J-Swift

It certainly seems like it. And a lot of the Wings forwards coming back have been missing their assignments.

The majority of the goals against us lately have come as a result of defensive breakdowns. And I'm pretty sure Hasek would love more shots. Mitchell and Ohlund are both great defencemen, and they've got a pretty good supporting cast too.

Ugh. Another defensive breakdown. Nice timing too.

I guess that wouldn't have counted anyway, so it's no big deal. Gotta love seeing Chelios get involved offensively, though.

I'm pretty sure he already is. If Franzen is out for any period of time (which I really hope he isn't), I'd like to see Flip get a chance with Datsyuk.

Watching that punk Perry get stoned in the shoot-out was very satisfying. That was an awesome move by Hudler. I hope he has a big year.

I'm not big on all of TSN's guys, but more often than not, Bob McKenzie knows what he's talking about. It's nice to see that he has faith in us.

You can believe whatever you want, but for Melrose to suggest that Detroit can't compete against teams like Anaheim and San Jose, when that's specifically what he did last spring, is pretty dumb. Melrose props up San Jose, Anaheim, Calgary, Colorado, and Vancouver, while managing to single out practically half the Wings roster as "having to be better". Somewhere in the article he managed to leave out that it appears as if Anaheim has lost their captain and playoff MVP, while San Jose has lost Scott Hannan. Apparently "nobody can have a bad year", which I'm pretty sure is what analysts said about the Wings last year, and they still managed to get by in the first part of the season with Datsyuk and Zetterberg not doing very well at all. Yeah, that's right. The only reason I have an issue with an analyst who calls the team that advanced to the Conference finals and had the best record in the West "second tier", is because he works for ESPN.

My only concern with Rafalski is that it'll take him a little while to adjust to the Wings system after playing with New Jersey for so long. In terms of defensive ability, however, Schneider is not comparable to Rafalski.

Really? I had no idea. Had it not been for an untimely penalty call and a little bad luck, we'd probably have been Western Conference champions, if not better. Regardless of how Game 5 went last year, I think we proved that we were more than capable of competing with a bigger and tougher team like Anaheim. Not to mention we not only beat both Calgary and San Jose (both teams who Melrose props up in this article), but went toe-to-toe with them in the physical aspect of the game. You can make all the "unbunch your panties" comments you want, but to give the Wings zero credibility for what they did last spring is stupidity.

What a moron. He couldn't have possibly been more incorrect in his comparison of Rafalski and Schneider. How anyone could look at replacing Schneider with Rafalski as being a wash is beyond me. Wasn't Melrose the one predicting our doom after the lockout ended? It's funny how "The Hockey News" can call us the best team in the West, but Melrose calls us a "second tier hockey club" because we shed a little dead weight. I also like the part where Melrose calls us as good as we were last year, but then questions whether we can go head-to-head against teams like San Jose and Anaheim. Umm, did he miss last year's playoffs?

You realize it's pre-season, right?

Anyways, I really think I'd rather have the veteran Osgood (who has been in a starter position many times before) on the team, in the event that Dom goes down. Jimmy Howard was pretty good this past year for the Griffins, but he didn't really build on his great rookie season. Hopefully another full AHL season as a starter will make him ready for the NHL in '08-'09.

That's awfully harsh. No one would ever accuse Kronwall of not using his size to his advantage, and he's twice the skater Lilja is any day of the week.

Maltby hasn't been held in high regard around here since the lockout ended. I half expected Grigorenko to maybe have a little excess fat on him. It seems odd that he would weigh 200+ lbs when he's only listed at 5'10".

Sutter certainly had his arm up, but he hit Cherepanov in the chest with his forearm, not his head, so I feel the hit was fairly clean. Here's another video that slows the hit down a little bit: I didn't watch the game either, but I'd imagine people are saying that Cherepanov had it coming because of his "slew-foot" of a Canadian player that you see at the start of the clip, when the puck's in the Canadian end. It's hard to tell whether that was intentional or not, though.

Now that we have Rafalski and his right-handed shot, I'm hoping that our days of using forwards on the point are over. I agree, however, that using Sammy wasn't such a great idea. And using Williams was an even worse idea. I'm perfectly happy having Babcock as our head coach, but I can't say I'm particularly fond of everything he does. In particular, I don't feel he does enough to support our youth movement. I can't say I'm a big fan of Jiri Hudler, but the guy got shafted repeatedly last season. And even Filppula didn't get the ice time he deserved, despite the fact that Babcock has gushed over him in the past.

I'm with you. I think it's unreasonable to expect some hired gun to be able to get comfortable in our lineup if we bring him in well into the season. Furthermore, as last season has shown, the price tag for a solid scoring winger at the deadline is usually a first round pick and a little more.

Why do you seem so bitter about Detroit having a good defence next year? Last season Anaheim was regarded as having the best D in the league, and that worked out okay for them, didn't it?

Bertuzzi and Calder were clearly deadline rentals, Lang was a liability half the time, and we replaced Schneider with Rafalski. I'm really not sure why people are so bent out of shape over this off-season. If we can re-sign Markov or get a comparable d-man for our top four before the season starts, we're as good a team as we were last year. Just because Detroit is keeping a couple spots open for guys like Filppula, Hudler, and Grigorenko doesn't mean we're throwing in the towel. I'm by no means a Holland apologist, but some of you guys are being ridiculous.

No doubt about it. Rafalski's a bona fide first-pairing defenceman. When we signed him, the guys on TSN were suggesting that we might have the best defence in the league next year.

There was talk that the Kings were offering him a pretty big contract, but that's just a rumour. At any rate, I really don't think the Rangers are going to leave Lundqvist unsigned, so I wouldn't be too concerned about Dom going there.

I'm not a big Hudler believer, but with the kind of talent he has, Jiri really does deserve a shot at a permanent position on one of our scoring lines. And considering the lack of secondary scoring we'll have going into next season, guys like Hudler and Filppula could really help us out.

My personal favorite:

Osgood is on the Wings because he wants to be here, and because he is an excellent insurance policy in the event that Hasek's groin acts up on him. And if Dom weren't here next season, I'd imagine Osgood would at least get a crack at the starter position.