haroldsnepsts

I strongly disagree about the padding. If anything, I think the football style hard shell pads has made it much worse on the guy being hit. Those things are like concrete. And it allows players to throw themselves with total abandon at a guy. I think if guys still had shoulder pads more like Shanny wore, there'd be fewer concussions. We'll have to agree to disagree about the headshots, because I've seen more these last couple seasons than I remember seeing in watching years of hockey. The open ice headshots in particular.

Honestly Doc, you're not pissing me off. Thanks for the explanation how a discussion forum works. i've been here a while and debated with plenty of people about the game. I just think you're a condescending ****** who loves debating more than hockey. Regards, Harold

based on what? I didn't see more than one or two hits where a guy got almost none of the body and clipped a guy in the noggin. And that's a highlight video taken from a decade. There's more headshot highlights already this season.

of course there are borderline hits. I was talking about headshots.

Not defensive. Just sick of you arguing for arguing's sake. Again you go after the lack of respect angle, since that's the easiest for you to debate, even though I said in my last post that wasn't my main point. There has been an increasing number of headshots in the last few seasons than I have seen in many, many years of hockey. shoulders, elbows. guys are making more contact with a guys head then they had when hitting in the past. By choice, not by fluke. save your condescension and nitpicking for someone else. good lord. i'm sick of you.

Strange, I don't remember ever calling that a dirty hit. But how else could you argue if you didn't put words in my mouth to rail against? Go ahead and count the high hits for sake of argument. There's plenty of hits where guys get their hands and sticks up, but very few blows to just the head. I'm jumping to conclusions, but you put up a still frame of Kronwall's hit to try and make your point?? What does that one hit have to do with anything? As if Kronwall's one hit somehow proves anything about respect? Of course there's going to be clean hits that lead to concussions. But you're ignoring all the hits that have happened in the last few seasons that are borderline, at best. Shots to the head where little contact, if any, is made to the body. It's not that there isn't any respect across the board. But there's a breed of players out there who are willing to make these borderline hits time and time again. Guys who don't pull up when it's a questionable situation. Guys who pop a shoulder into someone's head as they skate by. My main point was that there seems to be a hell of a lot more shots to the head (with little or no body contact) in recent seasons than there have been in all the years I've been watching hockey. My original statement was that "some people disagree with the lack of respect argument" or say that the game has always been this way. I'm saying it hasn't. But since you love to argue more than actually talk hockey, you nitpick the "lack of respect" part and get into some pointless discussion that comes down mostly to semantics, and apparently a freeze frame of one of Kronwall's clean hits.

I can't say I disagree. As long as the Wings can keep it together enough to make it into the playoffs, I'd rather Holland spend the money at the deadline.

I thought of that. I'm sure Center Ice and Youtube have a lot to do with raising awareness about questionable hits. But that still doesn't account for all of it. There's a lot more headshots now than there have been. That video you posted only confirms what I'm saying, as most of those arent elbows or shoulders to the head in the open ice like there has been lately. Guys gets sticks up during and after the hit (its not like I'm saying they were angels then) but that kind of stuff is a lot less likely to cause a concussion than a shoulder to the head of a guy who's not expecting to get hit. And those are supposed to be the best hits of a the decade. Someone could put together a highlight reel with more headshots from this season alone. There wasn't youtube back then, but there was HNIC, and they sure weren't talking about hits to the head as a major problem in the 80s.

Agreed. Some people disagree with the lack of respect argument, or say that hockey is a tough game and it's always been this way. But I've been watching hockey since the early 80s and I sure don't remember the amount of headshots that we've seen already this season. The game has changed. When you watch the hockey hits from the 80s, maybe a couple of them will be questionable headshot, and we're talking about a decade. Now there's one per week.

Good for him, especially because this should pre-empt any posts by people wanting the Wings to bring him back.

Umm, his team apparently has a different answer. Weird. http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=4635951

True. And they seem to bring out the worst in each other. But we're comparing a guy with 300+ games at the NHL level to one with 60. Ericsson is going to make some rookie mistakes. Being paired with Lebda isn't helping.

I knew it was more than just personal fixation on him when even the commentators from Hockey Night in Canada mentioned his mistakes several times through the course of the night.

Osgood has sucked in games this season, last night wasn't one of them. I'm not saying he was great, but in terms of responsibility i'd lump him in the middle of the pack. That bad 1st goal, which I agree was a momentum changer because the Wings just had a great shift, was due to a bad pinch by Ericsson, Draper falling down trying to cover, and Lebda displaying a beautiful backwards screen, where he doesn't go down all the way to actually block the shot, he just sort of squats while skating backwards so he screens as much of the shooter as possible. I would've loved for Ozzy to make that save, but I don't fault him for not making it since he could hardly see it. I'm guessing the turnovers playing the puck are a symptom of the general disorganization that the whole team, including Ozzy, as shown. Lidstrom had an awful turnover with a pass right in front of his own net a couple games ago, then on the replay I saw it was a miscommunication with Helm. The puck control thing will probably sort itself out. I'm more worried about which Osgood will show up on a given night. The Wings don't need game stealing saves, right now they need consistency to help right the ship.

Which goals last night should have been routine saves? You lurk until you check the game stats and see a high goal count, then jump into multiple threads with your cute little beachball picture. I'm not some blind ozzy worshipper. He started awful, has had a few good games, and was average last night. I'm still betting you didn't watch the game. back to the original thread, posting this after a couple good games by Ozzy is as pointless as creating one to get rid of him after a bad game.

When you regularly make gaffes that end up with the puck in your net, that's noticeable on the big picture. I don't think people are expecting Lebda to bail out the Wings. We just want him to not screw up in so many major ways. We're not talking about a few bad decisions. It's consistently awful play. This is his 5th season in the NHL, and he plays like a callup from Grand Rapids, at best. As I've said before, now that Lebda is paired with a rookie, he's being exposed for the mess that he is.

It's not like I think this was all managements fault. Obvious a lot was on Quincey's shoulders to prove himself. As I've said over and over, I just think it's funny that people don't think that just maybe the wings management missed something, and/or painted themselves into a corner. The total reluctance to give responsibility to anyone other than Quincey baffles me. Maybe, just maybe, Quincey had the tools to succeed given the right situation and could've been a valuable defenseman on this team. But he didn't step up enough, AND management, for whatever reason, missed his potential. My guess would be he was a victim of two things. One, the ridiculously long time the Wings keep players in the minors and two, the logjam created on defense at the time by re-signing Chelios. And I think you're overstating Babcock's power here. He raved about Ericsson for a looong time, even saying he couldn't believe he wasn't in the lineup. Sure he can give his opinion, but he definitely doesn't have the power to get a guy into the lineup just because he wants him there. The Wings get it right a lot more often than they get it wrong, but it's like brainwashing around here. No one can conceive that the Wings could possibly have gotten one wrong. I guess a Stanley Cup will have that effect. Because without it, there would probably be a whole forum dedicated to how much Holland sucks. The Wings get it right most of the time, but they mishandled Quincey. Not only did they not see the potential he had, but they also backed themselves into a situation where they lost a prospect for nothing. That's all I'm saying.

Yes, Holland and co. couldn't have made a mistake, therefore Quincey just didn't show anything. It's all Quincey's fault. For the record, he didn't walk, they were forced to put him on waivers and he was picked up. You are grossly oversimplifying what happened.

try watching a game once in a while. then come back and post.

Sorry to break it to you, but you stating an opinion on the matter does not magically make it a fact, or a definitive enough answer to end the discussion. On the contrary, as good as the Wings are at finding hidden talent, it's surprising that Quincey turned into the player he is, and worth discussing exactly what happened. As I said to Drake, it's funny that people like yourself find no fault in the Wings management that put a player on waivers who last season played 20+ minutes a night and racked up 38 points, and now plays 25 minutes a night for Colorado and has 10 points in 17 games.

I'd guess nothing will be done, unless they can find some team fool enough to trade for him. Otherwise he's a UFA at the end of the season. They better not re-sign him.

That's as unfunny as it was when you posted it in the GDT. I'm guessing either you didn't watch the game, or don't really know much about hockey so fixate on the last guy to prevent the goal. Sure I would've loved Ozzy to make a huge save on one of those, but all but the last one were pretty solid goals, not softies.

Yes, I did watch him. That's revisionist history to say he was horrendously bad for 18 months straight, even when you put it in all caps. He wasn't horrendously bad. He played like a rookie with little NHL experience, which he was. Here's some info from a more objective source, Red Wings prospect tracker, during some of the time you're speaking of. http://www.redwingscentral.com/prospects/quincey.php He didn't magically find all these abilities when the Wings got rid of him. It's funny to me how you don't find any of the decision makers in the Red Wings responsible for the loss of Quincey. He may not have stood out enough, but they also missed something too. Not to mention painting themselves into a bad corner by keeping Chelios. So you can keep pretending that he was horrendous for a year and a half, but it's not true.

The fact that you keep repeating the SOG makes me think you didn't even see the game, and are just clinging to stats. Ozzy was good enough tonight. Doc's assessment of the goals is pretty accurate. He absolutely needs to play better, but in the list of reasons why they lost tonight, he wasn't near the top.

Lebda isn't on the penalty kill. Thankfully.