Drake_Marcus

Will he ever develop a scoring touch? Not a top six scoring touch. He's never had the hands to be a scorer at the NHL level. He'll score infrequently, like he has in the playoffs (6 goals over the last two years), and that will be entirely because of his hustle and speed, not because he has soft hands. Helm's scoring upside is about as small as it gets for an NHL rookie that's not a fighter. He's going to be more of a Draper type of guy (minus Draper's 20g year). But then again the Wings don't love him for his ability to occasionally score. The Wings love this kid because he's a spark-plug who can skate like an olympic speedskater, hustles for every single puck, hits people all over the ice and he's got the perfect set of defensive skills.

See, once again we're left wanting Lilja. Can't the doctors fix him already? I'm tired of waiting.

I'd take a Brodeur/Luongo tandem over anyone else in the league. Brodeur is money.

Even if you don't get a medal in hockey you know you're coming home with the highest combined medal count for the games.

With a combined height of like 11 feet, there's no way that pairing will get out-muscled by aggressive fore-checkers.

Stuart is basically babysitting Meech, though, so he's going to have a ton of responsibility even though he's on the 3rd.

Yeah, I guess it makes sense in light of the fact that we'd only have one dedicated PK d-man anyway, so putting that guy on the PP would leave the cupboards pretty bare. That being said, I think it makes more sense to have Ericsson on the PP and Stuart on the PK since Stuart is a better PKer than E.

I love the even strength pairings but not having Ericsson on the PP is absolute horses***. Babcock is obviously trying to drill it into E's head that he can't sacrifice defense for offense, but this is insane. Ericsson ran the PP in GR very well and has a 100 mph slapper. I can only shake my head at this.

Come on boys! Win this one for me!

8 of 21? Brutal. I can't believe how far I've fallen from my earlier record picking games.

So giving him a winger with stone hands won't help him?

Right now the Wings are ranked 16th in goals against per game with 2.81 ga/g. They're ranked 7th in goals per game with 3.10 g/g. The Wings' ratio of 5-on-5 goals for/against isn't very impressive-- 0.97, putting them in 18th place. That number is BAD. They're giving up more even strength goals than they score. Not good. In special teams it's a bit less balanced. The Wings are ranked 6th in PP% with 23.9%. The PK is worse off by far, with the Wings ranked 26th with 75.7%. Now, on to the shot differentials. In shots per game the Wings are ranked 1st with 34.1%. In shots against per game they're ranked 5th with 27.8. In face-off percentage they're 10th with 51.1%. When it comes to points percentage the Wings are ranked 12th in the league with 0.619%. What do all these stats indicate? The Wings' penalty kill is pathetic. They won't be dominant again until they can bring it up into the top 10 penalty kills in the league. Furthermore, they need to significantly correct their even strength play. It's interested that even with the terrible PK they're only 16th in goals surrendered per game.

Man that's great stuff. Thanks for the story. I've got a friend who's a HUGE habs fan and he'll get a good laugh out of this.

I'm seeing a theme here.

Funny stuff. How'd Babs react when you laughed? Did he smile back or just make his Babcock face?

He played with Lidstrom in the finals too. Towards the end Babs would do it time Rafalski had a brutal turnover. Remember the guy who scored the only goal in game 7? That incredibly clutch kid? That was Ericsson playing with Lidstrom.

Calling Kindl close to being NHL ready is pretty generous. Let's put it this way-- he can play the offensive game but he's going to be a train-wreck defensively at this point. We're lucky he's only 22 years old and he's got more talent than you can shake a stick at.

Wow... this is a tough pill to swallow. Damn it.

Looks like my boy is here to stay, man. Last night he had 2a. Tonight? 1g 2a. Note that all of those assists are primary assists as well. So that's 1g 4a in the last two days. 5pts in 2 days as the youngest kid in the AHL? Sounds like Holland's decision to keep him in GR was a smart one. This kid is already climbing up the points list on this team and he's played 5 less games than the team has! http://griffinshockey.com/news/stats/ Tatar just continues to impress.

Ahhh... I see. So I was checking his player page during games and double counting points because I assumed all the points from that game wouldn't be on his page yet. Still-- 2g 6a for 8pts in 12 games is damn good for the youngest player in the league!

Agreed on all points.

He's not considered a rookie for calder considerations because he played more than the combined games allowed in the previous seasons. For all intents and purposes, though, he's a rookie on this team. This is his first full season. Any other time he's been here was as an injury call-up.

Weird... AHL.com updated the point totals but only has his assists at 5 right now. Hey only gave him a single assist in the update. I just double-checked the boxscore and they didn't take any assists away, so I wonder what's going on. I'll have to email them if it isn't updated!

Isn't it a bit early to predict a loss?