YoungGuns1340

I missed the first period, so maybe they came then, but I haven't seen anything special since I've been watching. Maybe your standards of what a "big stop" is has dropped since watching our Wings goaltending this year.

I've got an idea - lets put our most pathetic unit out against the likes of Alex Semin.

A retarded turtle. Just once, ONCE, can we get a big stop from our goaltenders?

Its just an observation. Relax.

Not a bad PP, but our PP really needs to come through when we need it. The past few games when we've needed it to come up big, its crapped out.

Man Leino is ugly...looks like a pug.

Kronwall's 28. He better get his defensive issues sorted out soon. Wow...Draper looked great there. That was a rarity.

Not only is Leino an NHL forward, but he's making all the right moves up front that you'd expect from an experienced NHL top sixer.

Haha Ovechkin is sick. Took everything we had to stop him.

The fact that hes a Top 4 Dman doesn't take away from the fact that his defensive perfromance has been bottom-pairing material.

Thats how Kopecky gets most of his points - not by doing anything special, but by not ruining it.

Earlier in the year, I didn't think there'd be a chance in hell that the Wings were going to trade Kopecky because he was such good friends with Hossa, but I'm beginning to think otherwise. The Wings brass has to be noticing that this team needs changes, and that they can't be making exceptions because so and so is friends with so and so. Babs was in love with Jason Williams, but he still got the boot.

Haha I was thinking the same thing at the time. They *thought* he got two goals, but it was a mistake. It was taken away from him later in the game.

Yeah, I agree that Flip does. He got an assist on that goal, although I deflection off your stick isn't much of an assist, but he wouldn't be my first choice out on the PP when we're down a goal. Kopecky, though...I'm speechless. Reminds me of earlier in the season where he got time on the 1st line because he got 1 goal standing in front of the net on the PP.

Kronner also spent a lot of time playing with Lidstrom earlier in his career. At any rate, people seem to forget that Kronwall has been mediocre for most of his career. His great late sesason playoff performance last year was the exception, not the rule.

I really, really hope the Wings are showcasing Filppula and Kopecky with all this unearned ice time, namely Flip on the PP and Kopecky on...well...any sort of time.

How the hell can Detroit not get any decent scoring chances with all that time on the forecheck? With the exception of about 2 guys, Washington's D looks like they're skating in quicksand.

Some funny parts here: "I drank more often than I worked out, but I really deserved to be a regular player on the Ducks." The coaches trade the players now? Wait...what rivalry?

Kopecky may be able to skate circles around Downey - but it would take him about an hour. He'd fall down at every turn. Another reason why Kopecky's size is completely useless. You're a lot shorter than 6'3 with your ass on the ice, but thats another story.

...and Kopecky is not one of those "most players"

If its not because Helm is injured, like egroen said, then its probably because Helm is a known commodity. The Wings know they have an NHL ready guy in Helm. They need to see how Abdelkader and Leino have developed so far this season and how its affected their play at the NHL level.

He should've had the 3rd goal against him. At any rate, you don't have to sit there and figure out which goals he should've stopped and which he shouldn't have. Theoretically, he SHOULD stop all of them, but obviously no goalie can do that. The question to ask yourself should be "how many times in a game does Osgood steal a goal from the other team" and then think about that in relation to the question "how many times did Turco (for example) steal a goal from us?" Frankly, I can't think of many times this season - let alone more than once in a game - where I can say "wow, Ozzie really saved a goal there." And I definitely can't think of many times this season where I thought to myself "wow, Ozzie not only saved a goal there, but hes saved more goals tonight that the [opposition's goaltender] has."

Hahaha..Boyd the Void?? Wow. You're right. I'm trying to come up with an argument, but I really...I'm speechless. Boyd Devereaux is actually better than Kopecky. As a side note, I was thinking about it last night, and does anyone else think we might be showcasing some folks here? I sure as hell hope we aren't showcasing Abdelkader, but with the amount of ice that Kopecky and Filppula saw last night makes me think Holland has some bigger deals in mind than Cory Cross this deadline.

First of all, Drake didn't cause any concussions when we was here last year, and Downey was never "bashing someone's head" arbitrarily. Thats what great about being a Wings fan - when we're physical, when we're hitting, etc. its never just "for the hell of it." It always has a purpose, and more often than not its closer to the clean side of things than the dirty or questionable. Second of all, Downey fighting and Drake hitting do things to the overall team make-up. They energize our players. They set an example, a precedent. They give our smaller guys someone to back them up if they throw a big hit. In short, because guys like Downey and Drake are willing and capable of answering to the oppositions big guns, guys like Cleary, Maltby, and Draper can play a bigger, harder, rougher game as well.

Its not just that we had two North American fan favorites either - the entire flavor of the team last year was more blue collar than it is this year. More hitting, more fights, more grinding and buckling down, more energy overall. Now we're seeing a team play lackadaisical hockey, go soft on the forecheck, and, with the exception of a few games here and there, no hitting - and absolutely no fighting in general. Don't get me wrong - I love seeing Pavel Datsyuk set up some crazy goals and see Marian Hossa score a beautiful goal, but thats only a very small fraction of the game that we get to see our guys making creative scoring chances and pretty passes. Outside of that, we see a lot of irrelevant passing, complacency along the boards, few big hits, and lackluster energy at any given moment. Its not just the NAMES, its also the STYLE.