RusDRW

seems like you became fans after 2004

Todd Bertuzzi. His passing skills are very underrated.

what a lucky guy... first pumping up his statistics plying with Forsberg then spending one relatively good season with Buffalo and then getting 7 times 5.

humour

Matt Bradley... I have no problem naming this guy... He has so much weight he could be the biggest enforcer in this league. For some reason he decides not to do his job.

This thread is not geniuous enough without that girl named Carman! Where are you, Carman?

year full of injuries again

Yeah, indeed... I got this feeling too watching last WJHC in Buffalo. That was a new generation of lazy Russian players in the finals.

Perry was not embarrassed. He won that fight.

this and in this sense PS Every ******* Carcillo needs to understand there is no way to escape...

Indeed, he IS a problem for us. And not a problem for a team like Boston who has Seiderberg, Chara, Lucic, Thornton, Horton, et al. Tough player eager (not willing, feel the difference?) to drop the gloves!

Carcillo is our problem. Not Vancouver's. And we didn't even try to address it. Commodore is laughable. Sometimes it seems team in our division is signing players just to make fun of us.

it seems that injection of the young homegrown (more or less) talented players to our line-up was one of the reasons we were deep in those seasons. See Kopecky, Helm, Abdelkader, Filppula getting third line center duties. Hopefully, this season they play Mursak, Tatar, Smith (Lashoff?) and this could be a kind of solution.

That's interesting discussion about the source of injuries. Indeed, two seasons in a row I felt like we never were healthy. I think it can be attributed to two factors (i) our core players getting older (ii) the style we play. The second factor is the most important. We can play on par with any team in this league including those which are bigger and tougher. However, it takes a lot of passive grit from our top players (taking hits, going to the corners). That's Babcock style, that's why we are successful and that's why we need some young blood on our two first lines.

Oh, yeah, I remember I wanted to buy T-shirt with Bertuzzi name on it when we traded for him... The shipping cost to Finland using NHL.com shop was three times more compared to the price of T-shirt. Few advises to the author of the topic: 1. UK branch of amazon.com (http://www.amazon.co.uk/) has some Red Wings stuff available. The cost of shipping to Europe from UK is negligible. 2. US-based rerouting services that sends stuff to Europe. They work as follows. You buy an item using their address and then they send it to you. Usually it is way cheaper that native services of US-based online shops.

1) Favorite player: P. Datsyk 2) Favorite that joined: Todd Bertuzzi and Danny Boy 3) Which current player would you dream of them joining the Wings? Any big tough defenseman except Chara 4) Which are the players that really "hurt / bugged" you when they left? M. Schneider to some extent 5) Never wanted him on the team ... but eventually joined the team? No such players

---- EDIT By NFM25: This thread was created because I want to continue this discussion and it belongs in its own thread, not the one regarding the Ty Conklin Signing. ---- plays like below is what I'm talking about Shootouts are another story. In most of those Howard allowed two goals which is unacceptable. PS BTW Couture scored exactly the same garbage in 2010 play-offs to win Game 3 for SJS.

22 years of Army is the main reason for "grass was greener back then". Life looks the same when you're following orders all your life while it is naturally changing in a society. Depression as a result of realizing that you whole life was thrown away by your own childish decision... I feel bad for such people.

It was also interesting that both Boston and Vancouver were one goal away from elimination in the first round. Talking about SJS it still looks like their main goal is to eliminate us from the play-offs, not the Stanley Cup Their current roster may never overcome such mentality. Reminds me a bit of our confrontation with Avs in late 90s. The difference is that we didn't take SJS serious past two years. Next year, things will be different.

Do you remember how Red Wings played in front of him in both of those games? This year, especially, even after loosing Bert and Danny. That would be sufficient to win both games. However, at his price (2.25M) he is more or less good. More or less. Well, for teams like Columbus, Calgary or Carolina that do not have any chance to win it all it is ok.

I'm commenting on Howard being a goalie who cannot take a team to SCF irrespective of who plays on the ice. Just like Bobrovski in Phily or Varlamov/Neuvrith in Washington. That is it. All things you've noticed are related to either lack of confidence or lack of good skills. I really hope this is lack of confidence. However, he already played two full seasons and was developed properly through the minors. Evidently, it is lack of skill. Luckily, for our team to be champion a mediocre goalie is needed. Howard is worse than that.

Fuuuuuuuck! Well, perhaps, statistics say otherwise... Yes, I mentioned it, that's my mistake. Can you name me a person who would feel safe going with Howard to Game 7 of SCF? He is going to let pucks in. Period. Red Wings somehow need to deal with it scoring, scoring and scoring. I remember (I bet you too) those times when our goalie didn't let pucks in in a game just because he played good not because a team in from of him played excellent. These were 97 and 2001-2002 season. Since then we have Howard-like goalies. PS Notice, I'm not going to ask you how to "watch hell-lot-more than 70 games". Simply because it is no more than 106 every season for SC finalist.

Rafalski and Ericsson were also responsible for every second goal :) Cause they didn't know how to play defense.

I'm not trying to get credibility on the message board. I'm a fan and this is my opinion. Having watched around 70 games last season I do not remember I felt safe when we had two- or one-goal leads just because of any shoot potentially being a goal. Talking about shootouts... I guess what best describes Howard is that shootout we had with Chicago when Pavel and Todd scored outstanding highlight-reel goals while Howard allowed three in a row. PS Now I feel a bit safer. At least we have a goalie who knows what to do and not just randomly moves in the net.

Well, I agree with you to some extent. There are instinct goalies like Hasek, Miller, Lundquist, Roy, Luongo, Backstrom, Hiller, Price and there are other goalies. The latter could be as efficient as those belonging to the first group if they are (i) play good positionally and (ii) big enough, and (iii) fairly stable mentally. These are Giguere, Thomas, Rask, etc. Currently Howard is in the third category with others like Varlamov, Neuvrith, Schenider, Anderson, etc. Howard could be in the second group but he is not there yet. Consistency if the main problem. I see see him improving though next season. Still we are far from SC next season just because of him.