Dabura

Six goals against the Habs, and he slams Weber's head against the glass. Likin' that #11 on him.

tank, duh

Agreed. I kinda wish we could get Eric Staal on a short, low-risk deal. Staal becomes our (stopgap) 2C, Nielsen gets bumped down to 3C, Glendening gets bumped down to 4C. We'd still suck, but I bet we'd score more goals. Then, when Staal's contract is up, one of the young centers in our system should be ready to take over for him and own that 2C role.

Totally fair. Can't say I strongly disagree. Fortunately, all of this is probably moot, as we know there's gonna be line juggling and such. That's probably part of it. I'm guessing the big reason is that there really isn't much in his game that says he ought to be playing center. He's not an especially good playmaker, he's not especially good defensively, he's not especially good on faceoffs...

How much of that is a lack of shot attempts tho? (Assuming we're dealing in shot-based possession metrics here.) Zadina firing shots from all over the o-zone might slightly improve that picture.

I mean, you're not wrong. The elephant in the room is that our center depth kind of falls off a cliff once you get past Larkin @ 1C... Nielsen's a 3C playing 2C Glendening's a 4C playing 3C AA's more effective on the wing than he is at center Rasmussen isn't ready to be a full-time centerman Helm doesn't play center anymore

Personally, I don't mind the AA-Glendening pairing as much as many people on the internet mind it. As Blashill says, AA is a "self-generator," i.e. he can make things happen on his own. In that sense, he's like Larkin. On the one hand, the idea of having two Larkins on one line sounds great. On the other hand, maybe that's too many cooks in the kitchen. Maybe Larkin and AA (and Mantha?) are often looking to do the same thing and sort of stepping on each other's toes. That being said, I think Bertuzzi-Larkin-Mantha works as well as it does largely because it's three different types of players playing three different roles. The players complement each other. When AA plays with Glendening, he has the green light to be THE driving force on his line. He's expected to make a lot of stuff happen "by himself," and I'd say that suits his game pretty well. I do really like AA-Larkin-Mantha/Bertuzzi in man-advantage situations and when we're pressing for goals.

Blashill's reasoning: Glendening is good defensively. In theory, that counterbalances the defensive shortcomings of Vanek and Zadina Glendening is a tenacious forechecker, good at retrieving pucks. Vanek is old and slow and Zadina is going to be physically overmatched in most o-zone trench battles, so having a grinder on the line makes some sense Glendening is our best faceoff guy. In theory, winning more faceoffs than not --> more time spent spent with the puck and less time spent trying to get the puck back I'm good with this. Glendening's our 3C and Vanek gets a lot of ice time, so Zadina's starting on the third line, where he can get good minutes without having to go head-to-head with the other team's best players.

Notes: Zadina excited to make his NHL debut with Wings Sunday [DetroitRedWings.com] tl;dr Vanek-Glendening-Zadina Vanek as mentor. Vanek is a similar player with similar draft pedigree and he speaks fluent Czech Blashill wants Zadina to shoot. Vanek will get lots of pucks to him and he should be looking to shoot those pucks, not defer to someone else Zadina will get PP time. Practiced with Bertuzzi, Nyquist, Rasmussen, Green, but Blashill seemed to suggest he'd be on the first unit (with Vanek) PP cont'd: Blashill likes Zadina on the off-wing wall where he can rip one-timers

Weed makes you lazy and suck.

Rasmussen won't be sent to junior: Wings keeping Rasmussen is 'best for his development' [Detroit Free Press]

Holy crap, tweets actually render for me now! Thanks, Firefox update! (I guess!)

Detroit Red Wings great Larry Murphy rehired by Fox Sports Detroit [Detroit Free Press] Welcome back, Murph! Meme magic is real.

I think the implied point about Bowey = (23-year-old) Jensen is a fair one.

HYPE! LGRW!