gcom007

What other NHL-ready talent do we have that would help us land a top-pairing defenseman? Not only that, there's a very good chance that we might not even be able to afford Flip next year with the new cap if he wants a big raise and we're still in desperate need to improve the defense.

When the team plays as bad as they did in front of him tonight and he only gave up 5 goals, he gets a pass from criticism. I like Jimmy Howard enough though I'm not his biggest fan either. I have no problem being critical of him if he deserves it, and in the past, he has, and I'm not convinced he's as good as many think he is. But tonight, he shouldn't be part of the discussion. He made a lot of real good saves. Unfortunately, so many of the saves he had to make were good saves because he was hung out to dry again and again. Again, I just think that in light of the mindblowingly bad effort from the skaters, it's not worth loading up on one of 2-3 guys who seemed to be trying to play out there.

I won't believe Holland is serious about improving this team until Franzen and Flip are gone. Franzen because he deserves the boot and Flip because they don't want to let him go. It'll take one or both of those guys to land someone descent on D considering Flip's in the final year of a contract.

Game 1 and how many breakaways did he face? How many times was he just hung out to dry? How many power play goals? He wasn't outstanding, but he really, truly was the absolute least of the Wings problems tonight. He was the only bright spot at times.

That's the thing that really worries me. Holland is so scared to make trades and hasn't been successful at making any descent signings in years. Unless some sort of dramatic paradigm shift occurs in Holland's brain, I just don't know what the hell is going to happen. I foolishly tried to optimistic about the D the last couple weeks, but the writing's all over the wall. It's beyond obvious. They won't be this bad every game, but they just do not have the guys to get the job done. They're not even close to having a solid defense right now. Not even a little bit.

What a great first post-game interview for the new Captain. Not even any pre-season games to warm up on. Gotta feel bad for Z.

True story. Granted, I think they would've come here for $110 million, but I think it'd be insane to pay that either way. Holland tried to sign them, it didn't work, and that's that. Where Holland really went wrong was all the signings or trades he failed to make leading up to this. He had no real plan and had to fly by the seat of his pants. He's continually let top end talent slip away to sign guys that now are floating out there for us. There's no point whining about about Parise and Suter. If you want to whine, look back further and get realistic. There's still plenty to chew on and cry about.

Hence why I said, "You knew it was a good team having an awful night." If there's anyone that actually believes that this team is even a shadow of those teams a few years ago, come talk to me, I have a bridge to sell you.

Well, mark it down. I really don't I've ever seen a uglier game than this. I've seen ugly games, but they were so obviously fluky. You knew it was a good team having an awful night. This is not a good team, at all.

The thing that scares me about this era of the Wings if it stays ugly is Datsyuk's status once his contract is up. If the team isn't competitive, I have a hard time thinking he won't go back to Russia. That would be a tragedy. Only thing that got me excited about hockey coming back after this ugly lockout was getting to watch a guy like Pavel Datsyuk again. Shame that the team around him is just this bad.

6-0. Unbelievable. So we're 1 for 5 on the PK now?????? Just checking.

2 penalties from our top defenseman. Excellent.

The Blues look like they've gone into energy-conservation mode and they're still blatantly outplaying us.

Walked out of the room to go to the bathroom. Figured the game would start while I was gone. Then figured it'd be 5-0 by the time I got back. What do you know...

Wasn't arguing with you really, and I've heard rumblings about that too, I just think it's a little silly given the effort these guys have been giving for awhile. Franzen's been floating for way too long and if Babcock loses something with the players after a Cup win and another Cup appearance in the first couple years to follow that, and the players look lazy and old, I'm personally going to side with the coach. And sure, no one's Scotty Bowman, but I just remember plenty of talk about Bowman losing his way with the players too, and I remember guys getting booted out if they were unwilling to work. He had that clout, and he had the GM power most of his time here, which was great. To me, I look at these guys and I say they're all professionals getting paid a ton of money to go out and play a game. Even if the coach is truly a joke and they don't like him, they need to be out giving 100%. There's no excuses for not doing that in the NHL. So even if Babcock isn't getting the message across these days, he's not the only one that should get the boot if it comes to that as far as I'm concerned. Not by a long-shot. And maybe these guys are playing lazier as well because they've learned that it's next to impossible to get traded when you're a Red Wing and highly likely that you'll get re-signed despite a mediocre effort.

Thanks. I needed a good laugh. This is just grim otherwise.

Anyone catch the look on Murphy's face when Keating said something like "there's no shame losing to a team this good"? It was quick but looked very much like a "what the f*** are you talking about?" face. Amusing.

A lot of guys didn't respond to Bowman and they got traded for being whiny, lazy assholes. Scotty was also the GM then. Now we have Holland, who seemingly doesn't have the stomach to make tough decisions in the cap era. Maybe we can bring Dave Lewis back. He was so nice. The players responded to him, right?

Good God, Lemon...

There's a big difference between "needing some time to gel" and being down 3-0 with no defense and 5 shots through over 33 minutes of hockey. They very well may need time to gel, but if they can only do this right now, there's only so much better we can reasonably expect them to get. Don't forget, it's not like these guys haven't been skating. They all have, and many were playing in European leagues. And there's not that many new faces. It certainly has to get better, but again, you've gotta be reasonable with your expectations.

Quincey could still come around. I'm not upset about that over one game. But given that he was the best thing we added in a year in which we saw Rafalski, Stuart and Lidstrom leave, he's not going to get an inch. Too bad Holland's really the one at fault for inadvertently putting Quincey in the hot seat.

I love that people were giving me endless s*** a couple years ago when I said the Blues were shaping up to be a real good team. Lot of people changing their tune now; lot of people unwilling to look at reality and critically think about how things will look in the long run before. And a lot of those same people not surprisingly are the ones who didn't think the Wings had anything to worry about. Optimism is noble though oftentimes inaccurate, pessimism is just unfortunate, but realism is something worth embracing.

Agreed at this point. If you're going to lose, I'd rather get some of the younger guys up and see what they can really do on the big stage. If this isn't some ridiculous fluke period, which I highly doubt given the issues and usual suspects playing like garbage, I'd be find dropping some bombs in trades, just for the sake of getting rid of guys and sending a message. I don't think it's reasonable to expect too much for Franzen at this point, but he has some value no doubt, and I'd rather bring someone in who's going to work hard and bring some younger guys up. If these guys that have been around for awhile don't want to go out and play hard and give their all, well, goodbye then as far as I'm concerned. Enough is enough. You can't build a new team around a guy like Franzen if he's going to continue to find new ways to give a lazy effort.

I get not trying to judge them too much right now, but so many of these problems are nothing new, we're now just not nearly as good on defense and even older. It's not as if we haven't seen most of this crap before. The same guys won't skate. The same guys are playing sloppy in our end. The same guys are playing soft. This is nothing new. This is why we need to make a big trade; we need to move some guys that likely feel untouchable and send a message that no one is untouchable (sans Dats and Z for profoundly obvious reasons). At this point, I don't even think the benefit will come from who we would add so much as shaking up the chemistry of this team and sending a message. Still might not help, but I don't know what else we can try that they haven't, because again, with too many of these guys, these issues are just nothing new.

48 games.