Drake_Marcus

Great news! The Wings won't want a member of their top PK tandem gone for months.

Good news-- the AHL just fixed Tatar's stats from last game to include both his assists along with his goal. Current stat-line: 22gp 8g 9a 17pts

Moreover, Lidstrom is far more respected in Sweden as a leader. Who scored the winning goal for their last gold medal? Yeah, I thought so. Leadership doesn't degrade with age.

It's ok-- the penguin is just jealous because he can't fly and the winged wheel can.

Defensively? Yes. Offensively? Nooooooooo.

And how do you propose he will get better? He's playing because the Wings want him to get the experience and learn out there. He'll be no better next year if he spends the rest of this season in the press-box.

Thank you.

Filppula is an excellent 3rd line centre but he's an average second line centre (at best). I'd rather have 3 strong lines than 1 really strong line and 2 ok lines.

Here are the new stats for the Wings after all Monday games have been played: (Note that the "trend" portion indicates the relative change in this stat in question since the last Wings game) Red Wings Team Stats (after 33 games played): GA/G: 2.61 (Rank: 9th Trend: Down 1 spot, Overall Change: Improved 0.4%) G/G: 2.70 (Rank: 18th Trend: Up 1 spot, Overall Change: Improved 0.4%) 5-5 F/A: 0.89 (Rank: 23rd Trend: Down 1 spot, Overall Change: Improved 1% ) SA/G: 28.1 (Rank: 7th (tied) Trend: Down 1 spot, Overall Change: Regressed 0.7% ) S/G: 33.9 (Rank: 1st Trend: Up 1 spot, Overall Change: Regressed 0.3% ) PK: 80.4% (Rank: 17th Trend: No change, Overall Change: Improved 0.7% ) PP: 19.4% (Rank: 15th Trend: Down 2 spots, Overall Change: Regressed 3% ) FO: 52.4% (Rank: 5th Trend: Up 1 spot, Overall Change: Improved 1% ) Pt%: 0.591 (Rank: 15th Trend: Up 1 spot, Overall Change: Improved 2% )

Yes. Last night was Tatar's last game in Grand Rapids until January when he returns from the WJC. He's probably traveling to the Slovak WJ training camp now. On other note about last night-- Tatar had 1g 2a 3pts. Right now the stats sheet has him credited with only 1g 1a, but that's because the Marlies scorekeeper made an error and recorded the primary assist as being from "17" (Pare) instead of "27" (Tatar). The people I watched the game with saw the same thing as me-- there's no way he shouldn't get that assist given how clear it was that he passed the puck to the scorer. I emailed someone that works on the AHL website to see if they picked that up and whether it will be fixed. From what I've heard from other fans it's always something they get around to fixing.

I think you're confusing treatment with prevention.

Well of course. We haven't had an injury this week.

You're welcome. Once I have enough game to game data I'll start plotting the trends in a spreadsheet so we can see how the various metrics are doing graphically. Know what's funny? In the dozens of math course I've done stats was my least favourite. I don't even consider stats "real" math.

My 15 this week looks to be a sign that things are looking good for me again Must be your new avatar.

Heyyyyy is your new avatar a penguin having sex with the winged wheel?!?

*Post cropped down a bit to reduce the amount of page taken up* First of all, this line up looks fearsome. If Holland could put that team together we'd be scary, scary good. But the numbers are a bit too optimistic. Kovalchuk sees himself as on par with Ovechkin, Crosby, Malkin, Datsyuk, etc. So he'd be looking for a salary around 9 million a season (noting that Datsyuk's cap hit is an absolute steal). Yes you could get it lower by locking him up even longer term, but getting it down to 6.5 million is a real stretch. I suppose it's possible given how much Hossa was willing to take long term, and front-loading it would allow you to give Kovy his huge salary early on. But in the end it'd be a work of sheer brilliance to get him signed for 6.5 million. I'd lose my s*** if Holland could do that! Volchenkov will not come here for 3.5 million and he certainly won't come here to play on the 3rd pairing. Komisarek signed a deal with the Leafs for 5 years at 4.5 million per. Now if you look at their numbers, Volchenkov and Komisarek have virtually identical stat lines aside from the fact that Komisarek has about triple the PIMs. Komisarek seems to be able to stay a bit healthier than Volchenkov, but it's not a huge difference in their relative games played. Both players are 27 years old. Volchenkov's agent will be using Komisarek's contract as a starting point for negotiations. So you'd have to sign Anton for a much longer term to get him down to 3.5 million.

SPSS? Super Player Stats Sucker? ACG is more of a Jake Ryan passive aggressive thing, though, not a chosen nickname. I'm just someone who doesn't change their avatar often because I feel that avatars are good for quickly recognizing different users and switching them around kind of defeats that purpose.

So is Holland. No offer for Lebda will be turned down. I bet he'd trade Lebda to the Penguins for the rights to Mario.

Filppula's a valuable piece but you're crazy if you think he's an impact player on a level even close to that of Kovalchuk. You are aware of how contract negotiations work, right? Of course his agent was demanding the max contract. They might do that if Rafalski was 10 years younger. But now? You've got to be kidding me.

I'm glad everyone likes it I'll add the % of pts earned to my last post.

I like the individual player watch threads too. I just stole that idea so I could apply it to the whole team. The cool thing with this is I can drag it up after each game and we'll get to see how the Wings, as a team, do over time by looking back on the old posts.

So he'll be chatting with you in a few months?

Well I'll say this-- Bertuzzi is a man of extremes. When he's hot he's red hot. Right now he's scoring like Franzen does when he's on-- at will. When Bert's cold he can't buy a goal (like the rest of this team this season). I'm really, really thankful that Bertuzzi is stepping up right now when we need him the most. He deserves tons of credit for delivering the goods. Honestly, if he continues stepping up like this until our scoring comes back I think we'll see Holland re-sign him next year. Thanks Bert. Pretty much every single Wing had a great game (except Meech who could've prevented the last goal if he just swept that puck away when he had a chance). I think these injuries and struggles defensively were the best thing for this team. The Wings are playing the kind of defensive, hard-working game they played in 07-08. Once we get Franzen, Kronwall, Cleary, Filppula, Williams and possibly Lilja back this team will have the firepower to match up against nearly anyone else in the league. One last note-- Zetterberg really, really needs a few goals. He's in a goal scoring slump right now (although he's still producing offensively and he's playing great hockey). And we all know what happens once Zetterberg gets a goal to end a slump... BOOM he's magically a scoring machine again

For the first time in weeks I think I had a good day-- I went 5/8 but should've gone 6/8. Initially I picked Dallas over San Jose, but before clicking "add reply" I changed my mind and switched it to SJ because I thought my first choice was too risky. It's like writing multiple-choice exams-- you should always trust your instincts.

Great news! The Wings have shown HUGE improvement since the start of the season in one key area: Goals Against. Yeah baby! The Wings now sit 10th in overall in the league with 2.67 GAA. That's right-- they're above average in the single most important defensive statistic. You'll remember that they were craptastic in this regard last year (20th in the league) and even worse at the start of the year. What about the PK you ask? I'm glad you threw that out their hypothetical reader. The Wings are currently tied for 18th place in PK%! That's right-- almost average. Seems crappy, eh? But it's a huge improvement over their 29th place PK from earlier in the season. So clearly this team is learning to shape up defensively. Oh, and the goaltending isn't the only reason why their improving defensively-- Jimmy's been great, yeah, but he's not a top ten goalie yet. And right now this is a top ten defensive team (except on the PK). Speaking of J-diggity-fresh, and he insists I call him that (I assume), his stats are getting more and more respectable. Right now he's tied for 20th in save percentage (with Price and Giguere), tied for 13th in GAA with Fleury (the greatest 1st overall pick ever to be selected in 2003) and only 0.01 in GAA from Mighty Luongo! Yes, we can say Jimmy's impressed as a rookie many of us considered a bit of a bust walking into training camp. And no one compare his stats to Varly or Rask because that's just mean. So yeah. Time to give our defense props and maybe stop calling for a certain craptastic assistant coach's head. (but if you meet Todd McClellan at the next Sharks game please feel free to beg him to come back home to Detroit)