Dabura

Have fun!

SNAKE EEEEEEEATERRRR

Eyes on the prize. Jack Hughes.

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It definitely feels icky. Here's to hoping it doesn't become the norm...

My body is ready.

Seems to me like Jensen is exactly the kind of player the Leafs should be targeting. Getterdunken.

Aw geez, now you're doin' me a sads right about now.

Should've signed Hossa.

Larkin's actually been back for a few games now. (Only missed the Ottawa game.) He registered two assists against Vegas and scored our only goal against Buffalo, so, from a production standpoint, he's still getting the job done. However, it did seem to me like he ran hot and cold in each the past two games, oscillating between being noticeable and...kind of invisible, honestly. The fact that you watched some of yesterday's game and didn't notice he was playing sort of confirms it... It didn't help that we faced a couple of hungry wildcard-chasing teams in their buildings. Specifically, having last change allowed the Sabres and 'hawks to exploit our serious lack of scoring depth in the matchups game. Contain Larkin and you contain the Wings. Mantha...is frustrating. Vanek...is frustrating.

I feel like he's more dynamic than people think. Even me describing him as an "offensive defenseman" in my previous post sells him a bit short, IMO. He's got some snarl in his game and I feel he has the capacity to be a legit all-situations two-way guy, kind of like Kronwall. Like Blashill says, he's a baller. I guess it was to be expected. Eventually stuff balances out and you see where a player is truly at. Cholowski came into this season as a raw but promising offensive defenseman who has a whole lot to learn about defending. He rode some big minutes and a wave of confidence and he caught the league off-guard, but the league caught on and now he's being exposed as...a raw but promising offensive defenseman who has a whole lot to learn about defending. I'm surprised he hasn't been sent to Grand Rapids. Seems Blashill and Holland believe that him taking his lumps in the NHL is what's best for him, which I'm ok with. I suppose there's an element of "We can't not have a rookie defenseman in the lineup every night. Not in a transition year." A lot of the shot-callers in the organization have said they want to bring our top prospects along more quickly than they have in years past.

You wanted: "It's like a Norwegian whirlpool or something. Also, there was an Epcot ride. You should probably just hit up Google, cuz learning is fun and stuff." You got: [proper info dump that gives you all the info you could possibly want and need, and all I had to do was grab some URLs]. So, extra 80 seconds of effort on my part --> much more thorough answer for the person who asked me what a maelstrom is. This is why the Red Wings pay me the big bucks.

Let's meet in the middle: Habs crash out of the playoff race and trade Tatar to the Stars and the Stars go on to win the Cup. I would be ok with that.

mods plz ban

In other Czechbro news, Hronek is killing it in the AHL this season to the tune of 7 goals and 23 points thru 27 games. While he hasn't exactly set the world on fire in his stints with the Wings this season, he did quietly manage to register 3 goals and 10 points thru 23 games. That's roughly a 40-point pace. Not that I think he would've hit 40 points in a full 2018-19 season with the Wings (see: Cholowski hitting a brick wall after his very impressive start), but the point is he remains a very promising offensive defenseman.

Filip Zadina will play some games for Red Wings before season ends [MLive.com] Filip Zadina will get shot in NHL before end of the season [The Detroit News]

Zadina with a goal, his 13th of the season. So that's 13 goals and 25 points thru 41 games. Nothing earth-shattering, but it's pretty good for a teenage AHL rookie. His -14 rating is pretty damning tho.

Thoughts: - Teams have caught on to the fact that we willingly forfeit the top half of our zone in exchange for being in better position to clog the high-danger areas, and now they're figuring out how to exploit it. This is three straight games now where the opposition deliberately and continually backed us in with fast, aggressive dagger-thrust entries into our zone (made possible because our defensemen are generally afraid to keep a tight gap between the blue lines, because half of them can't skate and they don't want to get burned in neutral ice) and then got the puck to the late man who -- wait for it -- found himself all alone in the high slot. - Cholowski is -20 on the season and he isn't putting up points and he isn't generating anything on the power play. Rough. - AA is doing everything but score. He's scoring at will, minus the scoring part. Frustrating, but he's playing really well overall and I hope he sticks with it and doesn't start cheating for offense and playing like a poo brain. - I'm glad we didn't sign Mantha to a long-term deal. - Our transition game struggled enormously today, mostly because most of our first and second passes were crap. Defensemen hitting players in full stride with a clean, crisp tape-to-tape pass is simply not something this Wings team does, at least not with any regularity. That's on the passers as much as it's on the intended receivers. Drag the puck to our blue line --> wait for all the forwards to slow down and stand at the opposition blue line --> pass it into someone's skates or hit him with a pass and watch him pass-tip/dump it into the zone (because everyone's literally standing still at the blue line and so there's no skating momentum with which to enter the zone). Sad! - So. Many. Turnovers. - We have positional needs. These holes include but are not limited to 2C and 1D. But let's not sleep on the fact that no one on this team is a high-percentage shooter, the kind of sniper who you can count on to help your team outscore your mistakes. When you as a team are averaging about two goals a night, there's no room for error and it's both demoralizing and paralyzing. (I've played on teams with this problem. It's miserable.) That's why we drafted Zadina and that's why having a damn good shot at landing a guy like Hughes or Kakko is so important.

https://www.nhl.com/standings/2018/league Points update: Nyquist (1G) - 14 goals and 47 points thru 56 games

The Dad Trip of Doom continues.

Devils are about to win. That would put us in 30th place.

Chicago with the empty-netter. This one's done. I would say the Wings played well, but I'd be lying.

Kane scores. 2-4.