gcom007

You've got to be kidding me, indeed, Mickey...indeed.

YES!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!! This is unreal.

Wow. Signs of life. This should wake up the bench.

So long as Howard can play better than he has this year and our D gets better, we would be fine with Howard. I hope this year was an anomaly for Howard, and a stronger D is going to help him in any event. If the D gets stronger and he still struggles, then yeah, he's got to go given how much we're paying him. But I think those are still big "ifs" right now.

There are days when our defense looks way better than it should, and then there are days where they look like a box of factory reject dildos. I still just can't believe how many forwards we've added in the last few years considering how many quality defensemen we lost. It shouldn't be so easy for the D to be this useless. The defense absolutely needs to get stronger so they can stop having to rely on luck and can just start being good. Maybe someone on the team should call out Franzen...

I...think? If it's a ROW, then even if we lost the rest of our games and Toronto pulled off three ROWs, we'd have the tie-breaker still by one. Am I right?

Ugly win, but a win's a win. Hopefully this will motivate them to be better for 60 tomorrow against a much better Montreal team.

This is starting to feel like Uwe Krupp Part II...

I just don't even... My brain literally hurts watching that. Even if he really got clocked or if the refs whistle got him funny or something, that is just some display. Half of me wonders if diving is just that much of a reflex for him that the second he feels something touch his head he fires up the acting gears. But, I just don't even know what to say...

What's really funny to me though is that when I was searching for perhaps some more perspective on Edzo's apparent distaste for Detroit, the autofill came up with when typing "Ed Olczyk ha" was "Ed Olczyk hates the Bruins." It seems as if Bruins fans feel very strongly about him to, and might have as good of a case as we do. If true, he really must not have known what to do with himself tonight. I read that the guy wants to get back into coaching again, so here's hoping. It'd be way more fun to just beat his team and not have to hear him yammering on during national broadcasts.

This is why it just kills me that anyone would want to fire Babcock right now. What he is doing with the teams that Holland has been giving him is nothing short of remarkable. Give Babcock these kids, trim a lot of the fat up front, add at least one real-deal defenseman that can play on the top pairing or give us a second pairing that's as strong as the first, and you've got a team that can be a contender if Howard can keep it together. If Datsyuk comes back and plays descent, we get Ericsson back and don't have any more major injuries up front, oh, and if Howard keeps improving, even this team stands to be a contender in the playoffs. That shouldn't be possible, but it absolutely is. I'm not even factoring in what a healthy Weiss and a somewhat healthy Zetterberg could add if they make it back. This team is learning ways to win games, and they're learning it at the right time. For that, Babcock should be getting nothing but praise. And considering most of the NHL guys Holland's been signing the last few years aren't even playing, Holland is proving more and more that his management should absolutely be seriously questioned heading into the off-season. Two years in a row, the team he put together struggled to stay healthy and struggled to win, and a group of kids that weren't supposed to be playing in the NHL came up, bought into Babcock's system and overcame a lot of obstacles to find success. As great as our kids are, we are going to need to do a better job at bringing in talent from around the NHL as well as our farm club. If Holland can't manage that, he's got to go to make way for someone who can give Babcock a team that doesn't have to start from a place of struggle and adversity, and a team that's even remotely balanced offensively and defensively.

Per TSN. https://twitter.com/TSNBobMcKenzie/status/441306713954607104

You know, I was a believer longer than most that we'd still pull off making the playoffs, but when that last round of injuries hit, I was ready to throw in the towel. It was so bad it was to the point where the little part of me that even believed it was possible wondered if it was worth it to rush such a hurt group of guys back when we're just so physically beat up as a team. As in, mostly is it worth it to make the playoffs and get knocked out in the 1st or 2nd round even but have Datsyuk come back and hurt his knee more or have Zetterberg not have more time to properly get healthy? But either way, it was still just so bad that the idea that we'd really find a way to pull it off just seemed exceedingly unlikely, especially with Howard continuing to struggle. But s***. Howard might've had his best game of the season tonight and it was just a big, big, big "best game of the season" by any measure for this team. I've never bought into the idea of building off a couple wins this season because his better play this year was still below the level we know he's capable of. But this is the kind of game at the point in the season that really has potential to keep him going. This was a hard fought win and big statement for Howard at the right time for him to start making big statements. And to be totally honest, there's still a part of me that's really worried about Datsyuk and Zetterberg coming back this year given the apparent severity of their injuries, but there are so many good things happening with this team that it's hard to not be excited. I've long believed that a relatively healthy version of this team is fully capable of making a stink in the playoffs, and in many ways, I believe that all the more so now. Any way it goes, what these kids and the few old guys not hurt are doing is really, truly special and it's been a hell of a lot of fun to watch. Miss the playoffs or make the playoffs, go far in the playoffs or get swept in the first round, again, any way it goes, what this team is doing right now is special, and they should all be incredibly proud of the way they're beating every reasonable odd to make this push.

That is a huge win. Nothing else need be said. Except, Gustav Nyquist, damn, just damn.

Happy day! TATAR!

Of course you do, Ed! This guy is just the worst...

We got lucky there..that should be a goal.

Umm, why have I thought Bertuzzi is 35 or 36 when he's 39? How did I miss that? Man, given all the injury issues that guy has had with his back, I gotta give him a little more credit for being out there and staying relatively healthy for us at 39.

What is this malarkey about Alfie unable to go tonight? No Dats either. These NHL notifications lately have been nothing but bad news sans Nyquist being player of every week and month since January...

So is there anything not to like about this guy? I really think this guy could be such an important part of this team for some time to come the way he's going. I've always thought that it's really important and beneficial to have guys out there that make it on work ethic alone because they push everybody. If you look at any pursuit in life, there are people who have natural talent and it's a lot easier for them to coast along on it, at least for awhile, but at some point, the people with the fire and passion who outwork everyone around them tend to catch up. Those are the guys that can push all of your players to be better, and they're great guys to build a unit around. I really think the key to success in the cap era is going to be bargain hunting for a crew of less-skilled guys with tremendous work ethics on your back lines. Those are the guys that are really coachable and can work great in a system; they're a tremendous value for what you get which allows you to spend more on your top lines. They also tend to contribute what they contribute more consistently than the guys you rely on to score. If you can consistently shut down another teams top guys for the most part game after game, even if you're struggling to score yourself, you're going to have a much better chance of grinding out a win. On that note, and to be more on topic, I'd love to have Eaves back at some point when we have an actual role for him to fit into consistently. Again, another guy with great character and work ethic. On a team where he actually had a consistent role and didn't get tossed around like he has this season due to our roster issues, I think he can become a really important player working on a 3rd line, and the guy does have a bit of offensive upside. It's really too bad he was traded because he would've been real nice to have around if he didn't succumb to injury during this last month or so. And I honestly think if not for some of the injury issues, he'd be a more important part of this team still. He was definitely helpful in the playoffs last year for us, which is all the more impressive considering what he had to come back from to be there.

Definitely agree with what you're saying, but again, not to take too much away from Glendenning at all. He's a hell of a player and if he can keep working as hard as he is, he's going to have a great career and likely pick up his fair share of Selkes. But the best part of this comment is the image of Babs and Luke's post-game ritual. Hysterical. No wonder Tatar's gotta party so hard when he gets home.

Unbelievable. Nyquist. Nyquist. Nyquist. That was just a brilliant play on every level.

Obviously I hope the kid wasn't hurt, but everything about that situation is pure comedy gold. I couldn't help but laugh, harder and harder with each replay.

I'm going to speak generally about the Cleary situation, more to those in general who hate Cleary with a passion, so if you're not one of those people, don't take it personally. I'm using your post as a launchpad because it's a topic worth looking at from another angle. If we had less guys like Cleary, I'd get it, and despite all the pain and anguish I fully can admit to experiencing when watching Cleary at times the last few years, I do think there's something to be said on some level for the guy being a character player worth keeping around at the right price. The bigger problem wasn't that we kept Cleary, it's all the guys around him that made the decision to keep him so much more detrimental than it ever should've been. Again, I can't stress enough that Dan Cleary can be painful to watch at times, and I'm not saying he's at all a make it or break it guy. We should've let him go given the situation we were in at the start of camp with way too many forwards, especially when we really need defensemen. But don't you think it says something about Cleary that he had the support of as many people on the team as he did, let alone the fact that our two most important players were among those rallying for him? If we weren't stuck with as many other bad deals as we still are, I think the whole Cleary situation in general would be easier to swallow, and it'd be easier to accept that on some level that some of our most important players feel is important, Cleary contributes positively to this team. Maybe it is just in the locker room given that he spends so much time on the ice fumbling on his knees...see? Even I can't help be make fun of him. But if Holland had done a better job in putting together the team at large, having someone like Cleary around at that price would likely not be near the issue nor fan irritant that it has become. And even though I don't think Holland made the right decision in signing Clearly given our circumstance, it's one thing I don't entirely blame him for either. It was a tricky situation to be in, but it ultimately was only tricky because of far too many mistakes made in previous years that I absolutely do blame Holland for.

Like I said above, Holland absolutely has strengths. At the very least, we can say that he's got a solid group of scouts that help him get a lot out of milage out of our typically less than stellar draft choices. But more so, Holland is good at finding cheap guys that are relatively young and get them to play like a player that typically gets paid quite a bit more. I think part of this is finding relatively talented guys with good character and work ethics that are coachable, and you get them in the system with Babcock and suddenly a $1 million guy plays like a $2 million guy. And while I know we generally like to let guys get overly rip in GR, I think we're getting to a point where we're taking it too far, especially with some of them, and in many cases, I think it has a lot more to do with Holland's compulsion for bringing in too many mid-level vets that cost a lot more than our kids in GR would but don't even play as well. If we brought more of the kids up earlier, they'd take up a lot less cap space while being more affective. You'd be able to get even more out of them if you used that cap space saved on the mid-level guys and went after high-end talent harder, yes, even if it at times feels like we have to overpay. We're going to have to overpay right now because we're not a team in a position to make guys want to take a discount to be a part of it. But if we get some better guys in that help round out this team more evenly front to back, then get the kids up a bit earlier, and fill out the rest of the roster with more of those bargain basement guys Holland is good at finding and a much smaller and more highly-selective group of mid-level veterans, not only will we be in better shape to be contenders, but we'll have an easier time attracting talent. Talent and success attract talented guys that want to be successful. That's the message we need to be sending.