chrisdetroit

There are no "if's" in Hockey. They didn't and he didn't

Wait a minute. We are talking about a guy that has been suspended by the league 6 TIMES! Comparing that to a guy like Hatcher is ludicrous. Yes Pronger is talented but there is no place for a guy like that on the Wings. 6 TIMES!! The dickhead shouldn't even be playing in the NHL. Hatcher? Bertuzzi? Avery? This guy is in a league by himself.

Huh? Pronger's +/- is 0 and he has 18 points. Lidstrom's is +8 and he has 18 points and Lidstrom is playing on a team that is 25th in GAA. What kind of koolaide are you drinking?

Ericsson is a couple of years away from being a top 4 forward on the best team in the league considering he has only 11 games of NHL experience...

Yea because we don't want anybody like Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Hossa, Holmstrom, Lidstrom, Rafalski, Kronwall, Hudler, Frazen... Those guys suck, we need Canadians...

well said

Ok but the Sharks thing... They are doing marginally better than they did last year when they missed the Presidents Trophy by about 3 points. You have to take into account that their division got a lot weaker since last year. The Stars have dropped down to being the worst team in the Western Conference and the Duckies are a mediocre 16-11-3 (16-14). They are currently 8-2 against their division. Granted they are playing great the first 3rd of the season but until they get past the 2nd round of the playoffs, I'm not ready to annoint McClellan as the savior. Keep in mind that he is a rookie head coach and the Sharkies are perennial underachievers. As far as our defense, we went from about 20th at the start of the year to 3rd in the league in shots against while our goals against has not changed. Our defense has pretty much been fixed. Goaltending is the issue now.

You're kidding right?

That's a bit of an exaggeration don't you think

St. James is also the one that wrote a column last year about how we needed to go after "bad ankles" Forsburg.

Why do people keep repeating this? Our defense was off early in the year but as of right now we are 3rd in the league in shots against. We were about 20th. The defense has improved but the goaltending hasn't.

What? How can you say that when we are: #2 in winning % (tied with Boston) #2 in Goals/Game #1 in PP% (5% above the #2 team) #1 in shots/game (tied with San Jose) #3 in shots against per game #1 in Face Off % Stanley Cup Hangover? Entire team is shaky? Huh?

You are wrong. Early in the year, it was bad team defense. That has pretty much been corrected. The shots on goal against average had peaked at 29.75 in game eight but has steadily been going down since then. It is now 26.92 which is 3rd in the league. Granted that shots against isn't a perfect measure of team defense but it is a pretty good one. I was concerned early on so I put several stats into an excel spreadsheet and have been watching the trends. The problem now is mostly goaltending. The goals against really hasn't changed much since about game 10 except for the Pittsburgh game. So if Shots against has gone down and goals against hasn't that means that a higher percentage of shots are going in and mostly that's goaltending.

The Wings are NOT playing terrible. They are #2 in winning percentage (tied with Boston), #1 in pp%, #2 in goals/game, #3 in shots allowed per game, #1 in Face Offs. The only thing that they are struggling with is goaltending. Obviously if their defense is #3 in the league in shots allowed but #22 in goals allowed, there is a goaltending problem. Earlier this year it was all around defense. That has been corrected.

Detroit 4 Edmonton 0. You must have missed it.

At 14-8-3 the Ducks are a mediocre team at best.

Thats wrong. He only played in 72 games last year. In fact he only had 66 points last year and the year before last he had 1 lousy point in 4 playoff games. I guess if you combine the 2 years it looks impressive until you look a little closer. He's a great player but he has not been injury free and until last year was a no show in the playoffs. He's also never won any individual awards and until last year despite being on some great Ottawa teams, was never able to win the big shiny silver thing. Z has been great individually as a Selke runner up and a Conn Smythe winner and led his team to the cup. Hossa has never done any of these things and he's older than Hank. I'd take Hank

Wrong. Their defense is not the best in the league but it doesn't suck. Their GAA is 23 at 3.01. Sure that's not great but I wouldn't say that it sucks. And to say that very few players are showing any effort. While that's just ignorant. And how can they be #2 in the West if they are playing bad hockey.

No. I think up until last year they were poorly coached. That's often the case when a team repeatedly underachieves. The question is now whether or not McClellan can get them to play in the playoffs. I think that's a pretty tall order for a rookie head coach. The team is certainly talented enough but they haven't "stepped up" their play when it comes time for the playoffs. They were on fire at the end of last season too, then the playoffs started and they didn't take it up a notch like everyone else. The result was that they barely escaped a much less talented Calgary team. Actually loosing a game 6 elimination game before winning game seven. Then they dropped both of their first 2 home games against Dallas at which point they were done. It wasn't just that they lost, but they played like it still was November. Bottom line, the San Jose team that is tearing up the league now did the same thing last year and we know how that ended. If they do step it up, it is likely that we will have a date with them in the WCF because right now (and I know it's early) it looks like SJ and the Wings will finish 1 and 2 in the conference and unless either the Wings or Sharks bow out early, that is when we will play them.

Exactly. One loss in November means nothing. When April comes, no one will even remeber it.

It's not going to happen. This is a business and it is still making money. The Red Wings make a ton of money on Merchandising. You see all those Red Wing Jerseys at every home and away game. The Wings get a cut on every one sold. And how about those Stanley Cup DVD's that you bought. Bottom line, the Wings are making money and that is especially true when they are in the playoffs which they have been for what 16 straight years. For the Wings to move, they would have to have several years in a row of financial losses and I don't see that happening unless they stop being competative.

If you are going to quote stats you need to understand what they mean. When a goalie lets in 2 out of 10 shots, he does have a 80% save rate but because the sample size is so low, the statistic is meaninless. You need to look at 50 or 100 shots faced if you want to compare statistics and based on that, Ozzie is not having a very good start this year. But to look at 1 game is meaningless.

We gave up only 19 shots. The problem tonight was the poor play by Conklin. Take away 2 of the 3 goals that he let in and it's a different game. Even he said that 2 of the 3 should not have gone in. Our team defense was actually very good tonight.

It only works well if the trapping team has a big lead as in these 2 games.