Dabura

Ugly second period. Wings look mentally disengaged right now.

Man, I want these two points so badly. Not as badly as I want two points out of the upcoming Pittsburgh game. But, still, this is a big game. LGRW!

I'm hoping Gallant was the Panthers' lucky charm against the Wings.

I thought he looked like the Good Jurco (i.e. healthy Jurco) that I fondly remember. His two-way game is underrated, he's a good possession player, he likes to use his size, he skates well, and he has a high-end skill set. People forget that he's only 23 (well, soon to be 24), which makes him a whopping one year (or two years, if you like) older than Mantha and Athanasiou. I was surprised by Blashill's post-game comments about him... http://www.freep.com/story/sports/nhl/red-wings/2016/11/30/detroit-red-wings-tomas-jurco-season-debut/94648522/ Nice to see him give a kid some straight-up praise.

Also: Mrazek with two straight solid performances. I wonder if the battle for #1 with Jimmy had robbed him of some of his mojo. He looks comfortable, confident. Also #2: It's still early days, but, thus far, Jonathan Ericsson has been one of our better possession players. Just as we all predicted.

I did not like Blashill putting Kronwall, Ericsson and Zetterberg out there to start that 4-on-4 late in the third. There were other things I didn't like, but I thought we played pretty well overall and deserved the two points. On a general note: I want to live in a world where Larkin, Mantha, Athanasiou, Jurco, Sproul and Ouellet are all in the lineup and doing awesome young guns things, like some kind of awesome young guns biker gang. Ouellet would of course be the leader of said hypothetical biker gang, because, seriously, that 'stache.

I would just like to say that a couple years ago I said that Mantha and Zetterberg would one day end up on a line together and develop great chemistry. /nostradamus

I like him much more as a winger. Frees him up to play a more straightforward, bull-in-a-china-shop game. I may be wrong, but...wasn't he a winger until his first stint with the Wings, when Babcock decided he was going to be a shutdown centerman?

The Wings said they intend to ease him back in with easy fourth-line minutes, so, for the time being, we know why he's on the fourth line. But, yeah, I'm hoping he shows well and gets re-acclimated pretty quickly, forcing a promotion to that "second" line. (Though, in fairness, that line has been pretty decent for us.)

Also, Mantha is tha Man. He was all over the Habs tonight, could've had a hand in three or four Wings goals. There's no way in hell they send him back to Grand Rapids. He's here to stay.

Tough loss to take. We were pretty thoroughly outplayed in the first but were the better team the rest of the way. My big takeaway? The Belle Tire Fire Power Play continues to kill us, all the while begging that somebody kill it, so that it may finally be put out of its godforsaken misery. Everything about it is wrong and awful. It is an unholy abomination. The strategy ("strategy"), the execution, the personnel choices, the role assignments -- it's stupid, stupid, stupid, wrong, wrong, wrong, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, kill it with fire, kill it with fire, kill it with fire.

Kronwall out, Ouellet in. https://www.nhl.com/redwings/news/niklas-kronwall-to-miss-canadiens-game-as-maintenance/c-284106912

Kick their f****** asses.

Right. I mean, I wouldn't expect him to score at a point-per-game clip or anything. But, Is a healthy Jurco an improvement over Ott/Miller? Yes. At the very least, Jurco has high-end skill and is a strong possession player and has shown in the past that he has the ability/potential to be an impact player at the NHL level when he's utilized properly. It's not like Ott, Miller, Sheahan, Glendening have been doing great things for us this season. Hell, our forward corps, on the whole, has been borderline inept.

I mean, he's not wrong. Nyquist Larkin Vanek Tatar Zetterberg Mantha Athanasiou Nielsen Abdelkader Bertuzzi Sheahan/Glendening Jurco As Borat would say: very nice!

I AM ROLLING MY EYES AT YOU

Had to step out in the middle of the game but was able to keep following along thanks to the wonders of mobile technology. Fun game and a hard-fought win. Great to see Larkin and Mantha light the lamp. Mantha is playing fantastic hockey and I couldn't be happier about it. I feel like if you replace Ott and Sheahan/Glendening with AA and Jurco...and locate Mrazek's lost mojo...and blow up the power play...and maybe change up the D pairings (DeKeyser may be our best left-side defenseman, but he is struggling mightily in his top-pairing role)...we might actually have a respectable playoff team.

Tweaked his groin somehow. Looked like it was kinda-sorta bothering him, as opposed to it really causing him a lot of pain. I'm hoping it's nothing serious.

Well, I guess I should note that my source is Helene. So, I guess it's technically not "official." But...yeah, it's a groin injury.

When AA returns, I want him and Nielsen on the same PK unit. Howard update: it's officially a groin injury.

Weak PP. (that's what she said)

That was a hell of a PK, even if you take away the SHG. Great team effort.

NIELSEN! AGAIN!

NIELSEN! SHG!

Honestly, I like Vegas's chances. It'll be their first major pro sports team, the city's a major tourist destination, the "hub" of the city never sleeps (having been to Vegas several times, I can personally confirm this), etc. This might turn into something special.