Echolalia

Yeah I was kind of under the impression that at this point a lot of these guys are asked whether they'd be interested in participating prior to the official announcement.

This i can dig. I just have a hard time acknowledging eliteness in a player who is 66th in league scoring, ranking alongside the likes of Adam Henrique, and Frans Nielson. 48th in goals, 127th in assists, 85th in points/game. He is tied for first leaguewide in +/-, which is certainly worth mentioning, but I don't think that's enough to label him elite just yet. If we are comparing him to other rookies? Definitely elite. If we are grading based on potential? Definitely elite. But if we are comparing him to the league as a whole and not putting limitations on his competition, then he hasn't proven himself to be elite in any statistical category other than +/-. That's not to say he won't next year, or the year after that, or averaged over his entire career. He just hasn't done so to date.

I think he's on pace to be elite. But not there yet. He's certainly been better than I expected him to be.

Lol I remember a few seasons ago Osgood did the same thing and Mickey and Ken were like

This is a pretty boring game so far....

While I agree that there's no real correlation between strength vs stick handing and how you hold your stick compared to your dominant hand, there's better ways to respond to his post. Your comment doesn't necessarily debunk anything either because you haven't done anything to validate whether the samples you chose for your argument are representative of the population as a whole.But from a biological standpoint, both strength and hand coordination result from repetitive exercises. If you work out your left arm more than your right, even if you're right handed your left arm will be stronger. The repetition that comes from practicing stick handling and shooting since a player was a young kid all through adolescence and into adulthood will fine tune whatever muscles and neurons they're using to be optimally good at whatever task they have to go through on a daily basis. In other words, if a guy practices stick handing as a right-handed shot his whole life, he's going to be a good stick handler as a righty regardless of how he holds a pencil. My hypothesis as to why there are more lefties in the NHL, especially among Canadian and European populations, is because generally I think players who get into the NHL (particularly children of Canadian and European families, who dream of their child becoming a hockey star) have a stick put into their hand at a very young age, and when you're a two or three year old, you generally hold a hockey stick with only one hand because you're too predisposed with trying to walk upright to handle it properly with two hands and a solid bend in the knee, and its only natural that your dominant hand is the one that you're holding the butt of that stick with. As these kids develop, they've grown used to holding their dominant hand at the butt (see above pertaining to repetition training muscles and nerves) so it's more natural for them to reach down with their nondominant hand to control the blade once they're comfortable using two hands instead of one. I suspect more players who start hockey later in life (after they're well coordinated and holding a stick with two hands and balancing on their feet isn't an issue) will naturally put their dominant hand closer to the blade, where more control is required. Less of these players tend to make it to the NHL because they started hockey at a later age. And more Americans dream of their kid becoming a football star or a baseball star so it's less likely that a kid's parent will put a stick in his hand at 2 than it is a football or a bat. But this is just a hypothesis. I have no idea if there's any actual truth to it.

Why not? Babcock benched Holland's signings on the regular and he ended up becoming one of the longest tenured coaches for one team of the modern era. Neither Babs nor Holland lost their heads for it during the multitude of times it happened in the past so it probably won't make a difference now. Besides, I think the organization values how deep the team goes in the playoffs above the efficacy of the salary cap dollars spent. It would behoove Holland and Blash to do whatever necessary to ensure a deep run, even if it means benching more expensive players for cheaper ones.

Lol there is no right way. It's not like there's some secret filter that only kids who hold their stick the "right" way grow up to be NHLers and the rest of us who happened to pick up a stick at 3 the "wrong" way doomed ourselves to playing beer leagues at best. The whole thing about it providing more strength isn't supported by any factual evidence that I've come across. For the record Shea Weber is right handed (based off photos of him signing autographs) and shoots right. He has one of the hardest shots in the NHL.

The association between handedness and how you hold your stick is actually pretty loose in my experience. My entire beer league squad is right handed, right shooting, with the exception of one guy. I know of a couple left left guys as well.

I think it's more likely that both Blash and Babcock value having a big body on the top two lines that can retrieve pucks, protect them from pressure in the corners and wreak havoc in front of the net, things that smaller bodies like Tatar, Larkin, Nyquist etc are generally ineffective at. I also disagree that Abby in the top six isn't working. He's presently one of our top goal scorers as well as one of our top point getters. His ppg is top 6 on the team. I'm not sure what else he would have to do to prove his worth in the top six that he hasn't already done.I think Darren Helm with Datsyuk is an attempt to have another Abby-like player who can effectively do the aforementioned things on his line. He's relatively new to playing in the top six instead of as a grinder role so he's obviously not going to be as good as Abdelkader currently is, but if Helm can fill the role that Abby does to the same degree, the top six should be well rounded for playoffs. The past few years we've been horrible at sustaining pressure in the greasy areas during the playoffs, being forced to play a mostly perimeter game, so having players like Abby and Helm who can fill those roles on the top six will be key. Abby is already there. Helm has the remainder of the season to figure it out, or lose his job to someone else, but it's in our best interest that he figures it out.

Neither goalie is interested in being number 1, it seems

Sure looks like interference. On the initial shot as well as on the puck trickling in.

Smith did a lot on that play. After he got the puck he burned the forward covering him, passed to Marchenko, and instead of staying at the blue line he skated through the slot and became an extra body to pick up a rebound or pass. Lo and behold it ends up back on Smith's stick and he puts it in the net. Good on him.

Back to back yanks?

I think Betty White would help.

More than half of Winnipeg's shots are coming from the slot. Whatever happened to protecting the house

can we decline the pp

This is the first one I'll be able to watch in a while. Win or lose, I just hope it's entertaining and that the Wings play hard.

Smith pinches on the play. He always has and likely always will. Babs tried to suppress that as much as possible and it didn't work out well for him or the team. Blashill has loosened the chains on Smith's aggressiveness a bit, and sometimes it results in a takeaway, or keeping the play alive in the offensive zone, and sometimes he gets burned. Unfortunately last night he got burned and there was no one that could bail him out. But I think if we're going to see Smith play well on the offensive side of the puck, at least for the time being we have to accept that these kind of plays are going to happen. The good and the bad are both a result of Smith playing the puck aggressively.

Ive been a Smith supporter for the most part too, although definitely not to the degree that krsmith has been. It's nice to see him playing well though. I hope he keeps it up.

I gotta admit when I was watching the highlights I liked the yellow helmets on the Preds. They reminded me a bit of the U of M uniforms.

Just checked NHL.com to see how the game was going. 10 total shots between the two teams in the first period?

Dude got buried from the first shot he faced

I was only half paying attention tonight but Jurco seemed to have a bit of hustle tonight.

I disagree about Tatar, in particular. He plays in the trenches without any hesitation. He might not be super effective all the time cuz he's a small guy, but that has never stopped him from trying.