Drake_Marcus

Yeah. If he's out for 75% of the season on LTIR then the Wings only have to count 25% of his salary against the cap.

If the NHL played a 16 game season I'd agree. But at this point we have no idea what the team will look or play like at the deadline (at which point Franzen will likely be back, given his minimum timeline for recovery is February 8th).

Similarly, it took Brad Stuart about a year to come back from a concussion earlier in his career. He's fine now, though, so that's probably the best we can hope for with lilja . I'm hoping we can get him back sometime around Christmas. He's apparently still working out, so hopefully he's kept his conditioning up as best he can.

Don't do that. It's not like you're losing money on this game Just keep on trucking and have fun.

I hate the Pens, but I want to win the Weekend Picks game... so in the end I'll just pick the team I believe is going to win, if that means I pick the Pens then so be it. You guys weren't our rivals last year (how can you be the rival of a team you only see once a year and just beat for the cup?), but after this post-season you're definitely our rivals now. (yes, it still stings)

I think she meant that Ozzy plays his best hockey when he's trying to prove a point... for example when he was trying to win the #1 spot from Dom or when he was trying to prove his 08-09 regular season was an aberration and not a prediction of his playoff play. In both those cases he played out of his mind, which is what Loo is trying to get at. I don't think she was bashing Ozzy, just saying he plays best with a chip on his shoulder.

Hey, that season in 07-08 looks like it started out remarkably similar to this season. It turned out ok, didn't it? Good post dropkick! I'd forgotten we started out pretty lamely that year

Huh? The Wings lost Kronwall to injury pre-playoffs and lost Schneider to injury in the final win over the Sharks. So they went into the Anaheim series with their number 2 and number 3 d-men out. Still they managed to take Anaheim to game 6. At one point the series was in the Wings' hands, only to have Salami score in OT and make baby Jebus cry. I'd hardly call the 4-2 series loss in the WCF to the eventual champions a "blow out". If Schneider didn't break his arm against the Sharks that series would've been different.

Oh yeah. At this point the Lebda/Meech position is the weakest link by a mile, so having a good, reliable guy like Lilja there would be fantastic. It's amazing how far Lilja's come, eh? Remember when he was the goat back before the 08 cup? His play has definitely improved dramatically. If only we could be sure he'd come back and play the same way if/when he comes back from his concussion.

And the "bashers" could accuse you guys of the same thing. The "bashers" say he projects as a solid 2nd or, at worst, 3rd line centre who's excellent defensively, a great skater and should top out around 50-60 pts. That's almost identical to your viewpoint, except they don't think he's capable of 60+ points. Some posters on her have said he's capable of 80pts, which is absurd, but certainly not the average opinion of the Filppula fans. Is it any different for you to lump the pragmatists who believe he's a 50-60pt guy in with the "bashers" who think he's a 40-50pt guy (as if that's bashing)? Both sides are guilty of generalizations. And on a related point, I resent the implication that those of us who don't think Filppula projects as quite as good of a player as others do are somehow not fans of him. I like Filppula and would definitely say I'm a fan of his, I just have a slightly different opinion on what his peak career potential is.

I dunno if I'd pair Lilja so highly in that line-up. I'd rather see Kronwall get the time in with Lidstrom so he can learn as much as possible Or throw Ericsson on with Lidstrom for the same reason. What about: Lidstrom-Ericsson Rafalski-Kronwall Stuart-Lilja Give Stuart a chance to be more offensive by putting him with Lilja. Plus, given how much time Stuart gets on the PK the mins would come out fine for him. You could even switch Ericsson and Stuart for a few of the shifts to give them a better balance of TOI.

Not that things will stay like this, but yeah, it's starting out like a very strange year.

You're a year late. Sammy lost his goat status for 80% of the boards last year (last half of the playoffs aside).

Oh I agree man. I'm not worried right now. I'm actually ok with tonight's game. We ended up going 100% on the PK (which is HUGE for the Wings right now) and even though it's a tough loss they did manage to get a point out of it. Plus Dats is out at the moment, which is a much tougher thing to bear when your #3 forward is gone until February-March.

To be fair Z looked as off as Dats until the last two games. So maybe Dats would've looked better too if he weren't hurt. Well he'll definitely be back for Thursday's game (or he's much more injured than we've been lead to believe) so I'll reserve my judgment for then Overall, I can't be too disappointed in the Wings tonight given that they're missing Datsyuk and Franzen. Having Dats missing is hard enough, but when your #1 AND #3 forwards are out it's tough to look good.

I agree with you on 90% of what you're saying, although I think Filppula's upper end offensive potential is around 60pts, so it's not like he's a poor 3rd line centre. He had 42 last season, which is very respectible for a 3rd line centre. Basically I agree with you buy I'd shift the lines up by one line each time. In today's NHL Draper (in his prime) would have been a 3rd line centre, not a 4th line. We were just spoiled by the amazing depth of the Wings' teams pre-lockout. The 3rd line is where you see the shut-down checking centre these days, with the 4th reserved for aging veterans and kids. The thing is, I think Filppula could be a 3rd line centre that wins a Selke later on in his career. He's got the tools to be that kind of guy. He's also got the tools to be a decent 2nd line centre if he keeps working at it. He doesn't have the natural offensive talent to be a big point producer, but his ability to hold on to the puck, skating, defensive acumen and his work ethic are such that he can probably make up for some of his offensive failings in the long-run.

Yeah, I think he'd have made a better arguement by saying Filppula was the heir apparent to the 3rd line checker's role than the 4th line centre. In the end I think Filppula's a good 2nd line centre but he's an excellent 3rd line centre. So I guess it depends on where you want to put him. Wherever he is, he's certainly an above average hockey player and a core player on this team. As far as his all-around play goes he looks like he'll one day be an "excellent" hockey player based solely on the fact that all aspects of his play have the potential to be very good.

Well the stats say that he's playing really good hockey for a 3rd pairing d-man, and excellent hockey for a rookie d-man. I just don't see what else people expect from this kid when the only + d-men on the team are Lidstrom and Rafalski. Yeah he had a rough game tonight, but he's had some really strong games so far too. And when you average it all out his stats are impressive so far.

Apparently realistically evaluating a player based on their proven skills and performance is "bashing".

Leino's looked really good so far, yeah, but this is the best Filppula's looked in the regular season so far in his career (the short time in 07-08 when he played by Dats being the exception). Filppula still holds onto the puck far too much, but to be fair it took Datsyuk years to figure out how to best make use of his passing skills without holding the puck too much (for years "SHOOT!" was the number one complaint about Dats ). The big problem on these forums is the unrealistic expectations for Filppula. Right now he's playing above the expectations of an objective hockey analyst looking from the outside in, but he'll likely never be the player some Detroit fans think he will be.

Really? Because all the comments that came from media people during the playoffs were that Ericsson was extremely defensively savvy, especially for a rookie. One TSN commentator said he looked like he could be a future Norris winner. If his defensive game were poor Babcock wouldn't have put him out on the PK in critical situations or on the ice for the last two minutes of a 1 goal game in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Ericsson had a bad night tonight. So did lots of guys. He's still among the strongest defensive d-men on the team right now-- which shows because he's getting tons of PK time. He's also second on the team in defensive points (2 goals and 2 assists in 7 games). And he's first on the team in defensive goals. All without playing a second on the PP so far. That's impressive considering he's on the 3rd pairing playing 16 mins a game. What's Ericsson's +/-? -3. Sounds terrible right? Kronwall is -4, Cleary is -3, Zetterberg is -2, Stuart is -2... the list goes on. Only Lidstrom and Rafalksi are + d-men on this team right now. Ericsson's: -->1st on the team in defensive goals scored (2) -->2nd on the team in defensive points (2-2-4) -->3rd on the D in hits, -->4th most blocked shots on the team, -->has the fewest give-aways on the top five D (Meech and Lebda split the time as the #6, but they are a higher give-away per game average than E). Ericsson's got 5 give-aways in 7 games, with Rafalski at 7, Stuart at 8, Lidstrom at 9 and Kronwall at 11. Note that Ericsson plays fewer minutes than those guys, but not few enough to make it a wash-- he's still playing at least 75% of the time those guys are, so it's definitely notable that he gives the puck away the least. -->Is 2nd on the D in take-aways with 2 (Stuart has 4) -->3rd on the team in short-handed time on ice (with just 8 seconds fewer than Lidstrom per game) To say he's underperforming as a rookie d-man is absurd.

This is a great thing for Val and the third line. It's a terrible thing for the Wings because it means Datsyuk and Zetterberg are underperforming.

I'm not too worried right now. The standings in the NHL are laughably skewed towards the s***ty and mediocre teams from last season. Everything will settle down in time. The whole league is having a weird 2 weeks.

It looked like it hit either his glove or is arm. It was a close one. Still, would've been nice to get at least one save from Ozzy in the SO . In the end the Wings' shooters only scored once on 3 shots so they didn't exactly clean up in the SO either. Crappy third period, but at least we walked away with a point.