Drake_Marcus

Stats updates for the Wings after tonight's game: GA/G: 2.64 (Rank: 10th) G/G: 2.68 (Rank: 19th) 5-5 F/A: 0.86 (Rank: 24th) <-- Brutal SA/G: 27.7 (Rank: 6th) S/G: 34.2 (Rank:1st) PK: 80.0% (Rank:18th) PP: 20.6% (Rank: tied for 10th) FO: 52.0% (Rank: tied for 5th) Edit: So they climbed up one spot on the PK charts. Also, this made the 9th game in a row without surrendering a PK goal.

And this is supposed to shock anyone? I honestly like you GMR-- you seem like a nice guy based on chatting on justin.tv, but you're no different than Mindfly when it comes to your attitude. Think about that-- your attitude is no different than Mindfly's.

I just wanted to mention that tomorrow's game is absolutely critical. Right now Nashville sits 3pts ahead of the Wings in 7th place in the West (with the Coyotes sitting in 6th with 38pts). Currently the Wings have three 34pt teams behind them and one 33pt team. Right now we're only 4 points removed from the 14th place Blues. A win tomorrow puts the Wings in 8th place in the West and only 1pt out of 6th. A loss puts them within reach of four other teams...

Yup. Howard's looked great. Nice to see that he got the first start tonight. Now the big question is whether Babcock stiffs Ozzy and gives Howard the start tomorrow too.

I was surprised Bertuzzi didn't get credit on the 3 stars, but I guess I can't argue with his choices. Still, Stuart should've been higher based on the fact that he knocked that puck out of mid-air in the 3rd and saved a goal. (Will Ericsson get props around here for his excellent defensive play tonight? Or will people only remember the -1 caused by Howard's horribly soft goal?)

Goalie stats update: Jimmy Howard: Record-- 9W-6L-1OT (tied for 2nd in Wins among Rookies) GAA-- 2.42 (tied for 12th with Luongo and Nabokov) SV%--0.914 (tied for 19th with Price and Tomas)

Wow... Ericsson just made a HUGE play. That puck was going in when he swept it away from the goal line. Wowzers. Anyone else see that overhead view? Ericsson was great there

Friday: Florida @ New Jersey Carolina @ Washington Chicago @ Buffalo Anaheim @ Detroit Edmonton @ St Louis Tampa Bay @ Colorado Minnesota @ Calgary Dallas @ San Jose Saturday: Washington @ Toronto Carolina @ Ottawa Philadelphia @ New Jersey Boston @ NY Islanders Buffalo @ NY Rangers Montreal @ Atlanta Anaheim @ Columbus Florida @ Pittsburgh Detroit @ Nashville San Jose @ Phoenix Minnesota @ Vancouver Dallas @ Los Angeles Sunday: Tampa Bay @ Chicago Calgary @ Colorado

This. I think he'll be back after his 2 year contract expires, but I wouldn't be too surprised if Holland managed to convince him to come back next season.

Well played.

I'm well aware he had a 13 game call-up last year. And I'm aware that he was a point per game player in the preseason. That wasn't my point. My point was that he's 27 games into his rookie season and people are already ready to push him under the bus.

Well you said he was good enough, no more, no less-- that sounds like "average" to me.

You're welcome

Did Howard have a rough first 4 games of the season? Sure. But since then he's been money. Jimmy Howard's stats since the start of November: 7W-4L-0OT 2.09 GAA 0.926 SV% Man, what an average goalie. Those mediocre stats would only be good enough for 6th in Sv%(off of 4th place by 0.01) and 4th in GAA (ahead of Brodeur in both those categories). You're right-- if we ignore statistics, he's played average lately.

You could say that for every team with a good GAA. Everyone tries to shut the other team down and protect their lead. It's not like the opposition stops trying to score after they've secured a 1 or 2 goal lead. They may play a bit more conservatively, but that's hardly enough of an argument to justify saying it skews the Wings' GAA any more than it does the rest of the league.

Easy there champ. Your beloved Filppula had a 5g 10a 15pt rookie season. Leino's on pace for a 9g 6a 15pt season. No one should be giving up on Leino yet-- he's played a whopping 27 games.

May and Miller are definitely NHLers at this point. Abdelkader, however, should be down in GR getting 20+ mins a night as their 1st line centre. I'm worried about how this early push into the NHL will affect his offensive confidence.

So... this team's top 20 scorers are shown below, in order of points: 1. Zettergerg 2. Datsyuk 3. Holmstrom 4. Cleary 5. Kronwall 6. Bertuzzi 7. Rafalski 8. Draper 9. Lidstrom 10. Ericsson 11. Eaves 12. Helm 13. Williams 14. Filppula 15. Stuart 16. Maltby 17. Lebda 18. Abdelkader 19. Leino 20. Franzen Injured players are shown in bold. Let's separate it out into healthy Forwards and Defense: Forwards: 1. Zettergerg 2. Datsyuk 3. Holmstrom 4. Bertuzzi 5. Draper 6. Eaves 7. Helm 8. Maltby 9. Abdelkader 10. Leino 11. Miller 12. May Ouch. So, for the record, Draper and Eaves are members of the healthy top 6. Yikes. Defense: 1. Rafalski 2. Lidstrom 3. Ericsson 4. Stuart 5. Lebda 6. Meech As far as the 2nd PP unit goes they should probably use Ericsson as a forward. During some points 07-08 Ericsson played on the PP as a forward for Grand Rapids. Remember that he's a converted forward. When he was playing on the PP as a forward for GR he played the role of net front screener/tipper guy. Given that Cleary's that guy on the second unit I guess it makes sense to throw Ericsson in there. Right now Ericsson's the only healthy, talented offensive player who isn't on the PP so I guess he's the logical replacement for Cleary on the 2nd PP. The other option is to put Ericsson with Stuart on the 2nd PP defense and move Meech to a forward position where he can roam around in the slot and take slappers. Actually, I like this idea better anyway-- Meech has been pretty bad at holding the line on the PP anyway. Plus, let's be honest, right now Ericsson really needs the confidence boost. His offensive production went from being tops on the d-core to 4th and the big difference I see out there is that he doesn't look confident out there.

I'd agree with you if it weren't for his anemic goal total. He's on pace for fewer than 30 goals this season... not cool. Right now the Wings desperately need Zetterberg to score goals.

Remember-- Raptor Jesus died for your sins.

See, you say this stuff but we all know you don't mean it.

Me too. Maybe Holland has a thing against people who hog the letter A?

Just win, Wings. Just win.

No they shouldn't. Before Tatar was drafted he was the most offensively gifted of all the Wings forward prospects (yeah, even more than Mursak). There's no way they're going to let him piss his future away by going back to the SEL at this point. He'll have to tough it out just like Mursak did last year and Kindl did the year before. Both Mursak and Kindl had brutal AHL rookie seasons but blossomed in their sophomore years. This should be no different.

You and everyone else who watched the WJC.