Dabura

Yandle's one of the premier offensive defensemen in hockey; he's consistently been good for 10+ goals and 40+ points on a team that's perpetually short on high-end skill and scoring. He's not a great defender, no, but he's so good at moving the puck, driving the attack, and generating offense that he 1) doesn't spend much time in the d-zone anyway, and 2) can really help his team outscore his and their mistakes. I won't bring fancy stats into this discussion, but I'll also point out that he hasn't missed a game in six years, partly because he doesn't spend a lot of time in the d-zone and, by extension, doesn't subject himself to much physical abuse at the hands of opposing forwards. (It helps that he's a fantastic skater.) Babcock wants this to be a relentless attacking team like what we had with Rafalski and Lebda. That means our breakouts and transition game have to improve above and beyond what I feel our current D corps is capable of providing. We have plenty of steady, responsible shutdown options (Kronwall, Ericsson, DeKeyser, Quincey, Lashoff, Ouellet, Marchenko), and that's great, but I think we need to add a gamebreaking offensive defenseman if we're going to really, truly compete for the Cup. I'd love for that guy to be superb at both ends of the ice, but then we're talking about an extremely short list of all-stars.

The Leafs are only five points behind us, with a game in hand. And, as we all know, our next two games are against the dreaded Panthers and the Leafs. We can't keep leaving points on the table in the shootout. And we can't spring our forwards for 800 breakaways in one night and not score on a single one of them. The team needs to take this seriously and really work on it during practices.

We is a contender.

What I mean is, it looks like he's playing hurt.

This team is good. Just saiyan. I'm worried about Z, though. Something's definitely not right with him.

Well, you have to look at them on a case-by-case basis. This one gives the Pens a useful, underrated depth forward for a prospect who didn't really have a future with the Pens. The Pens' bottom six is iffy, and they're missing Dupuis, Kunitz, Bennett, and Hornqvist (not to mention Letang on the blue line) - so they need help. On the Coyotes' end, the prospect - Phillip Samuelsson (son of Ulf) - has a younger brother - Henrik - who's a Coyotes prospect and is currently playing for the Coyotes' AHL farm team. Tthey were both raised in Scottsdale.

Detroit holds early scout meeting, 'absolutely' wants 'two or three more right shots' Hmmm...

Kindl would be one of their better defensemen. That's how bad it is.

Coyotes may be looking to make a trade (EDIT: Has that already been discussed? Sorry!)

I like the idea of Petry as a Wing. It makes sense. I don't know if he makes us a better team, though. If he weren't a RH shot, we probably wouldn't be all that interested. I'd prefer Franson or Green, assuming the price is right. Schultz is terrible on the defensive side of the puck. I mean really, truly, unbelievably, mindblowingly terrible. Soft as silk and clueless. Do not want.

The defense has really not been good of late. Kronwall has to set the bar higher for himself and the D corps. He's made a number of brutal mistakes over the past few games and you can almost sense the rest of the defensemen sort of unconsciously falling in line and following his lead. DeKeyser's been noticeably off (and he needs to cut his damn hair). Quincey's taking a bad penalty every game and is guaranteed to be on the ice for at least one goal against every night. Ericsson remains out of his depth on the first pairing, Smith isn't really progressing the way I'd deally like (though, he was looking pretty good prior to the infection), and you know what you're getting from Kindl (some good, some bad). It's tough because defense has actually been a real point of strength for us this season. But you can definitely tell on a night like tonight that this team is missing something on the back end. We're not precise enough in our breakouts, which hurts out transition game, which hurts our attack, which means less time in the o-zone, which means fewer goals for us than we'd like and fresher legs for the opposition than we'd like (because we're not pressuring them and wearing them down). And three of our top-four defensemen aren't offensive threats in the o-zone, which is a serious issue in itself.

With the Panthers being solidly in the Wild Card picture and the Sabres being one of the hottest teams in the league...the Atlantic is suddenly kind of scary.

Meh. We all knew this was gonna be a loss. It's the Panthers. Wow, Buffalo beat Tampa (albeit, in a shootout). And Carolina beat Nashville. Maybe it's just one of those nights. Better not lose against Dallas. They've been pretty dreadful thus far.

So Ed Snider called out the Flyers' underachieving scorers, by name. Among those named: Wayne Simmonds. Just saying.

As soon as I heard it was "day-to-day," I knew it was at least two weeks. That's how it goes these days. I'd like to see Pulkkinen get at least a cup of coffee sometime soon, but I don't see it happening unless injuries rob us of some serious scoring depth. He's not a Mike Babcock Player, and I'm sure Kenny wants him to continue being The Guy on a Griffins team that needs to re-establish itself as a top team and go on a deep run.

Right, I agree. This is all I'm really getting at, that they're in the conversation. By pretty much all measures, this is one of the better teams in the league right now and the success isn't unsustainable (i.e. we're not relying on stellar goaltending and unsustainably high shooting percentages, i.e. we're not the Flames - which is a good thing). There's really no rush. Ouellet's only in his second pro year and, as such, he's only a third-pairing defenseman on the Wings at this point- and Kindl's been pretty good for us. Sproul's only in his second pro year and flat-out isn't ready. Marchenko's only in his second pro year and he's essentially a simple defensive defenseman (who, remember, is coming off a serious injury and isn't 100% "right" yet), something we're not exactly dying for right now. Backman's in his first full pro year and flat-out isn't ready. Jensen had a good camp, but he's not really a high-end player, and he missed a lot of time because of that injury. If we're looking for legitimate top-four help, we'll have to look outside the organization. Green, Petry, Franson...

Martin...St. Louis?

Hicketts is a stud.

Brent Burns should be be moved...back to forward. No way does he get traded. Give me Cody Franson. I like him. Footspeed is an issue, but he's a consistent point-producer, he shoots right, he's good on the power play, and he's got a big frame.

The Wings' offense has really come alive this month. I think we scored four or more goals in all of our victories. This win over the Devils is especially cool because of who scored: Sheahan, Ouellet, Abdelkader, Miller. We're getting contributions from everyone now. We do need increased production from the back end, though. Cody Franson could really help that cause.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2014/11/26/chelios-calls-ex-teammate-shanahan-an-inexperienced-politician/ Yeah, Babcock is definitely going to Toronto. It just makes sense.

Personally, I define "contender" as a top-ten team. I don't think there should only be four or five contenders at any time. I call those teams favorites. They're the four or five best teams in the league, but there are five or six or seven other teams that are good enough to go deep in the playoffs and maybe win it all. I think the Wings might be one of the ten best teams in the league, if not right now then by deadline time. In this sense, I think you could argue they're contenders. Does that mean I honestly think they're right there with Tampa Bay? Nope. But we're much, much closer to the top than we are to the bottom.

http://www.hockeywilderness.com/2014/9/25/6843523/wilderness-walk-zach-parise-stat-nerd-edition