Echolalia

Oh yeah he was in the heat of the moment so its forgivable. My mistake.

Yeah in both cases I'm seeing one person attack another from behind and drive their head into the ice.

8th place remains ours, but Phoenix made 7th place a bit more difficult to reach...

I think I'm going to have to disagree on the team playing better defensively when Howard is in net. Howard actually faces on average more shots per game than Osgood (although the discrepancy isn't significant). Additionally, it seems Howard has had way more breakaway/penalty-shots/odd man rushes against him this year than Osgood, but that's just my observation. I could be entirely wrong.

I don't know about top 3 defensman, but I do agree that people are quick to attack this kid. As of this moment his entire NHL career spans over 58 games. That almost 75% of a single season spread out over three years. In other words, he's still learning how to play at the NHL level (especially the defensive level, because remember he was a forward until coming here). As such if the Wings had a healthy roster he would be getting about 8 minutes a night playing on the bottom six, where he could have the time to develop and learn from his mistakes how he and all other developing defensman should. Unfortunately that isn't the case. Instead he's been averaging around 20 minutes per night, often against top six players from the other team. There's a lot less of a forgiveness factor for mistakes in these situations. All things considered, I think Ericsson has been playing excellently.

Dats Zetterberg Homer Franzen Filpulla Cleary Bertuzzi Williams Leino Draper Helm Eaves I suspect this will most likely be the roster that Babs rolls with, with different line combinations. I have no idea who would play 13th forward out of Maltby May and Miller. I'm guessing Miller, because the other two don't bring as much skill to the table.

Eventful night tonight. 3rd place Chicago vs 14th place St. Louis- Chicago could jump to second place with a win, and St. Louis could jump to 11th. 9th place Dallas vs EC Carolina- Dallas could reclaim 8th place from the Wings tonight with a win. 7th place Phoenix vs EC Toronto- Phoenix could increase the distance between themselves and 8th place tonight. 15th place Anaheim vs 10th place Vancouver- An Anaheim win would keep Vancouver out of a playoff spot. If Vancouver wins the Wings bump down to 9th (10th if Dallas wins also). Go Blues! Go Carolina! Go Toronto! Go Anaheim! Most importantly no 3 point games

Actually there are only 8 Wings starters on the team right now besides Dats Z and Lidstrom. Homer, Bertuzzi, Leino, Draper, Helm, Eaves, Rafalski, Stuart. If everyone was healthy, Lilja included, May Maltby Abdelkader Miller Lebda Meech and Janek would be sitting out (although Maltby and May might occasionally break the lineup).

When does the competition start?

St. Louis and Minnesota both win, giving the Wings an opportunity to get closer to Calgary and pull farther away from Columbus. Also, Washington is beating Colorado 3 to 0 in the second. Edmonton is behind LA by one goal halfway through the second period. Good on Nashville to keep things competitive, though.

There were a couple times where it seemed like he wanted to drop the gloves in the past few weeks, but couldn't find any takers.

A couple tickets

Thank God! He'll be coming back amidst the influx of injured players also. Talk about a morale booster.

not yet...

The photoshop opportunities here are priceless

Actually I think its a bit selfish. The Wings are investing a good deal of time and effort on his development just for him to leave. I understand there's culture shock and he's relatively young, but he's pretty much wasting our time.

Updated. The kid looked good tonight, outside of that second goal and a bit of miscommunication between him and the D.

How much do you want to bet that the Nashville Columbus game goes to overtime?

It seems that one of the unwritten requirements of winning the Jack Adams award to be fighting through a great deal of adversity in the regular season (or numerous previous seasons) to make the playoffs. It isn't always the case, but there tends to be some discussion revolving around some obstacle that was overcome. Anyway, Babs is the Olympic head coach this year, as well as the head coach of a team that has lost Hossa, Hudler, Sammuelson, Kopecky, and Conklin to free agency, and Lilja, Kronwall, Franzen, Williams, Filppula, and Cleary (as well as a couple isolated events) to LTIR. Additionally, I think one of the things going against Babs in the past was he was always coaching a stacked team, so the argument was always made that he could just throw 5 random guys on the ice and tell them to have at it and we'd come away with a Presidents' trophy, if not a Cup. Obviously our roster today isn't capable of such a feat. Assuming the Wings make it to the playoffs, do you think the above factors will be weighed when considering for the JA?

The political implications of forcibly sitting players in the Olympics would be staggering.

I dunno looked like he closed his hand on the puck to me

haha

This is a pretty ambitious task it seems. It makes me feel like my "watch thread" is really crappy. Maybe I'll soup it up a bit. Anyway, cool to see the stats, especially when there's improvement.

Holy cow that was awesome! Bert??

Thank god a point!