Echolalia

Oulette looked like a rookie on that last play. Misjudged the attacker's speed on a shaky gap.

Solid defensive game from both sides so far. Helm almost got caught cheating on a premature breakout a couple minutes ago when the Wings didn't get the puck out. Aside from that it looks like a very conservatively played game so far.

If this is really happening, my mind is blown, and a massive niche just opened up for someone ambitious.

Do the Wings actually allow the most shots per game per 5 on 5 play in the league? I could only find total shots against per game at NHL.com, which has the Wings at 27.3 shots against/game; good for 3rd best in the league. Considering we've also been pretty solid on the PK, I have a hard time believing the Wings are one of the worst teams league-wide for 5 on 5 shots allowed.

Yeah, the other hockey forums don't get the traffic necessary to stay alive, unfortunately.

I should be able to watch this one from home in it's entirety. It feels like I haven't watched sixty minutes of hockey in over a month.

It seems like the majority of LGW wants to see a trade go down just for the sake of seeing a trade go down. Then when other teams do make a trade, all of a sudden they're over the top and oh no who can stop them now?? The Pens have been aggressive buyers almost every year for the past five/six years, and somehow it hasn't translated to a whole lot of success in the playoffs. As for Perron, he's not the type of player the Wings should even be spending assets to acquire. All things considered, we have a good amount of talent spread throughout our forwards, everyone is buying into the system and filling their role well, and we've seen chemistry form from a variety of different line combos already. Why mess with that? If we're looking to make a trade, let's fill a void and go for a top four offensive-defensman. If we can't find one for a fair price, we always have plan B of continuing to develop our prospects to eventually fill a role. But getting worked up because the Pens, or Flyers, or Bruins, or whoever made a deal and all of a sudden they look better on paper isn't worth knocking Holland over. Especially when its only January.

regardless of who they're matched up against, to boot

If that was the main reason we wouldn't see Kindl on the powerplay either, who's a couple steps behind Smith when it comes to defensive responsibility.

You're right, we don't know for sure; I'm primarily speculating as to why Babs hasn't played him on the PP, and I'm basing it on his production and how he has historically been able to generate scoring chances and points, as well as what hasn't been working for him. I think Smith has the best vision of the ice out of all our defenders. He is good at exploiting holes in the defense, which is where most of his chances come from, and like you mentioned he can move the puck well. Firing bombs from the point isn't something he's all that good at, yet. In a 1-3-1 moving the puck is important, but if you can't get the puck to the net from the high defender point, it's going to cripple the whole set up. Kindl isn't as creative offensively, but he can put the puck on the net through traffic. That forces the high forward on the other team to play higher up and tighter to Kindl because they don't want that shot getting through, and that potentially opens up our slot man who would otherwise be more tightly covered. This has been key for our PP. Like I said, I'm speculating here based on the fact that Smith isn't getting PP time, as well as how his production has typically occurred, but I don't think Smith is good at getting the puck through. This allows the shorthanded team to cheat a little more to our slot man and it eliminates our options. But again, I'm just taking a stab in the dark.

Admittedly, I only saw the first period of the game before I had family stuff to deal with. I can agree that Lashoff is better with some of the physical aspects of the game, but I really disagree with some of the decisions he makes, and his gap control through the neutral zone/defensive blue line(although not too shabby so far this year) has been atrocious at times. Frankly there's a reason that Oulette has been playing over both Kindl and Lashoff. I do want to clarify that I don't think that he would be pinching on the powerplay the way he might during a 5 on 5 defensive breakdown by the other team. I don't think Smith would be more of a defensive liability than Kindl, or any forward playing the blue line on the powerplay for that matter. I just don't know if Smith's skillset at this point in his career is sufficient to be effective on a powerplay. His offensive production generally comes from hopping into the play on an odd-man rush, or slipping into the slot or weak-side during a defensive breakdown. He isn't so good at generating offense when the other team is playing their positions well. On the powerplay, there are no odd-man rushes, and breakdowns are rare. The shorthanded team will always play tight to the slot and very conservatively. Smith doesn't excel at generating scoring chances in these types of scenarios. I don't know if I was clear or not on that in my original post, or maybe you were just adding your own views to something I had mentioned, but I did want to clarify this point just in case.

I've spent more time pondering why Smith gets no PP time than I have any right doing, and the only thing I can come up with is what you've just mentioned: that Smith's offense doesn't come from getting shots to the net through a line of bodies. He's more opportunistic and pinches when there's a breakdown defensively (which teams don't do when they're shorthanded). For all of Kindl's shortcomings, he does know how to get pucks to the net. Considering our offensive drought, I also think that's the only reason Kindl is playing over Lashoff- to help spark the teak offensively, even if it means more chances going the other way. If the Wings were losing games 6-5, I think Kindl is benched at this point and Lashoff is given a chance (although honestly I think Lashoff isn't any better than Kindl defensively). But we've been losing games 2-1 and offense is needed. At least that's how I'm seeing things.

Kindl had a bad break on that pinch, but I think that second goal really falls on Nyquist, who's responsibility as the high forward in that situation is to back-check to cover for Kindl. Nyquist was slow skating back, and Kindl, even though he committed to the offensive zone (and the puck passed him by) was still able to beat Nyquist back and almost take Buffalo's second forward. I harp on Kindl a lot, but I'm pointing the finger at Nyquist on this one before Kindl.

Sooooooo does "sending a message" all of a sudden magically make Zetterberg's back healthy after he gets cross-checked? Because it sure as hell doesn't prevent players from targeting our guys in the future.

The British accent makes me feel like I'm on a top secret mission to score goals

I think the biggest reason the Wings were so outmatched against the Bruins last year in the playoffs was because we didn't have Ericsson playing.

They have homonymous hemianopsia yuk yuk yuk

I don't know if they still do it, but you used to be able to get tickets for really cheap if you showed up and presented your college ID the day of the game. Ive never actually done this, though, so maybe someone else can chime in with a little more knowledge.

Seems like this could be a false negative. Unfortunately there aren't a whole lot of tests in the medical field that are 100% sensitive and 100% specific. It sounds like they're waiting for confirmation from another series. This trend is incredibly frustrating, irresponsible, and dangerous. Considering how many players have already been tested positive for mumps, I highly doubt the league has mandated vaccines.

Heaven forbid anyone get vaccinated.

well... 5 points, technically

Of course its totally acceptable to call out anyone who gives the puck away and it leads to a goal. Everyone does it reguarly in the GDT, including when Howard does it. Hell, this whole thread was made to bash Howard in the shootout and here we all are. As far as I'm aware, nobody ever bashed on you or your posts for doing that. What people disagree with is relying on a "statistic" that is entirely subjective as an objective way to rate a goalie, especially when its clear that you're not interested in comparing him to the rest of the league, but rather trying to paint him in a bad light. "Bad pass" was never defined, neither were a handful of other statistics that you came up with. Who decides what pass is considered "bad" or not? You? And even if you came to some objective way to quantify a bad pass goal, there exists absolutely zero data on any other goaltender in the history of the NHL in these statistical categoreis, so any values that are obtained, whether objective or otherwise, still have no value because there's no way to define what's considered an acceptable range/poor range for bad pass goals or whatever else you were looking at. Maybe Howard actually has the best bad pass goals against in the league. But all you were interested in was counting how many times he let those goals in, and not determining how that value compared to other goalies. As for the next part of your post, wherein you bring up "really bad starts" from that website: Its a s***ty name for a statistic (and it also made me lol), but in the website they clearly quantify "really bad start" as "A performance where the goaltender failed to attain even an .850 save percentage." That's objective. Under their definition, nobody can argue whether Howard has a "really bad start" or not. The author of that post is also using his statistics to compare different starts of Howard throughout a season/career and then coming up with a conclusion after the values have been analyzed. What he didn't do is come to his conclusion first, then make up stats to try to support his predetermined conclusion. ANYWAY I think Howard's problem is just as psychological as the rest of the Wings at this point. They all expect to lose, and teams that verse us in the SO expect to win. And it shows in their body language. We aren't seeing those creative dekes (or any dekes), and everyone is more comfortable just shooting the puck. I'm not a goalie so I don't know how to read a goalie's body language as well, but I imagine that Howard isn't playing the shootout with a lot of confidence right now. Maybe that means he's playing too tight to the net, or he's trying to react instead of predict too much, or vice versa. All I know is that he hasn't always been this poor.

Ya but his bad pass save% is almost perfect

The Wings are dominating the neutral zone right now

Judging from the replays, it looked like Ballard could have skated past center ice without even taking a hit if he was moving his legs. Tough break.