Echolalia

C'mon Buppsie. You have seen as often as I have the amount of Mrazek dick-sucking that happens on these forums, regardless of how the kid plays. In fact I think my rant about exactly that was what prompted you to get involved in the discussion, so coming into this you probably should have been aware that I was addressing the topic at hand with the sky-high expectations that many posters have for him in mind. The conversation didn't evolve into me bringing that up after you joined in. That was already in play. And that's why it was in my reply. With regard to Mrazek, I have no clue what is going to be his future. Half his short career he's played splendidly, and the other half he's played like garbage, and both of those samples are too small to make any meaningful predictions of. His career stats are a reflection of two bell curves on the extremes without as much data points around his actual career averages as one would expect to see. Because of the uncertainty, as well as the direction he's trended in, a Mrazek/Coreau combo is absolutely loony. And I think similarly about Howard, particularly because he has a knack for getting injured, and then struggling to return to form following injury. That's a big concern of mine this season when Howard returns from injury, because I have little faith in Mrazek to suddenly turn it on, although if it happens I would be delighted.

Bro you're the one putting up strawmen. I never claimed you said you believed Mrazek to be elite, I never said I thought his god-awful hockey would nessesarily continue in subsequent seasons, I never claimed to believe Howard was going to be elite, in fact my discussion with the other posters wasn't even about Howard until you jumped into the conversation out of the blue and started repeatedly comparing him to Mrazek as if it was relevant to what I was saying. I'm honestly not even sure what you're arguing at this point, and based on everything you keep bringing up it seems you're either intentionally bringing in strawmen to argue against or you're legitimately clueless about what my point has been thus far despite me laying it out. But I would like you to clarify one point. You just mentioned you don't think it matters that Mrazek has all these red flags and we don't get another goalie who can compensate for those issues on the event Mrazek doesn't pan out? Is this what you're suggesting? So, like a Mrazek/Coreau combo for next year? Or am I mistaken?

As kickazz mentioned. I was being cheeky and went off on a little sarcastic tangent to illustrate a point. I'm not asking to have it both ways. Again, I have no horse in the Howard race and I don't necessarily see him as a staple of the Wings' future (as I've already mentioned, yet for some reason you still keep going back to him as if I'm arguing that he is the answer for the Wings going forward). What I'm arguing is that Mrazek is not necessarily the god that everyone made him out to be early in his career and continue to do so despite evidence to the contrary. He's been unable to establish himself as a number one goalie for more than half a season at any point in his NHL career, he's wildly sporadic, his last year of hockey has been among the worst goaltending I've personally observed from one goalie, and the periods of his career where he played well are limited by sample size to be able to conclude whether that's his norm or if he was playing above his head. There's a lot of red flags, hence my original point that if Howard is traded away, Holland better find another goalie to work with Mrazek where the above isn't a concern.

That was also my point when I made my original comment

Except we don't know that what Mrazek did for the first half of his career is his norm. You label him as an average starter based on two halfs of a season playing well and two halfs of a season playing terribly, which is incredibly misleading. As you alluded to, the sample size with Mrazek is tiny, and half his career has been one extreme and the most recent half has been the other extreme. The confidence that you can say Mrazek's actual game is one vs the other is very low, thus like I've beat to death 100 times already Mrazek is an unproven commodity who's played like a fringe backup for almost the past year now, and giving him the net without having someone proven ready to clean his potential mess is idiotic. And let's be clear about the recent stats tipping in Mrazek'a favor. Unless you're cherry picking the second half of the 2014-2015 season and the first half of 2015-2016 season, the recent stats have been brutal for Mrazek.

So are you suggesting that we ignore past data with regard to Mrazek and Howard? Or just Howard?

solid divisional win

Mantha is one of the best players on this team. There i said it.

If people are allowed to cream their pants over Mrazek and declare him the future of the Wings based on a random sample from the past (and ignore the most recent, and thus most relevant data), whats wrong with me cherry picking data from Howard's past as well? 2013 was a great year for Howard. In fact it was better than any year Mrazek has had since he's established himself in the NHL. 2012 was great too. 2011 wasn't as good, certainly not as bad as Mrazek this year, but 2010 was excellent for Howard as well. In fact during that span Howard was top 10 in the league for save percentage every season other than 2011, and 2013 he was was 11th (Mrazek has yet to crack the top 10 in any season, mind you), and Howard is back in that range again this year. So while Howard struggled the past few years, he also has demonstrated in his career on multiple occasions that he can be relied upon to be a solid NHL goalie throughout the course of an entire season. Looking at the combination of what Howard has demonstrated over his career as well as what he's doing right now, and then looking at what Mrazek has done, its not even a fair comparison. One is an NHL starter and has been throughout the majority of his career, and is playing some of the best hockey of his life right now. The other got his feet wet then started drowning.

Why not do a granny road trip? Imagine 20 grannies on a plane for all that time. There would be 400 knitted sweaters coming off that plane when they return to Detroit.

Right now the difference would be about 1.15 GAA and .038 save percentage, or top 5 goalie stats vs 40-45th league wide.

Like I already mentioned, if you want to trade away Howard, I have no problem with that. That's not what I'm arguing. But if you're gung-ho about getting rid of Howard, you best trade for an established number 1 NHL calibre goalie because Mrazek has demonstrated he is currently too unreliable for the role, and Coreau has 2 games total NHL experience. I'm not arguing from the stance that Howard is necessarily the answer to the Wings problems going into subsequent seasons. I'm arguing that Mrazek isn't necessarily that answer either, which is something that for reasons beyond me just doesn't sit well with LGW.

Chug when a commentator mentions Maltby's 50 goal season in juniors.

I'm personally not suggesting trading away Mrazek, and I haven't turned on him. But I do think its asinine to hand him the reins or dive headfirst into a future committed to him as the number one goalie considering how unreliable he is. If he turns into an elite goalie, then awesome. But that's not a guarantee, and he's done absolutely nothing in his career to suggest that hes even heading in that direction. For some reason everyone on this forum is so high on this kid based on a couple games from world juniors, or a playoff series a couple years back the Wings ended up losing, or the occasional incredibly athletic save he makes once every 5 or 6 games, and then declares that he is destined for greatness. I mean the tunnel vision is to a degree I didn't think was even possible. He has been absolutely abysmal this year (to address your point, I think he has played much worse than the 11 losses he has on his record). Mrazek is 44th in the league in save percentage, 42nd in goals against. Those aren't even decent numbers for a backup. And people still look for any excuse possible for him, or think he should still be the number 1 goalie, or declare the Wings future in his hands. I mean this guy could sleep with everyone's gf/wive and they'd still fight to the end in his honor. Its baffling.

The problem is Mrazek is rarely on his game, which is a trend that has only gotten worse in the past couple years. There's no guarantee that he ever puts its all together and plays as the elite goalie everyone labeled his as on a consistent basis, and thus far in his NHL career he hasn't shown us anything that would imply he's capable of that. I mean look at where he's at right now. He came into this season and was handed the number 1 position, and now he finds himself battling with Coreau of all people for a backup role. This is how bad he's been. So if you want to ignore what Howard's done this year and throw that all out the window, and instead trade him away based on what he did last year or the year before, fine, but you better trade for an established number 1 goaltender to fill his spot, because like it or not, Howard is the only number 1 goalie we have right now.

You say this like Mrazek has a proven track record of being a reliable starter.

Coreau was in the starter's net at practice on Wednesday. http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2016/12/red_wings_jared_coreau_would_r.html#incart_river_mobile_index

Scotty Bowman feels that its goaltending and a killer powerplay that are the two main ingredients for a solid hockey team, and a big reason why Columbus has been doing so well. http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/nhl/red-wings/2016/12/27/scotty-bowman-says-division-games-may-decide-wings-fate/95897282/

I think a more interesting question now that Howard is out again is does Mrazek get the majority of starts now or does Blashill go with a tandem and see if Coreau can outperform him

So, the new forum goalie question now is should Blash split Coreau and Mrazek and see who wins the top spot with Howie gone?

The bias in favor of Howard has to do with his top 5 numbers and Mrazek's sub .900 and 3+ GAA.

If one goalie starts the first 41 games of a season then another goalie starts the final 41 games of a season would you call it a tandem situation, or a situation where one goalie was initially labeled starter, then lost the job to the other goalie? Obviously this is an extreme example but it illustrates my point that you can't look at total games played between the two to label them as sharing the net or not. Mrazek started the season as number 1 and as he struggled the situation shifted from a clear starter/backup, to a tandem, and then back to a clear starter except with Howard as the number 1. And as a clear starter/backup situation, as most of the Mrazek passifists repeatedly said this season, yourself included (despite his awful play), the starting goalie should get the majority of starts if he's healthy and ready to go.

Because Mrazek was no longer the number 1 goalie when Howard went down. He played when Howard was injured, as per a backup's responsibilities, and then when Howard returned, Blash put his top guy back in to get regular starts. All routine protocol.

And a happy festivus for the rest of us

Hell it didn't even say that. All it said was Mickey said Datsyuk complimented Mantha's game- not that Datsyuk asked to play with or even liked playing with Mantha. Just that he complimented his game. So still not widely reported everywhere, or even anywhere.