180 replies to this topic

[GMRwings1983]

By the way, if no one recalls last year when we lost 7-1 to the caps, after starting the season strong. I'm sure a few people freaked out then too

 

And thankfully, our season ended wonderfully last year.  

I'm not sure how to reconcile this, and how both of these guys were playing in Europe earlier this month (and for months prior). Both of the Euro Twins should have been more than ready to go. Whats the deal? Negative locker room vibes? Contagious lazy attitudes from other teammates? 

 

They were playing in non-physical Euro leagues.  They forgot what it's like to play against NHL forechecking.  

[haroldsnepsts]

And thankfully, our season ended wonderfully last year.  

 

They were playing in non-physical Euro leagues.  They forgot what it's like to play against NHL forechecking.  

 

And one of the best forechecking teams in the NHL at that. 

[Playmaker]

It is time for an overhaul... This small skilled team doesn't equate to NHL hockey anymore.  Sure, there is a place on the team for a couple of smaller skilled forwards, but if St. Louis didn't prove anything to anyone else last night, they proved it to me, todays NHL needs BIG skilled forwards... I almost blew my beer through my nose when Mickey Redmond said about Franzen that "There is a guy who can match up physically with Backes..." I laugh hysterically today about it.  The Wings are full of small skilled and big average players. The extent of our small skilled forwards should start and end with Zetterberg and Datsyuk.  I reserve judgement on Brunner because he is a rookie and well had 1/5 of our shots last night and at one point had half of them. But the rest of this team can and will be judged, especially after 10 games if they aren't at least 6-4.

 

The makeup of this team needs to be changed drastically.  I know Holland tried for the Olsen twins and I give him credit for everything he did over the summer, including the draft where he went with some larger and tougher players along with his couple of smaller skilled players.  I know nobody agrees with me, but Franzen needs to be traded and I would say the same about Filppula. Why? Because Filppula can bring us a nice piece in return.  I still maintain that Filppula should be traded to Anaheim for Bobby Ryan (if Anaheim would do so.)  I know Selanne holds alot of water in Anaheim and the fact that he said he wants to play with Filppula should not go unoticed by Holland and the Anaheim GM.  I do not even know what Franzen would get us in return after his epic fall at the end of last season and which contiues today.  If traded anywhere, I am sure it would be somewhere where he would have countrymen who have chemistry with him, Vancouver or Dallas come to mind.  I have said before about getting Burrows or Morrow for him, but I am not sure now that those teams would want him.... I could see Franzen doing well with the Sedins or Eriksson, which is why I mention those two teams.

 

Quincey wasn't anywhere worth the 1st round pick, I don't care who would have been selected at #19.  Heck, Stuart only cost us a 2nd and a 4th.  I maintain that Quincey should not have been re-signed and we should have collected whatever picks we could have gotten as compensation.  But no, Holland wasted $3.75M of cap space on this useless garbage.

 

In my opinion tradeable assets today are:

 

Filppula, Franzen, Cleary, Emmerton, Quincey, Ericsson, Kindl...(of course along with picks or prospects to get us what we need...)

 

Waive Mursak, his NHL career is over, WAY over...

 

Buyout Samuelsson and Bertuzzi....

 

What makes you think Filppula is going to give us a good return?  So Selanne likes him.  Teemu is also 41 and not likely to be playing much longer.  So the Ducks are going to trade for him so Teemu can play with is buddy when they don't know how much longer he'll play? So he sucks, lets trade him, and we'll get someone really good in return?  What value does Cleary have? He's old, often injured and overpaid.   Emmerton?  What picks and prospects? 

 

I always have to laugh when fans think our players suck, but yet they think they're incredibly valuable to someone else.  If small skilled players aren't the "in" thing, why would other teams want them? 

[Dabura]

We're in a hole re: trading. The way I see it, it's two-fold. First, we don't have many (if any) sexy assets that we can really, truly afford to part with. Part two: Who's gonna trade with us? Say you're up top @, oh, say, Duckland. Do you really want to be be the guy who potentially gets the Wings out of a major, major jam? Do you want to be the one who gives them a ladder out of hell? Me, personally, (assuming I'm very much not a Wings fan), I would much prefer to spit in this franchise's collective face, even if they do have a somewhat attractive asset or two. (Every team has attractive assets.)

Edited by Dabura, 20 January 2013 - 01:11 PM.

[Yzerfan1999]

I would love to see more of Nyquist, Tatar, or even Sheahan. 

 

How do they compare to Mursak?

[BottleOfSmoke]

Yesterday was ugly and painful to watch.  Issues from last season remain, and new holes were exposed as expected--the guys looked oblivious out there and were outworked in every way possible.  Yet the world didn't end, nobody died, [insert cataclysmic event that didn't happen].  This is a team in transition in every possible way, and I would rather have them work out the kinks, retool, rebuild, whatever you want to call it and have it affect this abortion of a half season than have to watch a full season of them figuring out how their d***s work.  I expect we'll see the Wings struggle quite a bit this season, but I don't think it will always be as heinous as what we saw last night.  We might not make the playoffs this year, and you know what?  I'm strangely ok with that.  I like winning as much as the next fan, but all good things must come to an end.  I love this team win or lose, and we've been blessed that the winning has come more often than the losses.  The Wings are in a decline, but it's a decline that can be stopped with some good moves and acquisitions, a new identity, and a new approach.  We are entering the Z era, and the last of the old guard is gone (miss you Homer!).  Let's start fresh, tolerate them during their "oh my god, I have toes that move!" baby stages, and hope that we see a new, competitive Wings team emerge. 

 

[T.Low]

ZDB are suffering from the same symptoms Hudler had after returning from Europe:  They forgot what it's lke to get hit every few strides, not used to no time and no space, not used to the pace of the NHL game.  In everyone of those highlight clips of Z and B in the frikin silly little league (for God's sake), there is absolutely zero contact, and tons of ice to play in, and lame ass DMan spectating and hoping for an autograph along the way.

 

Their legs may be in shape, but that league was like semi retirement for those guys, they got away with things they'd never be able to do in the NHL.  It hurt their on ice work ethic, and hopefully they'll recover faster than Hudler did.

 

 

[Playmaker]

 "do not even know what Franzen would get us in return after his epic fall at the end of last season and which contiues today. If traded anywhere, I am sure it would be somewhere where he would have countrymen who have chemistry with him, Vancouver or Dallas come to mind"

 

Because the Wings obviously have no fellow countrymen of Franzen (Swedes)???? 

[Nev]

When they beat the blue jackets and Stars this will all go away.

 

No it won't.  This will only go away when we have a good run in the playoffs and prove we're a legit team again.  We've been going backwards since 2009 due to players aging/retiring/leaving via UFA/signing lifetime contracts and no longer giving a damn.  So now we're relying on a D-corp full of 3rd pairing players, and hoping for a bunch of rookies to win all 3 Calder nominations.

 

The signs have been there for all to see, especially in the playoffs.  2 successive losses to the Sharks where only Dats and Jimmy made it look respectable, then the Nashville series were even they couldn't hide the teams issues.  Its still to early to predict were we'll finish, somewhere between 6 and 10 IMO, but I keep saying it, we're stuck in the NHL Poverty trap.  Not good enough to challenge, not bad enough to rebuild through the draft.

[Z Winged Dangler]

It's just one game. Can  we please not fly off the handle after game 1? We still have a solid team and the layoff has alot to do with it. Keep in mind most of our guys didnt play a whole hell of alot during the lockout.....Jeezus what is it with you ppl already counting us out?

I still think the Wings are pretty sexy dude.  They all just forgot to sharpen their skates, my boy Brunner looked timid and Helm needs to get back asap.  Just an observation though, Emmerton actually looked good in his limited ice time and Nyquist should be in the line up and Sammy should be on the 3rd line.

[CrimsonFlame]

When they beat the blue jackets and Stars this will all go away...

 

Until we lose another game.  Then it's fire sale central.

[Electrophile]

I think this thread is just a tad melodramatic.  I don't think anyone is jumping off the bridge and going off to root for Pittsburgh and HWSNBN.  I think what people are doing is looking at the team as presently constructed, noting that it has some serious holes in comparison to last season's team, and the season before that, and realizing....we're in trouble.  Not that we're going to go 0-48, but that we're going to have more of these games than not.

 

Maybe the thread starter needs to relax, instead of telling the rest of us to.

[Yzerfan1999]

The depressing thing is that after the snub from Suter and Parise this summer, I have lost faith in Detroit's ability to lure UFA's.  The Wings have gotten progressively worse each season since 2009.

 

If the Wings don't take a step forward this season (looks bad right now), i'd like to see Illitch announce a new arena project and to throw the bank at a big name this coming summer.  At least get some of the young guys up and playing - give people something to look forward to.  Next season they've got nearly 20 million to play with and some interesting UFA's to throw money at.  They have Brunner, Flip, and Howard to resign.  .

 

As for this season, the Wings are handcuffed.  The rest of the league knows they are desperate for a D-man ( i cant believe Colaiacavo makes 2.5 million for the next 2 years, ugh), and the Wings have nothing to offer in return.  I still think the Wings can turn out a respectable season and make the playoffs, but they are going to have to do it with the roster they already have. 

[Adidarw]

I think it's pretty sane and ok to be very upset about that first game.  That game pissed me off.

 

Being upset about the first game is not the same as saying "Oh my gosh, the whole season is going to be like this!"  That game yesterday was absolutely horrible.  It doesn't matter if it was the first game, last game, or anywhere in between.  The Wings simply did not show up.  We can use every excuse in the book, but at the end of the day they lost.  The Blues did not have any sort of special attention, they didn't have anything extra that the Wings didn't have, as far as knowledge or training.  The fact is the Blues beat us.  If you watched the game, they beat us bad.

 

The concern of mine is: Why didn't the Wings show up?  Why was it not the other way around (Wings shutting out the Blues)?  The Blues didn't bring any excuses for winning.  The Wings looked like a minor league team playing an NHL team.  It was very bad.  That is a perfectly just cause to be angry.

 

The game is behind us now, so we have to look forward.  I know the team is better than the way they played yesterday.  But I'm still upset that they came in and played that poorly for game one.  They could not get a steady possession together to make anything happen.  The defense failed us and the offense failed us.  It was overall just a bad team effort.  I'm no hockey expert, but it's tough for me to point at any position or player and say it's that person's fault.  The whole team sucked.  Although, in my opinion, I must say Jimmy Howard sucked the least, and I believe the reason they swapped goaltenders was just to save face for Howard and attempt to give the team a second wind.  Unfortunately, it didn't work.

[Dabura]

No it won't.  This will only go away when we have a good run in the playoffs and prove we're a legit team again.  We've been going backwards since 2009 due to players aging/retiring/leaving via UFA/signing lifetime contracts and no longer giving a damn.  So now we're relying on a D-corp full of 3rd pairing players, and hoping for a bunch of rookies to win all 3 Calder nominations.

 

The signs have been there for all to see, especially in the playoffs.  2 successive losses to the Sharks where only Dats and Jimmy made it look respectable, then the Nashville series were even they couldn't hide the teams issues.  Its still to early to predict were we'll finish, somewhere between 6 and 10 IMO, but I keep saying it, we're stuck in the NHL Poverty trap.  Not good enough to challenge, not bad enough to rebuild through the draft.

 

Hey! You there! Stop being realistic!

[brett]

well hopefully the coaching staff lined them up against the boards for hitting drill then after they couldnt feel their shoulders made them shoot til they couldnt move their entire upperbody.

[Hockeymom1960]

well hopefully the coaching staff lined them up against the boards for hitting drill then after they couldnt feel their shoulders made them shoot til they couldnt move their entire upperbody

 

AGAIN!!

[number9]

Because Tootoo made things any better last night. They didn't lose because they were out hit, they lost because they got out played in every way conceivable.

Not saying they lost because they were out hit. To me it looked like we got pushed around A LOT. We need more guys who will push back, like Tootoo.

[Dominator2005]

It's not because we lost, it's because of the WAY that we lost.

[unsaddleddonald]

Not saying they lost because they were out hit. To me it looked like we got pushed around A LOT. We need more guys who will push back, like Tootoo.

How many times did we see White, or Filppula, or even Hank simply get pushed from behind and knocked down and had the puck taken from them? It was sad.

 

They played slow and showed little awareness. Unfortunately this team has morphed into small skilled forwards who can't really skate.

 

The Blues DO NOT...and I repeat....DO NOT have more skill than the Red Wings. But the Predators set the blue print for overcoming a skill mismatch against the Wings: skate fast and hit hard.

 

Our guys need to play with more energy and speed. I'm just not sure if they are capable of doing that though....