gcom007

I don't think they're playing significantly better or worse than they've been playing all year. The defensive play is sloppy and we're not scoring 5+ goals every game. That happens, but I wouldn't call it a slump. As I said in another thread, the problems start and end with defense and they've been the same all year. If they find a way to turn that around we'll be fine. Benching one guy or making trades isn't going to fix this. It's a team issue and it's mostly mental right now as far as I can see. They've just got to find a way to work it out and play smarter. If they don't, then realistically we'll be lucky to make it out of the first round.

I agree in many ways. I could care less about the Presidents Trophy or even winning our division. It's of little importance to me at all. What's troubling to me about things at this point is that much of the problem is a result of horrid, stupid mental mistakes. Fact: If it were any other team than Detroit with a mighty offense to be reckoned with, we'd be screwed and making the playoffs would be a concern. Take away a guy like Hossa and his 24 goals and you've got a huge dent in our scoring. Hudler has as many goals (17) as Zetterberg. Franzen has been a huge help the whole year when he's been in the lineup as opposed to just the tail end of last season. We've got a lot of scoring power. We're tops in goals in the league with 179. The league average is around 140. How many more games would we have lost if we didn't have that firepower? A lot. If it wasn't for the fact that many of these defensive problems ought to be fairly simple to correct, it wouldn't be worrisome, but it's been about 50 games now and there's still just an abundance of sloppy plays being made. I am not panicking and I do indeed have faith, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that now is the time to start working these things out of the game so we don't go into the playoffs with a bevy of bad habits. There's simply no excuse for it at any point on a team like this.

The problem starts and ends with defense. I think it's fairly clear that the root of the problem doesn't exactly lie with the goalies. Both are about as good as the defense, which is to be expected with a sub-million dollar goalie and to some extent with Osgood. While Osgood has plenty of room to improve to live up to his potential, it doesn't change the fact that a much more pressing and concerning issue is just how sloppy the defense is right now. Not just among the defensemen, but team defense. It's nearly non-existent. Conklin's pulled shutouts lately and the defense has looked good mostly against the bottom of the barrel teams but when they've been challenged at all, the defense looks terrible and Osgood or Conklin surrender 3/4/5 goals a game easy. Once again, emphatically, there are only a few "stand on your head" goalies in the world that can and have done it year in year out. Very, very few. They get paid at least $8 million a season to carry teams with junk defense corps. We have one of the best defensive groups in the league on paper and probably the best collection of defensive-minded forwards in the game. We should not need a "stand on your head" goalie. There is no reason for it with the guys we have. And even so, Osgood has won 2 Cups on his own watch and is capable of playing at a far higher level than he's paid to play at. Conklin has come in and played admirably and indeed has outplayed Osgood so far this year. But you can't expect Conklin, a career backup getting paid less than a million, to stop everything. You cannot expect Osgood to stop everything despite how much people love to hate him and how much better he could play. The root issue here is that they shouldn't have to. Before the puck gets to the net, there's 5 guys on the ice that have a job to do too and they've done an awful job of it this year. They've shown little to no improvement over the course of the season. At best they've had flashes of brilliance soon to be followed by a slew of sloppy games. The mental toughness isn't there. The awareness is down. They give the puck away in their zone more times in one game this year than they did last year in ten. It's ridiculous. Everyone would love the goalies to stop more, but someone's gotta give them some help. They're the last stop on the line so they take more heat, but blaming them doesn't make it right let alone logical. That's simply not the case this year. Even in Osgood's weaker games where he absolutely has to shoulder a good deal of blame, he can't shoulder it alone as in every case I can remember, the defense has looked just as bad if not significantly worse. In plenty of other games, both goalies have played a "solid enough game to give a team a chance to win" and the defense has utterly dropped the ball on them. It's not even worth discussing the forwards. We're leading the league with 179 goals. Boston and San Jose are the only teams close with 175 and 165 respectively. The only reason we've won as much as we have this year is because they've been very productive. Our stars are scoring like stars most nights. Datsyuks among the top in the league in points. We've added Hossa. Z can do better but has hardly been bad. Franzen's played well. Hudlers come on. Samuelson's had a good year. You'd expect Cleary to be better but eh, it's a wash considering what other guys are doing. Quite simply, scoring is not our problem. The biggest problem with this team is the same one that's been there since the first game of the season: we're just playing sloppy hockey in our own end. If it tightens up for the rest of the season in the next game, Osgoods stats will improve dramatically and Conklin will be among the top in the league in stats. But until then, we're just going to keep poking along. This is hardly as simple as "just play Conklin" and thankfully most people realize that it's absurd to have to score 6 goals to win. The defense needs to clean their act up. Bottom line. If that happens, it won't matter who's in net. We'll win. They've both capable. Again, the problem starts and ends with defense.

I have more faith in Holland than Macleod...give it time...

I think Flips gone. Even if they like him and get what's going on this year, you can bet your bottom dollar on the fact that they KNOW Franzen and/or Hossa is a better option. They know Flips proven to still be a gamble. I think they'll get out while they can and chase the guys who have turned potential into something tangible.

I've been to one. Back in '02. He does throw a great party and yes, you should want to party with Mike. And Luc Robitaille and his wife. PARTY ANIMALS YO!!!!!!!!

Bye Flip. You're underwhelming. Sorry. Zetterberg and Datsyuk were better as rookies than you are now. Peace. Draft picks are cool. Go Hossa!

I think Howards a lost cause. He can't even seem to play well in the AHL with any consistency. When he didn't make the team this year, I think it became pretty clear what the score is. I'm fine if Conklin re-signs for similar money, but we'll see how the playoffs go and who gets the start, the wins and the losses. If Osgood proves himself again with a strong run when it counts, it won't make much sense to pay Conklin much more money then he's making now to be a backup again. If Osgood fumbles and Conklin comes in and plays well, he'll probably get a raise and a contract if he wants to stay. If they both fumble, bye bye Conklin.

He might be back, but no chance in hell he's getting a million dollar raise. Come on...he's been more solid this year, but he'll walk in a heartbeat before he gets a million more.

Franzen's been one of my favorites for awhile now and I was calling his stardom well before it hit. He was a ton of fun to watch in the Playoffs last year. It's all grand. But as soon as we won that Cup and he scored as many goals as he did, I knew he had 1 year left with the team. Again, I'm hopeful that Ken will be Ken and pull a miracle or three from the sky, but I just have a feeling that Franzen's gone. And who could blame him?

Well, I'm totally on board for this. It's worth the risk at that price. I still worry about setting precedents, but how can you really complain at Z for $6 million cap hit? I'm thinking Hossa and Hudler are going to be sticking around too now. If anyone can do it, Kenny can. I've kinda had a gut feeling since we won the Cup that we'd lose Franzen; before Hossa even. Who knows what will happen, but like someone else said, this is his first chance at big money and he's got a Cup. Who could really blame him even? It'll be sad to see him go if it comes to that but what can you do? Time will tell...

I still say you do anything you can to keep Hossa. Hudler might become a really solid scorer. Franzen is proving to be one and will likely better. Hossa already is and he's far better on D than both. I'm really not happy with Franzen's defensive performance in fact. I'd hate to see Hudler and Franzen go, but I think any time you have a chance of keeping someone like Hossa, you've gotta find a way to make it happen.

Even with LTIR, your options are limited as you can't exactly predict how things will go. And if the cap goes down and continues to go down for awhile with the economy in the hole, unless there's a league-wide salary rollback like in the original agreement a few years back, $7 million could be a lot to pay if there's LTIR hassles. There's a lot of "what if?" questions fueling this for certain and it's all conjecture as we don't even know the deal yet, but you just gotta wonder. I think the jury's still out on "only going to get better." I'm no expert, but I've been saying from day 1 that Datsyuk's the better player and the guy that makes more things happen than people notice. He's also been healthier and consistently has been our points leader by years end. I think this year he's proving that all the more and I'm not convinced that he won't challenge for the scoring title by years end. Z was supposed to do that this year but it's been Pavel consistently making it happen no matter who he plays with. Now Zetterberg IS great, but the other tricky thing is that you've got the Hossa angle. He's got all the upsides of Zetterberg if you ask me and I think he has even more potential offensively. He also doesn't have the back thing to worry about at all. It just raises more questions in this era. It's a shame that there can't be more unbridled excitement, but I think the somewhat-muted celebration is reasonable. And like I said before, I generally don't like long-term deals. Hopefully it's on the short end. Z or not, league-wide, there hasn't been a great track record for long deals. We'll know for sure tomorrow though.

I think 5 would be great to be honest for both parties. Hell, if he takes a reasonable figure now ($7 millionish) and the cap presents a better situation in 5 years and he's not a mess, he'll probably get comparable or more money long run. Even if the injuries weren't present and he played 82 games a year, the bottom line is that I'm just not a fan of these long term deals. Is there a precedent for these really working out that well thus far? It just seems like every long deal seems to blow up in the teams faces. What if it even came down to a management issue? Hopefully and most likely that's a long-shot chance with this team, but none the less, I just think there's a lot of good reasons in general for all parties involved to not get too crazy with the years on a deal. I'm truly surprised that there's not an official rule on the matter.

I really have no dislike for Zetterberg as a player or a person. He's great in so many ways. But I'll tell you, I'm with those who are a bit more concerned about the long-term nature of the deal. I'm also one of the few who would take Hossa over Zetterberg if it came between the two though. It'd be great if they found a way to keep both. Probably impossible, but one never knows. Let the "trade Filppula!!!" rampage begin. I might have to join in with the masses on that one.

Nogood is crazy, but y'all keep arguing with him... Ya know? And alls I knows is that I'd be happy if we traded Flip for draft picks. I haven't liked the deal from day 1. But I won't be so presumptuous to suggest that my opinion really carries any weight. Time will tell. Once again, I'll trust the guys that get paid to sort this crap out...

No hate towards Feds, I'd still take him back, but I go with Dats. I think his "prime" is a bit more consistent, I think it will also last longer than Federov's. Feds was a really frustrating player. Who can argue that he wasn't among the best ever when he turned it on, but it was so hit or miss. There's just a lot more drama in his head than with Datsyuk. Datsyuk is a low-key guy, kinda a lead by example guy who gives his all every night and he's a superstar. It rubs off better on the other guys no doubt. Sure, it's a tough call, but Dats it is.

You know, I'll just be frank and say the obvious despite the fact that it won't be heard: You people obsessing over goaltending need to get real and grow up. Seriously. All you do is prove how little you know about this game and lower the general IQ of the board. Just stop. If all you can come up with is bashing the goalies... Just stop.

The D is infinitely more worrisome to me right now. Osgood will be good enough and even Conklin might be good enough in the playoffs if the D's playing well. But if the D plays like this, we're screwed no matter who's in net.

No. Stupid.

Are you kidding me? Legace was the only goalie in the last 15 years that can absorb as much or more of the blame for playoff failure as the team. He was terrible. Usually the team plays bad and the goalie plays alright or even great. Remember Cujo in his last hellish year here? He was our best player in the playoffs but we couldn't put the damn puck in the net to save our lives. That was not the case with Legace. Legace was just plain bad. And for the love, distaste this year or not aside, you can't take anything away from Ozzie's playoff performance last year. It was nearly flawless in every regard. 2 shutouts to open up the Stanley Cup Finals against the NHL's golden boy??? He was nothing short of outstanding with a Conn Smythe-caliber performance. He could suck even worse this year, but you cannot take what he did on last years Cup run away from him. It was near-perfection. I bet he feels dooped now after sticking around for hours and hours after the parade signing autographs for fans. Oh how quickly people can turn against you...

Pretty much. But that year, Osgood made up for a weak and injury ridden first half with a far superior second half in which he outplayed Legace. It would be nice to see a bit of that this year. I don't think Conks has what it takes and I think he's been a career backup for a reason. Sorry, I'm just not going to go along with it. I refused to go along with it with Legace despite everyone on here being so convinced and look how that turned out. I don't think Osgood's played up to his potential to say the least, but I don't think the D has either and it goes hand in hand. Both parties need to tighten things up. That said, I do believe we will see a different Osgood come playoff time. I think he knows the score and will know how to get his intensity up when it matters most. As much as y'all love to get all irrational and up in arms any chance you can get, I think this whole situation will smooth out in time and thankfully, pro's aren't as ridiculous as fans and thus will make sensible, rational choices. I trust their judgment and I still trust Osgood. Things change, but not that fast. Didn't they win us a Cup less than a year ago? Relax and give it time...

I don't think many people are saying he's playing well. This isn't black and white. Not playing well doesn't mean he's playing horribly. He's simply not. He's playing below-average/mediocre and getting no help from the D which is making it look worse than it is. Like on a scale of 1-10, he's at around 5 right now in my mind but the D (4-5) is making him look more like a 2. I look at it like that and I say both sides need a lot of improvement. They're not "the worst" and they don't "suck" but indeed, they're not playing well and they need to improve. But for the love, we don't need to make it worse than it is. That's just silly.

He must've missed 5 tough stops though or something. Last time I checked, a 5.00 GAA (.852 sv.%) on the game isn't exactly commendable even if you're not a big stats guy. It was a win and I'll absolutely give you that but I guarantee you he nor the team is happy about giving up 5 goals even to Detroit. And though Osgood gave up 6, his sv.% was actually .853, a bit higher than Nabakov's. I'm not really a big stats guy and I think Osgood needs to make more saves plain and simple. He needs to get his game up if he's going to play in the playoffs and be successful. But come on, again, the D has been awful. Just plain awful. Neither Osgood nor the D is really making either of their lives easier and that's no good any way you shake it. If we're gonna bench Osgood, there's a lot of d-men we need to bench as well because they're just as much to blame if not more so for some of this madness. And I honestly think if anyone deserves to be called out more than anyone it's Kronwall. Considering his potential based on previous play, he is playing the worst of anyone by far.

Offsides or not, it was close enough to go either way which means it is the D's job to defend the knob dicking around.