Echolalia

He needs this. When Jurco is on the ice, it looks like he doesn't know how to play the game anymore. Unfortunately I think he probably needs a whole year in Grand Rapids, and not just 14 days. But at the very least hopefully this stint is able to boost his confidence up a bit, get him playing hockey like he's more capable of, and maybe even help the Griffins turn their season around with him as a leader over there.

Green messed up just as much as Glendening. Ryan made his move on Glendening back by the blueline and Green was in position to cover for him. In the time it took for Ryan to skate from the blueline to the crease to score the goal Green pushed off with his right foot only twice (and left foot zero times), which tells me he had plenty of time to properly adjust, and didn't. Instead he relied on flailing his stick around which tends to not work on stars like Bobby Ryan. Glendening messed up by letting Ryan steal the puck. Green messed up by not adjusting accordingly. I'm sure both will be notified of this when they go over the tape with the coaches.

nm

Athanaseau is impressive

Eva is that you

Well we didn't miss you! Who do you think you are to just disappear without a trace for a whole month without telling anybody! Kip and I were worried sick! He thought you joined a gang or got caught up in those drugs and hippy-hop music. Its been rough without you here. I dont think we can keep living like this. I deserve better. Its over. There I said it. Go hang out with that hussy BOS for all I care.

It's similar to Babcock's; everything starts with good defensive play and works it's way out from there, with an emphasis on speed. But there are some fundamentally different ways things are executed. For instance Blash has ran a play off defensive zone face off wins where the forwards jet out of the zone instead of support the defenseman. The plus of this is it should either back the opposing defenders off our blueline, or if it doesn't, we are potentially one pass away from a breakaway. The downside is if our D don't get the puck out, the numbers are against us in our zone. Whether you think it's better or worse is up to you, but it's one of several things that this team is doing now that wasn't done under Babcock, and conversely, several things that were done under Babs are not being done now. And if one player is playing an old system play (out of habit) while the other four guys on the ice are playing the Blash system, that's when passes don't hit the tape and turnovers occur. And most of our issues seem to stem from s*** like that, and not so much the other team imposing their will and breaking up our plays. We just aren't executing as a unit yet. Personally I'm kind of frustrated at that because we're almost a quarter into the season and I expect professional athletes to have adapted at this point, but progress has been made since game 1 so as long as the Wings continue to trend up I'm going to remain patient. That first week the Wings played like half the team at any moment was playing Blashill plays while the other half was playing Babcock plays, and anything that required passing just didn't work. As time has progressed it looks like more guys are on the same page than before, although there are some hiccups still (and actually with Dastyuk being "new" to the roster his lines might struggle for a few weeks while he incorporates himself into the new schemes.)

Why are you so insistent on replacing Miller with Jurco of all people? If we want a player who can't score on the ice, I think the guy who's at least made a career out of the defensive side of the game is the better option.

Upstairs men's bathroom, stall number 3. Literally never has s*** on the rim.

Bad goal to give up

Exactly. When something goes wrong, the instinct here is "how can I blame Howard or Smith for this?" and people go to great lengths to try to justify the most ridiculous scenarios. Sometimes they do screw up, but a lot of times they just happened to be in the same building when a goal was scored or a turnover occurred. It's only a matter of time before people are saying "well it's smith's fault because he beat up Pulkkinen in practice and therefore Pulky was a half step too slow and that allowed the lane to open up and that's why they scored on us it's all Smith's fault he's so bad he kills us even when he's not playing!!!"

At LGW it's always worth it to argue. I'm kinda surprised nobody has tried pinning the goals on Smith yet.

So what do you think about the guy getting two clean shots within 2 feet of the crease without being touched by anyone in a red jersey?

s***ty defense there

Abby was going to be a career Red Wing one way or another. Holland could have either done it with one contract and prevented other teams from making offers and potentially running up his cost on subsequent deals, or he could have done it with multiple 2-3 year deals while matching his cap hit more closely to his year to year value. Either way works fine for me.

The article makes it sound like Pulkkinen is a *****. Coach wanted a battle drill, Pulks couldn't take it and lost his temper and went off on Smith.

+/-, like all stats, is useful if the interpreter is able to view the stat in context of the bigger picture, and knows how to propery interpret it. Sometimes players' presence on the ice contributes to goals, even if they didn't register any points (net front presence, good first pass out, force turnover with good forecheck, etc). And sometimes the stats are coincidental. But its definitely a useful tool if you know how to use it.

I didn't see the game so I guess I can't comment on the goal or not, but we should be able to couple camera angles frame to frame so this kind of issue doesn't come up.

both our goalies are top 10 in the league in save% for goalies who have started in at least 5 games. Pretty awesome stuff

You'd think those things would aerodynamically slow him down on the ice

I missed this one, but it looks like Ovechkin's shooting % took a beating tonight

well he better keep it down in there because that's the quiet room

I don't get all this love for Jurco on these forums. 3 goals last season. 11 over his entire NHL career, spanning over 100 games now. He's had plenty of opportunities all throughout the lineup with just about everyone on the team, and has regularly been outperformed by his peers regardless of where the coaches put him. Babcock scratched him because of his general ineffectiveness, and Blashill (who was supposed to give him a fair shot based on their relationship in GR) has only been willing to play him 4 games this season. Jurco may be young and have his whole career left, but that doesn't mean anything if he's unable to get his career started.

The best part of Tatar using the Kane strategy was that he debuted it against the Blackhawks, right after Kane's attempt failed (and won the game on his move, too)

I mean, the guy does everything. He's defensively responsible, he's physical, he can play in the corners and in the crease, he can put up goals and assists, he can play on any line and be effective. Abby isn't an allstar in any capacity, but he's versatile and for one player he brings a lot to the table. 4M+ is fair for both sides.