gcom007

Some people here are silly. True, he hasn't been as great as he normally is, but he's been great. He's heading to surgery in the off-season though and I'm betting he's hurting a bit more than he's letting on. Furthermore, I bet he'll give 110% for the playoffs when it counts and be a game changer. It's not worth it to kill yourself in the regular season when you're hurting and you've got the guys to win a good number of games. But when it counts, he'll be there in tip-top form.

I'm alright getting shut out. Get them hungry to score in Game 1.

http://twitpic.com/381zl - Happy Easter! Watching the Red Wings in HD on an 8 foot wide screen is almost as good as being there.about 1 hour ago from TwitterBerry Twittered earlier...fun way to watch every game...and nice save by Osgood there...

Proud to say I could care less about what happened right there.

Rough...Osgood looked good at first but is looking as sloppy as the D has looked the whole game now. Oh well...I'm not going to sweat it. I'll start worrying on Friday if need be once we're through game 1.

I like. There are just so many assumptions that are thrown around about Osgood. It's quite mind-blowing to me how easily people forget or ignore certain things. And I wonder if some people realize we've only had a cap for a few years now, let alone if they remember how much cash we were blowing on this team before the cap. Money was never an issue, and like people have said, Hasek, arguably one of the greatest goalies ever wants to come and play for you and you don't even have to give up too much in trade. $8 million? Who cares. No cap. Illitch will spend to bring in the big names. And again, just look at what he did with the Isles and Blues. Those teams were awful and he gave them an extended life they never would've had on their own and put up numbers comparable to his Detroit numbers with half the payroll and a tench of the talent Detroit had. What gives there? And remember, it's not like St. Louis let him go. It's not like they decide to sign him and the deal is done. Osgood has to agree. Osgood wanted to come back home though to the Wings and that was that. This isn't that complex. And he's stolen plenty of games in his career. I really wonder, honestly, to some of y'all hating, have you watched every playoff game Osgood has played as a Wing? I have. I've seen numerous occasions where Osgood was lights out. Hell, I'll never forget that game 7 against the Blues in the second round back in '96. We won 1-0 in the second overtime to win the series. Osgood made highlight reel saves including one that was just as outstanding as they come. If a 1-0 double-OT game 7 win doesn't count as stealing a game (under pressure at that, this was pre-Cups too) then I don't know what does. Again, just look at the playoff numbers. On any team, they're very, very, very impressive and for him t sustain them over such a long career even is more impressive. How many goalies come and go in this league? Osgood won Cups 10 years apart. Only Brodeur's has more among active goalies and that's on the Devils with their notoriously strong defense comparable to Detroit's. If Osgood wins the Cup this year, he'll match Brodeur in Cups as a starter. He'll likely retire in the top 5 for all-time goalie wins. You may be too bored to admit it, but those things just don't happen by some great cosmic accident. A season here or there, sure. Osgood's been successful through his entire career. Not winning the Cup every year or being the ALL TIME BEST EVER (ALJASDFASDLFERF) does not minimize that. We'll be fine. Quote me in June.

I love all the haters that really don't understand the facts. I love that they all have such a limited perspective as well. Correlation, no? While y'all have been busy complaining about regular season play, as he's geared up for the playoffs over the last month, he's put up numbers much like last years regular season and playoff stats especially when you cut out that garbage game where he got shelled because the Defense forgot to leave the locker room for the game. Again, like I've said all over, I've been watching this guy forever. His play doesn't always make me happy, but I trust what he says and I trust that he'll make it happen when we need him most. He's always done that. We've NEVER lost a playoff series because of Osgood. Never. Not one. And again, like others said, Hasek came to us. What do you expect the Wings in a non-cap era to do? I didn't like it and I think it brought about more trouble than it was worth long-run though. Osgood (hell, probably Legace...) could've won the Cup behind that 2002 squad. Osgood stays, we skip about the only drama this team has ever had in the last 15 years. The drama all came from getting Hasek. Cujo's a classy guy for the most part but got the Hasek-shaft just like Osgood. Then the Legace as a starter disaster?!?!?! If we had've just kept Osgood (and the clutch-scoring big=time playoff performer Kozlov for that matter) I think we might've won a couple more Cups than we already had. We had some great teams through there that were obviously distracted by those goalie issues. Hasek ended on a classy note and I commend him for that, but like I said, if it was me, I never would've made the deal and Osgood never would've been shipped off. And I think we'd have another couple Cups to show for it. You don't always need to have "the best" at every position, especially goalie. Goalie egos are too volatile. Osgood is the really the perfect Wings goalie through this era. A star in his own right, but not a superstar, and absolutely no ego to muck things up in the locker room. He just does what's necessary to win. And he's won a lot. I have plenty of faith in him to take us to the Cup again this year. He won't do it alone, but on a team like this, it would be absolutely pathetic and despicable if he had to.

I'm actually pretty excited about Osgood right now. You know he's going to turn it up for the playoffs and he's been looking good down the stretch here when he's had even half a defense in front of him. I still am not convinced by any stretch that Osgood won't equal last years playoff performance. I've just learned to trust the guy to do what he needs to when it counts. I also trust that he's a pretty honest and reasonable guy. Again, maybe it's just watching the guy since he was a rookie every season and even following his seasons with the Isles/Blues. He tends to call it how it is and again, he has been able to make it happen when it counts most numerous times. There's never been a playoff series loss that can be pegged on Osgood. Not one.

Just thought I'd say, I definitely enjoyed this game. Far more than the MSU game...Wings looked real good. Osgood looked good. Hossa looked good. We killed off penalties well. Just a solid effort all around to get the win. I was pretty happy with the D. I think Osgood's going to play well enough to get us the win if the rest of the guys play a descent game. If the D can play consistently heading into the playoffs, we're in real good shape for a long haul.

It was a silly thing for him to do, but come on, that was nothing more than a little love tap. It was lame, but there was nothing dangerous about that. It's the physical manifestation of trash-talking. Avery certainly isn't the brightest bulb in the box, but this is a minor league incident at best. This is one that I find easy to just laugh at and move on. I hope he doesn't get suspended to be honest. Even that gets ridiculous after awhile and is likely why he keeps pushing the boundaries. He probably loves Gary Bettman about as much as we do. Ever think of that?

Let's just hope the playoffs spark this team. I'm not convinced yet that we won't see a totally different team for Game 1 of Round 1.

I've never doubted him. I doubt the defense more than Osgood. They'll make or break this Cup run. He had a rough start and the defense has been awful and just gotten worse. Conklin looked better when Osgood was WAY under par, but since Osgood finding his game a bit, he's been the better goalie and he'll get better when it matters most. The best and only reasonable decision is to go with Osgood. What other active goalies besides Brodeur have more Cups than him? Or playoff wins? Underrated. Quote me on it in June.

Osgood ready to lead Wings in Playoffs: http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=416381

I keep saying it, but I'd feel real bad for Luongo if he was here this year. The fans would be so pissed that he let in so many goals. Why pay a guy $8 million if he doesn't play any better than Osgood/Conklin? He must suck. He sucks! Overrated. Oh wait, no, that's just our D doing everything in their power to help other teams score on us. Seriously, goalie bashers, just focus on the opposing players in front of our net Thursday. Watch how often we leave them COMPLETELY open. Imagine a pass gets through to the this open guy from the opposite side. Tell me, how is any goalie staying square to the play (which he must do) going to stop a one timer to a guy wide open on the side of the net? Here's the answer: He won't. If the D was half as good as they were last year, I honestly doubt Osgood would be in the hole he's in. I think he started out lazy like the rest of the guys and got beat back while Conklin came in with a bit more focus. And as the D's stayed bad, the problems just perpetuated itself while Conklin gets a shutout here and let's in 3-4 goals there. Luongo on his A-Game will not solve our defensive problems and goals against. Bottom line. Get over it and get real people.

Some people have what it takes. Some don't. Smarter guys than us have figured it out by now. They've rarely been wrong. Go figure, eh? We gambled on Legace (pissed me off immensely all season...) and look where it got us. You think you people would learn by now, but again, underdog fantasy's take over. Silly, silly, silly. I'll so far as this. I'd rather lose in the 1st round with Osgood than even give Conklin a chance. That's how convinced I am that he doesn't have what it takes. Might as well spare him the embarrassment and let him ride his solid regular season stats to a nice contract with a needy team. Hopefully he doesn't get put on waivers/sent to minors like our last hero, I mean career backup...

I suppose that's why all the professional analysts, GM's, coaches have never given him a shot either then, eh? They must be stupid too, right? And personally, I disagree with you. I think he's a solid backup, but I think that's where it ends. His play this year while better than Osgood's has hardly been stellar and he's never been able to come close to landing a job anywhere else. I just don't get how he's supposed to magically blossom out of nowhere. Again, he really hasn't been outstanding this year. He's been good for certain, but look at the game to game stats and you see he's had his fair share of 3+ goal games too. Honestly, I think this guy sees playoff pressure and flounders. Maybe not as bad as Legace and he won't be a walking mouth like Legace was, but I don't think he's got what it takes to play in the big time. Hard to explain why. It's half-hunch, but I've been watching hockey and long time and I've learned to trust my hunches. I don't always have the words to explain them, but they always seem to play out just as it seems in my head. Anwayys, I don't know if Osgood has it this year either or more importantly if the defense does, but one guy that I'm not counting on is Conklin. I'm not trying to hate, but he's just never convinced me. In some ways just he just seems too content in his role. Like he doesn't want to rock the boat too much. I know he's just trying to respectful, but the killer instinct is what gets people ahead. Osgood went into last season under the assumption that he'd be Hasek's backup. He never stopped challenging or chasing Hasek though through the whole season. Why? He's a starter. He knows what he is and what he's capable of and chased it and made it happen when it mattered most. That's why I still think he'll be fine in the playoffs. He knows he's capable of elevating his game. He did it less than a year ago and he's not that old nor a goalie that's too reliant on having to fly all over the place. If he can dial it up starting with Game 1, Osgood's the guy, hands down. If he flounders, you go to Conklin. But make no mistake, going to Conklin this year is absolutely not like going to Osgood last year. Osgood won his own Cup and had tons of playoff experience and years of playing under the pressure of Detroit's expectations. Conklin's a career backup with 1 abysmal playoff game coming off a good season. All you Conklin haters may hate it, but the reality of the siutation is that he's far closer to a Manny Legace situation than an Osgood situation. Until he actually starts legitimately, wins some playoff rounds, hell, wins a Cup, he's still not in the same league as Osgood was last year. It IS a night and day situation no matter how much you merely HOPE it isn't. If D plays well, we're fine with Osgood. If D plays bad, we're screwed with Luongo. If Conklin plays, 2nd round at best. I'd love for him to prove me wrong, but I've watched enough goalies have solid regular seasons through the years only to fall apart in the playoffs or completely disappear the next year. I can't explain what Osgood's deal is this year especially earlier on, but I know he's our best chance at winning a Cup. I'm not about to chase another feel-good story to nowhere because Detroit fans and media perpetually get hung up on their underdog-fantasy's. It's lame. Again. We might win with Osgood or we might not. Quote me on it in June. We will NOT win with Conklin. Remember. 3/29 Nashville GDT. June. Put it on your calendar.

So that's why he actually put up better numbers on the Islanders when going from a 1st place team to a last place team, eh? It all makes sense now...

Malick's thoughts sum up some other elements of the problem. I like the "I'm not taking the #30 way out on this one..." too. It's easy to bash the goalies but if you look at the big picture it's just a silly thing to do. http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2009/03/re...dators_p_1.html "The Smithson goal was soft, but Ward's goal went through three Red Wings, as did Suter's post-pinging perfect shot. Sullivan's early goal involved an open man beating a goaltender to the post. I'm not taking the #30 way out on this one... But the fact that the Wings went 0-for-3 in 5:31 of 5-on-4 power play time, gave up 14 third-period shots after holding the Predators to 3 in the second period, and the fact that the Wings held a lead in this game for just over 16 minutes over the past 120 is a big concern. Despite five shots apiece from Zetterberg, Marian Hossa, Mikael Samuelsson, a superb 2-assist performance from a dominant Nicklas Lidstrom, an ironically superb game by Chelios, who played 14:41, and winning the faceoff battle 39 to 32 against a team that's dominated Detroit over the first four games of the series...The fact that the Wings had 15 shot attempts blocked and missed the net another 16 times despite putting 36 on Rinne stings, as does the fact that the Wings seem so damn content to play the perimeter, loop back and over-pass in attempts to make the perfect artistic play, and take single, un-screened, un-tipped shots with rebounds which they don't pursue in any attempt to sustain pressure or generate second or third opportunities. I don't feel any need to bail off the Wings' bandwagon for this loss, but I do believe that fans, including myself, have every reason to be plain old pissed off because this team remains too convinced that they "dominate" games where they're plain outworked, out-competed, and simply seem far too content to play out the string, especially when they can but don't take advantage of extended power play time. I can't describe this game any further without using expletives to express my frustration, so I'll leave it at that. This one needs a day or two to sit and ferment before anybody pushes the panic button--though liberal use of the "concern" button is encouraged."

The thing many of you are failing to see or admit is that even if we had Luongo on his A-Game, we're screwed with a defense playing like this. It is COMPLETELY ridiculous to expect the goalie to make the save on some of these plays the defense have let happen. When you've got guys standing alone in front of the net, you're bound to get scored on because the goalies got to stay square to the play and if a quick pass makes it to the guy by the net, it's over. Nothing the goalie can do. The defensemen should've been knocking that guy on his ass. But it hasn't happened over and over this year. When you give up breakaways and odd man rushes over and over because of stupid turnovers and don't hustle back, there's only so much any goalie can do. ANY goalie. The greatest goalies. When you blindly throw the puck up the middle or right at opposing players (all the while other opposing players skate around uncovered) you're bound to get scored on. No goalie is going to save us from all those stupid plays. Our record would be tremendously worse if we had more average goal scoring. Think as if we didn't have Hossa and his 30-something goals, we'd likely be toast in many of these games. Both goalies have had to deal with it all season and even though Conklin has better stats, at the end of the day, both goalies have won and lost at a similar rate. That says a lot. Again, bottom line, our D needs to pick it up. We're toast if they don't. It doesn't matter who our goalie is, Osgood, Conklin, Luongo, Sawchuck...we're toast if the D plays as they have this season. If they can pick it up, we're going to win the Cup even if Osgood plays as he did at his worst this season. The D is the make it or break it of this team right now.

My hope is that Kronwall can up his game like he did last year and Lids goes all out once it matters. I think he's holding back now with some injury issues, but come playoffs, the Yzerman-effect will take over and he'll be on his A-game. I have no doubt. But again, Kronwall's a wildcard. Stuart as well. Those two in particular are responsible for so many stupid plays this year that have lead to goals or scoring chances. It's unbelievable. It's almost a given that they're going to make 4-5 blundering passes or clears a game not to mention failing to even consider covering guys at the net. I thought last year that Stuart seemed like a guy who didn't really mind playing for the Wings, but wasn't exactly thrilled about it either. Usually guys come here and they're extatic. He never gave off that vibe and you heard all the stories about the family issues. I can't help but wonder if he has any regrets about signing on for 4-years. Maybe it's been harder than he thought. Maybe his family is unhappy. Who knows? The bottom line is his head is not in the game and he's not the same guy he was last year for us at this point. Maybe he'll turn it on in the playoffs, but part of me wouldn't be surprised if he requested a trade in the off-season either. Something is obviously not right. Kronwall though??? Ugh...I've never been too high on him to be honest. I don't dislike him and I'm not pissed about the money. Whatever. I just thought he always seemed a little iffy out there. He's capable of turning it up and certainly did last year. Again, I just hope he can do it again. If the D gets going, we're fine. We're cruising, in fact.

This game was really a rough one to watch us lose. Like some have said, Osgood made some solid saves throughout the night but struggled when not getting help from the D. While it'd be nice to see a save or two out of that, I still think the bigger question is why on earth is our D still this bad???????? Wholistically speaking, as in team D. What's absolutely insane to me is that so much of what is happening boils down to stupid mental mistakes. We're not talking a lack of hustle or just getting plain beat, we're talking look before you pass. Don't cut guys off. Cover the net. These are really, really, really simple things. If you can't take care of that, no goalie will save us and only our offense might have a chance of saving us and I'm sure not too geeked on it having too. Here's a few observations... -looking at the whole season, it's fair to say that Osgood has shown a lot of improvement in the last month. He's had some great games and even on nights like tonight came up with some big saves. But he certainly needs to keep improving... -the offense while hardly bad seems to be struggling a bit more with putting the puck in the net lately, they've been inconsistent to say the least -the defense continues to utterly flounder. I feel they've been the biggest problem all season and they continue to prove this. The level of sloppiness is just unbelievable. I just don't know where they get off making the stupid plays they do. -in terms of Babcock, the only thing I'm thinking is that Bowman was coach, just about every defensemen sans Lidstrom would've spent a few games in the press box by now to think about their game. And I think you would've seen a fast improvement. Considering the simple mental nature of so many of these mistakes and the consistency in which they occur, you've got to wonder why their hasn't been more in terms of "punishment" for guys like Rafalski, Stuart and Kronwall. No goalie and no amount of goals scored is going to keep us going long enough to win a Cup if they keep up that kind of play. It won't happen. I still think the #1 concern heading into the playoffs is defense. I'm one of the few who still has plenty of faith in Osgood, but more so, even if we had a Robert Luongo on his A-Game, with the way our D has played, we're not going to win a Cup let alone even make it to the finals. It's as simple as this: If the forwards score and the D gets their game together, we're fine with Osgood even if he only improves marginally heading into the playoffs. If the D doesn't get their game together, we're done in the semi's most likely at best. It's all going to come down to the D.

I love Yahoo, but it's gonna be odd listening to the Nashville announcers the whole time...

I gotta say though, in defense of Ray Emery, the way he smiles in that fight against Buffalo like he lives for this just brings joy to my heart. Old time hockey. The guy cracks me up. I'd love to see him learn to moderate his locker room presence and get his game consistent because he's got skill and fire. He still could be a great and exciting NHL goalie. Again, just love the joy he exudes in that fight. It doesn't get any better!

I'm not convinced. I think some other guys might go before Hudler and Sammy. I think they know what they've got here in Detroit and they're coming off solid years. Sammy's improved a lot in his time here and he's certainly been good for a few clutch goals. Hudler with more ice time, confidence, experience and better linemates could pick up some of the score slack if Franzen leaves. My gut still think's there's a real good chance Flip's gone despite everything they say. He's got some moves and a bit of sense, but he just doesn't have the fire to be a finisher and that rarely manifests itself out of nowhere.

Maltby on the 3rd makes sense enough to me right now. I think they're sending a message to Cleary to pick it up. Cleary's capable of more but he's underachieved this year while Maltby has improved. He's been hustling and creating more scoring chances lately. With more minutes, some more of those might start going in. He was good for more than his fair share of 4th line goals in the Bowman era. I think he can get back to that. And also, every line has a guy that will go to the front of the net and the scrums with this configuration. Again, makes sense to me.