Nightfall

I have to agree. Seriously, I go to the HFboards to get more intelligent hockey talk. I come here to hear some biased Wings perspective and the most stupid comments from armchair Wings fans. Anyone with a straight face saying that Howard lost the LA game is an idiot. Howard has had his best stretch of hockey over the course of the last couple weeks, and because of the defensive lapses in front of him, they haven't done so well. I don't blame Howard for this at all. I blame the product in front of him.

I agree with you 100%. Howard cannot control the D in front of him. The miscues on D last night and the blown coverages result in the wings going from a 4-1 lead to a 4-4 tie. I am trying to figure out if the defense is just coasting, or if they really have problems. I trust in Holland that all is good come playoff time. Still, I don't worry about the goaltending. I worry more about the defense not helping the goaltending. The amount of goals that are scored due to blown coverages and wide open chances are so bad to the point where you could have Hasek in his prime playing for the team and the team would lose.

A couple blown defensive assignments result in a tie game. Time for the Wings to win this one in extra time or the shootout. Lets go wings!

If there is anything I have learned on this forum, it is that every member here is always going to be skeptical of the goalie. Osgood won 3 cups with us and he is still not respected. Even Hasek's cup win is not enough to get him respect. Quite simply, no goalie is good enough to be a Detroit Red Wing. People like kissing Tim Thomas' ass, but fail to remember the down years he has had. Ryan Miller has even had his share of crappy games. They are all human. I think the key here is to look at consistency. Howard won a lot of games for the Wings last season. This season he leads in wins. That alone tells me that he is worth the extension and the price tag that Kenny paid for him. His detractors will get their panties in a bunch and cry about it, but in the end, Howard will be the ones winning games. If the cup comes back to Detroit in the next couple seasons (hopefully this season), no one here will offer Howard an apology. The Wings have always poured money into their defense, and I think that is the right move. Howard is just as good as any NHL goalie out there right now. The Wings have the firepower and the defense to win a cup this year. The cup run won't come down to Howard. It will come down to how they play as a team, pure and simple. If the forwards don't score, the defense blows coverages, and Howard plays like crap, Howard will take the fall for it. Just like Legacy did when the Wings were beat by Edmonton in the first round. It wasn't his fault entirely. The Wings just couldn't get it going. Lets go wings!

There for a second, I thought you were going to talk about some articles written here on these forums.

As a hockey referee, I would be interested to find out just how many people here have actually reffed a game. Personally, I think anyone complaining about the reffing should put the stripes on and go out there and ref a game sometime.

While I agree with you, it gives ammo to all the Howard detractors out there. The defense has lapsed a lot this season, and when the detractors say, "OMFG his Save % blows", I just point at a game like this one. Or other games that the defense doesn't help him at all. The Wings do show up when they need to, but I don't like the defensive lapses either. Come playoff time, they are going to have to play the entire game.

I would add in another couple suggestions --The defense in front of Howard really has not helped him out in some situations. --Although they make mistakes, the defense in front of Howard does play better. After watching how the defense plays worse than the Oilers defense in some periods, and then comes out and plays lights out in other periods, I really don't look too deeply into Howards stats. The stats of a goalie at this level is largely dependent upon the defense in front of him. Howard has the wins, but that is because of what you and I just mentioned. They are 2nd in goals scored, but their defense has not been as stellar at times. As for consistency, it is very hard for a goalie to be consistent if the team defense is not consistent in front of him. Look at the goals that Buffalo scored last game. A breakaway and a 2 on 1 chance. Both of which Howard had zero chance on. When the D plays more consistent, then I will start looking deep into his stats.

Either that or he took a hometown discount because he knew he could get more money elsewhere and loves it in Detroit. I prefer to think of it this way. BTW, that avatar of yours is awesome!

That was a carbon copy of one of the goals that Dallas scored last game. Shot hits a defender, and he gets his own rebound and puts it past the goalie that is already down. Great goal by Dats. No chance by Miller.

The point is every team has a stretch where they play bored or uninspired. The season is 82 games, not 12.

Season ticket holder here. I have been watching the Griffins all season, and I would like to toss out a few things that I see with the team. First off, they are deep at the forward position. They have a lot of playmakers. The problem is that they don't have any finishers. I see them get some good passes into the zone, but they just can't seem to capitalize on their chances regularly. Secondly, they are not deep at defense. They have some gritty defenders and guys willing to play tough D, but on the skill side they are lacking. Meech and Smith are good enough to make things happen, but they are not superb in the AHL level. I hope that Smith will grow into the role a bit. In the end, they have the skill and talent to be better than a .500 team like they are playing now. I feel they are missing a few pieces of the puzzle though. I keep thinking a coaching change may be what this team needs, but its hard to say if that will make a big difference. Maybe when we get some new blood in the system next season, it will turn back to our favor. What do you think is wrong with the Griffins? Do you think they are not applying themselves? Are they lacking something? Let me know what your thoughts are.

They played bored back in 2002 after they had the Presidents trophy all secured in February. They had a horrible stretch of games in the last month. Hell, they didn't win a regular season game in the month of April. They were booed off the ice in a game I saw against St. Louis that year in the month of April. Yet they won the cup that year. I do agree with you, boredom can lead to an early exit, but it isn't indicative of an early exit. You should be more worried about a team that comes in hungrier than the Wings or a hot goalie beating them out. Those are the only two situations I see them getting bounced early in the playoffs.

The stats were not indicative of how this game was played. Howard cannot be faulted on the first two goals. Blown defensive coverages is how you lose games, not win them. Even the 3rd goal was a tough one to save because of the fact he committed to the first shot, and it rebounds off a defenseman in front and got another shot. You can call it a lucky bounce or puck luck, but this kind of crap happens all the time. Did you notice that Dallas kept a vast majority of shots to the outside where they were easy saves? Hell, Detroit didn't get anything going until the 3rd period, and there is NO excuse why the team just did not play well until then. As other posters have pointed out, the Wings have played bored. Even in the rec leagues, you can tell teams that are playing bored, because they let teams that are not as good as they are hang around in games or beat them. The entire team should be faulted for this loss. Not one player. Not the defensive pairings. The whole freaking team. They have to go out there and outwork the other team, not sit on their asses and play uninspired. /end rant Next game on the schedule is on Saturday. Lets go wings!

This is great news. The NHL needs good people in the front office.

Howard has 30 wins to lead all goalies. Yea, he needs to work on his consistency. Maybe he can lose a few more and make himself look about average. After all, consistently winning games is really an issue.

When I read quotes like this, I just shake my head. I could see if Howard had a subpar game, but he played very well tonight. Would he like to have the last one back? Of course. At the same time though, there were some stops he made that could have went in but they didn't. This was not a goaltending issue. If anything, it was a capitalization issue. I didn't get a chance to see the entire game, but I just watched the highlights and I am going to watch the game in its entirety tomorrow. The highlights didn't show me that one goalie outplayed the other. If anything, it was one team unable to capitalize on their chances while the other one did. Dats had about 5 chances to score and couldn't bury the biscuit. Eaves had a couple good chances. The Wings have got to score on those opportunities. Yet, they didn't. The blame game is easy to cast on one player or another. Seems that everyone except Lidstrom, Hank, or Dats are easy targets. I really should put up a freaking pie chart and start marking down who the loss gets attributed to just as a goof. During the 5 game win streak, it was a team effort. In a loss, its (insert player name here). Howard, Rafalski, Bert, etc. I don't know, I just tire of the bulls*** in this forum at times. I have read some very good posts from true Wings fans. Then I read s*** like this and its just that....s***. These are Wings fans? I mean seriously? True Wings fans don't throw their players under a bus. Stand behind your team for a freaking change. Win as a team, lose as a team. Its that simple.

He is coming on a little late. So get on ASAP if you want to see it in its entirety!

This is not correct. The NCAA regulations and campus regulations would not allow it. If you want a recent example... http://bleacherreport.com/articles/548381-bears-vs-vikings-monday-night-football-no-beer-in-gopher-stadium It has nothing to do with making the event a non university sanctioned event. It has everything to do with the NCAA regulations.

Excellent video. Thanks for sharing it. I enjoyed it.

I agree. I like NHL On the Fly much better.

This isn't going to be played at Michigan Stadium because alcohol cannot be sold there. This is the reason why an NHL game won't be played there. Also, everyone at LGW bitched with Pittsburgh got another crack at the Winter classic. Yet, when Detroit is mentioned, everyone is ok with it? What a bunch of crap. I am against it as well. I say they involve some other teams.

I beg to differ. Montreal went 60-8-12 back in 1976-1977. They had a heck of a team back then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976%E2%80%9377_Montreal_Canadiens_season Maybe in Detroit or the new era NHL, the 2002 team was the best that has been put on ice. I still think that the Montreal squad in 76-77 was the best ever put on the ice in the NHL and their record showed it. As for which Detroit team was better, its hard for me to make that distinction. Both were cup years and I distinctly remember them both. 97 was sweet because it was their first in 42 years. 2002 was also sweet because of the roster they had. I say its a tie.

Kinda hard to say his career fizzled out due to injury. Not like he got a chance to play a full season and we saw his skills go into the crapper or something. This was just bad luck when it comes to a skate blade cutting tendons in his wrist. Just the therapy to come back from an injury like this should make Wings fans respect Modano even more.

I got a chance to see the two games he played over the weekend and I must say that Forsberg looked pretty good out there. Sure, no points, but I still think he made things happen. I think that one of two things happened. One, his foot problems continued to haunt him and he didn't want to play in pain anymore. Two, he wanted to retire an Avalanche player. It could be a combination of both, but either way, he was a great player back in the day. Its too bad that he had to retire due to injury.