gcom007

Like Illitch really has $4 million lying around...........oh.

Your buddy Hasek was notorious for having slow starts to the season. He always used to end up fine by the end. I'll worry about this down the stretch. I think both of our goalies are more than capable individually to get the job done. Osgood's proven it throughout his career and while Howard's still got some things to learn and prove, he's got a lot of skill and potential to become a solid NHL starter for a long time. Our goalies fall victim to defensive sabotage far too often. That is what worries me year after year since our last Cup. They're too talented to play as sloppy as they do far too often. We have a balanced team. We don't have the biggest name goalies that you can hope will carry you when everyone else lets you down. That model works fine and we've proven that again and again. But the defense has to hold up their end of the bargain which they too often haven't. The all time elites wouldn't be fairng much better in many of the games the last few years with our defense playing as poorly as they have. Again, I think both goalies are capable of getting the job done. McCrimmon? He's given no reason for us to believe he has control of the defense at any point since he's taken over. That's what really worries me.

I'll go with a career on Osgood and give him the benefit of the doubt and I'll give Howard more time to prove himself as it's his second year. I'm not worried about either of our goalies at all. Our defense is far more worrisome than our goalies.

LOL Get back to me at the end of November on this matter.

There's a huge difference between an all star defense and a defense that essentially sabotages the goalie like last night. You really expect any goalie to have an answer for some of those goals??? I suppose he should've stopped that incredibly fluky goal off of Stuarts skate even, right? Where were you after the Chicago game?

Agreed. Neither Howard nor Ozzie were near as awful individually in the last 2 game as they were made out to be. Easiest thing is to blame the goalies. It's lame. The defense and the rest of the team played terrible last night in particular. I'll worry more about the goalies when they consistently have bad games while the rest of the team is actually playing to support them.

Did you watch the game?

Generally too early, but I've wondered for awhile whether or not he might have chronic back issues that have held him back some. Hopefully he puts the concerns to bed down the stretch, but I have definitely wondered that since last year.

Didn't the first goal deflect off of Salei? And he had no chance at all on that goal from behind the net. Then Stuart put that one goal in that obviously can't be blamed on Osgood. I don't think Osgood played great by any means as he didn't come up with the miracle saves, but no way can this loss be pinned on him. Neither Osgood nor Howard got a tremendous amount of help in the last couple games. When they had support from the team in the first couple games, they both looked good. I'm going with that for now.

Or they just got sloppy. Defense always has issues and now they've got Injuries and new guys back there. I don't think this has anything to do with Babcock. At all.

Only thing I'm really concerned about is defense and it has more to do with the fact that the same crap creeps up year after year and I don't think it has much at all to do with our players and perhaps more to do with the coaching. With as much skill as we have on D, they should be a lot better than they are. I wonder how many years it will take before they bring in someone new if only for the sake of trying something. Maybe it's not McCrimmon, but things aren't working under him and he's a lot easier to swap out than any of the guys.

I'm wondering if Zetterberg hasn't been hampered by chronic issues. He's had the back issues creep up quite a bit it seems here and there. Even if he's just missing a game or two for it now and then or even just sitting out practices, you wonder how much pain he might be playing in or if he's just not able to do what he once could consistently.

True, nothing to worry about but I still just don't get what in the hell has happened to our defense the last few years. It's so easy to blame McCrimmon and I don't really know if there's really any validity to that claim or not, but they have been consistently sloppy since he came on board. So many little things just don't happen in our end that need to happen. Now this year we've got Rafi out early and a new guy in Salei. That worries me a bit again after tonight because it's simply not a new problem for this team. They were too damn solid defensively in '07-'08 with a similar squad and suddenly with McCrimmon, the only consistent on the defensive end is incredibly inconsistent play. And again, my beef on this matter isn't a knee-jerk reaction to this season alone. Its game 4 and I get that. Like I said, consistent inconsistency. And after watching the replays again, it's definitely tough to pin too much of this loss on Osgood. He didn't have much of a chance for the most part. Bummer for both of our goalies to have good first games and rough second games though. You'd like to see one have consistent outcomes early on.

Defense needs to gel. Rough start to the season losing Raffi for awhile, but they've got to fight through it. Tonight was rough. Time for them to bounce back. I really hope Franzen is okay. Offense is definitely not the same without him. Osgood didn't play well but didn't get any help most of the night. Ugh. What an ugly game. No one on the Wings can be happy about this effort. Slow motion hustle and sloppy coverage in our end is just not going to cut it.

Franzen going down was a bad omen for this game. When that goal went in off Stuart (closest we came to an actual goal tonight?) you knew this one was going to be ugly. And wait, we scored! Wings 5-4 in OT...........

What an awful effort. They look so sloppy out there. What a pathetic game.

Ditto. I've been nothing less than a HUGE Eaves supporter.

Who cares? It was his 2nd start! It wasn't his best game but whatever. It wasn't awful. Soft goals or not, it's early. Howard He Do It, you need to relax a bit on this one. One rough game and an announcement that he isn't getting the next start is just not a big deal at this point in the season. He'll get a chance to bounce back and he probably will. Patience.

A) I don't think Howard was "yanked." If it was "yanking" as you put it, they obviously just did it, but I think you're taking that angle to a bit of an extreme. B) It's a new season. While Howard is 1a without a doubt and certainoy the guy you're expecting to be the starter of the future, don't be shocked to see Osgood played like a 1b so long as he keeps his game up. C) The last time the Wings developed a starting goalie that actually ended up having a successful career, he took a backseat in his first few seasons at times and learned from a successful veteran. That same goalie is 3 wins away from becoming the 10th goalie in history to hit the 400 win mark. Moral? Sometimes you learn from watching and mature into a starting position gradually. D) Howard's in his second year. He's coming off a great rookie season but he was quite shaky in the playoffs, rarely reaching the level of play he achieved in the regular season. No big deal, but clearly, he still has some things to learn. He knows it. Osgood knows it. Babcock knows it. They're all getting along pretty well these days. I've got a sneaking suspicion that he'll be okay however it goes. Either way, the bottom line is that after a lackluster playoff performance and this being his 2nd season as well as a contract season, Howard's not going to get an overabundance of leeway this year. Babcock will not let Osgood go cold again and Howard is going to have to prove that he's not a one season wonder. But until he gets sat for weeks to months on end like Osgood last year, it's incredibly premature to get worked up about this and refer to it as Howard being "yanked."

I don't think there's much to read into here for those upset that he's not getting a chance to bounce back or those upset about his subpar performance. Bottom line to me and probably team management is that Howard's a young goalie who had to carry more than was fair last year. This year, I expect them to get back to their typical methods of player development. Part of that will be learning about new kinds of pressure and part of that will be learning from less pressure to carry the whole load. Howard will learn from the pressure to perform or face sitting, and it's a necessary lesson for him to learn. And I don't care what was said in interviews in the playoffs, you better believe that Babcock isn't going to make the same mistakes again this year with goaltending. Howard's going to learn to play under pressure and Osgood is going to get a lot more starts. If Howard can't handle the pressure of alternating or taking a couple games off in the regular season, there's no way in hell he's going to make it as a starter for this team. I think he'll be just fine. I like the guy and want to see him succeed, but there are lessons to be learned when playing and lessons to be learned from sitting and watching. Just like Osgood with Vernon in the 90's, the developmental process will not always amount to Howard playing all the time. I think we'll see a lot more balance this year in terms of pressure, and I think it will be a good thing for Howard's development. I wouldn't be shocked at all even to see Osgood start in the playoffs if he's playing at a level at all comparable to Howard. Again, sometimes there's lessons to be learned from watching, and again, I think Howard will be fine however it goes. It's one game and this is just his second season. Think long term.

No joke. Even the Hawks announcers were surprised...

Damn, Osgood's looking great. And it feels AMAZING TO BE WATCHING HOCKEY AGAIN! I've got it steaming from computer onto my projector. It looks like garbage at 8 feet wide, but I'm utterly elated to be watching hockey again.

I get where people are coming from, and he would've done well to just avoid the matter, but I think the point he made about how problems exist up and down the earnings spectrum that all share similarities despite perhaps drastically different numbers. The thing you have to remember about these guys is that many if not most are making the money they'll use for the rest of their lives now. Many of them have a very narrow window of opportunity to make good money before they move on to making perhaps very, very little money. Many assume that people in the entertainment industry seemingly making the big bucks are automatically rich, but I think many would be surprised at how far from the truth that is. Again, I'm not saying he wouldn't have done well to avoid the topic, but I get where he's coming from and I don't hold it against him.

His wife was the biggest supporter apparently. So much for all the conspiracy theorists pissing stool in the Modano thread for the last month about the wife holding him back...

If the guy can still put up 40-50 points and skate like he does, he's got absolutely no reason to retire after this season.