b.shanafan14

Funny how FSD and Ozzie kept talking about how Jimmy really turned it around since getting the team USA call. So just that one game?

Goaltending is s***. Goaltending can't be s*** and still win games. Pretty simple folks.

Another Howard tank. The team is obviously feeling the long layoff while playing a tough team, but that second goal killed them. They haven't had it since.

We lost because Howard wasn't pulled after the first 3 softies. That's on Jimmy and on Babcock. Everyone else was great, save Smith and Quincey.

So... Jimmy Howard lynch mob?

Now we need a shorty to win it...

This will only make Howard's soft goaltending all the worse... But still LGW!

This. Complete mystery. Better not play outdoors.

If Howard plays in the Winter Classic, Wings fans should get their tickets refunded.

Save one. Please. Save f***ING one.

Awful shift for Smith and why oh why did Howard keep that puck in play?! Saw that coming a mile away.

How is Howard still in goal? 3 for 3 terrible, soft goals.

I just want him healthy by season's end so we can buy him out. I don't want a repeat of Samuelsson from last summer. Yes, I know we can't use a compliance buy-out on him, and no, I don't care. I would rather have $2M+ cap-hit for an available roster spot than $4.9M cap-hit to watch his play - or lack-there-of for another 4 seasons.

Cowen dropped his stick, and by the look of it, did so to try and get the call. The initial chop definitely loosened things up, but then Cowen looked to me to sort of fling his stick away and raise his arms. I can see why the Sens are pissed, and if it happened to a Wings player I might be equally upset, but like Mickey says, hold onto your stick!

L.O.L.

I just wish we didn't get our one goal out of the way so early; now we have nothing to look forward to! The only real question is: what kind of die-hard sadists are we to keep watching this game? 4-1 after one, not getting the goaltending, and definitely don't have the personnel to climb out. Oh well, this or watching a documentary about the U.P. copper mine strikes of 1913 on PBS.... actually, that doesn't sound so bad...

I knew coming into the game that it was going to be hairy, but as others have said, I don't know how much you can blame injuries for that period. Pretty pathetic play from every one of our defenseman and Gus didn't make the big saves.

That's the game. At least its an early night, after watching the Lions choke last night....

Detroit WILL turn things around. In my opinion, its just a matter of when. The injuries have been devastating and keep piling up. Through solid goaltending and some players playing above their ability/experience level, we'll weather the storm, and make noise once vital players return from injury. To me, any level of consistency at this point is crucial. As I've said elsewhere, loosing the bodies we have lost is a hard enough blow to take even before you start continuously shuffling lines. The players that are available should at least be able to rely on their linemates and accumulated chemistry to get them through. The lines that are otherwise unaffected by injuries need to remain together and just have their ice-time adjusted. As a player goes down, his spot on a line should be the only substitution. Shuffling the whole deck does more to ruin what is working than it does to fill voids elsewhere.

Gus has looked like our best player of late, creating plays with his speed, skill, and smarts whoever he plays with. This is (another) huge hit right now... And as an even crueler twist of fate, as we are all discussing whether Sammy is out of the lineup for good, given all the other call ups proceeding him in our taped together depth chart, we lose another player, likely pushing him back into the lineup. Lucky us. Couldn't buy him out because he wasn't healthy enough to play elsewhere, and now we can't get rid of the guy.

He knows the system. He's had success here in the past. You can never have enough veterans in the locker room.... Do I need to go on?

The Wings have been having more and more trouble in recent years scoring goals consistently. In previous seasons, it has come down to a combination players under-performing, dragging their linemates into the slump with them/reassigning lines to get those players going AND injuries constantly shuffling the lines/breaking up chemistry. This season its been a bit of both. Either way, a lot of it comes down to chemistry. That said, the main culprit are the injuries themselves. You can't have Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Helm, Dekeyser, (to a lesser extent) Abdelkader, and Bertuzzi all down or otherwise not 100% at the same time, while the new 2nd-line center and starting goaltender both have career-worst seasons, and expect things to be fine. Datsyuk and Bertuzzi are back, but noticeably not back to their previous form yet. Every single line is sort of just drawn out of a hat prior to each game. The kids are great, but not quite ready to be called upon for the lion's share of offense yet. Add in bad luck like last night's Nyquist goal being waived off (could have changed the game entirely) and last week's slow/non-whistle on a Gustavsson frozen puck that ended up in our net, and its starting to get comical. Right now we are getting the goaltending, but zero goal support offensively. Not long ago we were getting the scoring and having leads squandered by shoddy goaltending. I'm confident once we get healthy things will pick back up, but right now we are missing very important players and everyone else is either slumping or has ever-changing linemates. Honestly, I think Babcock should be erring on the side of consistency more than anything, and when a player goes down on a line, we should do what we can to just replace that player, instead of bumping everyone up and down the depth chart.

It was hyperbole, but the recent trend is not good for Howard in shootouts. He wasn't bad in his first season with the Wings, but lost more than he won. 2010-11 and 2011-12 were good seasons for him and he performed admirably in the shootout. Since then, his performance has dipped dramatically. Last season, he ended up with a 1-5 shootout record with a .579S%, allowing 8 goals on 19 attempts. This season he has been even worse, as discussed above. We are about to enter 2014 and since October 2012 his record in the shooutout is 1-9 with a .517S%, allowing 14 goals on 29 shots. It's a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately league, especially at the goaltending position.

It's a bad sign that my gut reaction was "that's good". Gus is playing lights-out and deserves more consistent starts. We need to start getting points before we slip any further unfortunately a Gus-Mrazek tandem looks like our best bet. Howard needs to rest and reset mentally.

Unfortunately, since they are no longer ties, we are leaving points on the table. It has become part of the game, no matter how much we all hate it, and we have the personnel to get it done. And yet here we sit, dead last in the league in OT/Shootout record 1-9. That is 1 out of a possible 10 in "winner" points. To make matters worse, 5 losses have come leading after the 1st period and 4 after squandering a lead through 2 periods.