haroldsnepsts

Or sign him in the off season?

Those aren't mutually exclusive. There was a time when the Wings could do both.

As much as I'd like to see it, Abby started the night with an elbow to the face. I'm not sure he's the one to be trading punches. But it'd be nice if someone would.

what the f***? Elbowfest by the preds tonight. Cleary! What a great pass by Z! suck on that Pecker!

And so it goes. Keep up the great work refs...

Honestly I'd love it if someone on the Wings D would play with the edge that Weber does.

Wow. Could Weber's hit be any later? And Erat more dirty s*** after the whistle. Someone's got to go after Erat and force him to square up or turtle.

Two cheapshots on his first few shifts of the game. That's quite a start.

yup. There was a quote in an Mlive article where Raf said he hasn't had one since he was 15 or 16 years old.

I assumed you meant something to the effect of "lack of someone on the Wings laying a ******* beatdown on that POS Erat after he threw the elbow on Abby. Or whoever it was that suckered Cleary after Pecker froze the puck."

Now Lids. Holy hell. How was that an accident? He was facing him.

retaliatory turnabout? I love it when you go Old English. And yes, I definitely agree.

Yup. Erat threw up an elbow to catch Abby in the face. He didn't have him lined up for the hit at all, just did a flyby. Then some other pred tried to check Abby as he was reeling from the elbow, and long after the puck had gone. Tough first shift for Abby and dirty play by Erat. Now Cleary looks shaken up a bit. EDIT: well, everyone but the refs saw it.

Apparently he misplaced his scoring touch and is taking some personal time to go look for it.

I wouldn't call what happened last season exactly flipping the switch. They had a great run up to the playoffs, but then took 7 games to put away the Yotes and managed 1 win against the Sharks. I didn't say they'd get knocked out in the first round, all I said is they could very well struggle. And I've been watching Detroit playoff hockey long enough to remember the Goose Loonie's incident.

Honestly I'd take more satisfaction from the Hawks not even making the playoffs, though it seems unlikely. If we meet them in the first round, so be it. Unless this Wings team can flip the switch, honestly I see them struggling in the first round. I'm hoping they can survive that first series and work themselves into true playoff mode. I just don't know if anything short of a first round scare is really going to register with this team and wake them up.

Hoping for a good game tonight from the Wings, if only to keep Nashville from getting two points and closing the gap on the Kings. No loser points!

So as a fan, you might have some idea as to what is wrong with one of the star players and when he might be back in the lineup? As I said in my original post, I get that they do it in the playoffs, and it's a litte more excusable in the stretch run. But it hasn't always been like this. Now every injury is super secret, like no matter what part of the season guys are going to go after a weak spot. And let's be honest, at this level if an injury is hampering a player in the slightest, there's a really good chance the other players will notice and have a pretty good guess what it is.

With who? who's better and cheaper?

It was. They talked about his frustrating turnovers coming out of the zone and called him turnover prone. I'm still hoping it's something he can grow out of because he has a lot of great qualities otherwise.

If you read my actual comments, you'll see that I don't say he's a great player or anything. It's not that he's done anything great that I feel the need to defend him. I actually have pointed out several things that frustrate me about his play. It's just that he hasn't done anything nearly as awful as people here make it out to be. He's become the whipping boy here. It happens every season, sometimes more justified than others. But a player gets chosen, then it becomes the LGW sport to trash him well beyond how they're actually playing. It's not a coincidence that when Hudler started playing well, Ericsson started getting trashed. You'd think Ericsson was the worst D-man in the league by the way he's talked about. He's a converted forward taken absolute dead last in the draft in his second full season in the NHL. To me, he's doing okay and is an average bottom pairing guy.

Remember when they actually used to say what the injury was? "Lower body injury" and other vague descriptions were only really used in the playoffs. Nowadays it's practically like "Datsyuk injury? Who's Datsyuk? I don't know anyone by that name, and if I did I would have no information on his injury."

Certainly gets my vote, for sheer entertainment value as a Wings fan. It was a baffling contract at the time. Lebda was a known quantity. For those who think Burke is a genius, this is definitely one to bring up. Agreed. Raf isn't one dimensional. He is an exceptional offensive D-man, he's just not Lidstrom when it comes to the defensive side. And honestly for some of those crazy ass turnovers he makes, a fair amount of times when they work they're incredible passes that lead to great scoring chances. But when they don't, it's ugly. High risk, high reward. His contract looks worse now, but at the time it was a solid deal. Schneider left, Holland had little time to fill that spot, and we signed Raf at market value at the time. Probably a little under.

Agreed. But Ericsson is the chosen one. oh well. As I said in another thread, I'm just happy Lebda's gone.

I agree. I'm not so much knocking Kindl for those turnovers. He's a rookie and there's going to be growing pains. But people talk like he's ready to play 25 minutes a night here. Let's let the kid develop and hopefully have a solid middle pairing guy. Mainly it's just that I think E gets too much hate as a bottom pairing guy. More than hoping he takes E's minutes, I hope they take Salei's. E would need to step up his game for that to happen but I'd much rather have two relatively young, big, cheap d-men than having to go out and get another aging veteran for the bottom pairing. We have enough experience in our blueline that we don't really need that experience there. For me, Ericsson isn't as bad as people have been saying, but his development has stalled. That's what frustrates me about him. He can look really good for much of a game, then stop moving his feet and lose focus or something and make a stupid play. Whereas Kindl is still making mistakes but because it's his first season that's gonna happen and he still shows a ton of potential. Honestly if I thought Ericsson was going to be awesome I'd probably be a lot more critical. As a bottom pairing guy, he's mostly fine. I just wish he'd get it together for a full game. and actually. I probably should be bringing this up in the Ericsson thread and not the GDT. Don't mean to derail it.