J-Swift

He does, however, possess more of a physical game now then when we drafted him. During TSN's World Junior coverage they talked about him quite a bit. Apparently one scout said he was the best all-around player in the CHL. Hindsight's 20/20, so I'm not really all that upset over the Bertuzzi deal, and I don't really blame Ken Holland for making it. But Matthias has made considerable progress since we dealt him, and I think we wound up losing out on that trade pretty badly.

Kronwall is currently 23rd in defenceman scoring and tied for 4th in defenceman plus/minus. Yeah, there's some injury issues, but he's only missed 4 games so far this season. Not to mention that shipping out Kronwall without getting a defenceman in return would make Lilja our number three defenceman. Think about that for a second. I wouldn't really consider the Wings to have a log-jam at the defense position when that's the case. Yeah, we have guys like Meech, Quincey, Ericsson and Kindl around, but none of those guys are capable of stepping into Kronwall's spot right now.

Columbus is currently second in the division and fighting for a playoff spot, while LA is dead last in the league. I think you're much more likely to see Detroit pick up someone from the Kings.

You guys owe Z an apology.

I'd have an issue dealing Flip or Kronwall for a guy who might walk at the end of the season. Personally I think Flip has as much potential as any young forward in our organization, and Kronwall is finally looking like a solid number three d-man who is well worth his 5-year deal. Not to mention trading Kronwall would really decimate our defensive corps. We've got away so far with having Lilja as a full-time member of our top four, but I doubt putting either Lebda or Chelios in Kronwall's spot would be a great idea for any serious length of time. If Hossa were to remain a Red Wing after this year, though, I probably wouldn't have an issue trading anybody outside the "big three". But I'm just not sure how we fit him in. Zetterberg's due for a big time contract in the near future, and we'll still have Datsyuk, Lidstrom and their respective 7-million dollar contracts. And Rafaski's signed up for a hefty long-term deal too. Trying to fit Hossa in would leave us nothing for our supporting cast of players.

That seems a little odd. Didn't Babcock just say last week he was going to alternate Ozzie and Dom through the 60th game of the season? It just doesn't really seem necessary to ride Hasek at the moment. And yeah, I think this thread is awfully pre-mature considering it's been only two mediocre starts by Ozzie. And you can't honestly say the Wings really showed up against Minnesota or Altlanta, so those games cannot be pinned on him. I think suggesting that Ozzie's success has been simply because of luck is pretty unfair; he's played as well as he ever has in the first half of the season.

I'm usually not one to over-react over a regular season game, but this is our biggest one of the season, and we're a period away from getting shutout. And usually we can blame it on a hot goalie, but that ain't the case tonight. Very few of Emery's 20 saves have been legitimate scoring chances (I'm looking at you Mikael Samuelsson).

Totally agree. Somebody started a poll a little while back over at the HF boards asking whether Ozzie should be in the HOF and most people thought the notion of him being inducted was absolutely ridiculous. Making it into the Hall has as much to do with reputation as it does with actual stats, and Ozzie simply does not get the league-wide respect he deserves given the numbers he's posted. If it were up to me, Ozzie would be an HOFer, but I honestly don't believe he'll make it. You don't think Ozzie possibly leading Detroit to another Stanley Cup (or at least another deep playoff run) would change some people's opinions? Not to mention he has the chance to really pad his regular season stats on a talented Detroit team if he's our starter for the next couple seasons.

Yeah, I'm a little unimpressed by the fact that Rafalski didn't make the team. He's second in the league in defenceman scoring (nevermind the conference). Sure I realize there's gonna be several Wings of the team already, but I was really rooting for Brian to get the credit he deserves. Anyways, I think Ozzie should've made it whether Luongo pulled out or not, but it's good to see him getting some recognition for his play so far. And as for Leclaire, he did kinda get screwed, but I'm sure he'll have many more shots at making the All-Star Game Team in the future.

Well, seeing as the three month mark of the season was less than a week ago, I have to disagree with you that Dom played awful for the first three months of the season. Furthermore, I think you're setting the bar a little high when you refer to a 2.11 GAA as merely "acceptable". That's actually better than the goals-against average he had in '02. And although I'll certainly agree that his save percentage is hardly "Hasek-like", it's a great deal better than it was just a couple weeks ago, which is a testament to how good he's played lately. I would have a tough time imagining Dom finishing with a .900 SV%. I certainly wouldn't deny that Hasek had a very poor start. Dom has often been a slow starter, but this season was particularly bad, and I think his little hip injury could have had something to do with it. However, I think it's pretty clear that Hasek has been really good this past month or so, and seems to have put the first part of the season behind him.

Amusingly enough, it was Joakim Andersson he outmuscled to get to the front of the net. The Swedish goalie Enroth looked crushed. I feel bad for him. He had a pretty solid tournament I thought.

Connolly is currently third in scoring on a team that is hurting from the lack of Briere and Drury. I'd seriously doubt they'd give him up in a deal where the centre-piece of what they get in return is a "scoring-line forward" who has all of 6 goals at the moment. I'm not trying to rip into you or anything, but it's just that I don't think a team like Buffalo can be letting go of truly talented offensive players like Connolly without someone serviceable in return. I can't imagine Calgary would move Huselius at any point this season. Especially not for dead-weight like Drake and Sammy. Personally, I'm all for acquiring Ryan Malone. He'd bring some serious size to our forward lineup, and if we could tap into some of that offensive potential of his, he could provide the secondary scoring that would put the Wings over the top. But IMO, shipping out Hudler would kinda defeat the purpose of getting Malone in the first place. Jiri is one of the few Detroit forwards outside of Zetterberg, Datsyuk, and Holmstrom that has legitimate offensive talent. I'm not a big believer in him or his ability to carry his game into the post-season, but getting rid of Hudler for an enigma like Malone wouldn't really solve our secondary scoring problem. If I were GM, I'd try to keep the roster relatively intact, however, Samuelsson really needs to go. I find he tends to drag down whatever line he's on. His shoot-first mentality is really frustrating to watch, and for a guy that big, he really should be finishing his checks. Replacing Lilja with a physical top-four defenceman who doesn't have Andreas' knack for bad giveaways would be ideal, but I doubt it's possible without giving up at least a first-round draft pick or someone decent out of our lineup.

Just curious, where were you after Wednesday's game? And how Franzen will ever recover from a couple punches to the back of the head is beyond me.

I've always felt he receives more than he gives.

Personally I think that particular statement is a little unfair. But yeah, I agree that Ozzie is certainly not to blame tonight. And even if he was, I think he's earned it given the way he's played so far this season. Losing to the Central blows. I really don't want to complain about the Wings play given how well the regular season has gone so far, but these garbage performances against the teams we see eight times a year really need to stop. Holmstrom isn't allowed to give opposing goaltenders so much as a sideways glance without going to the penalty box. I'm not going to suggest that Detroit players never run a little interference like the Blues player did on tonight's winning goal, but Holmstrom doesn't get away with anything.

I saw it on TSN. Not a bad fight at all. And yeah, Ference was bleeding. I think he was cut above his eye or something. I didn't get a good look at it.

Gushing about Yzerman is about the only Wing-related thing Mitch Albom has done in recent years. Although I think he might have wrote a piece showing his disapproval of the Hasek signing in the summer of '06.

Hater. Yeah, the second goal was a little soft on Dom, but right now he looks a lot like he did last season (which I think is a good thing). He'll let in a goal or two early on, and then shut it down when we need him to. And I thought Draper looked pretty good in his first game back. With him in the lineup I think we roll four lines as good as anyone in the league.

I think there's a reason Blues fans weren't sad to see him go.

Ozzie wasn't going to play both games anyway so it's pretty irrelevant. And you guys can't honestly tell me Ozzie doesn't want the chance to show his former team how well he's playing.

I imagine Ozzie wanted the start against his former team on Thursday.

It seems the only way to get the puck past Ozzie these days is by his own team scoring on him. He's been particularly great these past few starts. And lighting up Vokoun is just as satisfying now as it was when he was with Nashville.

It's really no big surprise Smith didn't make the team considering he was just drafted. I take it as a positive that he was even invited to camp. Had Emmerton not been sent home because of mono, I'm pretty sure he would've made it, though not in a scoring role. And not only did Pyett make the team, he was also named as one of Team Canada's alternate captains.

I do imagine he'll be on the team next year, assuming this is Hasek's final season. Jimmy's not gonna get any more out of the AHL, and the organization just isn't going to give up on the best goaltending prospect they've had in such a long time. I think it would make sense to have him as Ozzie's back-up in the hopes that some NHL experience will help his development. Re-signing Ozzie for around 2 or 3 years would be a very good idea, IMO. But if the organization plans on making him the starting goaltender (I don't think there's many better options out there), he's gotta get at least 2 million a season, quite possibly more.

That isn't really that spectacular when you compare it to other players in the OHL. Tavares has near double that total at the moment. It really sucks to hear about Emmerton, though. He had a pretty solid chance of making the team after playing for Canada in that series they had against the Russians. I got the chance to see Emmerton play in Windsor a week or two ago, and looked great considering the slow start he had. According to TSN, one scout called Mathias the best all-around player in the CHL. Looking back, though, Matthias did look expendable at the time, and Bertuzzi could've power-forward who could put us over the top. You can't win em all I guess.