Dabura

Eh, I'm not a fan of zero control hockey. If you have the puck in front of your net, and a second later it's in the back of your net, you screwed up. I'm not saying Kronner should be roasted, just that it's a learning experience.

Not really comparable; in that situation, you're deliberately aiming for the goal -- specifically, with the intent of putting the puck in the net. Kind of a moot point, though. Anyhow, I don't remember the "Kronwall goal" in great detail, but I do remember thinking, "Poor decision." That, in my mind, is probably the biggest knock against him at this point in his career (aside from injury problems): decision-making. But it'll improve with time.

But seriously, Pens fans can screw off. Besides, isn't Crosby, like, Gretzky x 12 or something? Don't see why he'd need help from a lowly mortal like Marian Hossa. psh

Here's an idea: instead of asking me why the Wings don't need to carry an enforcer to succeed, how about asking Mike Babcock? After all, it was him, not me, that sat Downey for the entire postseason run and only played him in the regular season when injuries essentially forced his hand. That's not to say I think enforcers are completely worthless -- I've never made that argument. Rather, it's to illustrate that the coach of the Detroit Red Wings doesn't even put much stock in fighting -- at least, not within the Wings' system. "Hey Mike, good to see you. Listen, judging by your championship season, I think it's pretty clear this team needs to fight more and get tougher. Thoughts?"

I'm not anti-enforcer; I'm anti-making completely unnecessary, borderline detrimental changes to a winning formula. If this team's success owed a great deal to enforcing, I wouldn't be taking this stance. But the fact of the matter is that fighting means jack in this Wings system and all-around "toughness" hasn't been a problem for some time now. So then you go and say the Wings need more fights, more toughness. To that I say, again, Where is the proof?

For the record, I'm not saying the Ducks couldn't have gone all the way without Burke. I just object to the idea that the '07 Cup "was basically Murray's." Like Burke or not (I don't), he did more than "get lucky" with a couple of key acquisitions and sit on his good fortune.

In other words, you can't reasonably justify your position. Thanks for playing. Like eva said, highly debatable. It's also mostly moot; the most relevant season is the one that just happened. All the Wings did was steamroll through the postseason en route to winning the Cup, handily taking down the team that handily took down Anaheim and SJ. If we must go back to an earlier season, then we can go back to 06-07, in which the Wings physically dominated the Flames and Sharks in the postseason, went toe to toe with the Ducks (does no one remember the 5-0 rout?), and only lost because they were short two top d-men and were the victims of a bulls*** late call. Like eva said, a lack of "toughness" and "grit" has not been a problem for awhile now. That's because this is a Mike Babcock system, which both the players and management have bought into 100%. In a Mike Babcock system, the team has to be tough to a man; there's no, "Well, if we dress an enforcer, then suddenly we're tough." Because that's just idiotic.

I didn't say it was. My point was that he's getting paid more than Hudler, so it'll be easier on management's/Babs' "conscience" to have him playing the big minutes.

Well, that's the other side of the issue: his contract makes merit practically irrelevant. Hudler's making peanuts by comparison; thus, it's easier to put him on a lesser line.

I'm going to make this as simple as I can. - The Wings just won the Cup. - Downey played in the regular season, but only because the team was injured. - Beyond "boosting morale," he didn't make a huge impact. Proof: he was rewarded with exactly 0 minutes of postseason playing time. - For the playoffs, McCarty essentially took his spot -- not because "he's a better enforcer," but because he's a better all-around player. Proof: McCarty "enforced" only once, which is not surprising considering 1. He holds no weight as an enforcer these days, and 2. He wasn't being used in an enforcing capacity. - Logical extension: had Babs wanted MORE FIGHTS!1, he would have just dressed Downey, who could have easily racked up 8-10 fights versus Mac's 1. The fact that Babs dressed Mac over Downey means that Mac offers something Downey doesn't, and that Babs puts stock in it. - No poor, defenseless Wings were mauled at any point in the run. So tell me, where is the "need" for more fighting?

Sammy is best used as a checker, not a goal-scorer. He proved this with an exclamation mark while playing on a line with Drake and Draper, which saw him playing the best hockey he's ever played as a Wing. Knowing he gets on well with Draper, we have, so far, a checking line of ? - Draper - Sammy. What this line lacks is not a Flip-type player (i.e. a shifty setup man); what it lacks is a Cleary-type player (i.e. a tenacious workhorse who would've fit right in with the Grind Line of yesterday). In terms of offensive production, Cleary was ice-cold this past run. Granted, that likely owed more to his helmet situation than anything else. But it's not like sticking him with Draper and Sammy would be a grave injustice. So, third line: Cleary - Draper - Sammy. Fast, tenacious, defensively responsible, with a nice offensive upside. Very dynamic for a checking line. We know we're not going to put Franzen on the fourth line, and, ideally, he stays off the first. So, assuming ZDH stays together (which it should), that gives us a second line of Franzen - ? - Hossa. That's a crease-crasher coming off a monstrous run + a consistent, proven goal-scorer. Already, with just those two bodies, we know the goals will come. What could help the cause is a playmaker, and Flip fits the bill nicely. My opinion is that Flip tries to do too much. If Babs sits him down and says, "Focus on feeding your wingers," he should, I think, come into his own. Franzen - Filppula - Hossa. In theory, ZDH Jr. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Hudler deserves second-line minutes, but given this roster's makeup, he should play on the third or fourth. Do I think his size is an issue? Yes. Do I think his all-around game could stand to improve? Yes. Couldn't the latter also be said of Flip? Yes. But here's the crucial difference: I see Flip projecting as a solid playmaker with great vision and speed and Hudler as a straightaway goal-scorer. The second line as I'm envisioning it doesn't need a straightaway goal-scorer -- but that doesn't render him useless. More than a few times this past run he caught the other team off-guard, coming seemingly out of nowhere with a play that has no right being made by an energy line. That's the key: he gives the fourth line an edge, an "x factor," a guy who, if given room, will score. (He also likes to mix it up and run his mouth. Better to do that on the fourth than the second.) So yes, I like him on the fourth. He and Helm showed some chemistry; they have very different styles (shifty scorer and tenacious crash-and-banger), but the styles complement each other pretty nicely. That's a smallish line so far; throw in Kopecky's big body and you've got a solid energy line.

Maybe this is just a semantics issue, but I'd say he did more than fine-tune. To say he fine-tuned Murray's team implies that he kept Murray's work, his vision, his guiding philosophies more or less in place, making only minor adjustments here and there and basically "finishing what Murray started." To Murray's credit, he had put a good thing in place for Burke. But the Ducks that won the Cup in '07 were unmistakably a Brian Burke Team™ -- that is: big, tough, nasty, dirty, etc., but carrying enough pure talent to offset whatever damages the rampant thuggery might cost (i.e. PK mins.) on any given night. Burke gave the team an identity, one Murray had little interest in, and that went a long way towards winning it all in '07.

My lines are about as balanced an attack as you're going to get. Sammy is a checking-line forward who's been unfairly counted on to be a scorer. Stick him on a line with Draper and Cleary and you've got one hell of a checking line. (Again, see Drake - Draper - Sammy). Moreover, one could very reasonably argue that one of the reasons why Mule and Flip are "unproven" is that they've spent time with Sammy, who, as I just said, is a checking-line forward by design. So, in other words, you're looking at a great setup guy + a crease-crasher + ...a checker. Replace the checker with an elite goal-scorer and I guarantee you great things will happen. I can also guarantee you that when management and Babcock were fishing around for a goal-scorer, they weren't thinking, "We're gonna need to put ___x player___ on the first line." And really, why would they be thinking that? ZDH is fresh off mopping the floor with the Western Conference and those oh-so-dominant Penguins. If there was a noticeably weak link in the scoring attack, it was the fact that beyond Zetterberg and Datsyuk (and Franzen, who, perhaps unfairly, is a question mark right now), no one could be counted on for consistent production. Adding Hossa gives Babcock the option of sharpening the scoring attack while still keeping ZDH intact (which is just as well, as ZDH has never been "the problem." Historically, it's only been broken up when the second line is choking.) Sure, the idea of having an elite scorer worth 7 million playing on the second line seems weird, but the team lining up against those lines won't think it's weird -- more like, nightmarish.

In your case, it has everything to do with it. You like to argue that the Wings "need to fight more" because "everyone sees them as soft" and "it's important to send a message," and so on and so forth. Those are garbage points, ones you're more likely to hear from an 8-year-old than you are from Mike Babcock or Nick Lidstrom. You say you "understand perfectly what the Wings' mindset is," but then you go on to say, "I just don't see how having more fights will have any effect on our system one way or another," so you obviously don't "perfectly understand." Fighting is a borderline nonexistent part of the Wings' game. Every time someone tries to goad them into fighting, what they're really doing is trying to get the Wings off their game (which is, bottom line, about scoring more goals than the opposition and promptly getting off the ice). Teams have learned that they can't outright physically dominate this Wings team, and they sure as hell know beating them on the scoreboard is a monumental task. So, what they do is try for the cheap victories, e.g. getting in the Wings' heads, getting under their skin, maybe doing a number on one of them in a brawl while no one's looking. Instead of feeding into that crap, the Wings (usually) ignore it, because if it means throwing themselves off their game and possibly giving the other team a boost, it's absolutely not worth it, especially in the playoffs. You say that's a sign of weakness -- quite the opposite; it's a confirmation of dominance. When Iginla was losing it late in those games back in the 06-07 series, it wasn't just because of the scoreboard -- he knew his team was also being beaten physically (and they were), and that that was downright unacceptable for those Big, Bad Flames. So he tried to stir s*** up. But instead of giving him and his team something to rally behind ("YEAH WE LOST, BUT AT LAST I BROKE ZETTERBERG'S NOSE"), the Wings closed the door on the one kind of victory the Flames could have taken away in those late-game situations, leaving them sitting in their lock room stalls contemplating the impossibly dark reality that they can't beat this team on the scoreboard, in the physical contests, or even through sheer goonery. That's all kinds of demoralizing, and it did nothing but work in the Wings' favor. If Iginla wants to tell his golfing buddies, "Man, those Wings, they don't respond to thugs. They're so soft," let him.

If Homer's not playing with Hank or Dats, he's useless. Ideally, he plays with both, which you get with ZDH, which just so happens to be the most dominant line in the NHL. Putting Hossa on that line would therefore render Homer less effective (thereby rendering the second line even less effective, in my estimation), and would also put all of the Wings' eggs in one basket in terms of their top point-producers. Putting Hossa on the second line would, in theory at least, cause far more trouble for the opposition, as it'd be facing ZDH plus a line anchored by an elite goal-scorer who would be enjoying first-line duties on just about any other club. That's a monstrous one-two punch that's going to stretch any team's shutdown effort thin over the course of a best-of-seven series, with the Wings likely owning the home-ice advantage (i.e., the last change). Hossa's linemates should be Flip and Mule. I think that's a no-brainer; Flip gives Hossa a shifty, like-minded setup man and Mule gives the line a big power forward-type crease-crasher. On paper, that's an extremely dynamic line; speed, size, strength, hands, defensive responsibility -- everything. Cleary and Hudler both deserve second-line minutes, but given the makeup of this squad, I'd stick them on the third and fourth, respectively. Flank Draper with Cleary and Sammy and suddenly you've got a checking line that could be the second scoring unit on a lot of other teams.

Facts: 1. Avery was a Wing, so the Wings know all about him. 2. The Wings have two of the most annoying players in the game in Homer and Malts, so they know all about stirring s*** up. 3. The Wings face Jordin Tootoo on a consistent basis every season. Avery can't offer anything in the way of pestering that Tootoo can't -- except maybe running his mouth off in the media. 4. As someone already mentioned, the Wings steamrolled the Stars in all but two of those games this past series, and Turco stole at least one of those two games. Avery wouldn't have made any difference whatsoever. In short, Avery is a non-issue. However, the Stars are still arguably the biggest threat to the Wings' quest for a repeat.

This. I don't like Burke, but to say he's a "s*** GM" or whatever is just as stupid as calling him "amazing."

Nothing has to be changed around in the fighting department -- you're just trigger-happy is all. The Wings have a winning system that entails not giving in every time some jackass tries to goad them into a brawl, and fighting only when it's truly necessary. It works because, contrary to what you seem to believe, the late brawls we're talking about aren't clear-cut cases of "Respond = Good, Walk away = Bad." In those kinds of blowout games, the opposition wants the Wings to fight so they can steal some momentum/bragging rights and possibly do a number on someone. In the interest of not risking giving the opposition any momentum/bragging rights and not risking someone getting, say, a concussion, the Wings do the right thing in just skating away. I don't know, maybe this is just a maturity issue with you. In any case, what you have to understand is that "DUDE THEY WON'T RESPECT US IF WE DON'T FIGHT. FIGHTING PROVES WE'RE TOUGH YO" doesn't really fly in the Wings' system. They fight when they need to fight, and don't when they don't need to, and they're all the better for it.

The Wings do send a message in those cases: "Start booking your tee times." To fight would be to give the opposition what it wants, which could in turn translate into momentum. To skate away is to completely deny the opposition any kind of victory. About Roberts -- I think you might be the only one who honestly gives two s***s about how he "got shafted" or whatever. Roberts blindsided Mule (hardly fair); he got in a scrum in which he got the short end of the stick; he didn't blindside anyone the rest of the series. Yeah, he probably would've kicked Datsyuk's ass, but in terms of "sending a message," what really matters at the end of the day is that the guilty party didn't try s*** for the rest of the series. That's the basic goal of enforcing.

It's a lousy point. 2003 was five years ago -- ancient history by this league's standards. In 2007, injuries above all else led to the Wings' collapse. That 5-0 rout wasn't a fluke; had Datsyuk not been slapped with that bulls*** late call, the Wings would have gone on to win the series and no one would be talking about how Giguere "always gives us problems" today. Fact: Giguere ain't s***. If the Ducks have done one thing consistently well against the Wings since 2003, it's forcing them to play a perimeter game in the o-zone -- which, naturally, makes it damn near impossible to score on a guy whose greatest asset is his positional game (which really isn't even that solid), and whose pads might as well be big rig tires.

Now that we have Hossa to take his place on the second line, I have a feeling most of the complaints about him will be rendered moot this season.

I didn't mean to imply that Probert prevented s*** from happening. My point was more that we would need an enforcer of considerably greater clout (than Downey) before we could even begin to talk about preemptive deterrence ("Whoa s***! They dressed ___! Maybe I'll think twice before trying s***!") And even then, like you said, Probert couldn't even instill that kind of fear in people. Not consistently, at least. The point in all this being, enforcers respond, they don't preemptive strike. GMR, you have to be careful with retribution. If someone goes way out of line, you know they'll be taken to task (see Roberts). The trick is knowing when it's not in your team's best interest to respond. For example, you cited Malone -- the Wings were right to mostly ignore his s***, as they knew exactly what he was doing (trying to rattle the Wings, looking for a PP opp.), and that by not giving him what he wanted (a show of frustration, stupid penalties, etc.), they were winning that battle, forcing him (one of the Pens' supposed offensive weapons) into playing the part of a half-assed agitator instead of a focused goal-scorer. The Wings aren't in the business of saying, "Oh look, ___ is giving Hank a hard time. Let's pound him" because they're smart -- in this case, smart in the way they pick their battles.

Pretty much. Bottom line, Meech is the safer pick between the two in terms of the here and now. Ericsson has the greater upside in the long run, but given the current blue line situation, management can afford to hold back on his top-6 debut until he's 101% ready. Which, really, is probably in his best interest anyway. Just a side comment about Babcock's praise: I wonder if that wasn't a fancy bit of pimping...as in, for potential suitors. Not that I honestly think management has any intention of dealing him. But you never know....

Have you ever seen ZDH in action?

As Opie has said, dressing Aaron Downey will not ensure that our guys won't get roughed up. Now, maybe if we had, say, Probie, the opposition would think twice before trying anything. But as it stands, if the Wings dress a guy like Downey, his job is to respond to liberties taken with his team mates, not to completely deter them -- as that's entirely unrealistic. But really, the fact that Kenny's more concerned about re-signing Chelios than he is Mac or Downey should tell you something about how important enforcers are to this team. (Hint: not very.) And for good reason: this team proved it can handle itself in the postseason without the aid of an enforcer. If the Wings sign/re-sign an enforcer, he'll probably just be along for the ride in the regular season, a la Downey last season.