Drake_Marcus

That they can score lots of goals in the regular season? They're currently at 205 GA with 14 games left. Last year they had 184 GA after 82 games. The PK is 27th overall. Last year it was top 3 in the league. This team is scary. Scary porous. I'm scared as hell about the playoffs. And my stomach won't be settled until they're in the second round and have a respectable GAA and PK%. We've all see playoff hockey- the 07-08 Wings were built to be playoff monsters. This year our boys aren't looking quite so fierce. They've earned the right to be favourites this year by their play last year, but anyone who thinks there's a magical switch to be flipped is kidding themselves. To play 20+ games of the best hockey of your life- you have to be conditioned to play that best hockey day in and day out.

Ahhh they let in 2 goals. 1 empty net (big wooop). The Wings had 6 goals go on their goals against (no idea why the SO goal counts against your GA, but that's what NHL has on their site). Your team lets in 2 goals- playoff loss, possibly playoff win. Your team lets in 5 goals- you're the Avalanche playing against the 07-08 Wings.

As good as McCollum looks now- Howard looked better when he was done playing in college. We still have no clue what McCollum will look like in the NHL.

THANK YOU. Rafalski is 50% worse defensively when he's paired with Lidstrom because he takes that to mean he can roam more and look for the sexy breakout pass before he makes the smart, safe play. Or at least that's the way it looks. Stuart and Kronwall aren't playing like they did in the playoffs, but I can definitely see why Babcock is trying to get them going. Stuart is looking better with each game (the injury definitely set him back). Lebda + Big Rig = s***show. Big Rig is a quick offensive player that likes to roam far into the other team's zone. So is Lebda. The best Ericsson pairing we've seen is Kronwall Ericsson. I want that pairing back. (again I can see why Babs wants Stu and Kroner to get back into sync, but they haven't been since they hoisted the cup). Whatever. One person tonight pissed me off tonight was Babcock.

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

This.

Good good...

A Wings Canadians final would just warm my heart Sweeeeppppp!

Hey! It's harder to be mad at you when you admit to your problem and ask for forgiveness. You're supposed to act indignant and yell and kick dirt at us.

Ericsson plays very, very, very much like a more physically assertive Nicklas Lidstrom. Like Lidstrom he's a strong positional, thinking player (more so than say Niklas Kronwall). He doesn't go out of his way to make a hit, so you won't see the Kronwall or Stuart-like open ice railroading. But, Ericsson is very comfortable using his size and reach to bear down on a man and leverage his size against the other player's. Ericsson is also good at using his size along the boards in his own end to push a stubborn man covering a puck on the boards. He's pretty adept at pushing people off pucks using his size. He's not against hitting, either, but his hits look more like Datsyuk hits than Pronger hits So, in summary, Ericsson is great at using his size as a defensive tool, but not that great at using his size as a weapon. All that being said- Ericsson isn't soft. But he's not hard by any measure. He's not going to get pushed off a puck or find himself in a situation where he's afraid to push a man off a puck. But he's not going to wear the other team's forwards down with his checks. Regardless, softness can be whipped out of a man that stands 6'5" and has the muscle of a pro hockey player. If he's willing to learn, I'm sure he can be an effective checker if only because Force=Mass X Acceleration... He's got both the mass and the acceleration, he just needs to apply both to an unsuspecting Penguin.

Ericsson isn't going to beat Lebda or Helm in a foot race, but he's definitely a high end skater for a 6'5" guy. His skating is more like Lidstrom or Datsyuk's (minus Datsyuk's amazing first step acceleration). He doesn't seem to have Zetterberg's ability to burst into high speed skating over short distances, but he's no Holmstrom in that respect either

Agreed. The last thing the Red Wings need is more top six goal scorers if they have Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Hossa signed next year. I'd rather spend 4 million+ on a under 30 years old top pairing d-man. Hell, I'd be perfectly fine with dumping Hossa or Rafalski to pay Jay-Bo $7 million for the next 7 years. Rafalski's defensive play is pretty poor for a $6 million d-man. And Nick isn't going to be around forever. The Wings need a new top d-man that's got defensive skills closer to Lidstrom, regardless of his point production. If Holland gets Franzen to sign for less than $4 million without giving him a huge term then I expect he'll be turning water into wine at the next Wings gala.

Just wanted to add one extra thing- I disagree that they should give the refs the power to apply this penalty to fights they deem staged. Giving refs the power to hand out more discretionary penalties isn't going to help the poor state of reffing consistency in the game today.

Burke's right. The fights right at the drop of the puck are stupid and serve no real purpose. If they're going to sacrifice some aspect of fighting to appease the baying idiots calling for the end of fighting then get rid of the pre-arranged BS fights off the face-off.

Have you been following Kindl's play in GR lately? He's got 4 pts (assists) in his last 20 games (all healthy) and he's been their worst defensive player. Kindl still needs seasoning in the AHL. In the words of GR fans "he's fallen back to his old ways" defensively. That's fine because this is only his second pro season. I'm just saying- he's not ready for the NHL, even in the slightest. Edit: I suspect you'll think I'm exaggerating (since I'm an Ericsson fan, not that that means I'm not a fan of Kindl). So here's an article from a Grand Rapids fansite. Read the "defense" paragraph. http://www.griffinscentral.com/articles/030109.html

Meech needs to be dumped like a bad girlfriend. But doing so would only really give you room for someone as cheap as Downey. Ericsson and Leino each make almost twice as much as Meech. The Wings are going to keep him for the season because depth can only help in the playoffs. All that being said, I do hate that Downey has to go down. He played his best hockey he's ever played in a Wings uniform over the last 3 games. At times he was the most energetic player on the team and gritty, hard working guys like him are the kind of players the Wings despirately need on the team in times when everything seems to be falling apart. Regardless, the choice has been made and maybe having the familiar face of Holmstrom around will help get the Wings back into the habit of playing Red Wings hockey and not this bulls*** defensive play that'd make Leaf fans feel ashamed.

Agreed.

Heh- I'm glad people remember him calling me out for unknowingly handing my picks in late

Now that's very interesting. He's the one that kicked up a fuss about the time I handed my picks in a few hours late (without checking scores or being aware that games were starting early that Friday)- saying I changed my answers to pick winners. Oh sweet irony.

He's probably thinking "oh s***, oh s***- I think that lady knows I showed up for the wrong game. What is she, psychic?"

I'm not sure it's fair to assume that all of Hossa's offense would disappear in that senario, unless the Wings were going to play what would be Hossa's line one man short all this year. They certainly would be down some offense, but I imagine it'd be at the level it was last year (Hank's rough season aside).

10 million next year? Who told you that? The majority of the revenues for this year were already in before October. The cap won't drop much next year. The year after is anyone's guess. Yearly cap numbers are tough to move significantly after the first puck's dropped. Also note that the CBA gives the PA the ability to boost the cap by up to 5%, not a ton, but then again the drop this season won't be a ton either. As far as keeping all your draft picks... well you s*** the bed in that department last season when you gave away 2 roster players, a first round draftee and your 1st rounder this year. The deal for Guerin was a steal, however. You guys got him for peanuts and he's clicking well with Crosby if last game is any indication.

I think the Lidstrom Rafalski pairing is looking as terrible as it did earlier in the season when Babcock split them up. If it were up to me I'd go: Lidstrom-Ericsson Kronwall-Rafalski Stuart-Lilja That'd be my defensive pairing going into the playoffs. Someone would have to go on LTIR to shed the cap space for Ericsson, but having him play 17 games with Lidstrom would do a world of good for his development (and the change, and excitement of mentoring a promising young Swedish d-man might give Lids a bit of a boost). Alternately, because Lilja's injury isn't looking promising at all and you never want to rush recovery with a concussion, maybe they'll put Lilja on LTIR and we can look at these pairings: Lidstrom-Ericsson Kronwall-Rafalski Stuart-Chelios/Lebda Whatever the case, I'm tired of seeing Rafalski take his defensive duties less seriously and focus on the breakout pass instead of the safe play. It feels like he's taking for granted that Lidstrom can recover for him when he makes mistakes. Maybe that's why he was playing better split from Lidstrom?

Goalies like Mason are tough to draft from the bottom of the board. On the other hand the Wings just drafted a goalie that's putting together a near MVP season in the OHL.

And the energy line with Downey just delivered another one of the best Detroit shifts this game.