Zetts

I absolutely guarantee that we would regret trading Smith or even sitting him for extended periods of time. As I've said before, this is exactly what people were saying when Fischer came into the league. My lord people here hated him for quite some time. Yes, Smith hasn't been as good as we expected in his first season, but he'll get a lot better. To do that, not only does he have to stay here, but he has to get icetime. Some guys just take a couple of years to really get going. Obviously, especially with our suckage, peoples' patience is particularly short. But we can't be stupid about this - he will be a key part of our future. There's a reason that he's been highly touted.

DeKeyser is a recent addition. He pushed White down the depth chart. White *was* relatively important at one point.

That's obviously true, but that's unfair to put on Howie, which is where this stream of comments came from. If he's played well enough to boost them 2 spots, you don't say, "well, he should have sucked because then we'd get better draft picks". You say, "where the hell was the rest of the team to boost us into 8th?" I'm still pissed at him for this game though.

I 100% agree that he's this team's MVP and we'd be in a lot of trouble without him. I also agree that goal scoring is our biggest problem. But that doesn't mean that he never deserves blame - and in particular he's got to take a lot of responsibility for this game. What I found particularly inexcusable (as I said before) was his COMPLETE lack of effort to get back in the net on the third goal. That was embarrassing.

They did score more. They scored 2.

I guess...it seems to me like getting people crashing the net would be more important than throwing even more low quality chances at the net. I find them much too passive on offense (see: Filppula).

I was going to say...it seemed very strange how he made NO EFFORT AT ALL to get back into the net on the last goal. I mean, WTF? Edit: To be clear, I'm a Howard supporter and I'm happy with his new contract. But not impressed on that play at all.

We're outshooting them 36-17... I really don't think that's the problem.

And? Everyone here loved it at the time. I like seeing him do that - it shows that he's into the game and cares. He shouldn't have to pound in Colton Orr's face to prove that. Hopefully this is a sign that things will start to pick up for him. Realisitically, he seems to be the type of player that needs to play with good linemates to succeed. So hopefully some of the guys around him (i.e. Filppula) get it together. That could help keep Franzen's production rising.

NYR got an amazing deal in that Rick Nash trade though.

I'm not sure why there's a "signed" tag on this thread. Maybe I missed the report, but I'm pretty sure he has NOT re-signed. They just said they were close and had agreed on most terms. Is there a source anywhere saying this is actually completed?

We're definitely missing him. I just hope that he's in good enough shape when he comes back, because speed wasn't a great asset of his to begin with. Still, he'd be an improvement over Cleary in the top 6.

If Minnesota wins though, our chances of catching them goes down dramatically. Then it's truly just us against the 3 teams right behind us. I'm not sure if either outcome is really good. At least one of them has to lose. Please just let it end in regulation.

They probably talk about the standings, but there's not even the slightest chance they'd intentionally drop points give that they still need points too. You *might* have a slight argument if we were talking about a team like Chicago that's extremely entrenched in their current place. Even then it would be unlikely. Players have pride. Further, the Wings/Sharks have 0 chance of being a first round matchup, so there's even less incentive for them to screw the Wings at the expense of points. So no, I don't believe your theory. $%&@, Minnesota is now up 1-0.

I think this might be taking the conspiracy theories a bit too far...

Agreed. With the infuriating exception of Filppula. Also, Nyquist has been one of our most dangerous forwards. He needs more ice time.

I think you're a little too hard on Kenny here. Franzen looked like a beast to everyone. He'd been dominant pretty consistently for almost 2 years and you legitimately could have made an argument that at times he was a top 5 forward in the league (in the playoffs in particular). He doubled Hossa's goals that year in the playoffs. At the time, Franzen was also solid defensively (not that he's especially bad defensively now, but at the time he'd actually been used in a defensive role because of his reliability). And yes, there is the factor that he'd been with the Wings for a long time/had been drafted by them. The "known value" argument that you make, in my opinion, applies better to Franzen. He'd been here for a long time and the management and coaching staff here felt that they knew him better. I don't think that at the time anybody forsaw this. Edit: As a pretty surprising side-note, projecting to an 82 game season, Franzen is actually on pace for 58 points...only one off his career high*. I know projections like that don't necessarily mean too much, but it still seems odd because to me it's felt like he's played extremely poorly. *Which, admittedly, was achieved in only 71 games.

Because he's the one asking for an obscene overpayment.

Normally I try to stay positive about the Wings, but I have to say this: It is an absolute joke that Filppula is asking for 5M+ per year. Does anybody remember the last time that he looked dangerous?

I cringed when I read that. I forgot about that guy. Ugh. Yeah, there have been some...suboptimal choices in the past. I'd personally put Brunner above all of those guys in terms of choices for the point though. I actually do think it's a decent decision.

Hudler is left-handed.

He probably does it because he doesn't see eye-to-eye with you on that bolded part. And neither do I.

Watching peoples' comments around here, it's like Jiri Fischer all over again. His level of play this season is no surprise and you can rest assured that he'll get much, much better over the coming years.

Fixed.

NO.