haroldsnepsts

I thought this was an interesting quote from Babcock: This team isn't so much underachieving offensively as they are not scoring much due to lack of offensive talent. Then Babs calls out Flip a bit. http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2013/04/red_wings_in_ninth_place_in_we.html

I generally think of severe injury as something that keeps a guy out of the lineup, so that probably is overstating it. Still, the point still stands that Hossa had a rotator cuff injury that required surgery in the offseason. That's pretty clearly something that would affect his performance.

edited the title to give a better indication of what it's about. Sorry some of your original title got mangled in the process Alan. I tried to preserve it.

That's one of the big reasons I don't watch basketball, and right now the NHL is headed that way. There seems to be a dive at least once a game now.

There's a few guys on the Wings who could do that, but like on the Couture goal, that kind of poise around the net and being able to corral and bury rebounds is what separates goal scorers from other players. Wings have a lot of guys who can hack away at the puck if they're around the net, but not many with the hands and patience of a goal scorer.

When people disregard different viewpoints with condescending comments and make assumptions about what the other person thinks, they really aren't having a discussion they're just hearing themselves talk. I started following the Red Wings obsessively in 1984. I went to virtually every home game for several seasons (because there were plenty of empty seats) and watched every game I could on channel 50. It's not some bias because I'm a huge Yzerman fan and can't conceive of him being like Crosby. I watched a young Steve Yzerman captain the Red Wings firsthand. They were both named young captains to give hope to struggling franchises. Both are great offensive players. Other than that, they don't have much in common. People have made previous comments about Steve yapping to the refs, which he did do more and more later in his career but certainly not early on. And just by percentages he may have done it sometime, but I have no memory of Yzerman diving, especially early in his career. As I said before, it just wasn't done back then because it wasn't tolerated at all by other players. To be anywhere near the same as Crosby in that regard, he'd have to have some doozies.

Are you talking about the shootout or the goal during the game? Because during the game he did a nice job roofing a quick backhander into the empty net. And the move he used during the shootout is his go to move. Neither one was luck.

Strongly disagree. Yzerman especially. Diving just was rare back in the day. But even late in his career I don't remember Stevie diving. Certainly nowhere near enough to be likened to Crosby and Ovie. I'm guessing maybe Z has a few times to try and draw a penalty. But still, we're talking about repeat offenders here. He still doesn't belong in the same group as captains like Crosby, Ovechkin, Brown, and Sedin.

Yzerman first injured his knee in 1988 sliding into a goalpost that didn't come off its moorings. Then he played most of his career with little or no cartilage in that knee. Not to mention returning to play after a full osteotomy in 2003 as a 37 year old. Then came back from taking a puck to the eye. I'm not quite sure how Yzerman missing "a ton of games" due to injury in his 22 year career pertains to Sammy not skating due to a sore pectoral muscle.

I agree. I mostly just meant that this kind of contract doesn't seem out of character for Holland.

That's the thing for me too. It feels a little high right now, but ever since they introduced the cap it seems like I've felt that way time after time when a player gets signed. Then a few years down the road it's a bargain as the cap goes up.

I'm not saying there's a bias, I'm saying the stat reflects exactly what it says it does. Game Winning Goal tracks how many times the guy scored the goal that gave them one more than their opponent at the end of the game. My point is that it has really no correlation to clutch goals. So it's not that the bias is equal, it's that the stat in no way is an indication of whether or not a player is clutch. When Datsyuk scores with a few seconds to tie the game and send it to OT, that's an actual clutch goal that will not show up in GWG. If they wanted to try and track clutch goals, they would have to include other important variables. if the game was tied when the goal was scored. If it was late in the game or OT, etc. I just think fundamentally the GWG stat implies something about a player it is in no way built to track.

I'm not sure what you mean exactly. Holland gave Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, and Kronwall long extensions. He clearly sees Jimmy as a key part of the team. Honestly I thought it might be even longer.

First, you were suspended not banned, or you wouldn't be able to make that post. Second, it wasn't over a disagreement. I agree that the Wings need a sniper, but that has zero to do with Jimmy's contract. The Wings need a starting goaltender next season. Is your plan not to have a goalie and use the cap space for a sniper? Howard's contract was up this offseason. They had been working on re-signing him. You seem to be linking signing him to getting a sniper as if they're somehow inherently mutually exclusive. It's not like Holland was ignoring all these phonecalls of people wanting to deal him offensive players because he was just too busy with Jimmy's contract.

I know. It was obviously a huge goal but more of one he just threw on net. People key on that goal and forget that he was mostly mediocre otherwise. And try to use that one goal to discredit how great Miller was throughout the olympics. Plus that one was in OT, so it was actually clutch.

I have no idea what your point is in regards to Howard's new contract, which is the topic of this thread. The Wings don't need a goalie who is a consistently good player?? Scoring is also a legitimate issue, but the two aren't mutually exclusive. Howard's contract was expiring. The Wings needed to re-sign him or find another goalie in the offseason in addition to all their other needs, like scoring.

Getting married years ago, having a daughter, getting divorced and having the daughter stay in Russia, all in anticipation of this contract re-signing. Datsyuk is a friggin public relations genius.

Babcock's take on the near completed deal: http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2013/04/tsn_says_red_wings_jimmy_howar.html

You put me in the uncomfortable position of defending Crosby, but I disagree with the bolded ones. Crosby may not be a Selke candidate but he is certainly better than Ovechkin with his defensive play. At the very least, he has not been called out repeatedly for his embarrassingly bad defensive play, like quitting on a play or leaving the ice on a scoring chance. Ovie has. Game Winning goals is in no way an indicator of clutch play. It's a completely misleading stat. Franzen can score to put the Wings up 5-0 in the first period again San Jose. Then say they get lazy or someone gets hurt, and the Sharks come back only to lose 5-4. So now Mule has the game winning goal, but it certainly wasn't clutch. OT goals are clutch. GWG mean virtually nothing. Ovechkin likely has fewer giveaways because he carries the puck a lot less than Crosby. He's typically the recipient of passes as opposed to the one making them. So Crosby will naturally have more giveaways. For me the question with Crosby is durability. I wouldn't have thought this when they both came into the league but aside from his health if I had to pick between Crosby and Ovechkin it's Crosby all the way. (I feel a little sick now)

Anderson, as in Craig Anderson is easily better than Howard? Everyone is high on him this year because of his stellar save percentage, but he's on a very good defensive team. Their other two goalies, Robin Lehner (who?) has a sv% of .934 over 10 games. Bishop has .922 sv% over 13 games. And Anderson's is based on 17 games. Anderson has only three times in his 9 year career played over 33 games in a season. It's possible after all this time in the league he's greatly improved his form and become an excellent goalie. But it's more likely he's a decent but unproven goalie having a good run on a strong defensive team. Either way he's barely ever been a starter. I couldn't call him better than Howard at this point, and not someone I'd want to extend a multi-year contract to expecting him to be the starting goaltender.

For starters, the $5 mill for Howard isn't official yet. Second, no goalies are relied upon to score goals. I agree with a lot of your criticisms of a lot of the other signings, but Howard is one I don't have a problem with. He's been plenty good for the Wings and I don't know of cheaper better options out there. Not to mention with all the instability already on this team, the young patchwork defensive corps, Datsyuk's uncertain future, Helm's questionable health, etc. the last thing they need is to take shake up the starting goaltender position on someone they hope is better and cheaper.

I have to disagree. Every goalie lets in ones he'd rather have back, but he's not like Marc Andre Fleury, who makes a game stealing save, followed up by a backbreaking softie. If you count goalies who have played over 20 games this season, Howard is at or near the top 10 in save percentage. Plus he's been a workhorse for the Wings. There's a handful of guys out there who are generally better, but Howard is good enough to get the Wings to the Cup.

Especially considering that puts him barely into the 35+ contract when he re-signs, doesn't it? I'd rather they knock a year off so Jimmy can sign what will probably be his final contract as a 34 year old. Holland must be setting himself up for next time so he can give him a 35+ contract with a NTC.

Ugh. Thanking the Ducks and Canucks? I feel unclean.

I saw that yesterday. You know a bunch of reporters are desperately trying to find out who's got plans for a Vegas trip. And a handful of players probably just cancelled their trip to Vegas.