Echolalia

So I realized this game was broadcast on fox2, which is a non-cable station. Does angina know if this is going to be a normal thing this season?

If only Kronwall had a visor of some sort to prevent those kind of injuries

BUT WHERE ARE TEH GOALZ

Flying down the wing and sniped top shelf

Defense are activated. That's the second time I've seen Ericsson below the offensive face off dot

Please do, becaues I'm actually interested to see how they quantify it in the CBA. Like, what if Detroit pays its employees way more than the Panthers do? Is it league-wide or just by team averages? Does position and years under employement count for anything? I'm sincerely not trying to come off as an *******, I'm genuinely interested in this.

So glad this day is finally here

Justin Bourne wrote that, who usually puts solid pieces out there. One of my favorite hockey writers. Anyway, 3 on 3 seems like one of those things where the coaches will have a big influence on the outcome. There's less bodies clogging up the ice, so in theory, executing plays should be more simple to perform, and thus there's more opportunity for "play-calling". Even if you just let the players do their own thing under some general system (like how much of hockey is currently played), the combinations of players can really lead to specific and exploitable advantages and disadvantages, just based off of individual player's strengths and weakensses. Of course this is also true at 5 on 5, but at least some of the time at even strength there's other players that can cover for you, and beating your man still doesn't gurarantee time/space to score. 3 on 3 if one player is burned, the whole team is most likely in trouble. I think Datsyuk Helm and Kronwall would be a solid line to face off against other team's top offensive lines. They're all defensively responsible enough to shut down players like Crosby or Kane, yet dangerous enough to be able to make things happen in the offensive zone, too. Its a shame two of them are currently injured. Green Dekeyser Zetterberg might be a solid line, too.

I'm not saying that trading for a top 4 defenseman would have necessarily been a bad decision, but you'd likely have to include someone in that trade who's on the roster right now in addition to Janmark, and the risk of injury or the player not panning out is still there. Franson tanked when he was traded and he was probably the top player LGW wanted last year. If we grabbed him, this thread would still exist, except we'd be debating about how good Janmark + Smith/Pulkkinen/Sheahan/whoever + 1st rounder is playing right now in Toronto, and how Franson did nothing for us, then promptly left in the offseason. Now who knows, maybe Franson would have kicked ass here, but my point is trading comes with its risks, regardless of who you're trading for.

I think trading for Cole was a solid move because he was everything the Wings needed at the time. If he doesn't suffer his injury, the playoffs could have easily been a totally different game for us. And like you mentioned, we have so many prospects right now there's no way it would be worth it to hang onto the kid because he sure as hell isnt making the Wings' roster.

i try my best

The 2015-2016 Wings should look quite a bit different. Holland only made a few moves, but they were each pretty significant in their own right, and as a result, a lot of the things that we've grown used to seeing (or not seeing) from the Wings may very well be changed. We now have a right-handed defensman, who also happens to be known more for offense than defense. We have a veteran center who isn't Stephen Weiss. We have a head coach who isn't Mike Babcock. The youth movement is one year older and more experienced, and we have guys like Pulkkinen, Mantha, Larkin, Callahan, Ferraro doing what they can to earn a roster spot. Our core is also one year older, and as of right now not expected to be in the lineup in its entirety until November. There is no clear number 1 goalie. So I guess my question to everyone is what are your expectations for this team? Last year the Wings ended up as the third seed in the Atlantic, and lost in the first round to the Eastern Conference Champions in seven games. Do you look at the makeup of this team on paper and believe it should be the top team in the Eastern Conference, or Atlantic Division? Do you think they're a third seed team? Wildcard team? Do you expect this team to make a deep playoff run, or even make the playoffs? I ask because I feel like I don't have a solid handle on where I see this team. In the past, at the very least I had an opinion that I felt I could at least comfortably defend, but right now I can just as easily see this squad being the Stanley Cup champs as I can see them missing the playoffs entirely. So what are your expectations for this upcoming season?

1. The Red Wings make the playoffs 2. The Red Wings will win more games than they lose 3. A goalie debate will occur this year

How I've read these two players (and I could very well be wrong cuz I haven't seen as many GR games as you) is that Jensen is more offensively capable and likes to join the rush and make things happen. Oulette is more safe and steady and defensively responsible. This may be a case of the team valuing defensive play for that final spot over offensive play. If we didn't land green in the offseason maybe it would be Jensen who stays up? And again, I'm only basing this off their games in the NHL that I've seen.

I don't know. Miele looked flashy, but it never amounted to anything. I definitely noticed him out there, but it was a lot more of him trying to something impressive and it not working out, like trying to deke around a defender or something.

wait theres another game tonight? how long is this preseason 82 games?

Geez even his between period interviews are mature.

To be clear I'm not saying Nyquist is destined to be a PP specialist. I'm not making any predictions of his future whatsoever. I'm arguing from the position that what Nyquist has done up to this point in his NHL career with regard to power play goals scored relative to overall goals is not standard, as evidenced above. Maybe he evens out this year, maybe he doesn't. But that's not relevant to the conversation, at least from my perspective.

Except it's not simple year to year variance. I looked at the top ESG scorers from 2013-2014 and compared it to their scores the following year. I also looked at just rookies in the first year to make the data source closer to Nyquist's. So we're looking at Monahan, Palat, Mackinnon, Bjugstad, Johnson, Jenner, Hertl, Nichushkin, Scheifele, and Kreider, and comparing it to Nyquist. I wanted to look at the change in PPG/total goal ratio change between the two years.Monahan rose from 13% in 2013/14 to 32% in 2014/15 for a change of 19%. Palat rose from 13% to 19%. Change of 6% Mackinnon dropped from 33% to 21%. Change of 12% Bjugstad rose from 0% to 29% (he scored 0ppg in that first season). Change of 29% Johnson went from 21% to 27%. Change of 6% Jenner dropped from 25% to 22%. Change of 3% Hertl rose from 20% to 23%. Change of 3% Nichuskin dropped from 14% to 0% (he scored 0 goals second year. Only played a handful of games). Change of 14% Scheifele rose from 8% to 20%. Change in 12% Kreider dropped from 35% to 33%. Change in 2%. Nyquist rose from 21% to 52%. Change in 31%. Which is clearly an outlier here. The next closest player scored 33% of their total goals year 2 on the power play. Nyquist is almost 20% higher than that. His change from year 1 to year 2 was also greater than anyone else at a 31%. Bjugstad was next at 29% change and he didn't score at all on the power play. After that the next closest was 19%. Most of the other guys were within 15% of their previous totals (average of 13, standard dev of 10). So clearly there is a significant change in Nyquist's two seasons that doesn't follow the general trend of the league. It's more accurate to look at it as two separate data sets (year 1 vs subsequent years) and not as a continuum, because Nyquist's data doesn't follow a bell curve. So which data set is closer to true? The one where he scored at a historical shooting% and was making news for scoring at a gpg pace that was tops league-wide for the second half of the league? Or the one where he has a disproportionate amount of his goals in the powerplay? But either way there still needs to be a reason why the data has such a large discrepancy between the two years. Kip did a good job summarizing my opinion on the matter, which is that Nyquist is having trouble adjusting to tighter coverage.

A couple things. What exactly are you doing to normalize this data? Because the basis of your argument is how you're adjusting the data for your case but you haven't actually explained the method you use, so I have no way to distinguish whether you are actually putting forth a valid point, or if you're just saying "normalize" then following it up with numbers friendly to your argument. But more to my point: I'm not discrediting that first season because it goes against my argument. I'm discrediting that first season because the attention Nyquist will see from opposing teams for the rest of his career likely won't be as lax as it was that year. He's a known threat and there's tape on him now, so if he is going to have any amount of success, it's going to be by overcoming this new obstacle that wasn't present a couple years ago, but will be present for the remainder of his career. That means what worked in year 1 may not work in years 2 through X, and based on how last season went, it would appear that Nyquist is still learning to adapt to the tighter coverage. I think it's perfectly reasonable to include that variable in my assessment. Finally, you're right that 13 even strength goals isn't all that bad, but it's disproportionally low for someone who had 14 on the power play, and it supports the idea that Nyquist, who did so well the year before yet suddenly hit a wall, but still seemed to thrive on the power play where he would still see the time and space that he had the previous season.

I agree with this assessment. He's not so effective in tight coverage, and does most of his damage when he gets open. Not coincidentally that's often on the power play, during a breakdown in coverage, or on the rush, as you mentioned. Who knows if that's how his entire career will be. Perhaps not. But it's certainly how he's been performing.

He's very poised, has excellent vision and can read the game well. Really I think his greatest attribute is that he plays smart hockey (at least from what I've seen). I was at the first game against the Pens, 13 rows up. On one play, the puck bounced back behind the Pens' net where Pulkinen was skating with it and working his way to the weakside. Larkin noticed where a potential gap in zone coverage in the slot was about to form (he was at the half boards) and called out "Pulky!" as he was skating off the boards and toward the slot. A defender responded briefly to where Larkin called out from, which wasn't where he was going, and lost a half step on him in the process. By the time Larkin got to his spot Pulkinen was able to look up in response to hearing his name and spot Larkin arriving in the slot, wide open for a one timer. The kid didn't score on the play but it was an excellent example of how he can read the game at such a fast level. If you get a chance to watch him play, just follow him while he's on the ice and see how he responds to situations. He's a very smart player.

That one season is about half his entire NHL career. It's also the most recent half. Statistically that's a pretty big chunk. Also, cmon don't bring up what he did in college, or AHL, or peewee. I know you know those numbers mean absolutely nothing in the NHL. Kirk Matlby was a 50 goal scorer in juniors. Not surprisingly, that trend didn't continue. Don't get me wrong, scoring on the power play is perfectly fine. But ideally, you also want to see him have more success at even strength. Ovechkin, Stamkos, Zetterberg, etc have all proven throughout their NHL careers to be able to reliably score at even strength and on the power play. Nyquist has not. At least not yet.

I don't see what the problem is with saying Nyquist struggles to score when not on the powerplay when historically Nyquist has struggled to score when not on the powerplay. I'll give you he absolutely kicked ass in his rookie year, scoring at a shooting% that was absolutely unsustainable, and back when he was an unknown in the league and was treated by defending teams like it. If you think that stint was closer to his norm than last year, that's fine, but I personally think that streak was something we won't see from anyone for quite a long time, Nyquist included. I will agree with you that its too early to predict what his entire career will turn out to be, and I'm certainly not trying to predict his future, but I'm not going to say Nyquist is perfectly okay with his scoring distribution until he actually proves that he is on the ice. In other words, I'll keep saying Nyquist lives and dies by the powerplay until he can prove with some consistency that he doesn't.

He reminds me of Toews... who I guess reminds people of Yzerman