Hank

Good points. But I'd still rather take a chance on Huet who's been great the past two seasons over a 100 year old goalie who's groin could snap at any second. Especially if Huet could have been had for a 2nd rounder. That's no gamble at all.

I disagree. The Wings were a powerhouse in 95 and 96 but failed to win the Cup. What happened after that? A crap load of players were jetissoned (Cicarelli, Burr, Chaisson, Coffey, Primeau, Greg Johnson) while picking up others - Sundstrom, Gilchrist, Brown, Kocur. Those moves won them the Cup in 97. It's completely under his control if he continues to supply the coaching staff with players who underperform or can't find that extra gear all players need to win the Cup.

That's a complete fabrication. Ken Holland said himself (on XM204) that they had a deal in place for Fedorov. But when they went around the room with the other managers, the vote came out a tie (3-3) whether or not to get him. If this Filp and a 1st for Fedorov was true, no way on earth I see 3 out of the 6 execs saying 'yes' to it. Even Mike Milbury wouldn't have made that deal, let alone Holland. Especially when you consider he was dealt for Ted Ruth. Not exactly Babe Ruth.

First, Filpulla has been completely and utterly useless. I can't remember the last top 6 foward this team has had who's done less than Filp at this point. The man is compeltely invisible and looks to me like he's completely clueless out there. The only time I noticed him was when he took a pass from Sammy and instead of shooting it immediately he tried to hold on to it before shooting. There's no time for this in the playoffs. Shoot the puck! Franzen was good in games 1 and 2, but has disappeared in games 3 and 4. While he does bring some physical play, I don't think anyone on the ice is as scared of Franzen as they are Bertuzzi. Even an injured Bert. And I realize that the Wings haven't been outmuscled by the Preds but why shouldn't they be expected to beat up on Nashville? They did it to Calgary last year and that team was twice the size as this Preds team. Why do the Wings constantly need an invitation to crank up their intensity. They always, always, always match their opponents output. Even in the San Jose series last year both teams seemed lazy and disinterested at times. It's like the Wings go out of their way to avoid physical play. ShanahanMan made an excellent observation in that this team looks more like the '05 Oilers. Last year it really did seem like the team was sick and tired of being the laughing stock of the league (which they are in terms of early playoff flops). But since they made it to the conference finals last year, it's as if the team thinks they have a pass and they don't have to work as hard or pay the extra price to succeed. Regarding Kronner, I'll give you that. However, Holland anticipated having both Markov and Kronwall in last years playoffs. Markov was let go and Holland did nothing to replace him. And he should have because we all know Kronwall's injury problems. Stuart, IMO, is a step down from Markov as he makes far too many mistakes. Sorry for the long post, but I don't think I'm explaining myself well. The easiest thing to do is pop in a tape of last years game 1 against Calgary and then replay any of the games we've seen this year so far. It's night and day in terms of determination, hustle and grit.

I totally agree. That's why I LOVED the Wings effort last year against Calgary and Anaheim. I'm just not seeing that kind of gritty, emotional, determination. Gritty doesn't have to mean goons but it means getting players who relish playoff time. Guys who can't wait to go into a corner to grab a loose puck or go into high traffic areas or finish off checks. What we really need is our top 6 forwards doing this. We must, must, must get more from Sammy and Filpulla. And Franzen actually. He wasn't very good the last 2 games. Off the top of my head I wish the Wings could have went after the following players: Foote, Matt Cooke, Ryan Malone (could have easily been had last trade deadline. But I'm a Malone homer), Fedorov, Lapointe, Fedetenko, Bobby Holik. Any one of these guys would be better than Filp and Sammy IMO (or in Foote's case Lilja, Lebda or Stuart).

I hope their embarrassed. They should be. What I'm hoping to see is a team that flys out of the gate hitting on the first shift all the way to the last. That's every stinking line! Not just Drake and Cleary. If we can see a team that has some desperation and emotion in their game I'll be happy - even if we lose. Last year the Ducks beat us in 6, but I wasn't angry. That team put everything on the table. You coudln't faul them for effort. They just ran into too many injuries and not enough gas. That's the effort I want to see tomorrow night and from here on out. If they can do that I'll be happy. Getting beaten by another team is one thing but when it's because you played like crap it's another. I'd rather be beaten by the other team, not by the one in your own dressing room.

Despite all my rantings across this board today, I've always believed the Wings will advance to the 2nd round. I'm just worried that there lack of physical play, and non-existant 2nd line unit will hurt them in getting any further.

He should be blamed for not addressing needs that everyone could see on the first day of training camp. We needed to get grittier and deeper in the wings position. Holland promised that there would be changes but then changed his tune saying he'd save money for the trade deadline. But then again he did nothing to address these glaring needs. He let certain players walk (who were intracle to getting to the Conference Finals last year) and didn't fill their holes. In my mind, with a half empty Joe most nights and a failure to win a Cup after winning the Presidents Trophy three years in a row*, Holland should be held responsible for not getting the right peices to win it all. It's one thing to protect some of your future players if you're on the bubble for winning the Cup - say a Minnesota or Dallas. But when you get as close as the Wings were last season, you need to take a chance and grab the last peice of the puzzle. Filpulla and Hudler could have fetched some of those peices. Yes, Filp might have a shot in becoming an 80 point center. But when? And will Lidstrom be around then? How about Rafalski? And will all our money still be tied up in 4 guys so we'd have to trade him anyway? Being an NHL GM means taking risks at times. Holland has a track record of never taking them. Even more so now that there's a CAP. I'm sure everyone on these boards wouldn't think twice in dealing anyone on this roster if it meant a Cup win. Even if it meant some down years afterwards. * I know that Buffalo technically won the PT last season. But the Wings tied them in points.

Have you even watched any of the games? He's been bad the entire series thus far. And hes progressively gotten worse. BTW, I love how you call us out for not standing by our guy. It wasn't too long ago ya'll were about to lose your team because ya'll were getting under 10,000 fans per game. But wait! Ya'll made the playoffs! Now ya'll make sure to come to the rink. Talk about fair weather fans.

I still like Babcock. I just don't think he's been given the right ingrediants to win is all. If people can look at it objectively (not a strong point of mine BTW), this team is actually worse than last years team. Markov, Bertuzzi and Lang are gone. Markov was a very physical presence for us. I can only imagine how good we'd look with both him and Kronner on the blueline. Stuart's physical too, but not as much and he's more prone to mistakes. Basically, he's Lilja with better skating and hands. Bertuzzi was hurt but he was still fairly effective. He scored some goals and at times threw his weight around. And other teams were weary of his presence on the ice. Lang is lazy and he sucks. We all know that. But as much as he was despised the man was large and he could control the puck along the boards and win a lot of puck battles. And lastly, Hasek was better last spring as well. So basically we downgraded in four positions. In some cases drastically. Substituting Filpulla for Lang is a MASSIVE downgrade. Franzen fills some of Bert's shoes but he's not as intimidating or has as much experience.

Hahahaha. I don't know if I would go that far. But Holland does need to be made accountable for constantly having a terrific regular season team that falls flat on it's face far too many times in the regular season. It's one thing to lose from being outplayed. I could live with last years loss to the Ducks because the Wings put it all on the table. They had injuries but that was the only reason they lost. Not from lack of effort or determination. The same could not be said for 05 or, so far, this series. We have way too many forwards that have yet to step up and contribute anything to this team.

So Filp hasn't been invisble? The loss of Bertuzzi, Lang and Markov was addressed? Hasek's been playing well? The team is playing with as much fire and grit as they did against Calgary last spring? I guess if you disagree with all of that then you're posts should be ignored as well. At least I can agree with your last point.

That's the problem. Instead of giving Rafalski $6M he should have saved for a goaltender. Huet will probably want between $5-6M. Because we have so much money (or will have) invested in Dats, Zetts, Lids and Rafalski, people will have to live with the fact that Osgood (or goalies similar to him) and Howard will be our tandem for many years to come. As smart as Holland is, he's failed to realise that goalies are the most important position in playoff hockey. And yet, this is just another area Kenny has failed to address successfully time and time again.

I appreciate your loyalty. But I think you pointed out the issue in your own post: "We have a whole roster of guys that have come through at various times in the season." Too many players are playing like it's still the regular season. I think half this roster still hasn't grasped what's needed to win in the playoffs. With the departure of Lang and Bertuzzi players like Filpulla and Franzen were expected to fill the void. Especially since Holland did absolutely nothing to fill it himself. Franzen played very well in the first two but I'd have to check the gamelog to see if he even made the trip to Nashville. And Filpulla? Not even an 'Amber Alert' could help locate this kid. He's been a disgrace so far. I know he's inexperienced but so are a lot of other first time players who are performing head and shoulders better than him. If Holland really believed that Filp was going to help this team in the postseason as a top 6 foward he should be fired on that belief alone. He's been so bad that I would even prefer Sammuelsson on the ice than him.

Like Holland did this year?

In my mind it's different. How? Because the team that came out flying in game 1 and 2 last year is infinitely different than the team we've seen so far this spring. The Wings have looked the exact same through all 4 games so far. And Ellis is not playing that great. He's been allowing huge rebounds on routine shots. Too bad nobody on this roster wants to fight for those loose pucks. Like Datsyukismyfriend posted, this team is seriously lacking in the heart, hustle and grit department. Sure, they can control the puck as well as anyone and at times it makes it look like we're the better team. But when you constantly get outworked for pucks and you're always looking for the pretty pass or play, you are very beatable. Look at Nashville's 3 goals last night - all from defenseman. How does that happen? By throwing the puck on net and keeping it simple. If anyone's noticed, the Preds have been getting lots of chances by doing so. The Wings, on the other hand, have to pass it 7383 times before shooting into an open net.

It gets my vote too. But like monk said, Holland should go. How can Illitch not see that the President's Trophy is as useful as passing the puck to Sammy.

Also, all those players we got in the 90's were from Hakan Andersson. And even today, Holland lets Jim Nill and his team perform the drafting. Holland's responsible for retaining or obtaining playes from the current roster. This season he hasn't done a great job in this regard. His inability to even entertain dealing away some of our younger prospects is holding this team back. In the offseason Filpulla and Hudler need to be dealt for bigger, stronger wingers capable of scoring 20+ goals. Then he needs to sign Huet. Let Stuart and Sammuelson walk. In fact, I believe Quincey played better last spring than Stuart is now.

Nope, but Matt Cooke, Sergei Fedorov and Christobal Huet surely could have. And I'm almost postive Markov would be a heck of a lot better than what Stuart is giving us right now.

Sammuelsson's contract is almost up.

It's not that we lost 2 games. It's how we lost them. No compusure, bad goalending, no scoring depth, not physical enough. I fear what would happen to us against Calgary or Colorado.

I hope your right. The only thing that was different between our series with Calgary last year is that we played awesome physically in the first two games - which translated into 9 goals. We got away from that style of play in games 3 and 4 but found it again in games 5 and 6. Through 4 games of this series we look like the same horribly soft team from years past. A team that wants to rest on it's regular season lorals and believes that they can exert the same effor they had in January to win games in April. That's not going to happen. I know that Nashville is a good team. But they are easily the weakest team of the 8 in the Western Conference. We have a LOT more depth than them and a LOT more playoff experience. This should have been a 4 game sweep. 5 games at the most. In 48 hours, we went from a team that was up 2 games to none, to a team that has no idea who their starting goalie will be on Friday or a team that can't seem to score or create any chances when Dats and Zetts aren't on the ice. I don't care if we get past Nashville or not. It's quite obvious to me we're not close to being a contender this season. It's time to flush out some of our players. To win the cup you need to take chances. Holland is not a gambling man. Get someone in there who's willing to make some hard trades. Filpulla is the first that needs to go. Despite being completely invisible and useless in this series, he still has a high stock value. Go get a big, mean scoring winger for him. And then let Sammy go and trade Hudler and Lebda for some size and muscle too.

I won't flame you because I agree with you. Holland failed to replace Lang and Bertuzzi. In their wake we have a completely invisible Filpulla. He also let Markov walk and we replaced him with Stuart. Markov is far more physical while Stuart has at least one brain fart on every shift. Goaltending has always been the Wings achilles heel and this years playoff run is no exception. And what has Holland done to address that? Nothing. Even when Christobal Huet could have been had FOR NOTHING. Once again we headed into the playoffs without enough size and scoring along the wings along with having suspect goaltending. When Dats and Zetts aren't on the ice, it's shocking how inffective our offense is. Sammy is completely and utterly useless. Filpulla is non-existant. Franzen hasn't been seen in two games. Hudler is only competent during the man-advantage. Cleary is obviously still not 100%. And Hasek? He continues to struggle and gives up at least one bad goal a game. I know he played well last year but if you go over old game tapes, even though we went to the Conference finals, he still let in a bad goal nearly every game. While Holland continues to overpay to retain this soft puck-possession team, he's failed to load up in areas that win Cups. Ellis is being made to look far better than he really is. Look at all the giant, juicy rebounds he's giving up from 40-foot shots. And yet, where is the 2nd chance shot? It's never, ever there. Why? Because so few of our forwards are able to outmuscle the Predators for those bounces or rebounds. How many times have we seen our players get manhandled along the boards, losing puck battle after puck battle? What's really, really frustrating for me is that I have no idea where the team showed up against Calgary last spring has gone to. This team looks exactly like the one that got swept by Anaheim in 03, doused in 04 by the Flames and humiliated by the Oilers in 05. In the playoffs, things are so tight that only a very select group of players can continue to create chances they way they can in the regular season. Guys like Malkin, Datsyuk, Crosby, etc. But for the rest of the players like Sammuelsson, Filpulla, Hudler, Cleary and Franzen they HAVE to find a 2nd gear and another level to score. It's twice as hard to light the lamp in the playoffs than it is in November. A higher price needs to be paid to score. You need to take punches and sticks to the face. And so far, I'm not seeing that willingness from many of our guys. Regardless if we make it through this round, I don't see this team coming close to winning it all. If we do lose this round or the next, we need to change philosphy's on this team. I'm tired of winning President's Trophy's. All it does is remind me and everyone else how we can dominate for 6 months of meaningless hockey but fail to show up with our balls in a lunchpail when the games matter. We can start by jettisoning Filpulla, Samuelsson, Hudler and Lebda. Lets get some big surly meatheads - one of which can at least score. And for crying out loud! Can we get a true #1 goalie???? Huet is a UFA this spring. Enough with loading up on guys who can play ticky-tacky puck possession hockey. It's been proven that all you need is a top goalie and a few heartbeats in front of him to advance deep into the playoffs. But maybe that's where the issue lies. Too many bodies, not enough hearts. And Lidstrom? How about you or any of the leaders on the team like Draper or Chelios start calling players out like Regher did on the Flames? It's obviouis some of your boys aren't doing what's necessary to win. What's even more troubleling is that so many of these guys have been to the top but forget to remind everyone else what's needed. Ugh. That's my tainted, Wings-fan rant of the day. But I'm sure Holland will go out and sign some more sweethearts from across the pond. Guys that will see their junk shrivle up in their abdomens when facing a team complete with players who come to the rink with balls and a hard hat. EDIT: Wanted to add that I'm tired of watching the Wings lose when they don't put in a complete 60 minute effort. Meanwhile our opponent only needs to play hard for 8 minutes and they beat us. F**K!!!! WHERE IS THE TEAM FROM LAST SPRING?????? LET'S SEE SOME F**CKING DESPERATION!!! Remember how the Wings came flying out of the game last year? How they immediately started hammering the bigger and stronger Flames around? I think it was because the Wings players were tired of losing early and were embrassed about what was written about them in the papers. Everyone was picking the Flames to upset them. So they took care of business. Well I guess after going to the semi-finals means you can take a couple more springs off. What a joke! I hope Illitch is forced to drop ticket prices to $8 a seat just to get people to come to that dump of an arena so we can all listen to "Whats going on?" and "Open Up Your Eyes" everytime the Wings get a penalty. F**K you DJ!

No. The Wings are still playing regular season hockey. You would think that some of our players would get the hint that you need to take it to the next level at this time of year.

Brunnstrom's lazy and he sucks.