Mckinley25

Boston and Montreal both winning of course.....

I think you're responding to Harold but I do defend Holland when people say those things and point out there's more to it. I think it's a valid discussion point, certainly more valid than claiming Holland is an idiot.

I never claimed you said those things. I was pointing out my original comments that started this tangent were in response to others making what amounted to those claims. I felt that your response was artificially injected with implications of unwarranted defense of Babcock when I was only pointing out his decision may have been based on other information. As you aptly brought up, he has good reasons for using Datsyuk first normally, so he's clearly not an imbecile, maybe he knows something about Nestrail we don't. He may have been wrong or he may have been right and it just didn't work out in his favor but I wasnt defending Babcock just because he's "Babcock"

Those seem like different scenarios to me, the criticism I was responding to is that Babcock was basically an idiot for making that decision and I felt like because of a wild diversity of variables and the nature of sports results there could be an explanation that alludes us because we are not there all the time. It's more similar to if people were accusing Zetterburg of being a terrible player because of his sub par performance last night. And actually you could speculate as to the reasons instead of just coming to the conclusion he's worthless. Similarly to how when Ericcson had a bad game it was surmised that his finger is still bothering him, not he's an awful defender. For the record I believe he's a good defenseman but on a Stanley Cup team he's a 4/5/6 guy not a 1/2/3 guy. Does that make sense or am I talking garbage? I admittedly am not well versed in Internet debate. Those seem like different scenarios to me, the criticism I was responding to is that Babcock was basically an idiot for making that decision and I felt like because of a wild diversity of variables and the nature of sports results there could be an explanation that alludes us because we are not there all the time. It's more similar to if people were accusing Zetterburg of being a terrible player because of his sub par performance last night. And actually you could speculate as to the reasons instead of just coming to the conclusion he's worthless. Similarly to how when Ericcson had a bad game it was surmised that his finger is still bothering him, not he's an awful defender. For the record I believe he's a good defenseman but on a Stanley Cup team he's a 4/5/6 guy not a 1/2/3 guy. Does that make sense or am I talking garbage? I admittedly am not well versed in Internet debate.

It very well could be, but I'd like to think there was more to it.

To be fair I mentioned the practice thing as well, but it was more in response to what I perceived as blind criticism and calling Babcock dumb etc., I was suggesting that there is likely something we don't know, whether that be practice or something else entirely, as I don't think Babcock is dumb, though certainly not infallible.

I feel like in sports whenever something doesn't work out the way it's intended it will be looked at as a bad decision because well, something else obviously would have worked better. We have a substantially different set of information to base our criticism on then Babcock does. It's really difficult to discuss this with you though because your replies are so filled with forced implications I feel like I'm defending a position I didn't take, so I apologize if this is confusing. I'm not a Babcock apologist, I don't think he's the greatest coach ever, but I just know there's a lot of things we as fans just don't know. I feel the same way when people bash Holland for not making deals we don't know he didn't attempt to make. I'd like an answer as much as anyone on why signings did or did not happen or why Nestrail was his first choice, but it seems everybody knows better than the people tasked to get the job done, and the objectivity is stripped from these debates before they get anywhere. There seems to not be any real discussions here anymore. I wouldn't be upset if the Wings underwent a regime change, but I think the reason we don't win as many games is simply because we don't have good enough players. The reason for that is because the NHL has adopted a system that's designed to create quality turnover. The Wings have done a decent job at fighting that system. Not as good as Edmonton has though. Well now I've lost myself so I won't torture you any further.

There's a lot more to the minutes than that though, it's not just putting the best offensive players out more because they're better, it's about putting the right players out at the right time, match ups, and knowing when players are tired. We've heard over and over again in interviews and post game conferences that players were gassed and the coach has to know all of this and respond accordingly. I'm baffled sometimes too, but I'm not on the bench with all the variables in front of me.

Dazzling was probably a poor choice of words but it's not hard to believe there's a good reason he was chosen, and I suspect he's proven capable at some point.

It's easy to see Nes miss in the shoot out and say it was a stupid call but for all we know he could be dazzling every day in practice at the shootouts. Hindsight and all....we can complain if he keeps getting opportunities.

Particularly with more and more people opting out of cable packages. I loved GC when I lived on the east coast. When I lived in Columbus I missed the eight division games against the Jackets but now in Michigan I get nothing:/

I thought you had to play a certain number of games in the regular season or at least one game in the playoffs to have your name on the cup.

In their dreams.

And what happened to norrisnick!? And #jimmyhoffa?! And seriously what happened to the political forum? This place got weird the last five years.

Who took the shootouts and who scored?

It's so ridiculous, I'm not going to pay for cable just for hockey. Though to be fair 10 years ago it was the only option.

Any idea as to the Leafs line-up?

Who the hell is disney.com?

I thought he was a checking line player.

Um...haven't you been paying attention? He should've punched him so no important players on our team would get hurt.

I would hit the player carrying the puck.

Let's be honest, the only reason people defend fighting is because they want to watch fights. There's no statistics on cheap shots that I'm aware of, but I suspect the frequency hasn't changed because of the instigator rule or the refs or anything like that. In fact, and this is just based on my own experience of watching hockey from the eighties on, I believe cheap shot have drastically declined. If injuries are up, particularly ones like Datsyuk suffered, it's likely because the game is so much faster and the players so much stronger. The game is changing, because the players are getting better. Fighting in my opinion is an just a useless distraction from the game that should be abandoned with other sport antiquities like segregated baseball teams.

Agree, not everyone can be Larionov, play chess and speak 5 languages. Sometimes you're Brendan Smith, P is for puck, and that's good enough for him.

Isn't that what Babcock is saying though? Up until now he's given the jobs to the veterans, this training camp he's giving it to the best player. This being the first season with this philosophy, he's hardly had a chance to go back on it.

He's a bad example because we're talking about Ville Leino, but look what Steve Yzerman had to do to help the Wings become a contender. It is always more difficult to win with one dimensional players.