Drake_Marcus

Also, you can say that for literally every guy in the NHL. No one plays on a one man line.

This kid has been getting a lot of credit since his rookie year. I'd hardly call him low profile.

In the post-game interview Babs said Ericsson will be fine. Hopefully that's not just optimism.

May's getting interviewed on WXYT and he sounds like a class act. He's definitely got that Downey attitude

Other Red Wings teammates call him that. Apparently they called him Big Rig in Grand Rapids back in 07 but he wasn't a huge fan of that nickname.

Oh, and for all the Ozzy haters out there (assuming fans of other teams aqre reading this post): This is Ozzy's 390th career win. Suck it haters.

Good win. The PK looked good. The PP looked good. The depth looked good (although I'd love to have seen the Finn line score once). The Wizard of Oz looked good. The WINGS looked good. Plus it looks like Ericsson is playing at a point per game if you count the fact that he's only lasted half the game in the first and third games Hopefully he's fine after that blocked shot injury. He's tough as hell, so I'm sure he'll be fine. Still-- a goal and an assist in your first three games as a rookie d-man on the third pairing is DAMN GOOD.

A lion getting it on. Post of the day..

Oh they were man

Not even remotely true. Abdelkader's development is better served by playing 20+ mins a night in GR than playing 5 mins on the 4th line up in Detroit. Plus we all knew he'd be going back down when Helm returned anyway (due to the cap), so whatever.

Babcock said May will play if his immigration stuff goes through.

We're going to rock this guys. I just ordered 40 wings from Grecko. Thus we know that the Wings will win on a goal from #40. It's foolproof.

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

Beauty. He adds what Downey did but with better skating, which is a huge plus (especially in Babcock's system).

Hmm... let me think about that... Sweet-- this one will work perfectly! I believe you can patent some mathematical stuff, for example, mathematical methods of filtering signals are sometimes patented, if I remember correctly.

I also have a minor in kicking ass and taking names, so yeah, I am.

Let's see... this is a bit weird looking because 95% of the mathematical symbols aren't on my keyboard. Let: x = Jake Ryan's hate for Holmstrom y(t) = Holmstrom's hockey skill as a function of t t = time in years oo be the closest approximation to the symbol for infinity that I can make on my keyboard Note: y(t) is a function determined based on a quantitative analysis of Holmer's year by year offensive production, using exel to plot a graph of pts vs year (where his rookie year is 1, his second year is 2, etc) then fitting a function of best fit to it (use a polynomial, with the degree chosen through trial and error) would produce an acceptable function for our purposes. But based on the fact that his production must eventually decline as time increases (by logic), we can simply use a limit to avoid having to find the actual function. The result of this limit is based on logical deduction. lim y(t) = 0 (logically, a 100+ year old Holmstrom wouldn't produce points in the NHL) t->oo x = [y(t)]^-1 lim x = lim [y(t)]^-1 t->oo t->oo lim x = oo t->oo

While Holmstrom's definitely not looking great on the first line 5 on 5 right now, Helm isn't the solution. Helm has no place on the top two lines under any circumstances. Sorry. While you don't believe it, Holmstrom's hands and offensive instincts/vision is superior to Helm's in every sense. That's why Holmstrom's made his living in the top six and Helm never will. Guess who set Holmstrom up in this role? The greatest coach in hockey history-- Bowman. If Helm had any place on the top two lines Babcock would've tried him there at some point. Remember my post about Helm's "amazing" 9 points in 41 playoff games? I know you think that's something that could scale up when you stick him on a higher line but it doesn't really work that way. You can't stick any NHL player on a top line and expect that they'd suddenly produce 1st line points. Helm's also yet to score a regular season goal. And even if we ignore his lack of production in the regular season his playoff production only scales up to 18pts in an 82 game season. That's not particularly impressive, but it would be if it were Helm's rookie numbers. One thing that contributes to Helm's modest success so far in the playoffs is that he's a relative unknown, you can expect that once he played in the top six goalies and defensemen would figure him out and his one-trick pony (speedy approach followed up with a quick shot) would die pretty quickly. That's one of the hardest things about becoming a regular in the NHL and being asked to score-- the other team starts paying attention and figures out your tricks. That's why successful offensive producers have to be creative and adaptable. And that's where Helm's lack of vision and offensive skill would hurt him. Holmstrom had a bad playoffs this year, but he's had great ones the rest of his career.

Not really. I'm a mechanical engineer (I also have a degree in physics). Sorry.

Generally, while double shifting isn't preferred, it's done for line matching purposes or based on a particular situation. It's usually not about adding one player to two different lines unless the bench is short.

Patents apply to novel designs. You're thinking of a trade mark.

Fixed it.

Fedorov is too old to beat Malkin out of the top scoring centre at the olympics. Datsyuk is so defensively sound that the coach will likely put him on the second line and use that line against the other team's best players to best utilize Datsyuk's defensive dominance on a team that will be defensively deficient. They'll want to try and get Ovechkin out against the opponent's weakest lines so they can maximize his chances of scoring, and thus he'd be a bad choice to put with Datsyuk if Dats is their best defensive option. Feds is still a strong defensive player (although, given his age, he's not as good as he was in his prime), so you'll see him on the 3rd line in a checking role. EDIT: I do think you'll see Datsyuk centre Ovechkin on the PP since Malkin's used to playing the point in that situation. Now that will be a sick PP.

Yes he is. Holmer is the best puck deflector and net front presence in the entire NHL. You seriously underestimate how good he is at deflecting incoming shots at high speed (all the while being hit by defensemen and slashed by the goalie). EDIT: If your theory about Holmer held true every team would have an equally effective screening/deflecting player as the Wings. And yet the only guy in the league that's in the same class as Holmer is Ryan Smyth.