Dabura

Maybe Helm should be in our top six.

He definitely needs to be better, sharper. It's like he gets bored and zones out.

It's incredible how bad we are.

The icing on the cake will be the game on Wednesday. After all these losses, most of them to middling teams, we're gonna blow out the Boston Bruins. And then we're gonna go right back to sucking.

Win or lose, I think we're way past the joke mark. We're closer to a dumpster fire.

I'm starting to regret creating this game. People could die. Easily.

GET DANIEL CLEARY OFF THE EFFING ICE

Future Red Wing Elias Lindholm with a beautiful snipe in the Sens-'canes game.

Mick's about to throw a fit about the icings, lol. No, it means we don't want to win.

Miscues all over the place. Monster is getting the job done.

I really wonder about our conditioning and all-around fitness sometimes. I get that we're older, and tonight is the back end of a back-to-back, but we look so incredibly gassed. Which is...how we look most nights.

It's perfectly fair to say Holland wasn't adequately prepared for Lidstrom's departure. Because he wasn't. Nick left, Holland wasn't expecting it, he went for Suter, he struck out, and that was pretty much the end of it. I'm not saying he necessarily should've done this or that. But, I mean, he didn't really do anything until after the fact (Nick's retirement). Which isn't like him. To be fair, maybe it's not possible to be "adequately prepared" for such a loss. Honestly, it probably isn't. But what gets me is that he seemed content to not do anything. To just wait until the damage was done, and then do damage control. Why not get a head start? Especially with Stuart and Rafalski also being gone. It might save you a season or two of figuring things out, which would be a season or two more with Datsyuk and Zetterberg and the rest of the core. Maybe get Smith in there "early" and give him good exposure to Nick Lidstrom so that, by this point in time, he might possibly be a top defenseman in the league (at the very least, he'd be better than he is now). Essentially, we lost a living legend for nothing. Which could've been Suter, true - but you don't really want to pin that much on a potential UFA acquisition. Look, I'm not spewing venom here. I'm saying Holland "fell asleep at the wheel," if you will. And that it bothers me.

Ah, but that's what was so great about the '08 team - it showed that we actually could have a complete team. Or am I looking back through rose-tinted glasses? I mean, I know LGWers had issues with the team...but even so: Wasn't it a pretty complete team? I totally get what you're saying, and I don't necessarily disagree with any of it. But, I will say: I'm not just looking at this one game. I mean, I guess I am, but as a microcosm. We are a team that has scoring issues and "toughness" issues. It's probably not realistic that we fix both issues, so, which one do you think is the more pressing one? Or could we perhaps kill two birds with one stone? (Taking advantage of our golden opportunities - which we have struggled to do in recent seasons - would win us games, and might get physical teams to think twice before roughing us up. Or, on the other hand, a bigger, tougher, meaner roster - which might be easier to ice than an ultra-elite one - might accomplish the same thing, giving our goal-scorers more space and protection and maybe getting physical teams to back off.) I'm just curious what people think "The Problem" with this team is. Because it's somewhat rare that you have a reasonably elite team that has issues on both sides of the spectrum (not enough quality skill, not enough quality sandpaper). But maybe that's not really the case at all and I'm completely off-base here. I'm open to that.

I'm not going to go much deeper into the Lidstrom debate, because it always goes the same way. Someone makes a perfectly reasonable point - that Holland was not adequately prepared (and he wasn't) - and it degenerates into, "Well, tell me what he should've done, or else your argument holds no water." Again, I'm not the genius GM. He is. Which is why it surprises me that he was caught with his pants down like he was and had to scramble for spare parts...to "replace" the second-greatest defenseman in the history of the game. My ability to make a list of guys who he maybe coulda/shoulda/woulda gone after shouldn't really have any bearing on the assertion that, whatever Holland's options were or weren't, Lidstrom's departure came several years earlier than Holland (and everyone?) was expecting, and, accordingly, he really hadn't put ANYTHING into motion in the hopes of really easing the transition, cushioning the blow. Deals can always be made. Players can always be had. Things can alwas be done. To say, "There is absolutely nothing Holland could've done to better prepare for Lidstrom's departure" is, I think, really lame - because, as far as I can tell, he didn't do ANYTHING to seriously prepare for the possibility that Nick might be gone sooner than everyone had been thinking and hoping! All - or at least maybe half - of this experimenting we're doing with the blue line, bringing the youngsters along and finding out Kyle Quincey is terrible, should've already been happening, if not as seriously as it is now. It - again - shouldn't have come down to "Suter or bust!" Again, it's a very simple idea I'm pushing here. Holland was assuming Nick would be around longer, and that assumption was a misstep on his part. Even if I were the most ardent Ken Holland supporter, I'd probably acknowledge this point and conede that, yeah, it does kinda bug me. (Because Ken Holland IS the best GM in hockey. That's why it gets me.)

But, regardless of what people were saying, we did have an infinitely better, and tougher, bottom six. The Grind Liners. A young and explosive Darren Helm. Dallas Drake. Like I said, that was an extremely well-balanced team. It had everything.

Now, to be fair (and clear), I'm not saying Holland was completely unprepared. I'm saying he was inadequately prepared. That's not the same as saying, "He didn't find a new Lidstrom! Hang him!" It's saying, "Our blue line should be better than it is now." Holland's main job, or one of his two or three main duties, is to make this team as good as it can possibly be. And I think he dropped the ball there, re: Lidstrom's retirement. He was left to make a rather desperate pitch for an all-star free agent and then, upon striking out there, scramble around like a GM who...well...was inadequately prepared. I mean, he snatched up Carlo Colaiacovo at the last minute, and that was supposed to be a pretty big deal for our blue line. That alone should be pretty telling. I'm not saying I would've been able to do a better job. But I'm not the genius GM, he is. And, honestly, I think he'd probably admit to being underprepared if someone were to ask him about it. He'd almost certainly say you can't replace Lidstrom, and I think that's a lame truism, but I think he'd admit he really wasn't fully prepared, that Nick's decision had suddenly put him in a really bad spot (because he'd just assumed Nick had another season or two or three or four in him). It just gets to me that the writing was on the wall (especially with Rafalski's retirement), but no one really seemed to notice it. Hell, I certainly didn't see Nick's "early retirement" coming. But, again, I'm not the GM. Right now, my hope is that we grab an all-star defenseman this summer through free agency. That's our best bet. But it probably shouldn't have come to that.

It's a very simple notion that I'm pushing. You can't lose Brad Stuart, Nicklas Lidstrom, and Brian Rafalski and "just kinda run with it." Especially when the clock on your two franchise forwards is ticking ever more loudy. Like I said, you don't flat-out replace #5. But you also don't sit on your hands and assume Lidstrom will play into his late forties, which is what Holland seems to have been doing. Have some kind of safety net in place, an actual plan that you've put into motion. Fortification. Compensation. Hole-filling by committee. Don't say, "Well, when Nick retires...we'll just sign the next-best thing. Boom. Problem solved." Don't say, "Look, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Don't be a lazy fool. Prepare like your life depends on it, because Lidstrom is your team. Think of it this way. Some animals hibernate in the winter. The ones who have their s*** together well in advance are, generally, the ones who fare the best. Winter is a big-ass deal, but that doesn't mean you get a pass for not really doing much to prepare. You don't want to be the bear sitting in the middle of a blizzard saying, "Well, what was I supposed to do? You can't stop winter."

Well, I'm just trying to be reasonably open-minded and objective, because I don't want this thread to have an inherent slant with regards to the central question (and because I'm genuinely not sure what I feel we really need the most). That being said, maybe a goon is the answer. I know I wouldn't mind having a Colton Orr in our ranks. But I'm not sure if that's The Answer to All Our Problems, or if such an Answer even exists. Maybe it's like Sean McIndoe says: the Red Wings' suckage has been a true team effort, the result of a host of issues, not just one or two.

This is going to be interesting.

I was really happy with Smith last night. Played a good game and showed some balls going up against someone who is, let's be honest, one of the very best in the league at what he does. If anything, though, his performance made me that much more eager for him to get a look up front, when DD returns. Broken record, I know, but I really believe he could do a lot of damage on the forecheck with his speed, size, willingness to get his nose dirty, and high-end skillz. We could really use some "pop" up front. Then again, we could also really use it on the back end. Either way, good on Smitty.

In a way, I'm glad. I feel like discipline would just lead certain teams to want to take it to us even harder. If that makes any sense.

I don't think playoff spots are really the main issue here. It's more (from where I stand, at least) that we got exposed on two fairly distinct fronts: we had no answer in terms of muscle and toughness, and we had no answer in terms of scoring. And, regarding that second one - it's true, all we have to do is score on one of those missed opportunities and we may very well win that game. But...doesn't that sound kinda familiar? Haven't we been saying, "All we have to do is score on one of those several thousand golden, gift-wrapped opportunities and we're in business" for awhile now? That's why I ask: Is it not toughness we need but, rather, clutch scoring? We didn't necessarily lose to the 'hawks because they out-toughed us. We couldn't buy a goal when we really, really, really needed one. Or you could take a different angle and say that more muscle and toughness would lead to more goals. I'm not trying to make this a "WE NEED MOAR GOONS" show.

Give it up for the oldest of our old guys. Had a not-so-great start, but has been a huge for us over the past several games. This could end up being an incredible signing.

My issue there is it shouldn't have come to that. It shouldn't have been Suter-and-Parise-or-bust. It should've been, "Well, we'd certainly love to have Suter and Parise, but we'll still be in very good shape if we don't land them." Instead, it was "We need these guys (more Suter than Parise) or we're majorly screwed." Tellingly, right after we struck out there, Holland's big thing became The Central Importance of Drafting Well and Promoting from Within, Not Trying to Bring in Outside Help. Because that's never been the Red Wing way! (*cough '99*, *cough '02*)

I don't want to make too big a deal out of last night's lost, but I will say...you hope this wasn't a "reverse-statement game." One that tells every team in the league: push this team around. Take it to them. Rough them up. You can get away with it (re: the officiating and our sorry-ass power play that's supposed to be our big enforcer/deterrent).