FINALLY! LINE CHANGES!

[drfnr14 0]

i would personally like to pat babs on the back for change the lines up!!!!!! see.... look what happens

[EuroTwin 240]

Hossa/Fil/Franzen needs to never not be together.

They were magical tonight.

[yzefan 2]

I would love to see 2 more line changes for game 5..... RAFFY for CHELLY and DRAP"S for KOP!

that would make me happier then a pig in s***!!!!

[Ms_Hockey 0]

Hossa/Fil/Franzen needs to never not be together.

They were magical tonight.

Seconded, girrrl!

[RedLightGoesOn 81]

They did a great job tonight. Babs needs to keep it like he did tonight. Z and Dats have to be on the same line. Hossa and Franzen and Filp were AWESOME. Best game I have seen in a while

[ComradeWasabi 109]

After scoring one goal through nearly six periods, we explode and get 5 plus an empty-netter in three. I'd say the line changes worked.

Game 5's going to be critical, as it was two years ago. I swear, if the Wings repeat that heartbreaker from 2007 I will probably cry.

[drfnr14 0]

I would love to see 2 more line changes for game 5..... RAFFY for CHELLY and DRAP"S for KOP!

that would make me happier then a pig in s***!!!!

i fully agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Yak19 303]

I may have been 5 pints in but those line combos gave me an erection.

[GMRwings1983 8,794]

Finally Babcock read some of the comments here on LGW, which obviously influenced the line changes.

[YoungGuns1340 1]

After scoring one goal through nearly six periods, we explode and get 5 plus an empty-netter in three. I'd say the line changes worked.

Game 5's going to be critical, as it was two years ago. I swear, if the Wings repeat that heartbreaker from 2007 I will probably cry.

The Game 3 win we had was a controversial blow-out. The talk at the end of the game 3 ended up being all about Big Bad Pronger, and how having Pronger out was going to screw over the Ducks. Well they used that to their advantage, and the Wings didn't press are hard as they should have, knowing Pronger was out. Winning without Pronger gave the Ducks all kinds of confidence and they steamrolled their way to the cup after that.

Also, last time the Ducks were the ones to climb out of a 2-1 hole. This time, its the Wings. Thats something to build off of for this team.

[YoungGuns1340 1]

Finally Babcock read some of the comments here on LGW, which obviously influenced the line changes.

Clearly, many of us on here should throw our hats into the ring for the Edmonton and Minnesota coaching positions.

[marcaractac 3,963]

After scoring one goal through nearly six periods, we explode and get 5 plus an empty-netter in three. I'd say the line changes worked.

Game 5's going to be critical, as it was two years ago. I swear, if the Wings repeat that heartbreaker from 2007 I will probably cry.

Same with me, but for the record, in 2007 it was the Wings who were up 2-1.

[titanium2 867]

Here's the thing.

Babcock is not stupid. If he weren't the coach and he was just one of us on LGW, he would probably clamor for the same line changes that we have been for a while.

So what took so long?

It's as if as a professional coach you can't just follow on every single one of your knee jerk reactions. You have "collect evidence" as they say until the time is right.

[Jake Ryan 1]

Here's the thing.

Babcock is not stupid. If he weren't the coach and he was just one of us on LGW, he would probably clamor for the same line changes that we have been for a while.

So what took so long?

It's as if as a professional coach you can't just follow on every single one of your knee jerk reactions. You have "collect evidence" as they say until the time is right.

Well, we can all see that Holmstrom is slow out there 5 on 5. Why is he not seeing it? Double shift Helm 5 on 5, and put Homer in there for PP's. What's so hard about that? I don't get why the coach has a hard time adjusting. It's not like he's coaching undisciplined players. These guys are pros.

[jollymania 162]

FFH FTW

[titanium2 867]

Well, we can all see that Holmstrom is slow out there 5 on 5. Why is he not seeing it? Double shift Helm 5 on 5, and put Homer in there for PP's. What's so hard about that? I don't get why the coach has a hard time adjusting. It's not like he's coaching undisciplined players. These guys are pros.

I'm not disagreeing with you. Those guys are pros, but they're also proud. If the coach yanked them off their normal rotation spot just because of a couple bad games, then that wouldn't bode well on a team of proud, proud veterans. They deserve their chances before they really show that they're just not being effective. Now, Chelios is a special case. He's just way, way too old. I don't mean to disagree with you, I mean to add to your ideas.

[Jake Ryan 1]

I'm not disagreeing with you. Those guys are pros, but they're also proud. If the coach yanked them off their normal rotation spot just because of a couple bad games, then that wouldn't bode well on a team of proud, proud veterans. They deserve their chances before they really show that they're just not being effective. Now, Chelios is a special case. He's just way, way too old. I don't mean to disagree with you, I mean to add to your ideas.

Agreed. And I think giving Holmstrom 4 games is enough. Agreed? And as for Chelios. I don't think there is a person on the planet who knows what he is doing in there.

[HockeyCrazy3033 168]

Mule, Flip and Hossa are SICK together. Love it!

[b.shanafan14 733]

When we first got Hossa, I thought it was a no-brainer that Hossa would just replace Sammy on the Filppula-Franzen line that was so great last year, but it never ended up happening. We tried to force chemistry between Pav or Z and Hossa. Finally, after 10 months, this line is together and they dominated every aspect of tonites game. They were strong on the puck, fast, forechecked tenaciously, and put the biscuit in the basket. Now the Wings depth can really shine.

Edited May 8, 2009 by b.shanafan14

[under_par_00 45]

That a boy Flipper, great game when given a chance on the second line. I really like him with Franzen and Hossa.

[Taosuntzu 0]

You guys are all saying that these are the line changes you have been waiting for. But no one ever said these line changes.

Everyone wanted Zetts, Homer, Dats. Me, I wanted Zetts, Dats, Mule. Actual line was Dats, Cleary, Zetts.

No one ever thought of Hossa, Mule, and Filppula. If you would have told me that was the change he was going to make, I woulda said this series is over; Anaheim in 6.

Holy cow, did that line rock. 4 goals together, and just barely failed to convert on 2 more golden opertunities. Who would of thought.

The weirdest thing from tonight is the fact that Osgood let in a goal in the 1st minute, and it was Hiller that was pulled by the end of the night.

Ozzie also had 3 nice steals. He was the difference maker tonight, and belies his less than .900 sv% for the night.

I really feel that with any other goalie the Wings would not even be in this series. Another thankless allstar performance for him.

[sean 19]

Well, we can all see that Holmstrom is slow out there 5 on 5. Why is he not seeing it? Double shift Helm 5 on 5, and put Homer in there for PP's. What's so hard about that? I don't get why the coach has a hard time adjusting. It's not like he's coaching undisciplined players. These guys are pros.

he pretty much did

[Husker BigGuy 0]

You guys are all saying that these are the line changes you have been waiting for. But no one ever said these line changes.

Everyone wanted Zetts, Homer, Dats. Me, I wanted Zetts, Dats, Mule. Actual line was Dats, Cleary, Zetts.

No one ever thought of Hossa, Mule, and Filppula. If you would have told me that was the change he was going to make, I woulda said this series is over; Anaheim in 6.

Holy cow, did that line rock. 4 goals together, and just barely failed to convert on 2 more golden opertunities. Who would of thought.

The weirdest thing from tonight is the fact that Osgood let in a goal in the 1st minute, and it was Hiller that was pulled by the end of the night.

Ozzie also had 3 nice steals. He was the difference maker tonight, and belies his less than .900 sv% for the night.

I really feel that with any other goalie the Wings would not even be in this series. Another thankless allstar performance for him.

solid take

[bonan78 1]

The thing that stood out to me the most is this: Once Babcock put together Franzen, Filppula and Hossa, he never changed that line for the rest of the game, like he did with every other forward. He even kept them together as a power play unit, and we know how much Babcock likes to tinker with his PP units (not at all). I like the way he mixed up every other forward line at some point in the game, I saw combos that I never thought I'd see, even some that no one has ever suggested in posts here. Part of me wants Draper to sit the rest of this series so we can keep rolling the Hudler/Helm/Cleary line as our 3rd line, and even the Maltby/Kopecky/Samuelsson line cashed in for us tonight. If Draper can't go and Kopecky was injured in his 5 minutes for receiving incident, then you can plug in Abdelkader into the 4th line spot, and you will likely upgrade the forechecking and "grinding" play, as well as generating some still-needed energy. Boy, it feels really good to be talking about what went right for a change.

[Aussie_Wing 354]

The line of Hossa-Flip-Franzen was, in a word, amazing.

Line changes

Detroit shakeup

After another sluggish start, Wings coach Mike Babcock shuffled all four of his lines about 10 minutes into the game and it paid immediate dividends.

He put Valtteri Filppula between Franzen and Hossa and they scored four goals. Babcock also reunited Pavel Datsyuk with Henrik Zetterberg and Holmstrom, while putting Darren Helm between Dan Cleary and Mikael Samuelsson. Each of those lines tallied.

Kopecky played with Kirk Maltby and Jiri Hudler on the revamped fourth line.

“I’m not a big change guy,†Babcock said. “I like to be patient when things are going good and I thought we were playing fine in this series. The way we started (Thursday), I had to do something.

“I had to change it up and for whatever reason, we seemed to get a spark with Filppula on that line. Hoss probably feels like the weight of the world’s off his back and that’s great for him. He’s an elite player and they’re big bodies who can all skate.

“Datsyuk and Zetterberg normally play really well together, so that should be good.â€