datsyukismyfriend

wow, this team's a ******* joke. why don't we just ice 6 forwards every shift. we have no ******* defense and s*** goal tending. what's the difference. we're better at keeping the puck out of the ******* net with our goal tender pulled. this has been the worst ******* wings team defensively that i've ever seen. ******* pathetic!!!!!

as much as i'd want hossa, franzen makes the most sense. especially if we can get a cap hit between 3.5 and 3.8 or so. i've loved having hossa, but keeping him might prove to be too difficult.

we out-chance most teams most nights. we out-shoot most teams most nights (by a large margin). we give osgood relatively little to clean up and he's show consistently this season that he's not capable. he was great for us last season, but this year has been a bust and he's all but certainly cost us the president's trophy, which isn't all important, but home ice throughout the playoffs is a nice perk. especially when the sharks have been as good as they have been at home. our defense has left something to be desired this season, true, but our offense has pretty much balanced it out. osgood has been the weakest link. night in, night out he's out performed by the goalie across the ice. that can't happen every night. he doesn't have confidence in himself, the team doesn't have confidence in him, babcock says he does, but i don't believe him. holland says he does, but his actions speak otherwise. osgood isn't going to miraculously turn his game around in six games. he should be done. he had more than his fair shot. let's see what conklin can give us. it's scary because he's unproven as a playoff goalie, or even a starter, but, like i've said before, it's less scary to me at this point than trying to ride osgood to the cup.

the team has been coasting for most of the year. babcock has had the whole season to get the wings back on track and on the same page and he hasn't done it. to think things are going to suddenly turn around in the last six games is probably wishful thinking. i'm scared no matter who we fact in the first round. if we can get through the first round, hopefully the team will be putting forth the effort having had a few games of playoff hockey under their belt.

please babs, give conks a legitimate shot. let's see what he can do. ozzie had many chances to make good and he has BLOWN it every damn time. let's ride conks for a while, see what happens. bad news on lilja. he was an important piece of our defensive corp last playoffs. he's a big shot-blocking, pk-ing, quasi-hitting d-man for this club. plus his presence means no more lebda which makes me shout for joy. i'm not too worried about rafalski, although if sunday or monday stretches into thursday saturday, etc. i'll start worrying. the wings really need these final games to get their s*** in order. other than a few small stretches of excellent complete hockey games for this club they've played well below their potential. it's not the time to be resting anybody, this team needs to get into the habit of playing as a team and playing their asses off for 60 straight every game.

i officially have no confidence in osgood. this loss wasn't completely on him, but his penchant for soft goals and horrid save percentage this year has buried us far too many times. he's not turning it around. if i have to hear osgood mousishly state that he's putting this game behind him, that he doesn't look back, only forward, that he's been feeling good and confident since christmas one more ******* time i'm gonna chuck my glass at the tv! i don't know if we can win with conklin, but i have lost confidence that we'll win with osgood, he's been far too much of a liability this year. that said, the rest of the team needs to get their s*** together, too. it pains me to say it, but lidstrom has been very sub-lidstromesque down the stretch, he needs to straighten things out. i think we've kissed the president's goodbye, which isn't a huge deal, but might come back to haunt us if we face san jose in the wcf's. osgood's had his chance this year. it's scary riding an unproven goalie to the cup, but at this point i'm even more scared trying to ride osgood to the cup. he needs to sit. he's not our only problem, but he is performing his role worse than any other member of this team. it's enough already!!!!!!

hmm...now there's an interesting discussion. allow me... oranges are clearly the better defensive fruit as the rind is all but inedible. it is time consuming and sloppy peeling clear that blasted rind, juice running down your arm and squirting your eyeball, leaving you blind and sticky. not to mention the effort involved separating the seeds from the fruit in your mouth without swallowing both and choking half to death. the apple, on the other hand, has the clear offensive advantage. it can be thrown further and more accurately and leaves quite a lump after a hard bounce off the noggin. it also grows naturally on trees in northern climates, making it more readily available. apples give you a bit more bang for your buck, too, as they're a smidge less spendy. however, more injury prone is the apple. it's not uncommon to spend minutes leafing through the bin in search of a heralded un-bruised and wholly crisp specimen. apples also lack the longevity of the orange as they become mushy and unsavory within a few weeks. in the end, however, the apple reigns supreme as the best all-around fruit and that's because an apple a day keeps the doctor away. when's the last time the orange could make so grand a claim?!

i never claimed not to be biased.

you don't see the point yet you contributed four paragraphs worth of your opinions. interesting... there's nothing wrong with this thread. it's an interesting debate. maybe a question that can't be answered (who is better), but it's an interesting discussion nonetheless.

people are always getting cheap points off of datsyuk's hard work!

it's the best stat we have for it. it is certainly somewhat indicative of over all play. especially when you see the consistency dats has shown with +/-, leading all wings forwards the past three years and the team the past two. the lines have constantly been shuffled this year, through which one bright spot has shone in terms of +/-, datsyuk. he's 12 higher than the next best forward and 20 higher than zetterberg. it's by no means and end all be all stat, but it is worth looking at. last year when zetterberg and dats were mostly playing together, datsyuk still outpaced z by 11.

i don't know what that means.

i hate the kronwall stuart pairing. it seems like they're on the ice for just about every goal scored against us! they need to be split, imo. and i really hope lidstrom raises his game to the next level for the playoffs. he's not been bad by any stretch, be he sure as hell hasn't been lidstrom this season. i counted at least four lidstrom outlet passes picked off (CLEANLY) last night! three of which were in our own zone! that can't be happening. he's been a bit below his level all year, we're going to need him firing on all cylinders in the post-season. ericsson's been awesome, i don't care to see lebda playing anymore with ericsson. i, for one, want lilja back. he's a big body, he hits, bocks shots, pk's. he's a good stay at home d-man. he has had a propensity for boneheaded plays in the past, but seems to have tightened that up this year. in fact, many games i've felt like he's been our most reliable defenseman in terms of clearing the zone and making the necessary plays (not the cute plays). i also like chelios in the lineup. we seem to be better defensively with him in.

huh? datsyuk's my favorite player, and i've long said he's the better player between he and zetterberg. up until this years it's been a reasonable debate. but dats has clearly been the best player on the team this year, while zetterberg has fallen to third or possibly fourth. i'm not sure what happened to zetterberg. for those saying zetterberg is better defensively, dats has a 20 point edge in +/- and again leads the team in that regard (tied for second in the league). it's not a definitive stat, but still, a 20 point discrepancy garners attention. not to mention datsyuk is a +35 on a team that's been lousy defensively this year by its standards. datsyuk is a great defensive player. i'm not going to say he's definitely better defensively than zetterberg, but it's debatable. their styles of defense are dissimilar. offensively, there's no debate (this year). zetterberg never feels like a threat to score anymore. i'm not sure if it's his back, or he's being defended tighter after a break-out season and playoffs last year, or what, but he's not creating much at all this year. most every time he enters the zone he loses the puck. he's turned into a right place right time kind of guy instead of creating his own offense, which is something that datsyuk does as well as anybody in the league. datsyuk's so dangerous because he creates his own offense. that's why he can play with anybody and that's why he makes anybody playing with him better. zetterberg works much better with datsyuk creating the offense and zetterberg finishing the play. when he's relied on solely to create the offense, he doesn't seem to shine as brightly. my two cents.

tony danza = jeff bridges?

we had more scoring chances than the flames. bottom line, oz buried us in a three goal deficit that was made insurmountable by the reffing. otherwise, the wings didn't play a bad game and certainly didn't play a worse game than calgary. any other starter, and probably most any backup goalie in the league would have won us the game last night. just a terrible showing by osgood. makes me nervous, just when i was getting some confidence back about his play, too...

disconcerting to say the least. letting in one goal of the quality he let in today wouldn't be too concerning, but three... you just shouldn't see that from a starting goalie at any level. he's been playing well lately, too. my biggest worry is that this will tangibly affect the confidence he's slowly built over the last couple of weeks. he's been so shakey all year and hasn't been playing with confidence. i just hope a s*** game like today doesn't mean he reverts back to playing scared and over-thinking/analyzing.

that seems to be a tall order this season.

lol damn it osgood. just when i was starting to feel better about his goal tending he throws in one of the worst performances of the season.

well, ozzy buried us before we had chance. absolute s*** game from him. he's been playing well, lately, i don't where the f*** his head was tonight, but a high school goalie would have stopped everyone of those goals. the refs finished us off. s***ty game.

lol! nice

he hadn't been a norris caliber player while he played. whether or not he would have developed into one is pure conjecture. in fact, i remember he was notorious on these boards for occasional defensive lapses. i think he would have been a good d-man, probably top pairing (maybe not with rafalski), but definitely not the best defenseman in the league. i really wish he could have played longer, but i would say calling him a multiple norris winner based what we've seen is a bit of a stretch.

i wouldn't go that far.

not only does he work the puck through the obstacle course without moving a puck, he skates through it, too, WITHOUT MOVING A SINGLE PUCK. insane.

i have to say, i was loving that hossa dats franzen line!!