b.shanafan14

Nyquist and Tatar are showing shades of Franzen in this recent stretch. Lazy, sloppy, floating waiting for the puck rather than supporting, and making soft-headed cute passes that more often than not are going the wrong direction up ice. D and Z look alone out there and Abdelkader is the only one that can actually put the puck in the net.

Also, not that it is an excuse, but it sure seems like a trip on one side is not equal to a trip on the other side. Philly is getting a lot more PP time despite relatively even amount of obstruction. Just saying, not an excuse, but it doesn't help.

A few months ago, I couldn't see Babcock going anywhere. If we keep playing like this, I can't see him wanting to stay.

Bad giveaway by Ericsson, but Jimmy dipped the glove just like he did all last season.

Howard wiffs on the first shot of the season. Picking up where he left off...

All of the above. What does that tell us?

I.... I just.... wha.... gimme a minute.... ....nope.

I'll say this: Holland did as well as he could with his offers to other FA that chose to go elsewhere - besides maybe Gilbert which could have been a cheap improvement and still left room for the top-2 or -4 defenseman we were seeking. Despite his compounded failure to "nut-up" in previous off-seasons, I honestly believe he did all within his power to get the players we needed this off-season (given the current sad state of the team, which is his doing). If they don't want to come here, you can't force them and shouldn't grossly overpay them. However, there is absolutely ZERO excuse for the Quincey signing. That is disappointment turning into full-blown, unavoidable, mature, objective, and justified RAGE. Holland did what he always does when he misses out on his target: slaps some tape and shoe-polish on trash and tries to pass it off as a "bargain" or a "consolation prize". We aren't getting the sirloin because they ran out of prime rib; we've been fed a steady diet of cold spam. For that, Holland should be replaced.

This is a nightmare on so many levels...not only to we not upgrade, but bringing back Quincey ON THE FIRST DAY OF FA is the single worst knee-jerk panic signing I've seen, even for post-2009 Holland. At a raise under the lower salary cap (compared to his last deal) this is another head-scratcher, and reeks of desperation. Compared to every other defenseman signing yesterday, this is far and away the worst with regard to player and cap-hit. I know it was early in the day and we were still waiting to hear from Niskanen (despite reports that the Wings were told he wasn't interest), but we literally said "no thanks" to Tom Gilbert and his 28pts -5 playing with Florida at half the price of Quincey's 13pts -5. Its like the twilight zone in here... The cap-hit is ridiculous when you look at nearly every other signing, D G or F signed yesterday, but the 2 year term also means we'll have Sproul and Oullet climbing over worthless bodies to find a roster spot, just like Tatar and Nyquist. After we missed out on Boyle, Ehrhoff, Niskanen, Gilbert, Stralman, even I was saying stand pat, our team will be better with health and further development of the kids up front, and I find it hard to believe Sproul/Oullet could be worse on their entry-level contract than Quincey or other Plan C options at any price. This is exactly the deal that Holland pulls every summer and it NEVER pans out. Signing something, anything is not a solution.

... especially with Kenny. Sad thing is, if we don't land Niskanen, which it looks like we won't, I'd rather give Sproul and Oullet a chance and stand-pat over trading cheap scoring for overrated and overpaid. We can't get worse than Quincey, so as long as we stay healthy and our kids on the front-end develop, we'll be improved from last season. We could have done better, but we can still do much worse if we panic.

Trading for Myer should never have a Nyquist or Mantha as return, especially given his salary, his underachieving, and Buffalo's need to rebuild hard. This happening would be absolute insanity.

That would be absolute lunacy... so for Kenny, it is probably all but final.

If we can't land Niskanen at this point, I would rather see some of our young D. The only thing I hate more than Kenny's lack of free agent success are his knee-jerk trades. Rental Legwand for a legit prospect in Jarnkrok and the Kyle Quincey debacle make me nervous enough without him being terribly desperate to boot. If we give up Nyquist or Mantha in a trade for some 2nd-tier d-man, I'm going to lose it...

You haven't already wished that since.... like November??

Kronwall, Helm, and Franzen will be disappointed to hear that Of course, I'm not sure I've actually SEEN Franzen this series.

I think people just want Jimmy to learn how to play the puck well, which may be unfair/unrealistic. The problem with the play he made last game (besides the effectively changing the complexion of the game/series to that point) was that he could have done practically anything else with puck and had a better result. He panicked and played "hot potato" with his d-man's hip, so the puck ended up in his goal. Not because he played the puck. Not because of a bad break. Because he panicked. I can't think of a worse thing for a goaltender to do on the big stage, especially when he isn't playing the greatest to begin with.

Haha I would HATE to be the Laughs tomorrow....

I had to come and say: absolutely massive performance from Howard when his teamed really needed it. More of that, Jimmy! LETS GO RED WINGS!

Man, imagine how much Cleary is kicking himself now... looking like he could be washed-up after this season because of his health and poor play. Sad to see the guy leave that much on the table and have it go sour, especially with all the great memories here, but the fact remains he should have never been brought back.

For a rookie playing his first handful of games in the NHL? God forbid! Seriously, have you seen some of the crap Legwand has been laying out there? Even Tatar continues to turn the puck over with some regularity in terrible spots on the ice, but I'd take him over not only Legwand, but any trade acquisition we've had since.... when did the PS2 launch?

Is it Howard-bashing to say that Howard hasn't played well? He hasn't. Its nothing personal, but the fact remains that the stats are crap and the anyone that watches the game can see he isn't tracking pucks well, his glove has been wavering, his rebound control is non-existent, and his body language after goals doesn't instill confidence. Every game we can do the postmortem on each goal and find a screen, or a bounce, or a "good shot". When we end up blaming zero goals on the goaltender who is routinely letting in 3-5 goals, you might have to look at your own objectivity. I'm not saying every goal is Howard's fault. I'm saying the trend is that he lets in a lot of goals at the worst possible time and he needs to own that as much, if not more than our crappy defense.

Babcock is the best coach in the business. I disagree with a lot of what he does, but lately in interviews, I get the sense that the change in philosophy and identity can come with Babcock still in place. The way he has been handling these kids and the injury replacements this season has been stellar in my opinion. Holland is much more of a problem than Babs is. If Holland stops clinging to the old guard (see Cleary, Bertuzzi), and seeing what we can do with our young prospects, allows the kids to take a larger role, I think we could be primed for another run in the next few years. Holland needs to stop signing these after-thoughts and "bargain" players. If there isn't a perfect fit on the market or big worthy acquisition, I'd rather see bigger roles for young players in our organization already. We are starting to see our prospects mature, with more and more bubble players that just need a chance. Mind you, I'm not condoning Holland's "injured players as 'deadline' acquisitions" or "forcing 3rd-line grinding winger onto the 1st line means we got our new top-6 guy" bullsh*t. I'm saying I'd rather bring in a young bubble player in coming years rather than signing plug after plug for the sake of filling roster space. If we continue to incrementally bring in our young guys and supplement them with only actual good fit or big impact signings, I can see Babcock's coaching get new life in the coming years while remaining with the Wings.

In the last 18 games, Howard has 10 sub-.900 save percentage performances. Of those 10, 9 resulted in a loss, including the last 3 games. His goals-against over the last 18 games is 3.333 per game. Is his defense crap? Yes, but at what point do we stop making excuses for him and accept that if you are going to be a good goaltender, you have to make the difficult saves, especially at crucial points in the game. As I've said elsewhere, he allows his glove hand to dip, resulting in two goals tonight, his rebound control is as bad as its ever been (which is really saying something with Howard), and the way he has been the last few games reminds me of his early season stretch of awfulness. By the the second goal you could read in his body language that he was feeling sorry for himself. He looks lethargic at times and he is allowing back-breaking goals. Is the problem honestly that this injury-depleted team can't score an average of 4+ goals per game to win? Bad as our defense has been, Howard has been just as bad, and getting worse.

My problem with the call wasn't that the puck just happened to go in after the net was significantly dislodged. My problem was that the net was significantly dislodged even prior to the final shot. If you watch the replay, the net is good and off, and then CBJ reaches back and finishes the play. If he didn't reach back for the puck, it wouldn't have continued in. The net was off, then came the shot. Where is the line here? Could you shoot on an open dislodged goal so long as the opposition is deemed to have been more at fault in knocking it off? The play wouldn't have even warranted a delay-of-game on Smith if there wasn't a goal; it wasn't even THAT clear. The ref should NOT be able to allow a goal on a discretionary basis, but that's exactly what happened. Toronto advises but if the ref decides "I saw what I saw and that's my call", than that's the final word. We've seen it all before: ref makes a decision in the moment and sticks to it no matter what he sees or hears from Toronto.