Echolalia

Pulkkinen kills every play he doesn't score on.

Wrong thread

This kid has to have more offensive zone hooking penalties than anyone in the league.

If I'm trading away a franchise forward I think I'm looking to get a franchise defenseman in return, as that's an area of need for this team. Parayko might be worth looking into. He's had an amazing season so far (5 goals, 7 assists, +10 in 21 games), is absolutely huge (6'5" 226lbs) and shoots right.

I don't like argument that slower players can't participate in the same play as quicker players. It's not like the game is a fast-forwarded version of normal hockey when Helm is on the ice. He isn't going to be throwing all of his passes three feet ahead of slower players. The main thing a quick player changes about the game is he is more likely to keep the play alive after a rebound generates a 50/50 puck in the corner, he's more likely to force turnovers on an aggressive forecheck or negate an odd-man rush on the backcheck, and he's going to back defenders off when he's flying through the neutral zone which opens up the blue line a bit more. Occasionally he'll get a breakaway, but that's an individual activity, not a team one, so it doesn't matter if Richards isn't keeping pace with him (unless 2 on 0s are the expectation). But his speed isn't going to make cycling awkward, or make slower players irrelevant. It should generate more opportunities for slower players to cycle though, and with that comes more chances at the net.

I have no problem at all with making nets larger by a couple inches. I don't think it ruins the integrity of the game any more than changing the rules for icings, or delay of game penalties, or two-line passing, etc has. Actually I think wider nets would be more subtle than the above examples.

Helm's speed out there was making stuff happen. I would like to see him back in the top 9 again with offensively capable players who can take advantage of the ice he opens up,

It's not going away. Any quantifiable way people can measure the performance of athletes and correlate that with success or failure is going to be used as a tool to determine who plays vs who sits, who to sign vs who to let walk, who to put out on a PK vs powerplay etc. As a fan, you can either adapt with the times and get savvy with the new information coming in, and find yourself an active and relevant participant in discussions down the road with an accurate insight to the game, or you can become that guy who relies exclusively on the "good old eyeball test" and lacks what is turning into a fundamental understanding of how the game is played and the reasons coaches make the decisions they do.

Wear a Kings jersey

I think Larkin needs to show more discipline in the stupid penalty department before we start considering stripping our team's leading scorer of the captaincy to give it to this kid.

It's this kind of "do what I want" thinking that we need more of in Detroit. Holland plays by the rules too much. The laws of physics were meant to be broken Kenny.

He allegedly wants to go to Weatern Canada, not Detroit, and the Islanders want an equally skilled defenseman in return to replace him. Ie it's not happening. Of course all of the details will get lost a year or two from now when everyone says Holland sucks for not being able to acquire him for spare parts.

It wasn't Kindl or Kronwall's man who scored. And if you're blaming Kindl for changing then instead of on the dump in, then you're misplacing your blame and should look to the coaching scheme. The only reason Kindl was up on the play and Dats and Z were both back was to provide him with the opportunity to change. Otherwise Kindl would have been back at the blueline (at the end of a shift and likely unable to keep up with a speeding forward) and Zetterberg or Dats would have been up on the forecheck. But we saw both forwards back in defensive positions. That's telling that it was designed to get Kindl off the ice, which is exactly what he did.

Mrazek has the 8th highest save% in the league, and when you filter out goalies who have played in less than 5 games this season, he's top 5 league-wide. I'm not sure what your definition of "stopper" in goal is, but clearly there are only four teams at most in this league who have one. I do agree that our defense needs work, but I think that's more a function of the coaching (and more specifically adaptation to new coaching), and not so much the personnel, and even that is steadily improving from the beginning of the season.

You're falling into the herd mentality to try to blame [insert whipping boy here] instead of [insert star player here]. Kindl had cycled into the play as the attacking forward. His guy was to puck-carrier, and when the play shifted to the boards, that was as good a time as he could ever expect to change. Besides, defensively the Wings were in excellent shape. Kronwall would be hopping on from the opposite end of the bench, automatically gaining 15 feet on where Kindl was to collapse on the Caps' forward, and Zetterberg and Datsyuk were both in sound position, covering their guys, and nobody had a clean path to the net OH WAIT HE JUST BLEW BY Z AND SCORED. Realistically there are two places you can point your finger (but really just one). One, and far away the most deserving, is at Zetterberg for having an awful gap on his man, and the eventual goal scorer. Honerable mention to Datsyuk who supported absolutely nobody on his coast back to the net. Two, you can blame the system Blash was running that cycled Kindl up top and pulled Z back onto the defensive blueline where he's susceptible to getting burned, as Z isn't the best skater in the world. But this is really stretching it. Just not as much as pinning the goal on Kindl, who played the situation exactly how he should have played it. BUT if you'd rather they run a system where the defenseman changes only when the Wings are on the attack, that's fine, but then you have to accept that you're leaving a gassed Kindl out there on the back end who likely would get burned the same way Zetterberg did simply because hes at the end of a shift.

I've enjoyed it too, and I think it's especially fascinating from the perspective of the coaches, because it allows for versatile strategy implementation in a way that has likely never been considered before. Historically there was not much value to thinking out 3 on 3 strategies because they just never happened, but now it's suddenly become a very relevant aspect of the game that warrants thought. And because there is so much time and space to execute plays, and a hell of a lot of combinations of 3 you can make, there's a lot of different directions that I think coaches can take it. Honestly one of the biggest reasons I'm excited about 3 on 3 OT is seeing what systems various coaches come up with, and how they decide to utilize their players.

According to Ken Daniels during their last broadcast, as well as the pregame report for the Wings/Caps game on mlive, Smith has been sick for the past week, and just recently resumed practicing with the team.

Zetterberg had a bad night overall, not just in OT. There were quite a few uncharacteristic giveaways in the offensive zone. I do think it's worth mentioning that despite what the outcomes of some of these more recent games has been, the Wings generally appear to be trending up in their game compared to earlier in the season. More shots on net, more offensive zone time, more crisp breakouts. If they keep on the path they're going, this club should easily get into the playoffs.

He does this a lot, it seems.

Every time Pulkkinen has the puck it ends up on the other team's stick.

i really haven't liked Pulkkinen and I still haven't been able to determine if its irrational or not

just when i think the game cant get any more boring it goes to commercial

whos bitching, me??

Goalies don't stop shot attempts. They stop shots. Of which Wings allow 30.9/game, tied for 6th most in the NHL with the Penguins and the Jets.

I dunno, this sounds like an awful idea to me, personally. Don't get me wrong, 3 on 3 OT I think has been an awesome way to reduce shootouts while (despite what some may think) still maintaining the integrity of the game. Its also fast as hell. But one way to wear the novelty off really quickly is to turn on a fire-hose and spray 3 on 3 hockey full blast into fans' faces, ala the Winter Classic and Stadium Series. Its just one event, but I can see myself losing interest in watching 3 on 3 OT hockey after seeing entire mini games played out in the same way after the All Star break. Also, with All-Star games, the ice is naturally open. Players aren't really trying to play fast, and that's the whole point of 3 on 3. Its fast-paced. With everyone on the ice in All-Star mode, I can see this turning out to be 100 breakaways in a 20 minute period, where the only guy who's actually skating is the one with the puck. Finally, several players have come out and said they don't like 3 on 3 OT. I can't imagine them playing too enthusiastically for a whole 20 minute game of it. But whatever, I've never been interested in the All-Star event to begin with, so I'm likely not going to end up watching anyway.