season. So are off ice workouts. There's a ton that goes into picking a team.

I don't think he doesn't like Babcock, he just thinks people are overstating his role in us making the playoffs last year. Babs adopted a defensive game because our offensive talent was gone. Good on him for seeing and realizing that, but that is exactly what any good coach would have done. It's not like he created a new style of play to perfectly form to our roster. He changed to a defensive game that allowed an offensively challenged team to win some games, and was helped by some fantastic performances by a couple kids. And, at least in my opinion, he's right about Smith, too. He's an offensive defenseman that to this point hasn't scored a whole lot, is bad defensively, and makes a lot of boneheaded mistakes. Whether he's not scoring because he's being used wrong or whatever doesn't really matter as much as the fact he doesn't add a whole lot of offense. I'd love for him to improve on both sides of the puck and he has the tools to do it, it just is mostly mental at this point. His mental game isn't there. As of now he's just not a very good defenseman.

I've never really understood the "rode a high shooting percentage" argument. It's backwards logic. It's not like Helm, or Gus last year, were scoring because their shooting percentage was high. Their shooting percentage was high becuse they were scoring. I agree they won't keep the goal pace, but the goal pace wasn't influenced by the fact that their shooting percentage was too high.

Lol I know. I was curious to see what we could potentially have and if it was at all possible he got any bigger. I'm a lot less optimistic now.

I feel dirty and weird about this but this is a family picture from his mom's very open to the public facebook account. As you can see, there's not much hope of him getting a whole lot bigger.

Just trying to make the point that just because he was -2 doesn't mean he's the worst player ever and since the best player we had in the game also was -2 it probably shouldn't be used as a "omg cleary sux." I agree he's playing for a job and if he wants one he needs to play well, but a stat line that says -2 doesn't tell me anything about how he personally played.

And? So was Kronwall.

In that case I misunderstood what you meant. I'm all for hard hitting hockey. I love it. I live for it. I just hate the stupid revenge fights on clean plays.

One of my biggest problem with the game today is all the bs "revenge" for clean hits. He got him in a bad spot and hit him hard, but it was clean. Sometimes you get hit, sometimes you get hurt. There was 0 on the play to take issue with. If you really think we should have enforcers to stop the other team from hitting us you need a reality check. You want no hits and fights? Go watch soccer and then boxing. Pretend it's one sport.

Shhhhh don't you go around spreading facts and stuff now, ya hear?

http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2014/09/red_wings_top_four_defense_pro.html For confirmation

Actually really glad to hear Cleary has looked good. The guy deserves a comeback year and it doesn't matter who it is, good hockey players make the wings better.

I thought kronner and dk were our best last year.

Yeah, it's nothing. http://kuklaskorner.com/tmr/comments/mantha-mania-note-no-39-for-tonights-3rd-place-game-vs.-carolina?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

I still think Backman is going to surprise a lot of people.

People scream bloody murder if E or Smith make them because they make the boneheaded mistakes every single game. Sure DK makes them. Kronwall makes them too. But they don't make them every game. I don't sit there and think "what the hell are you doing?" every game like I do with Ericsson and Smith. Sure he has room for improvement, but right now I think without a doubt he's our second best defenseman.

Yup. According to the wings twitter.Edit: my apologies. http://kuklaskorner.com/tmr/comments/red-wings-tweet-dekeyser-signs-2-year-contract?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

You mean the pre salary cap Ken Holland? The one with unlimited resources to get whoever he wanted? He's trying to get him on a good contact. It's hard because of the circumstances. What do you pay a top 4 young defenseman who wasn't drafted, came out of college, and has only played like 80 NHL games? Who knows. My guess is around 3 million on a 2 or 3 year deal. But it's not that easy. And how do you know Holland is the one paying hardball? He could be offering good deals and DK could be turning them down. Who knows what's going on.

Mantha playing with Athanasiou and Bertuzzi tonight. Should be a pretty dominant line.

Please find me one post where someone expects us to be perfectly healthy. Please. I've heard lots of "helthier than last year" and "injuries can't beas bad as they were" but I don't think even the most negative of us had expected the team to be perfectly healthy.

^^ yes.

Only hard part would be dumping Kindl, but to me the guy seems like a smaller right handed version of Kindl. The smaller isn't a problem since Kindl plays like he's 5'4" anyways.