BlueMonk

Heh, Datsyuk's pocket-picking skills with the puck are otherworldly.

Separate Z and Dats again, Babs!

The defensive breakdowns are bad and so is the goaltending. It's hard to pick which is a bigger problem. The team is allowing the 3rd fewest SOGA/game in the league. Even if there are too many serious scoring chances being allowed in there, the goaltending has to carry some of the brunt of that.

Wings allow a goal on the first shot. When is the last time that's happened? Oh, wait.

My post was a joke. When the Wings give up 4 goals but win anyway, fans here panic and say the team sucks.

They only beat St. Louis 5-4 last night. The Sharks suck.

It's a sound strategy when facing the neutral zone trap. But to succeed with it, you have to play with some grit. Forecheck hard and punish the opposing D with solid hits. It wears a team down over the course of a game and can force turnovers that lead to good scoring chances. But they're playing such a limp wristed game right now that there's no chance to win if they can't get it done with their skill. Usually they can, but not tonight.

Ballgame. Wings deserved to lose this.

The other thing they do, and they did it during parts of the first and second period tonight, is look like they're not aware of where the puck is. Like their heads aren't really in the game. Pucks flying around, bouncing everywhere, but the Red Wing who's got the puck in his skates is the last one to figure it out.

Reading today that Hossa is nursing a sore groin, you can kind of see it. He's not his normal self out there.

Yeah, this is their number one downfall all season.

Up. On the eve of playing the Red Wings for the first time, he's now got 10 points (8G, 2A) and is a -8 in 24 games.

I've learned to live with the, "we don't need an enforcer," attitude. I can deal with that. But when people start using the, "Our PP is our enforcer," line, I want to throw up. Show some self-respect, people. You're embarrassing yourself and this board when you post garbage like this. There are other sports besides hockey for you.

No. Something has to change. They have to get better defensively or they won't last long in the playoffs. Teams do not historically win Stanley Cups, at least not in the past 20 years or so, with a GAA that doesn't even crack the top ten in the league. Only the '91 and '92 Penguins teams have done it. Their goal differential isn't anything special, either. The Blackhawks have a better goal differential than the Wings do at this point (thanks in part to a 7-1 drubbing of Phoenix, but still). The Wings have played worse than their record. It's reasonable to conclude they're only playing well enough to win, but again, throughout recent NHL history, teams that are crappy defensively throughout an NHL season come up short in the playoffs.

I think this quote is pretty revealing, and an indicator of the kind of sh** the Red Wings have to deal with every single game: The other team's best effort. "We gave it as hard as we have probably all year in all three periods," Toews said. "This is a character builder and in a lot of ways we can learn from this game, [but] it's a tough loss. We have to be really frustrated about this and take it out on the next guys." Worth noting is the Hawks did just that and pummeled the Yotes 7-1 last night.

I'm glad I clicked on those, they're funny!

Lost your internet connection, did you? It must be something like that. I know you wouldn't only post here when things were going good for your team.

Sissy hockey. No hitting, no taking the body. Fancy passes and stickhandling.

I love Hawks fans who only show up when their team is winning. AWESOME FANS.

They should allow that one just for kicks.

Sammy! Oh yeah. OH YEAH!

And again. There's just a sense of inevitability that teams are going to score and score again. The one hope the Wings have here is that Lidstrom's visor and reduced ice time are adjustments he just hasn't made yet. But that aside, the odds of a major defensive improvement seems pretty unlikely. And don't even get me started on the goaltending.

I understand what you're saying, but let me ask the inverse: Do you honestly believe that a team that can't keep the puck out of their own net after 1/4 of the season will suddenly become an elite defensive unit come April? That seems equally unlikely. Defense is about commitment and effort, and there's something sorely lacking in that regard from this team. It's hard to pinpoint what it is, but my concern is that if it could have been fixed, it already would have been. Whatever it is.

They're not consistently finding ways to lose games. They've only got 4 regulation losses. But these weaknesses we're seeing aren't the kinds of things teams just "fix" later in the year. And they're the kinds of weaknesses that spell doom in the playoffs.

Bad defense + brutal officiating + great offensive plays by the opponents + shoddy goaltending (again) = going from up 2-0 to down 3-2. I don't usually like to be the one sounding a warning bell, but I'm officially convinced the Wings as presently constructed cannot win the Stanley Cup. The things they're doing aren't bad habits anymore, it's who this team is. Reminds me a lot of the 2002-3 Wings.