BlueMonk

For the right price, as part of the right trade, sure, I'd take him. He's not nearly as bad as people are making him out to be here. He played three games for Detroit before getting hurt, never had time to adjust to the system, and then was asked to play as a top four defenseman in the playoffs the instant he returned to the ice. He was a very solid player in Dallas, the captain of a team that won a Stanley Cup. He's a stay at home defenseman, and an extremely physical, borderline dirty player. It's not like he's any slower than Chelios. The Wings could use the edge he plays with. For all the criticism of Hatcher, the only time since 2002 that this team made it past the first round of the playoffs was when he was on this team, and he was way less than 100% that season.

Skate the puck in, get forced to the boards, shoot from a bad angle, no traffic in front of the net, easy save. Repeat ad infinitum. GO TO THE F**KING NET. Knock the goalie on his ass. Play with some balls.

The Stars play the most unappealing, unpalatable brand of hockey in the league. They make the Devils look like the Gretzky Oilers. If I was a Dallas fan, I'd be pissed watching this garbage. If this is what it takes to win in the NHL, I'll take a losing team. It's just brutal to watch. I'd rather see Crosby and Malkin win 30 games than see a team put 5 defenders standing still in the neutral zone and making the playoffs.

Incredibly weak penalty call, man down with an injury, brutal goaltending. not a recipe for a good penalty kill!

yeah, his game is unrecognizable. He may have gotten lucky last year, I don't know. This year's edition doesn't seem to work very hard. He makes lazy passes and is a turnover machine. He makes poor decisions on the ice. He's a terrible, terrible player right now. Isn't physical, can't play defense, his shot has no accuracy and he doesn't even appear to be able to skate that well anymore, something he used to be able to do.

I don't know if Jason Williams is the worst forward in the NHL right now, but he's in the discussion. A team with playoff aspirations can't afford to have an AHL winger running the point on their power play. For those who say this team can't afford a goon who can't play hockey taking up a roster spot, at least a goon would win the tiebreaker over Williams with his ability to fight.

That's all well and good, but in the salary cap era, teams can't have a whole roster full of tough, physical players who have lots of skill. They'll be lucky to have a couple. In today's league, if you're going to stock up on skilled players who aren't tough, your choices are to have zero tough guys (the Wings' way) or to fill in the roster with some middle of the road players who are tough. We've seen the playoff results of the former.

I don't really want to get into another argument about the value of enforcers, but let it suffice to say that not everyone agrees that they're not important to protecting a team's star players. Regardless, it doesn't take a roster overhaul, it just takes adding a few role players who know their job. The Wings teams of '97 and '98 won Stanley Cups with a balance of skill and toughness. It's not an impossible goal.

The problem is, what's he going to say, that his GM needs to get with the program and fill this gaping hole in the roster? He's not going to handle that in the press, he's going to address it behind closed doors. I'd love to know what his input is, but I have no idea. The team he iced in Anaheim was pretty tough, and he seemed to even embrace the idea of having an enforcer. Honestly, everyone in the Wings organization, including the players and their "consultant," Scotty Bowman, seems to think they need to get tougher. Yet nothing changes. Maybe Kenny Holland has some incriminating photos of Mike Ilitch or something.

Every NHL team has at least one or two pretty tough guys. That's a perfectly reasonable goal for the Red Wings. You don't need to blow up the team. They don't need to add a Chris Pronger or Jarome Iginla to get tougher. With the talent the Wings have, they've got the bargaining chips to acquire some of the more modestly talented players who bring grit to the team. They just haven't done it. Holland picks up a Cory Cross or Andreas Lilja and tells everyone he added toughness to the team. And these guys aren't even good hockey players, so don't tell me they couldn't afford to give that roster spot to someone who actually is tough.

In fairness to Babcock, what else can he say? What else can he do? This is the team he's got. I'm sure he voices his opinion about the roster to his GM, but if these are the players he's been given, then he has to make the most of it. As he says, they don't have the horses to play a physical game, so they have to avoid it and ignore it. He doesn't have to like it, that's just the reality of the situation he's in.

You want regular season points or playoff success? The teams we're talking about were successful in the playoffs.

I don't think they should voluntarily go away from the puck possession style. My complaint is that when the time comes that a team takes that away from them - which happens, especially in the playoffs - they have no backup plan. The best teams are versatile. They'll hurt you with special teams, they can skate and make plays, and they can grind it out when the have to. The grind it out part is what the Red Wings have no answer for. But to play a dump and chase type game, you need tough, physical forwards. This roster is lacking that, so it's not so easy to do.

Like Barnes said, a game like this really exposes the Wings for what they are. My only hope (and it's a pretty faint hope considering Holland's history of paying nothing more than lip service to the problem) is that the national attention this team's softness is getting will embarrass our GM into doing something about it. Everyone, everywhere, knows all you have to do is keep hitting this team and it will fall apart on the ice. I'm with hockeycrazy on this. The score didn't even matter to me by the mid-point of this game. They let their goalie get run multiple times and nobody even took exception with it. The skilled players know that nobody has their back. The supposed gritty players on the team either do nothing or turtle when the time comes to face a challenge. "Disgrace" seems like an appropriate word for this team's intestinal fortitude. It's a losing strategy, placing so little value on toughness. Hockey playoff teams need it to win in the playoffs. Time and time and time again, the Wings put zero premium on it. It goes without saying there there's no enforcer on this team. And never mind that there aren't any fighters at all. There isn't even a single example of a really mean, ornery player. Just a tough, gritty SOB who plays with an attitude. Not one. It's almost unbelievable. In the history of NHL hockey, what other team can you say that about? I honestly can't think of one.

Hehehe Fridge scores a breakaway goal. Hilarious.

Nobody wants to hear excuses, but the last two back to backs the Wings have played, they looked like a team playing the second half of back to backs.

Nice team toughness, especially coming from our, "gritty, stay at home defenseman." Gauthier barely breathed on Lilja and he already had assumed the turtle position. It's becoming laughable.

I hope MacDonald pulls a Legace and says the Blues won on a lucky goal.

What a f**king disgrace, letting your star player (Zetterberg) get facewashed by Tkachuk and you do NOTHING about it. What a bunch of gutless pansies. This is like the NHL version of the Kenny Rogers song, Coward Of The County. Make sure to say something really mean about the Blues in the postgame interview, heroes.

Hahahaha. Just keep Lilja around to harvest body parts. That's awesome. "Bad news is, you have a torn ACL. The good news is, we've got someone prepping Lilja for OR and we're goin' in and taking his."

This is true with some players, but not all of them. The problem is, the Wings have zero players who exhibit this kind of toughness and determination. If they did, we wouldn't need to keep bringing up this glaring weakness on the team.

It's a legit question. I think the change in the culture of the league runs pretty deep. Guys really never did hit Gretzky back in the day, and that was attributed to his linemates. Of course, at that time, it wasn't uncommon to see an enforcer just grab the guy who hit his teammated and pummel the sh** out of him. Today, you just don't see that. I guess Hordichuk pounding Avery into the ice for a marginal hit last year is one of the very, very few exceptions. I don't believe having a tough guy will stop all the dirty hits. Teams with tough guys still have to deal with hits to their star players. But I do believe it makes other teams think twice. I don't think Ovechkin has taken nearly as much abuse as Crosby, and he does have an enforcer (albeit a sometimes reluctant one) in Brashear on his team. More importantly, I think an unwillingness or inability to answer the physical bell sends a message to the rest of the league that it's ok to cheap shot their guys, or at least commit questionable plays without too much thought. When playoff time comes, all teams attack the Wings the same way: Just keep hitting them. They rely on that strategy wearing the Wings down. Even teams that don't normally play that kind of hockey try it against Detroit. The past few years, it's worked.

As someone pointed out, the home/road splits don't usually carry over into the postseason. You have to remember that teams generally play all out at home, while they're more likely to take a night off on the road. So teams can get a really good road record just by playing full tilt. In the playoffs, all the teams are playing full tilt pretty much the entire time, so that tactic doesn't get it done. Home ice is definitely an advantage, but I like the idea of starting a playoff series on the road. It's a psychological advantage to do so, I think. Win just one of those games and you've got the split you wanted. Start at home, and nothing less than winning the first two games is acceptable to protect your home ice. Lots more pressure on the home team. Of course, in a game 7, you want home ice. It's just not worth expending too much energy trying to get that top seed. Better to have to win on the road than kill your players trying to get those regular season points. You have to win on the road anyway, it's not like teams usually sweep all their home games.