gcom007

And our #1 issue is goals. Flip is not a goal scorer and we're already deep with 2-way forwards, especially at center. If they move him for a more natural goal scorer, it will be a good move for the Wings.

If Dats is injured, we're screwed.

What the hell? Did either of them get hurt last night? I know Flip was shaken up at one point but he seemed fine.

He was talking about shootouts specifically. Those are not fun for me to watch with the Wings.

What's really sad is that I'm not even trying to make a joke. I honestly could not remember when we last won a game. "Fun for the fans to watch..." -Lidstrom WRONG!!!!!!!!! WRONG!!!!!!!!!!! WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When was the last time we actually won a game? I honestly don't remember.

Not on the Detroit Red Wings.

Why do I feel like the Red Wings are trying to make me hate them?

And ugh.............. Go hanging on to the lead...outstanding.

Nice Franzen, nice!

GREAT START RED WINGS!!!!!!!! ...

Zetterberg should absolutely without a doubt be centering the 2nd line. Dats on the 1st. Flip on 3rd.

"Huge" might be a little over the top. It's an issue for certain, but I think the fact that he's still a rookie limits how much stock you can put in such speculation. It has the potential to be a huge issue if he doesn't work it out, but I expect it to be addressed over the summer and through training camp next year. I do agree about the shots on goal thing though. Many people overlook the fact that Howard's rebound control problems tend to inflate the shots he faces as so many shots often occur in scrambles off of rebounds. Osgood's rebound control is a lot stronger and he's able to slow the game down and get the face-off whereas Howard ends up facing extra shots. The team plays like s*** in front of both goalies, but Osgood's consistently faced less shots in his starts than Howard, lending some statistical credence to the evaluation. Howard has proven that he's more than capable of stopping the puck this season, but he doesn't bring a complete game to the table yet. Much of that comes with experience though. He still struggles with the puck after the shot and when having to make a play with his stick. As said, the shot control will hopefully get addressed in the off/pre-season, but his tendency to hesitate to use his stick is something that he'll have to work on for awhile. It will improve with experience, but I'm not so convinced that it's an issue that will go away by next season.

I agree that the drastic trade ideas are ridiculous. But a 59 game precedent of mediocrity, particularly in the times when this team has been most healthy, gives little reason to be optimistic. There are far too many fundamental problems plaguing this team right now to suggest that they are even close to being a playoff ready team.

I absolutely agree. I felt good about our chances a month ago and remained optimistic, but I expressed one concern: when the team was healthy, they seemed to have a lot of issues with balance and chemistry. I worried that perhaps as we got healthy again, we might revert to the "team" of October which was terrible on so many levels. As time has gone on, my concerns have played out as I worried they might. And over the last 4-5 weeks, this team just seems to be looking worse as time goes on despite getting guys back. I still hope we turn it around and I certainly don't think it's impossible, but the team has done absolutely nothing to convince me that they're going to do that. They've done far more to convince me that my optimism needs to be dialed down if not utterly muted. Blatant pessimism doesn't do any good, but with the team giving no reason to be excessively optimistic lately at all... Again, I really do hope we can pull it off, but my faith has been balanced out by too many reasons that suggest this team just doesn't have what it takes to get the job done.

And to quote a music industry blogger I read... "What kind of crazy f***ed up world do we line in where..." ...the idea of trading Jason Williams evokes depression and sadness over our already depleted forward lineup?

You've got to read between the lines on this one: he just doesn't like the idea of Flip being on the 3rd line.

Oh yeah? How strong have Bert's numbers been since Babcock broke he and Datsyuk up and started playing him with Flip more? How many goals has he scored while on the ice with Flip? How was his point production in general looking before he got broken up from Dats and since? You know, it's real funny, because I recall a dead halt to Bert's production when he got paired with Flip, and at times he's looked like more of a play-maker on the line than a goal scorer. His 3 goals since have all come while paired with Datsyuk in an irregular situation. So pardon me, but if Bert can dry up on a line with Flip after a steady patch of scoring (and no lack of solid play from him on a personal level) I'm terrified of what would happen with Flip centering possibly our 2 purest goal scorers once Franzen returns. Even if you want to say that Flip can center the 2nd line, it should be painfully obvious at this point that he and Bert have ABSOLUTELY NO CHEMISTRY WHATSOEVER. How can you expect me to trust your judgement on Flip when you seem to think that Flip and Bert are an obvious choice to exist on a line together? These are what the lines will most likely look like when healthy: Holmstrom-Datsyuk-Bertuzzi Franzen-Zetterberg-Cleary Miller-Filppula-Williams (Maltby in and out probably on this line) Draper-Helm-Eaves

So I guess since Federov is in Russia and we can't really trade with Russian teams, Kozlov is the centerpiece of this year's "returning hero" rumor... Umm, I highly doubt it's going to happen. As in, we had a better shot at landing Kovalchuck. Wait, wait, try this...we still have a better chance at landing Kovalchuck. I love Kozlov and at the right price he could be a real nice addition to this team in the off-season for more than just the sake of nostalgia. However, I don't even know if he's a free agent and the "right price" is nowhere near his current cap hit...

I love Maltby. That doesn't mean I think he's going to be a great scorer. It doesn't mean I flip out when he's scratched. It doesn't mean that I get pissed when people think he's a waste of space who should retire. And all that said, the most important thing to know is I've got enough common sense to not shove it down everyone's throats at any and every opportunity and argue voraciously in defense of him. I enjoy what the guy does, I laugh when he runs his mouth after the whistles, and I keep it to myself 99% of the time. It goes a long way in avoiding controversy...

To some extent, sure, but when you're getting points based on plays that you would expect most NHL players to make out there, why pay a guy $3 million for it? I've brought up the Larionov example before. It might seem unfair to bring up a legend here, but here me out for the point of the matter before you make too swift a judgement. For the majority of Larionov's career, he wasn't a major goal scorer, but he was an absolutely amazing play-maker who could rack up points through mostly assists. This was his specialty and you knew he would get out there and generate plays out of nowhere because he simply was a brilliant play-maker. Igor wasn't just part of a play in progress or a guy cycling the puck to a guy who then makes a play. Igor created plays all the time, coming up with insane passes and setups out of nowhere. He had some of the best hands in the game, an uncanny sixth sense on the ice, and the guy was just plain smart, on and off the ice. He rightly earned the nickname "The Professor," though I preferred using another saying: Larionov was a magician. I don't say this to be critical, but Flip's play-making ability doesn't hold a candle to Larionov's. If you put Larionov in Flip's situation now at Flip's age, he'd be putting up 80-90 points a season easy. As I've always said, I'm not saying we should take any of Flip's points away at all. I'm not saying Flip needs to be Larionov either. The point of the matter here is the contextual value of a point. The big difference between a guy like Flip and a guy like Larionov is that while Flip may "earn" every point he gets, it'd be better to say that Igor Larionov "owned" every point he got. While he didn't notch a lot of goals particularly in his NHL career, I'd say conservatively 75% of the goals scored off of an Igor Larionov assist would never have occurred if not for Larionov first making a brilliant play out of nowhere. Even as he aged and declined, he was still a magical play-maker. And on top of all that, he too was a responsible two-way player. So my point is, there is a difference between a guy who's a play-maker in the purest sense of the word and a guy who puts up a fair amount of assists. Again, I'm not saying he doesn't earn those assists by any means, but you can't look at most of the resultant goals and say that the plays happened because Flip is creating great plays. I'll give the guy all the credit in the world for being a competent enough player to be able to skate with more talented offensive guys and not clog up the process too much. As you say, there's something to be said for the fact that he's getting the assists whether he's a vital part of the play leading to a goal or not. But I don't think you can look back on all his points since returning and the teams general play and goal totals (considering other people returning as well) and say that he is helping our team score a lot more goals and win more games. And at $3 million on this Detroit Red Wings squad, you need to be helping a lot more than I think Flip helps us solely due to the fact that his specific specialty tools, while strong, are not the tools we need right now. I think it's real tough to make such a point with that statement. Is it indicative of what the best long-run situation should be or indicative of the fact that in the most important games, the must-win games, you're going to gamble a bit more and ice the best line possible as much as you can to finish the job? I'd say it's the latter. We can't afford to always ice a line with both Datsyuk and Zetterberg on it. Now more than ever with the cap weighing on us so heavily. It'll happen from time to time out of necessity when the game's on the line or nothing else is working, but it's far from the ideal. Babcock's been quoted in the paper as saying that many times, and just recently even, I believe in reference to splitting them again once Franzen returns. They were only put together again lately to try and get Z going after injury. It's not a permanent thing and it never was. And honestly, look at how it's gone for Z and Dats. They have hardly been an offensive powerhouse when teamed together this year. They've had a couple good games and a lot of games where they weren't doing much. If you're going to put $13 million on one line, they've got to be putting up far better numbers than they have this year. If they were both playing at a 50 goal, 100 point-plus pace, it'd be one thing, but they're not. Not even close. 95% of the time moving forward, you're going to see Datsyuk and Zetterberg centering their own lines. Make no mistake about it. Another reason to move Flip over other players aside from his $3 million cap hit: of all the non-superstar guys, he'd bring the best return because as said, to many teams, he'd be a far more important piece of the puzzle. Again, can't say it enough, I don't dislike Flip near as much as I don't think he's a good fit for this Detroit Red Wings team at his salary. That's the bottom line.

When this team is desperate for goals and a player like Flip is making $3 million to be among the worst forwards on the team in goal scoring, there's a problem. If his 40 points were demonstrative of Datsyuk-esque playmaking ability, it'd be one thing, but they're simply not. I've never said Flip is a bad player. I think he's a great defensive player and he's got a good attitude. I generally really appreciate defensive guys, but on this team, if you're primary asset is defense, you're a 3rd/checking line guy and you're making $1-1.5 million tops. I think Flip's a solid 2nd line center on a lot of teams, and for that matter, I think he'd find a lot more personal success on other teams. I also think on other teams, his contract would be reasonable. On the Red Wings, he'll always be 3rd in line at best for centers considering we've got two of the top two-way centers in the game on this squad. He racks up assists because we still have good guys around and he gets a lot of quality ice time, but he doesn't score goals and again, he's always going to be overshadowed by Dats and Z. In the Detroit Red Wings Context, we desperately need goals which he simply doesn't provide with any sort of authority, and I think it's unlikely that he'll ever do so. It's not the end of the world for him by any means as he still has plenty of upside in other areas, but this team needs different tools right now. We need goals. It's simple. Even as a superfan of Flip, I don't see how you can't recognize this simple matter for what it is and admit that there's credence to the idea that his cap hit might best be used to make room for another guy who specializes in scoring goals. And furthermore, can you not admit that he'd be a better fit on other teams if you really feel he is as talented as he is considering he's always going to be the 3rd center so long as Dats and Z are here?

There it is. Caps win. Ovechkin is unreal, and that's why there's no way I can count this team out in the East. I think the top 3 East teams are VERY clear, but this Caps team is due if you ask me. If Ovechkin is healthy in the playoffs, I don't know if anything is going to stop him and when you've got that much talent, it can make up for a lot of other weaknesses.

They're certainly reasonable guesses. I look at how close the Caps were to beating Pittsburgh though and their play this year and I can't count them out. If I had to bet, I'd say either Pens or Caps for the East. Power Play Washington. Wow.

I'm not saying that I don't want the Wings to win or anything, but I predicted a Hawks-Caps Stanley Cup Finals in the off-season. I still think that's as good of a bet as any...