Dabura

Good changes. Not terribly substantial, but certainly better than the current setup.

Says the poster who accused me of looking only at stats when judging a player -- which is ignorant, presumptuous, and "disrespectful." But I'm not going to start a Hank v. Dats war in a GDT.

No, I'm not. But thanks for playing.

Yeah, no. But it's good to see him producing.

Been that way for about ten years. I've never really figured it out.

Gah, I wish I could see this game.

Holy crap, is the shots differential accurate?

If the Wings aren't careful, they'll get their asses handed to them by Vinny and St. Louis. They need to play a tight, smart game -- in other words, the opposite of Tuesdays game, which was one of the sloppiest performances I've ever seen from a professional hockey team.

He's getting his chances. No one's counting him out. Good god, people, get your heads out of your asses.

QFT. "What else can he do?" How about, you know, playing well?

You can't have it both ways and complain about a lack of fairness and respect in Babcock's treatment of Hasek while at the same time advocating more starts for him at Ozzie's expense, when Ozzie is playing the best hockey of his career and flat-out owning the opposition. Babs is doing the right thing, which is trying to establish at least some semblance of a meritocracy in net instead of saying, "Dom has been bad, Ozzie's been great. The logical solution is to not reward Ozzie. Huzzah." Moreover, while this may not seem obvious, Babs is looking out for Dom; he knows that giving him the nod against certain teams will hurt Dom more than it will help him. Like Flip-check said: baby steps.

A new proposal to further water down the game? SIGN ME UP, BABY! :rockstar: (Seriously, though: bad idea.)

WHAT'S TO STOP CHRIS CHELIOS

Both, I suppose. He was playing a dangerous game with Phaneuf the whole game. Had he kept his head up, he could have walked away the winner. But ultimately, Phaneuf definitely got the best of him. Lesson learned, I hope.

Please. You came in here looking to start something with people who aren't keen on Dom, and now you're complaining that he hasn't been given a chance to start games -- which is completely false. Were it true that Dom is being locked out of opportunities, Babs wouldn't have said today that Dom will start Saturday or Tuesday. Again, Dom fans have nothing to complain about. He's played poorly this season, but he's still being rewarded with starts. End of discussion/goalie war.

He is, though. Even with his poor performance thus far. Dom fans have nothing to complain about.

Phaneuf's hit wasn't especially dirty. Hudler had it coming, and he was a fool for keeping his head down late in the game.

That'd be nice, but I don't think anyone has suggested that in this thread. Babcock said Hasek will start either Saturday or Tuesday. People are stating their preferences.

NO

I'd much rather see Ozzie in net on Tuesday. That's a big game for a lot of different reasons, and frankly, I've lost most of my confidence in Hasek's competence.

coughtradecough

Moot point. Players represent their respective organizations. As such, organizations are partially accountable for their players' actions. Over the span of just two months, Philly has accumulated four suspensions, two of which were relatively very serious -- and justifiably so. While I don't necessarily think all of these guys were under orders to go headhunting, a track record like that is indicative of a poor culture within the organization where stuff like this may not be actively encouraged (although we all know it secretly is), but is not seen as criminal enough to warrant keeping dirty tendencies in check. Were this not the case, they would only have one, maybe two suspensions to their name this season. But they have four. And who knows, it could very well be up to seven by the time January rolls around, as the league has done nothing to truly curb this nonsense. I will admit, though: those phantom calls have done a marvelous job of reigning in the monster that is Tomas Holmstrom. I mean, let's be serious: he's the real menace here. And that diver guy -- what's his name? Flask? Hatchet? Hasek? Talk about a disgrace to the game of hockey.

I don't think I've ever seen the Wings play this poorly. Good. God.

I'm not really sure what you want me to say. Yes, ideally, a team is run as a meritocracy; you play well, you play more, you play poorly, you play less. Should Hudler be enjoying an expanded role because he's producing more than Flip? Probably. But if this small window of time is going to be used as proof positive that Hudler has "earned 'it,'" I think you could just as easily look at Flip's postseason performance and give him the benefit of the doubt. The obvious argument against that, of course, is that Hudler simply hasn't been given the chance to prove himself like that. And maybe there's some truth to that. But I like to think (perhaps foolishly) that Babs is thinking in terms of the big-picture. More specifically, in terms of long-term development. Hudler is straightforward: he's a shifty goal-scorer who, like you said, can make chances for himself if he has to. Stick him on the fourth line and he can still put up decent numbers. I think Flip, at least at this early stage in his career, is not as flexible; the best thing you can do for his development right now is give him a line that will really allow him to hone his skills as a playmaker. For that you need a creative, relatively experienced goal-scorer and some muscle. Basically, we're talking about a secondary scoring unit. That's not to say Flip hasn't dropped the ball. However, if I had to choose right now between having him on the second line and Hudler on the fourth or vice-versa, I'd go with the former. At worst you'd be getting a struggling Flip who's learning the ropes but has demonstrated he can be a crucial top-sixer, and a Hudler who is still putting up reasonable numbers. The worst you'd get with the latter is good production from Hudler (which, honestly, could be pretty easily replaced) and poor production and stunted development on Flip's end. This is all moot, though, because the only thing that's really going to light a fire under this forward unit is new blood. The crazy thing is, it's only one goal-scoring winger/power forward and one big-bodied banger away from being damn near unstoppable. In my alternate reality, Holland is the one who stole Penner. Z-D-H Penner-Flip-Hudler Gah.

I never said he wasn't. My point was that they're both playmakers, and if our top playmaker isn't doing much in the way of scoring goals, it's hard to fault his understudy for having the same problem. I see Hudler as being easily replaceable. Smallish guy with flashy skills? Meh. Flip, I think, has a much less common set of assets that, with time, can make him a elite player in his mold (playmaker). I don't see Hudler becoming a top goal-scorer.