Echolalia

Yes his shortcomings were everyone else's fault except his. Its simple. If you can't play defense, you can't play. He was a liability on the ice, and I fully expected and agreed with Babs benching him after that performance. His turnovers weren't the result of playing on the fourth line. Nor were they the result of him only playing a few minutes. Nor were they a result of the rest of the team playing poorly. His decisions with the puck and without the puck were entirely his to make, and for the most part, they were clumsy, ill-timed, poor decisions that didn't produce anything productive for the team, and often ended up with puck on an opponent's stick.

I thought Tatar played terribly in his game this year. Defensively unsound, uncharacteristic turn-overs, and this was all against the opposing team's bottom line players. I want the kid to get another crack at the lineup, but based on his first game I would be hesitant to play him in the top 6, against top-6 opponents. I think Babs comments are more toward Tatar needing to step up his game if he wants to play. Fortunately it's a long year, and the roster has been shuffled after every loss so far, so he will have plenty of opportunities to be more responsible on the defensive side of the game. Anyway, I'm excited to see how this one turns out. Abby and Weiss should be good energy for the second line, and Bert had some unique chemistry with Datsyuk when they've played together in the past.

I think I'm in the minority, but I thought Alfredson has looked much worse than Franzen. I wouldn't be shocked if Alfredson has the most giveaway's on our team, and a lot of those giveaways are stupid pass attempts. He needs to tighten up his game and put some more thought into what he does with the puck. Franzen hasn't been playing hard down low, but at least he hasn't been the defensive liability that Alfredson has been. Despite the stats, I've liked how Weiss has played. I'd like to see him get some ice time with either Datsyuk or Zetterberg.

Someone with photoshop skills needs to photoshop Hudler's laughing face onto everyone in a Modern Family pic.

Honestly I agree. Physical hockey is exciting to watch, and even though I support the game-misconduct for a fight, I get a bit more excited when I see a fight happen (although if its a pointless fight right off the face-off with no real hatred as the cause of the fight, I do roll my eyes a bit). But I also think that there is a lot of other exciting stuff in hockey without the fights occurring, and that was the essence of my previous post. Datsyuk's puck mastery, team puck movement, solid body-checks, power-play and penalty kill tactics, acrobatic goaltending, etc etc etc are all reasons why I'm a fan of the game, and taking steps to reduce the frequency of fighting will not affect any of these things. On the contrary, I think it will enhance the above, because the goons with no purpose but to fight will be eliminated from the game, and more time will be spent playing hockey instead of kicking up dirt. I also think the truly passionate fights will still be in the game, because if your blood is that boiled, you're not thinking about a game-misconduct or any sort of consequence of your action. I believe the brawls with the Avs would still have occurred with a game misconduct penalty. Those teams absolutely hated each other.

Fighting has been practically extinct from the Wings' game for years. I wonder how many people on these forums find watching them similar to figure skating.

I agree, although I expect big things from the next book, if it ever comes out But yeah! 24-7! Awesome.

Between this and Game of Thrones, I'd say its worth the extra cost on the cable bill

Dats just posted a photo of him sitting in a chair surrounded by a camera one of those hanging mics, and some guy with a clip- board that you see on TV and move sets. It would appear that HBOs 24/7 has begun!

Wow. I feel kind of dirty after we got those two points. What an ugly win.

Nik Kronwall you goon

I'm worried that Better Call Saul, if it ever comes to fruition, will spoil the legacy of Breaking Bad.

I don't like it as a series, but there are individual episodes that I thought were excellently written. I would definitely watch a top-10 of Doctor Who. I tried getting through the entire show and gave up towards the end of the second season. I loved the gas-mask kid episodes. My unpopular opinion is that I have never liked South Park

It's almost embarrassing if you're not named an alternate...

I'm with him, and I can accept that 95% of fans (or more) think that view is blasphemy and fighting is an essential part of the game. I disagree. I think the vast majority of fights in today's league do nothing to influence the game one way or another, have little/no motive behind them, and are entirely unnecessary. In short I think its a waste of time. Granted, there are fights that mean something; the battles the Wings had against the Avs meant something, and if the bad blood is there in high enough concentrations, I don't think even a game misconduct will prevent two players or teams from fighting. I do think game misconducts will remove the fluff from the ice, and likely remove goons who can't actually play hockey from the game as well, and I am for that. I realize this is a radical view and one that is drastically different from the philosophy that this league developed within over the past 50 years. I just think it is loony to place an event in a game that contributes very little to the overall team goal and has very little actual value over the well-being of an individual. Sorry LGW for letting you down

I don't expect it will ever be Cleary vs Tatar. We probably differ in this view but Cleary can still contribute to this team in a way that makes him a viable top 9 option, so when Tatar does crack the lineup, it won't be to replace Cleary. Bertuzzi and Sammuelson on the other hand, haven't played for over a year (excluding the 8 minutes they were healthy last season). They are likely getting a courtesy shot in the first week or so to earn their contracts, but I expect Tatar will end up replacing one of the two of them in the lineup.

Maybe someone can clarify whether I'm missing something, because I seem to be in the minority that thinks that this rule won't actually change much (if anything). When I look at this video, I see a tight race between two players as each player approaches the faceoff circle. During the preseason, when the race was this close, the ref would wave off the automatic icing, and the two players would continue to race toward the puck, thus the risk of injury is still present. I feel like the only thing that hybrid icing will change are the icings where there is no risk to begin with, because there is no race for the puck.

When Babs says veterans get the nod over rookies, I bet he's referring to Bertuzzi and Sammuelson moreso than Cleary. I wonder if this is more about giving Bertuzzi and Sammuelson a chance to actually play (and justify the contracts that they did not earn last year due to injury), now that they're physically able to be placed in the lineup. I think its realistic and fair for Babs and Holland to say "Bert and Sammy get a crack at establishing themselves because they weren't able to last year, but if there's a slip-up or Babs doesn't think he's getting the production that he expects, than Tatar will be waiting to take that spot"

I think Babs is the one who determines who's scratched, not Holland.

I think this article is relevant to this thread, and gives an insight to what the Wings' players, coaching staff, and Kenny Holland think: http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2013/09/red_wings_say_joining_they_won.html edit: I just saw that Dabura already linked this article in the previous page, and included an excerpt from Randy Carlyle in his post (sorry if I steal your thunder D). Still worth the read if you haven't already.

My biggest qualm would be that the most effective hits aren't necessarily the most bone-crunching, so some player who consistently scores well on the hit-point scale may give the illusion that he is a more effective hitter than someone who may not be as violent, but provides hits that are more crucial to the game. I'm not sure that there would be any real value in this kind of statistic other than for fantasy hockey.

I had a chance to meet Yzerman back in high school. My coach was good friends with him and invited him to our end of season hockey party. He's definitely a shy guy. I would love to meet Mickey Redmond. That guys seems like he would really be a treat to hang out with. Gordie Howe also.

The Wings had plenty of teams trying to bait them into fighting in the West, particularly the Ducks. Sometimes someone answers the bell, but for the most part, our guys are pretty disciplined in that regard, and the younger players will probably get a stern talking to should they decide to get baited, from veteran players or coaching staff. In short: I'm sure we'll see some fights this year, but mostly from guys like Tootoo, or Abdelkader. I wouldn't be shocked to see Ericsson or Smith get into a fight either, but aside from that I wouldn't expect anyone else to drop the gloves. All in all I don't think it will be much different than previous years.

I wouldn't be surprised if DeKeyser went through a similar slump that Smith, Kindl, Ericsson, etc went through. In the 10-15 NHL games he's played in, DeKeyer has looked solid, so perhaps he may bypass that phase.

whats wrong with HBO?