Aethernum

Maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see, but the last minute or so of that period it really seemed like a different team. Scoring that goal gave their legs new juice, it seemed. That's...encouraging in the sense that they're still in this game, but frustrating in the sense that a mental block is what has been keeping them out of it so far. Also frustrating that Howard is currently on tab for another L when he's been our best player. That seems to happen to him more often than it does to Mrazek - although I could be wrong there. Both have been bitten by the bug that is our offense so far. Power Play to start the third. That's huge against this team - Vancouver's worse than we are in the third period. If we get one early on the PP that could open a floodgate. Time to redeem their effort so far.

If we pursue the trading Howard line of thought, we have to consider who gets bumped up. If Mrazek got hurt, do we have a viable starter to fill in? I'm not so sure. Everyone says not having one starting goalie means your goalie situation is insecure. I disagree - the best part about the Howard/Mrazek duo right now is that our contribution from the goalie position is more secure than any other team in the league, even if there's an injury.

No, the opposite is true. Hitting the post didn't count as a shot, so Kane's pass is still treated as part of the goal-scoring play. If Panarin's hitting the post had counted as a shot, it would've been Keith's goal with only Panarin assisting. It's technically the correct reading of the rule. That said, it's a weak call. Kane was about five degrees removed from that scoring play. Kane, to Keith, to Panarin, hits the post, back to Panarin, to Keith, scores. But hey, a nice guy like Kane deserves a little break every now and then, right? /s

And we all know that's what matters, right? Howard was one of our best players tonight. Can't blame him on the second or third goals. First one was clunky, but Mrazek had the exact same thing last night. Just need to bury one more chance in regulation. Would love for Datsyuk to get started sometime soon - guy must be wondering what he has to do to put one in the back of the net. That OT chance should have gone in. The boys were tired tonight. Not nearly the same jump in their step as yesterday - not surprising or anything, but definitely could have used one patented Larkin speedy breakaway goal tonight. But the point streak continues on the second night of a back-to-back. About all you can hope for.

Yeah...I wouldn't advise going to a shootout against Ovechkin and Oshie. Besides being on the PK for seemingly half the game, I actually thought we looked pretty good. Not upset at us getting a point against the team I consider the best in the East - just needed to bury one extra chance. And yeah, Howard is no good in the shootout, but he played at an elite level tonight. Neither goal was on him. With how Mrazek has played the last few games, I wouldn't be surprised if Howard gets the next one.

AND THE GAME WINNER! Anyone who doesn't like 3-on-3 OT hates fun and Detroit wins, as far as I'm concerned. It's infinitely preferable to always going to a shoot-out, and just WATCH the last 30 seconds of that game: Detroit gets a 2-on-1 on Rinne, who comes up with a huge save. Abby wipes out (and takes the ref with him), causing a 3-on-1 the opposite way, forcing Mrazek to make the play. Then a breakaway by Nyquist to end it. Just fun hockey all the way around.

There it is!!! Edit: Abby's reaction is the greatest thing.

Holy. Larkin. I don't even know what to say. I've never understood this line of thinking. Larkin earned a roster spot because the coaches knew he could contribute. Now that he's contributing, we're wishing that he were not? Or that he wouldn't have to? That's why he gets paid. Lots of teams would be lost without one of their better players. Nashville wouldn't be in this game without Weber. Should they be worried?

Shea Weber has one heckuva shot, and Mrazek got screwed by an awful bounce off the back glass for the go-ahead goal right now. Other than that, pretty even game.

This game is a handful of fluky bounces away from being 4-1 for EITHER team. Sheesh. Green and Richards really making big contributions. Jurco not so much, by my eyes.

Like many others, I was skeptical of Tatar's and Nyquist's spot in the lineup tonight. I will happily eat all the crow on that one. In addition to the goal, two or three legitimate scoring chances in the first five minutes from that line alone. Wow. Looking great so far. And playing some defense, too.

Didn't mean to mis-represent what you were saying. I apologize for that. I just feel like there's a knee-jerk argument of "Well we don't want 8-6 games any more than we want 1-0 games" when it comes to this topic and I thought that's where you were going with that.

This is exactly what I was talking about earlier, though. You're building up a strawman argument here - nobody is saying we expect there to be 8-6 games all the time. Teams are scoring between 2.4-2.6 goals per game, on average. We're talking about bumping that up to around 2.9-3.1 goals per game. Does ONE extra goal per game really cheapen the experience for you? I think you're instinctively overreacting because you're protective of the game, which I appreciate, but it's causing you (and people who argue as you do) to lose perspective. If "less is more," why not just make goalie equipment huge, and keep every game 0-0 or 1-0? Soccer scores for everyone! Goals will become world changing events! Nobody should get above 50 points per year, or what fun is that? See what I mean? I'm curious, why do you think more open ice is a better solution than making the nets bigger? If you don't want to see major changes to the way the game is played, why double the size of the ice before making the nets 5% bigger?

Reason #2393481 to trade Howard.

I question the sanity of anyone who saw last night's game and still wants to change up the lines. We outplayed Boston. We just happened to lose. That happens.

Do you think the fans should have "protected" their game from the forward pass in the 1920s? Now THAT increased scoring. As far as growing the game, I just don't think the NHL is in a place where it can turn away potential new fans. Do we really think hard-core fans are going to leave the NHL in droves because of a 2" change to the size of the net? You can't even see that difference on your TV at home. But the increased scoring that would result WOULD help star forwards grow their brand and that brings in more casual fans. Edit: To clarify, I'm not saying you're wrong. I get that hockey traditionalism is an important part of why the game is where it is. But I think sometimes we're more than a tad bit overreactive to what would, actually, be a minor change. We're acting like making the nets 2" bigger all the way around would fundamentally isolate fans of the "way the game used to be." For one thing, the game USED to be higher scoring. For another thing, it's not changing the way the game is played. It's just rewarding high-skill players slightly more for what they already display on a nightly basis. At the very least, let's reverse the trend of scoring going down each season and keep things where they are now. That isn't going to happen just by players "trying harder." Ovechkin tries plenty hard and has just as much skill as anyone else from back in the day, but he can't get above 100 points. That's a product of the game, not his play or his effort level.

Hockey fans are notoriously protective of their game, I think to a fault. We're not talking about dramatically changing the game so that every team is scoring 5+ goals per game; we're talking about adding an inch or two to the outside of the nets so that goals go from 4 per game to 4.5. Here's why this is important - not because people can't enjoy 1-0 or 2-1 games, but rather because higher scoring means more involvement from your star players. Imagine if scoring were to go up a half a goal per game, on average. Who is going to be the primary beneficiary of that extra half a goal per game? It's going to be the Crosbys, the Ovechkins, the Kanes of the NHL. The star players on the highest end of the skill bell-curve who, currently, are limited by the defensive nature of the game. And let's not forget - "the game we love" is at a scoring low that hasn't been seen in decades. Today's hockey is NOT the hockey you grew up with. Getting the high-skill players more involved in the game is a good thing. It means higher profile, more valuable star players. That helps grow the game. You want increased separation between the best players and their more average counterparts, because the average fan doesn't see how, say, Stamkos is more valuable to his team than, say, Tatar is to ours unless he's scoring more goals. Experienced fans recognize how the more skilled players generate more chances and play better two-way games, but it's not the same, and catering to the hard-core fans doesn't grow the game. Boosting the profile of the highest-skilled by rewarding their talents with an extra few goals per month helps the casual fan understand the contributions of the top-end guys. That matters. No one is saying 1-0 games can't be great. But too often 1-0 games are master classes in poor passing, shots that never make it to the net, and scoring chances that fall an inch short of panning out. Do I enjoy 7-6 games? Not particularly. But I'd rather watch a game with no defense than no offense. You want to go back to the good ol' days of 80s and 90s hockey? You're not going to see the fights and injury-ending hits come back. Those are gone for good. The only way to bring back "the game I grew up with" is to increase scoring. Now, how do you do that? There are a few ways: 1. Increase the size of the ice: Opening up the ice will generate more scoring chances, but at what cost? Three rows (at least) would disappear from every lower bowl in the league. There would be less physical play along the boards and more passing back and forth in open ice. And 3v3 overtime? Forget it. The game is already open enough in 3v3, can you imagine playing that same game on Olympic ice? If we're okay with going back to 4v4 OT, then I would see this as, possibly, a viable option, but there's not a whole lot of evidence that opening up the size of the ice will even do that much to affect scoring. Certainly not enough evidence to justify the massive financial costs that would be incurred not just to NHL arenas, but arenas around the country. 2. Call more penalties: This just trains fans to watch for scoring during PPs, and to tune out the rest of the game. We need to increase the scoring on 5v5. 3. Make Power Plays a 4-on-3 situation rather than a 5-on-4 situation: Same problem as above, and this is a FAR more drastic change to the game than tweaking net size. 4. Move the blue lines/eliminate the trapezoid: These changes fall under the "making defensive zone players put their sticks down second" category. That is, the category of changes that make it look like you're addressing the problem without actually addressing the problem. Moving the blue lines isn't going to notably increase scoring, same with getting rid of the trapezoid. Oh, and both of those suggestions impacts the way the game is played much more dramatically than a little net size tweaking. 5. Decrease the size of goalie equipment: I understand the sentiment behind this change, but do you know what happened the last time we tried this? Goalie equipment actually got bigger. Here's why: Bigger netminders still need to be fully protected. So when we last tried shrinking goalie equipment, goalies across the league had their equipment redrawn to dimensions that more closely fit their bodies. This gave a more distinct advantage to larger goalies. People figured this out, and started looking for big, athletic bodies to fill the net. Smaller goalie equipment really just means a bigger difference between the size of goaltending equipment for smaller goalies and bigger goalies. So as a result, shrinking the size of goalie equipment just means giving bigger goaltenders a larger advantage, which means more big goaltenders, which actually means bigger equipment on average. 6. Increase the size of the nets: Move to soccer sized nets!!! Fundamentally change the game!!! Really? Here's my suggestion: Make the nets two inches taller, and four inches wider. You don't think that will change scoring? Imagine if every shot that has rung off the post this season for Detroit had gone in. You're talking about an extra goal per game, no more no less, and without changing anything about the nature of the way the game is played. The only change is that an extra half a shot to a shot per game is going to go in, rather than ringing off the post. The nice thing about changing the size of the nets is that there's actually a few ways to do this. You can make the nets themselves larger, OR you can do what Patrick Roy suggested and just make the goalposts smaller. Instead of, what, 2" goalposts (?), you make goalposts an inch or an inch and a half smaller. Nothing about the nets themselves has to change. Or you can make the nets like 3% bigger and not have a panic attack about it. This is a gimmick, but going to 4v3 power plays isn't? This is a fundamental change to the game, but changing the location of the lines isn't? It's too difficult to replace all the nets in the NHL, but not to do renovations on every arena in the league to increase ice size? I don't get it. Increasing the size of the nets by an inch will bump up scoring without fundamentally changing the way the game is played. And bumping up scoring will grow the game by letting star players do their thing. Give players a realistic shot at getting to 100 points in a season again. We're not asking for every game to be 7-6. We're saying maybe a few more 3-2 games than 2-1 games. Oh, and we're also talking less overtime, fewer shootouts, and (best of all) fewer loser points. I don't see the drawback. Maybe I'm still in love with the hockey of the late-80s and early-90s, because THAT'S the hockey that I grew up with, and increasing the size of the nets takes us the tiniest little tip-toe back in that direction. I suppose when it comes down to it, I just don't understand people who insist that increasing scoring is a fundamental change to the game. The game IS fundamentally changing. We're at lower levels of scoring now than we've seen in DECADES. And we're apparently willing to move around the blue lines, make our goalies less safe, or, hell, even force every rink in the league to change its dimensions and eliminating seating before we're willing to say, "Uhhh, hey, what if we made the nets like an inch bigger?" Someone explain to me why I'm wrong.

Not burying those chances earlier could come back to bite them today. They generated the chances, which is what you want, but couldn't get a bounce. Frustrating to watch.

I say we get payback from last game and they just count that Helm chance as a goal. It was closer to being in than the one last time was to staying out. I kid. Sorta...

Not really sure what's happening in this thread or why. But the team looks good tonight. We have some energy, just have to adjust to these refs (...and hope for consistency, although I doubt it...) and stay out of the box. Hopefully we'll get a few power plays ourselves soon. If we keep it 5v5 most of the rest of the way I like our chances. Looks like firing Blashill did the job again.

Huh, that's interesting. Thanks!

According to ESPN.com Smith was out for illness. Are we under the impression that he was scratched for performance?

This is the problem. How do we fix it? Is it about making more space - and we do we need for that, more speed? I don't know. But hitting the backboards and the posts seems like it's becoming a theme.

Or we could have perspective. We just scored.

I know. It's almost like teams have good nights and bad nights, am I right?