Echolalia

That third line has turnover written all over it.

The speed of the game, the size of the players, the tenacity that these guys play these days is definitely working against us, but I don't think those are reasons to throw in the towel just yet and give up on player safety. Even in today's hockey world where everything is bigger and stronger and faster, many of these hits to the head are entirely preventable. Benn certainly didn't need to punch Zetterberg in the head a couple nights ago. He can still be a very effective pest, and even physical without making contact to the head. Any head injury that results from a fight is preventable, because fights are not a required part of the game, although many people will argue they are part of the culture of the game (and that's another issue entirely that needs to be addressed, but with the steady decline in fights over the past decade or so, we're well on our way to changing the culture of the game as well). If players are stiffly punished for any type of deliberate contact to the head, whether that be a punch in a fight, a suckerpunch from behind a ref, a glancing elbow as a player skates by, driving someone's head into the boards, etc, I strongly believe that headshots will go down, and with them concussions. And by stiff punishment I don't mean a $5,000 fine. That's not a deterrent to someone who makes at minimum $850,000/year. Fine these guys $50-100k per infarction. According to this research (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3091898/) the median time lost due to concussion is 6 days, so lets make the minimum suspension for a headshot a week. And each additional infarction will be an increased fine and an increased suspension duration. This is just a suggestion for a possible punishment system. My point here is mostly that the punishment needs to be severe enough that players are going to make a conscious effort to not target the head. I think my numbers are a good place to at least start the conversation. I also think there needs to be more education on brain injuries, both in the NHL and in youth leagues. I firmly believe at a very fundamental level that players respect one another. In a seven game series they may hate each other's guts and want to hurt the other player, but I still think that respect exists. At the end of the day, nobody wants to see someone's career ended or have to watch someone suffer cognitive deficits for the rest of their life, regardless of how much hate is there. I think education is a good starting point to bringing that respect for one another back into the game of hockey, and not just in the lockerroom or press box. I wonder how many hockey players, NHL or otherwise, are familiar with all the potential consequences that come with brain injuries. I wonder how many are familiar with how easy it is to get additional concussions after you've had one. I wonder how many are familiar with how Chris Pronger's life is right now, or Marc Savard, or Franzen for that matter. Bring these guys in and have them share their experience. Those kind of stories carry weight. edit: sorry all for the wall of text

Any time there is an opportunity to effectively improve the immediate and long-term health of a population of people I think its a wise decision to capitalize on that opportunity. I don't think its impossible to get to a point where the game is completely concussion free, although for that to happen I think our society would have to make great strides in equipment technology, healthcare, and various other advances that are presently out of reach. Ten or fifteen years from now might be a different story. As for today, I don't think its possible to completely remove concussions from the game, but I also don't think that's a sufficient reason not to try to reduce the amount of concussions that do occur. The issue with letting the natural decline of fighting and the rules/fines already in place dictate the control of concussions is that it isn't protecting enough players in a thorough capacity. Zetterberg may have a concussion right now, and Benn was given a two minute penalty for that, and nothing more. Franzen has missed much of last season with a concussion due to a hit to the head, to which nobody was penalized or fined. Same with this year, and this time Franzen has a positive history working against him. Last year Datsyuk suffered a concussion due to an elbow to the head, and again, within the rules currently set in place by the league, no discipline was handed out. And those are just examples of Red Wings within the past year. So clearly there are a lot of players still falling through the cracks. It seems to me based on this conversation that the difference between my stance and yours is that you are fine with these players falling through the cracks, while I am not.

So you don't think concussions, brain damage, long-term cognitive and memory impairment, and the consequential lawsuits are a problem?

No one is sugesting taking clean hits out of the game. I'm not sure where you even thought that was implied. What people want to see is headshots removed from the game. The thing thats associated with concussions, longterm brain injury, forced early retirement, lawsuits, etc etc. The league has already implemented (without much resistance or red tape to cut through from the NHLPA, and with full support from the board of governors by the way) strict suspensions for blindside hits to the head. In the 90s those blindside hits were exactly what made Scott Stevens such an impressive and formidible defensman. So its not like its impossible to change the culture of hockey for the best interest of player health. We've gone from celebrating those hits to condeming them within 10 years. The next step is to apply the same logic to fighting. After all, punches are hits to the head, and we know irrefutibly that hits to the head are correlated with concussions, and all the adverse events that come with them. And guess what? That change in culture is already happening. Fighting has steadily been declining over the past decade. In the early 2000s there was about 0.5-0.6 fights per game, and these days that number is down to around 0.35. So despite what you may think about the NHLPA, their stance on fighting, their influnece over the league/s decision to implement rules, the natural evolution of the NHL has been reducing the amount of fights that we see. That's also going to go a long way when the league decides to implement stricter punishments for all headshots.

What's so difficult about implementing harsher fines and suspensions for contact to the head? The NHLPA doesn't exaclty have a lot of sway in how the NHL is run. Every lockout that has ever occurred is good proof of this. But especially in this situation, they have no ground to stand on. The proposed rule changes would be put in place for the players' well being, and with all the talk about former hockey players suing the NHL for concussions sustained, any argument against strict punishment for shots to the head is going to be ridiculously hypocritical on their part. I also think the NHLPA would be pretty split on the matter. There's a lot of players who are currently dealing with concussion issues and have had their careers ended because of hits to the head. There's a lot of players that I suspect are smart enough to realize they don't want the same thing to happen to them. Hell, Steve Yzerman has already come out and said he wants the league to be more strict with headshots and implement suspensions for fighting because of the associated hits to the head. That's a pretty big voice to be saying that, especially one who shared the ice with the likes of Probert, Kocur, McCarty etc. Having said that, when we're talking about player safety and the alterative to harsh fines and strict suspensions is having players beat up other players, you can understand when people like Kip and myself find those saying violence is the best option as being silly.

Fighting after a cheap-shot has exactly one purpose: to fulfill a primal sense of revenge for one's team. It doesn't cure the injured player. It doesn't prevent a cheap shot from happening. It doesn't discourage players from doing it again after they've already committed the cheap-shot. In fact, it has been demonstrated repeatedly that teams with more fighting majors actually tend to have more injuries and stick infarction penalties against, which would suggest that fights actually increase the amount of cheap shots you receive, which is the complete opposite of "keeping the opposition honest". This has been repeatedly demonstrated on separate occasions by separate people (a few sources for the curious: http://regressing.deadspin.com/the-enforcer-fallacy-hockeys-fighting-specialists-don-1442618145, http://www.pensionplanpuppets.com/2013/10/7/4804752/does-fighting-deter-other-nasty-business-in-hockey, http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2013/09/30/the-edmonton-oilers-and-the-new-era-of-the-one-dimensional-fighter/). Its also not that hard to see if you just watch a hockey game. Ericsson fought Benn. Benn still cheap-shotted Zetterberg. Downey was in the lineup when Lapierre injured Lidstrom. Lapierre didn't shy away. In fact, he came back at Downey for more in the third period, looking to crosscheck the guy in the head. Colton Orr was on the ice when Kadri was getting cheap-shotted, and eventually Kadri got into his first fight against Tampa Bay, despite Orr being out there with him. To keep the flies off. And so on, and so on. So if you're pro-fighting, fine. I understand that it gets the heart racing, and there's a certain primitive sense of satisfaction you get when watching someone get their face beat down after wronging one of our guys. OK. I get that feeling, too, so I understand where the desire to see fights comes from (and keep in mind that I'm not at all pro-fighting. I would rather see fighting removed from the game entirely). But what I won't do is try to justify those emotions by wrongly suggesting that fighting prevents injuries from happening or keeps the rats in line. It just doesn't work that way. And its especially silly to dedicate a roster spot to an enforcer based on this false notion.

Three times if you include the first period. Unless you meant giving up two goal leads haha

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS YOUNG SIR

So where are the doubters? Raise yo hands fools!

my goodness

Osgood you're such a homer

i can't believe this game

lolwat

I gotta say Marchenko has excellent gap control. Its amazing how many times he's eliminated a breakout before the Stars even get into our zone.

damnit those replays didn't go back to see how the turnover happened at our blueline. Who forced that, does anyone know?

Wings are doing a good job tilting the rink so far

If you've been to nhl.com recently (say in the past 12 hours or so) you may have noticed that they revamped their statistics page. Today's transition is part of a three step process to change the way we look at statistics, with the NHL partnering with SAP, who apparently does some stuff with the NBA, although I'm not a fan of basketball so I can't coment on the quality. But part of the rollout includes new types of stats, namely Corsi and Fenwick. Although they're not Corsi and Fenwick anymore. They're "shot attempts" and "unblocked shot attempts" which, while doesn't have that same charm, nor the nod to the folks who first implemented the use of these stats, its a much easier term for the average person to immediately understand without having to do a bit of research. There are other features as well, such as being able to look pretty far back into the past at various stats. The Detroit Cougars are listed on there, for example (George Hay was their leading scorer with 35 points back in 1928). It looks like the site will also include average shot distance, zone starts, goals and assists per 20 minutes and 60 minutes, penalties taken, penalties drawn, and probably some more stuff that I don't know about. I'm still meandering around the new interface, and checking out all the new features, but as a fan of statistics (or really any new way to look at the game), I'm pretty excited to have "offical" numbers to work with now. We should also expect to see more new stuff roll out over the next year or so as they add features and statistics to the website. PS, Wings are currently #1 in the league in Corsi against...er, shot attempts against. edit: for those of you interested in more info, Puck Daddy Blog has a nice summary of what to expect in all three phases here:http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/inside-nhl-com-s-revolutionary-new-features--stats-031047083.html do check it out, there's some pretty cool stuff planned.

Tatar is also 6th in the league in SAT, which is basically team shot attempts for minus shot attempts against while Tatar is on the ice. This could be due to a disproportionate amout of offensive zone starts comparted to defensive zone starts, but I'm still trying to find whether zone starts are on the site or not. EDIT: found it! Tatar actually only gets 53% of his faceoffs in the offensive zone, so there you go, although I already see a flaw in how they calculate offensive zone starts. Its calculated by [100 x offensive zone faceoffs/ (offensive zone faceoffs + defensive zone faceoffs)], so its not taking into account neutral zone faceoffs, therefore its not actually a percentage of the total amount of faceoffs a player has taken. But in this case we can say that Tatar gets roughly the same amount of offensive zone faceoffs as defensive zone faceoffs. And that makes his corsi look a bit more impressive, although upon second look, there doesn't seem to be much deviation from 50% for the Wings. Lashoff has the biggest proportion of offensive zone starts at 61%, while Pulkkinen interestingly enough has the least at 46%. KRsmith will feel validated in that Smith only has 47% of his starts in the offensize zone, potentially supporting his theory that Smith perhaps isn't being utilized in a manner suited for offensive production (but I'll let him take that debate).

The AHL should do well for him. I think he could use the boost of confidence, and he's more likely to get that by being a leader and conributor in GR than he is being a passenger for the team playing on the bottom of the lineup here.

I changed my mind. If the Wings can make it to the finals, I think far and away the most entertaining series would be Wings vs Ducks.

Probably. I want to beat up on some demons though.

First Boston, then Pittsburgh, then Montreal, then the Sharks, in that order. Lets just defeat all our demons at once on the way to the Cup.

Well to be fair Yzerman and Lidstrom are the only two jerseys that have been retired in the past 50 years. There have been quite a few players to wear the Winged Wheel that have made quite a case for getting their number retired also. Lots of people have made good cases for Fedorov. Lots of people have made good cases for Osgood. Hasek was a generational talent and won his two Cups with the Red Wings. Chelios is considered by many to be the best American defensman in history, and he played more games for the Red Wings than any other team, winning a couple Cups in the process. The only problem for each of these players is there is some argument against their case. Fedorov left Detroit. Osgood wasn't considered one of the best goalies of his generation. Hasek's prime was with another team. Chelios' prime was with another team. Consequently none of their numbers are hanging in Joe Louis right now. On just about any other team, they would be (in fact a couple of them do have their jerseys retired with other teams). Abel, Delvecchio, etc I can't comment on because I wasn't around back then to know how they compared to others, or whether there was a community debate about their numbers retired. Hell, management was even different back then so the criteria was likely different as well. As such I suppose I'm only making my case for the past 30 years or so. As for Zetterberg and Datsyuk, I agree with you that they could make a definitive case for themselves over the next few years, such that nobody can bring up a decent argument against retiring their numbers. They've both done a ton for this team and the community, and they're both leaders and generational talents. Perhaps another Cup, or MVP, or Conn Smyth 5-on-3 penalty kill shift against Crosby will put them over the top and make the community unanimously want to see their numbers retired. I certainly hope so, especially because that likely means another Stanley Cup for Detroit in the next five years.

I think if an argument has to be made whether a player should get his number retired or not, he probably shouldn't.