Echolalia

I honestly can't stand the guy as a player because of s*** like that. I just sympathize with him because I know exactly what he's going through, and I hope to be able to skate again in the future, so any success that he has lends hope to my situation, even though our surgeries were different.

Fair enough, and I agree with everything here

I don't like Datsyuk in the top 3. I'm not exactly sure who I'd replace him with, because it seems nobody knows how to score. Richards, Sheahan, Abdelkader Because why the f*** not

He was diagnosed with avascular necrosis, where the femur heads lose blood supply and begin collapsing (incidentally this is something I was diagnosed with and am currently recovering from surgery from). He had a different surgery than me though, I believe his was a vascularized fibular graft. Essentially they drilled a few holes into his femur head, and clipped off a part of his fibula from his shin and inserted it into the femur head, and connected the blood supply from the graft to the local vessels. Recovery is supposed to be a *****, but for me personally its exciting to see him on the ice (even if he was a goon), especially for him to be a goalie and have to have hip joints in excellent shape. I hope he makes his way back to the NHL.

Is Oates not coaching anywhere? I love that Blashill is willing to look outside the organization for help. One of the things that I liked about Babcock was that he accumulated contacts throughout the league, and throughout other leagues, so he had plenty of minds to pick when necessary. Seems like that rubbed off on Blash.

I'm not suggesting that changing the roster up is the solution. The changes I want to see are with how Blashill is instructing the team to play in the final ten minutes. Seems like the OP and most other posters are thinking the same thing. So I'm not sure where that's coming from. Leftwinger mentioned adding some new bodies, but he does that in every thread. Your coment could have been directed specifically at JoesuffP, which would make more sense cuz he seemed to be interested in adding bodies. Sometimes it's hard to tell without quote function, so excuse me if that's the case. But then I don't get why you would respond to me like I was the one suggesting changing the roster up, or that it was even the majority opinion here. But I disagree that people's view on the matter has just now popped up after these two games. Just about every GDT where the wings have blown a lead is full of comments of disgust and trying to point the blame and various opinions of what should be done, at least to the extent that the mods allow before it's considered off-topic. Now, after 11 blown leads, someone finally decided to have an official thread to discuss the issue. Again, that doesn't seem knee-jerk to me.

Losing Lidstrom definitely hurt this team, and it might have been the cause of the slide since then, but I don't think we use it as an excuse for why the team is struggling in the third period. There are 29 teams that never had a Lidstrom to begin with, and now 30 teams that don't. Most of them have no issue closing out games, and certainly not to the degree that the Wings do. So there's definitely a way to do it without requiring a Lidstrom-level skillset on the defensive roster. Some team's have players of Weber' caliber, or Suter's caliber, but there's also many teams out there with defensman that aren't any better than the what the Wings have who can maintain a lead throughout the third period.

I need to watch some GR games it seems

http://www.nhl.com/stats/team?reportType=season&report=leadingtrailing&season=20152016&gameType=2&sort=winPctgAfterLead2p&aggregate=0 I don't think the team has been playing bad overall. I mean they did just have a 13 game point streak, and are currently second in the division. But they are leaving a lot of points on the table, and perhaps just as importantly giving points to the opposition. If that .625 was the league median .900, that would translate to 4.4 more wins, or roughly 9 extra points, and a handful of points taken away from those teams who came from behind to beat the Wings. 9 extra points puts the Wings just behind Dallas for the league lead (who incidentally wins .933 of their games when leading after two periods). Edit: actually it would be less than 9 points, because some of those wins were converted from OT losses, where the Wings did get a point. So its closer to 5 points. So they'd be with Montreal (with a game in hand).

I don't think its a knee-jerk reaction based off the last two games. The Wings have blown 11 third period leads over the course of the season so far. Our win percentage when leading after 2 periods is .625, which is second worst in the league, and that isn't trending up.

I understand the theory behind playing super defensive in the last ten minutes of a game where you hold a lead, but I have long questioned the effectiveness of it. When playing from behind, other teams start taking more chances, activate their defensmen, pinch deeper, forecheck with two guys when normally they'd go with one, three guys when they'd normally go with two, etc etc etc. So in theory, it makes sense to play super defensive, positionally sound hockey to prevent any situations where the other team gets a glorious scoring chance in the slot. But in practice (at least in Babcock and Blashill's case) it just hasn't worked. I think the Wings are playing their best defensive hockey when the puck is in the other end of the ice, on our sticks, and that means strong forecheck, good speed, and aggressive hockey to pin the opposition in their own zone. At least for a few games, I would like to see whether that yields better results against a team who is down by one or two goals with 10 minutes left, even if in theory it makes more sense to play conservative. At the very worst we see more of the same: blown leads. But maybe teams that were beat with fast, aggressive hockey for 50 minutes will continue to be stymied by it for 10 more minutes, even if they do take more chances. I honestly don't know. But I would love to find out.

I think Howard gets a lot of flak on here, some warranted but a lot is opportunistic and unfair. Mrazek, being the shiny new toy, is mostly immune to that, so it's partly a way for me to try to even the field a bit, but i also wanted to allude to a bigger picture that it might not be an issue with just the goalie letting in late goals. If it was exclusively Howard than there's an argument. But it's been both goalies, and that points more to a problem with the system. But mostly I like kicking up dirt.

I swear Jimmy cannot hold a lead I mean every time he's in I know the team is going to OT cuz he's letting one in with 5 min left and apparently that's not enough cuz he had to let two in! I know he didn't have a chance but at the end of the day he doesn't make the big saves and Mrazek does when the team needs him most. Oh waitaminute

Whats the recap so far? Just walking in.

It's turning into a place where coaches go to die

To be fair you're totally right, but I couldn't pass up that opportunity. "If there's an opening, I go for it" -Patrick Kane Echolalia

He sure knows a thing or two about scoring on people who try to deny him HA CHA CHA

I think splitting time is better for both of them because it introduces competition and neither goalie is playing with the safety net of knowing their job is safe as the number one goalie. But Howard has shown in the past that he's capable of playing ~60 games a season and putting up solid numbers. I think last year's issue was more a result of the injury he sustained in January. He was doing great beforehand, and never returned to form once he came off IR. anyway I didn't mean to derail this thread with a goalie debate. I just thought that putting a "closer" in for the shootout might be an idea worth looking further into.

I think the ego thing is bull. An NHL goalie with a fragile ego is an unemployed one. Also if Howard's ego is a deterrent to solid gameplay, I would think that losing his solid number 1 role this year and splitting starts would have caused his numbers to be s***ty, but he's currently putting up the 4th best save % of a 10 year career, and higher than his career average. If anything, that suggests that having the added pressure of a capable goalie to replace him would improve his stats, not break him.

I don't think getting warmed up to go into a game is much an obstacle to overcome. There are exercise bikes for aerobics, there are players who are perpetually benched for OT that can take practice shots with a practice puck in the back, or even the trainer or something, goalies can throw a super ball against a wall to keep reflexes sharp once OT starts. If you're in the group that believes that warming up is an issue, then it's an issue that can be solved without too much trouble. And even if someone argued that no amount of prep can truly get you into game form the way 30 minutes of practice on the ice before a game does, we're still weighing whatever perceived disadvantage that brings against Howard's very quantifiable disadvantage in the shootout, warmed up or otherwise. Specifically pertaining to the bolded: I'm interested to know if this is actually true and if there is quantifiable evidence that supports goalies having a lower save % for the first handful of shots they take relative to the rest of the game, or even their running average. As of now I'm skeptical.

Theres actually a lot of conflicting data about how much stretching before engaging in sports actually prevents injury, but regardless, for a professional athlete as a member of a professional sports team, I don't think it's that big of an obstacle to get into game-shape for a shootout if that's what the coach wants. Especially considering thats essentially what a back-up's role on the team is to do. It would be a bit insulting for Howard, though, but I personally value the point total of the team more than the ego of team's goaltender. If I was coach I would definitely consider it.

If helm could play that way every game... Man this team would have options

I feel like they've had a really good pace so far.

That's where threads go to die

Sounds like the perfect recipe for the Wings to get blown out 6-0