Aussie_Wing

Scoreless end of 1st. Griffins BADLY outshot and outplayed. Larsson was great. Nice scuffle at the end with Ritola getting some attention and then getting help from McGrath. Milwaukee are very defensive, this will be a low scoring game.

So let me get this straight, even though he's declining, and we need some cap breathing space, he's still going to command $7 mil just because he's the captain? How is that a pay cut? Honestly, I'd be disappointed if that were his asking price. Thankfully I'm sure it won't be.

I haven't dared checking but I'm pretty sure I bombed out once again yesterday.

Agreed! You know what, I actually think Meech is a decent player. I honestly think that if he played night in, night out and had a position locked up he would become a fine 6th defenceman. People are quick to bag him for any little mistake and while he's made his fair share, I think he makes up for it with some very intelligent plays. He's a solid player who has received a lot of unwarranted criticism during his time here. I quite like Meech, whenever I see him he impresses me. I can't remember what game it was, I think against Nashville late last month, he was outstanding, perhaps even our best defender. He looked confident, played great defence and was creating chances offensively.

Holmstrom - Datsyuk - Zetterberg Franzen - Filppula - Cleary Bertuzzi - Helm - Eaves Draper - Abdelkader - Leino The more I think about it though, I want Miller to return. Not the end of the world if he doesn't, but he's been a solid addition. Ritola, Mursak, Tatar one more season in AHL, following season Homer, Draper and potentially Bertuzzi to go making room for these three. Depends on if and how long Bert re-signs for. Lidstrom - Rafalski Stuart - Kronwall Ericsson - Kindl Osgood Howard I am pretty sure Leino signed for dirt cheap for TWO seasons. Lidstrom hopefully signs for about $4 mil, which opens up some cap space. One thing is for certain though, all this talk about tons of cap space opening up is just a fallacy.

Just thought I'd pass by and say that I love JUSTIN ABDELKADER!!!! How good was that hit on Perry! Love it!

McCollum was awesome!! Great performance by him. Mursak was the pick of the Griffins IMO. I'm confused as to why he doesn't get more time, whenever he's out there he dominates, it's that simple. He was everywhere again tonight, when he's got the puck it's awfully hard to take it from him. Setting up plays, scoring goals, forechecking, he's a gun. Pare is now starting to play with confidence and Tatar was good also. On defence I thought Kindl was BRILLIANT. He looks like a new player to me. Offensively he was always setting up chances with his cannon and defensively he looks sharp. Good signs.

Lake Erie Monsters (8-15-0-2) @ Grand Rapids Griffins (15-9-0-0) 6:30 pm EST The Griffins will search for their third consecutive win when they take on the visiting Lake Erie Monsters. This is their third meeting of the season with the Griffins winning two of the contests. In their most recent meeting, the Monsters had a comfortably 6-2 win. Lake Erie sit in last place in the entire league and given the Griffins strong last two performances, this is an oppertunity to make some ground on the teams ranked above. On an individual note, second year defenceman Logan Pyett has recorded an assist in the past three games, the best streak of his pro career. Centres Emmerton and McGrath are both pointless in their past 4 games. Jan Mursak has 3 goals from the past 4 games. Rissmiller and Ritola both have points in their past two games and Pare is coming off his first goal of the season. Projected lines: Ritola - Newbury - Tardif Tatar - Rismiller - Williams Emmerton - Pare - Mursak Vigilante - McGrath - Walsh (Axelsson) Kolosov - Janik Kindl - Delmore Crosty - Pyett (Ehrhardt) McCollum Larsson Individual Leaders: Goals: Williams (10), Mursak (8), Tardif (7) Assists: Kindl (11), Janik, Newbury (10) Points: Newbury (16), Williams (15), Rissmiller (14) PIM: Crosty (78), Newbury (66) Plus/Minus: Tatar, Janik (+11), Emmerton (+10) Past 5 Games: 4-2 Win vs. San Antonio (Dec 9 2009) Final 4-1 Win vs. Peoria (Dec 5 2009) Final 2-1 Loss vs. Rockford (Dec 4 2009) Final 6-2 Loss @ Lake Erie (Dec 1 2009) Final 2-1 Win @ Peoria (Nov 28 2009) Final TV/Radio: Internet stream: See drumnj's stream Grand Rapids Radio Broadcast AHL Scores

Griffins down 2-1, could be a whole lot worse if McCollum hadn't come to play. Griffins look awful. Lake Erie have about 35 SOG already...

Mursak is an absolute machine!! Keeps on producing. Didn't see the period, will start watching from the 2nd. Lots of shots that period, from each side, not much defence?

Friday: Florida @ New Jersey Carolina @ Washington Chicago @ Buffalo Anaheim @ Detroit Edmonton @ St Louis Tampa Bay @ Colorado Minnesota @ Calgary Dallas @ San Jose Saturday: Washington @ Toronto Carolina @ Ottawa Philadelphia @ New Jersey Boston @ NY Islanders Buffalo @ NY Rangers Montreal @ Atlanta Anaheim @ Columbus Florida @ Pittsburgh Detroit @ Nashville San Jose @ Phoenix Minnesota @ Vancouver Dallas @ Los Angeles Sunday: Tampa Bay @ Chicago Calgary @ Colorado

Not bad. I've been so impressed with Rissmiller, why the heck did the Rangers move him from their affiliate club? Their loss, well and truly our gain. I'm hoping Axelsson plays tonight but given he didn't play much, if at all, in the 3rd against San Antonio I'm not liking his chances. Yeah Oulahen is still injured, a real shame. Great leader, great shut down player and on the PK and his goal scoring was coming along. Hopefully he's back by Febuary or around then. Funny you should mentione Piche... Piche With Crosty playing defence the Griffins have 7 defencemen, 8 if you include Piche. He'll swap time between GR and Toledo. He's got nice potential though, I like him.

San Antonio Rampage (9-11-2-1) @ Grand Rapids Griffins (14-9-0-0) 7:00 pm EST Basically, this GDT is just a Mursak appreciation thread because he is simply awesome. No, I just wanted to let people know there was a game tonight. Go Griffins!

Ahhh no. 10 goals, 7 assists, 17 points. Thanks for coming.

Standings now up.

In the off-season we lost Hossa, Hudler, Samuelsson and a few others. Obviously this is a fairly significant group and so the goals weren't going to come as frequently as they did in the previous few seasons. We went out and signed Bertuzzi who, although far from a fan favourite, has played decently. We also signed Williams and Eaves. Two guys who were really expected to contribute this season were Franzen who was coming off a 34 goal, 59 point season and Filppula who had a career best 40. Franzen suffers an ACL tear in the 3rd game, Filppula a broken wirst in the 11th. There goes our 1st line winger and our 2nd line centre. Keep in mind we're already playing with 3 forward rookies in Leino, Abdelkader and Helm. So tell me how we're realistically supposed to make up for these injuries? I hear ya, maybe some offence from Jason Williams, no wait, he breaks his leg 15 games in. A 3rd player on the LTI list (excluding Lilja). Holmstrom has played to or above expectations, Zetterberg and especially Datsyuk, below. Our two star players pretty much void of top notch talent alongisde them, such making it easier for opposition defenders to zone in on them. Leino hasn't produced anywhere near the level expected of him, Helm and Abdelkader have been fine. Eaves has been rock solid, Draper playing his best hockey in years, May, Maltby and the recently acquired Miller about to the level they should. On defence, Lidstrom is declining and Rafalski suffering a signficant drop-off from his first two seasons in Detroit. Then there's Kronwall, arguably playing the best hockey of his career and he too bites the dust. We're stuck with Lebda AND Meech every night and are forced to call up Janik and Kindl on separate occasions. In goal we have Osgood who's having a second consecutive nightmare of a regular season and a rookie in Howard who after a slow start has been outstanding of late. Our goaltending is the least of our worries right now. There's in excess of FIFTY games remaining in the season, plenty of time to secure a playoff spot which we will. I see so many posters calling, begging Holland to make a trade. What do you actually want him to do, and be realistic. We're not going to trade away some of our better prospects just because half our team is injured. We'll get Filppula back, then Williams, then Kronwall, then fingers crossed eventually Franzen. We're not going to pull the trigger on a foolish trade. Holland knows that we're playing with 5 rookies, have 3 extremely crucial players on the LTI list and patience and for now all we can do is wait, wait until we get guys healthy again so we can make our push. This season was ALWAYS going to be a tough one and it was made even more so because of the unfortunate injuries we suffered. A message to all those panicking and asking for trades, demanding that Holland shake things up. Just relax, endure the tough times because there's still over half the season remaining and when we starting regaining guys our depth will improve and the results will start going our way.

Totally fair point mate. Filppula had something like 70 points in 70 odd games in his AHL rookie season, he was outstanding. Had some massively productive patches where he was putting up many multiple point games in a row. Hudler put up close to 100 points in his final AHL season before eventually graduating to Detroit. Tatar has the chance to be something special, a slightly more well-rounded version of Hudler IMO. Hudler is very underrated though, had close to 60 points last season while playing 3rd line and about 14-15 minutes per night. He's got 70-80 point upside in the NHL IMO. Filppula isn't as offensively gifted as Hudler but is the better player, at least to me. He's a 50-60 point guy max. When these guys were playing in the AHL there was excitement but as I didn't follow the AHL as closely as I do now, I can't accurately comment on the excitement. I would check updates and be pleased to see them doing so well, as others were, but I wasn't as keen on prospects as I am now. It's just when I watch Mursak I see someone with legitimate NHL upside. What's he lacking? He makes up for his small stature with his speed, he's good defensively, he plays physical and he has great offensive instincts. So long as he keeps up his current pace and continues to improve, he should hit the NHL in a year or two and be a nice 2nd/3rd liner for the Wings.

Why so angry? I consider myself in the semi realistic bunch about the season he was going to have. So while I certainly didn't expect Leino to set the world on fire I think it's safe to say that 3 goals and 5 points through 27 games while mostly seeing 2nd line minutes is disappointing whichever way you look at it. MY obsession with Flip? What about yours? Filppula has raised his point totals in every season, I think it's a fair assumption to make that he would've done so again this season, probably close to 50 points. I know you don't rate him but the Wings coaching staff certainly does. Wasn't he voted our most hardest working player in the month before his injury? Yeah, thought so. I'm not saying him going down is the sole reason for our struggles but losing him has robbed us of a lot of flexibility and ability to mix things up. Fact. Why even bring Flip into it? That little obsession of yours I guess.

It's time, Mursak time.

I guess people are just spoilt. I bet coming into this season most people expected there to be a fairly big drop-off. Then when the season started people's expectations started to rise again due to the excitement and anticipation of a fresh season. However, the off-season departures coupled with the horrendous run of injuries we've had people seriously need to take out their emotions and realise that a combination of the two always meant we were in for a rough ride.

Trading Datsyuk is in all honesty one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. He is an absolute gun who is unfortunately going through a rough patch right now. He'll be right, no need to panic as some love to do.

Meech on the PP? I actually don't know why I was about to complain, I don't mind him. Better than Lebda.

Filppula to tie it up.

The only reason I watch figure skating is because of Kiira Korpi.

This is ridiculous, we better not get shut-out, at home, yet again. I'm sick of people looking at stats and thinking, "ohhhh he saved 47 shots against Detroit and got the shutout, he must have been awesome!!" We just have no one who can effectively shoot the puck.