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MabusIncarnate

1/28 GDT: Red Wings 0 @ Flyers 5

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embarrassing affair tonight.

why couldn't Tim Thomas let in 6 against us the other night instead of tonight. ugh

Well, he did let in 4 against us. Gustavsson (and/or the D depending on your opinion) just didn't hold up his part of the bargain...... which is still better than tonight, when no one in red and white held up their end.

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Come on, it's not THAT bad.

Actually it is. When you get to the point of predicting losses, it's time to start focusing on the problem. Some people will blame the coach, others will blame the defense/goalie. Fact is all these games we lose are in fact winnable if we work harder and show some emotion.

I wouldn't mind losing as bad if we earned the loss, rather than giving the opposition the win.

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Im pretty sure ESPN has completely given up on following the NHL. Or maybe they just think our players are that bad lately.

From ESPN.com:

"These are the times when you have to find a way, get a step," defenseman Nicklas Cronwall said. "The power play has to be clicking. We have to find a way to get one goal. I thought we had good chances in the second period. (Quincy) had a grade-A chance right in the middle of the slot. I think (Tatar) had one off the crossbar. But the puck didn't go in, and we have to find a way to be a lot better."

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This.

I understand the need to draft 'quality' players in todays NHL; it's always a smart move to pick a player whom you feel has the best ability/attitude to making it all the way.

Now with all that said...This team lacks an identity, and has it's fair share of those who lack 'snarl' when the team is down, or when the opponents take liberties.

I honestly cannot blame the players since many aren't accustomed to this style of hockey; I place the blame with Holland who would rather draft a 5 foot sumthin 150 lbs kid outta 'Eurostan' instead of some 6'3" 210 lbs kid from Windsor, and also shift some blame onto Babcock for not using someone such as Tootoo in these games, but again - they're looking to win games, and not grudge matches...It's too bad they can't win either.

I remember in the 90s, more than now and then, Bowman would get rid of guys or sit guys because they didn't have what it takes. What is that exactly, especially to someone like Scotty? No one but Scotty knows exactly, but a couple guys I remember him really having a problem with on those pre-Cup Wings teams were Coffey and Primeau. I can't remember which one of them, but he flat out said "we'll never win a Cup with _______ on this team." It was one of those two, and I was too young to fully understand it, but looking back, and in talking to people about it over the years, I think one of the things that just made Scotty Bowman hate guys was a sort of resigned complacency and lack of killer instinct. There just wasn't a fire in some guys, or maybe as some guys aged, like Coffey, who'd had a lot of success already, maybe it just got weak. Certain guys though just didn't have that spark and couldn't get on the same page as the team; and they certainly couldn't find that extra gear for when things got tough and for the playoffs.

In any event, all of that reminds me of almost the entire team we have currently.

You said it very well when you said they have no identity. They absolutely don't. They're a roughly spun-together patchwork team for the most part that's been running on fumes from Dats and Z since losing the core of our defense in the span of a year.

Holland has done a piss poor job of putting a team together for some time. I don't care that we make the playoffs still (and I absolutely believe we'll still make the playoffs this year). When you have Datsyuk and Zetterberg on your team, the playoffs are all but a given. This isn't a testament to the brilliance of Holland's managerial skills in the cap era, this is the benefit of having two of the best players at both ends of the the ice on your team and for many years before last, the best defenseman in the world.

But what's Holland given Dats and Z (and Lidstrom beforehand) to work with the last 4-5 years? Mostly crap. He's made numerous regrettable signings. He's let guys go that he shouldn't have, and no, I do not mean Parise and Suter. That anyone can't acknowledge his shortcomings over the last 4-5 years when the Cap actually became something he had to deal with is unsettling, yet some still leap to defend him.

And you know, I get why they signed Cleary. I got it then, and I get it now. When you talk about identity, Cleary is a guy that on some level gets that. He has a fire in him. But his body is broken, and whatever offensive output he has tends to boil largely down to luck anymore. That we have to go to the well of Dan Cleary at this point to find a guy that gives a s*** and seems to at least have emotions is profoundly pathetic. And I generally like Dan Cleary, and on a more balanced Red Wings team, I'd be fine having him around at the right price. But the role it seems he has on this team as practically the only loud mouth who plays through pain is ridiculous.

But that said, I don't know what scares me more: the 2013-14 Red Wings with Dan Cleary as the one emotional loud mouth or the 2013-14 Red Wings with no emotional loud mouths.

What's tremendously unfortunate is that we happen to have a lot of good role guys that should have more stable spots on this team, but due to so many terrible moves by Holland, things are always in flux. Guys like Eaves and Miller are bargains at their prices with lots of upside and plenty of potential to exceed what most would expect of them in the right roles. But instead, we've gone from leaning on them too hard to waiving them to sending them to the minors, and when not having to deal with injuries, these guys end up frustrated in a press box every other game because Holland signs too many s***ty mid-level guys that are too expensive to bench.

Oh, except now we even have overpaid mid-level guys that are so non-essential that we'll bench them or ship them to the minors because we can't take the cap hit. No one's feeling sorry for ol' Sammy, but you've got to imagine that this hasn't gone at all how Tootoo expected it would, and I can't imagine him being very happy about it.

Remember when we valued our checkers and didn't call them checkers or 4th liners? Remember when we actually didn't have a checking line or a 4th line? Remember when instead we had The Grind Line? What other teams had 4th liners who had their own t-shirt?

It's not that Maltby, Draper and Kocur/McCarty were the most talented guys or most charismatic guys. They were just The Grind Line. That's what they did. That was their role. That was their identity, and they leaned into it and they became an incredibly important part of this team.

But even without injuries, we'd struggle to ice a consistent 4th line that could have that kind of impact because we have serious cap issues, and the worst kind of cap issues. Not cap issues because we signed big time impact players, cap issues because we signed too many mid-level and utterly inconsequential players.

Some keep saying that it won't stay like this, but what proof do we have that Holland really knows how to navigate out of his managerial rut with this team? This is the same guy that in the last 4-5 years...

Signed Franzen at a descent cap hit but for a million years after essentially one good season,

Let Hossa go to a team that got him at a $5 million cap hit, a team that also has own two Cups since that time,

Let Rafalski and Lidstrom retire and Stuart leave while only bringing in the great Kyle Quincey as any sort of defensive replacement before getting geographically lucky and snagging DeKeyser to help a bit more

Signed Sammy again for real, actual money,

Signed Cleary when he needed defenseman and already had cap issues along with too many forwards,

Signed Weiss long term for Hossa money, and while Weiss could turn it around, thus far he's been a total dud followed by becoming the injured 24/7 locker room hoodie guy.

Perhaps his best recent signing is Alfredsson, but he's on a farewell tour and clearly not a long term asset.

And half these kids aren't even supposed to be here!

(Though maybe some should be and if we planned for that, we'd allocate money differently and pursue different players, but who thinks that differently just because the cap has fundamentally turned managing a team upside down?)

You add it all up, and it's not hard to see why this team has no identity and no fire. It's barely a team, because even without all the injuries, it's tough to know what the team would look like given the complexities brought on by the cap issues and underachieving mid-level guys. This club is a big mess with tremendous potential still at the core, but it's potential that's being squandered because for 4-5 years now, Ken Holland hasn't had what it takes to build a winner around two of the greatest players of any era.

And I barely talked about the defense. That's just too depressing to really go into...

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What boggles my mind is how Dan Cleary played almost 15 minutes at even strength.

Why is this boggling? Cleary getting undeserved minutes should be the least surprising thing every game. Babs probably walked up behind Mule and smacked him the head to put him back on IR so he could get his pet in games the next couple weeks. From expected healthy scratch to 15+ minutes a game. Only in Babs mind.

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I remember in the 90s, more than now and then, Bowman would get rid of guys or sit guys because they didn't have what it takes. What is that exactly, especially to someone like Scotty? No one but Scotty knows exactly, but a couple guys I remember him really having a problem with on those pre-Cup Wings teams were Coffey and Primeau. I can't remember which one of them, but he flat out said "we'll never win a Cup with _______ on this team." It was one of those two, and I was too young to fully understand it, but looking back, and in talking to people about it over the years, I think one of the things that just made Scotty Bowman hate guys was a sort of resigned complacency and lack of killer instinct. There just wasn't a fire in some guys, or maybe as some guys aged, like Coffey, who'd had a lot of success already, maybe it just got weak. Certain guys though just didn't have that spark and couldn't get on the same page as the team; and they certainly couldn't find that extra gear for when things got tough and for the playoffs.

In any event, all of that reminds me of almost the entire team we have currently.

You said it very well when you said they have no identity. They absolutely don't. They're a roughly spun-together patchwork team for the most part that's been running on fumes from Dats and Z since losing the core of our defense in the span of a year.

Holland has done a piss poor job of putting a team together for some time. I don't care that we make the playoffs still (and I absolutely believe we'll still make the playoffs this year). When you have Datsyuk and Zetterberg on your team, the playoffs are all but a given. This isn't a testament to the brilliance of Holland's managerial skills in the cap era, this is the benefit of having two of the best players at both ends of the the ice on your team and for many years before last, the best defenseman in the world.

But what's Holland given Dats and Z (and Lidstrom beforehand) to work with the last 4-5 years? Mostly crap. He's made numerous regrettable signings. He's let guys go that he shouldn't have, and no, I do not mean Parise and Suter. That anyone can't acknowledge his shortcomings over the last 4-5 years when the Cap actually became something he had to deal with is unsettling, yet some still leap to defend him.

And you know, I get why they signed Cleary. I got it then, and I get it now. When you talk about identity, Cleary is a guy that on some level gets that. He has a fire in him. But his body is broken, and whatever offensive output he has tends to boil largely down to luck anymore. That we have to go to the well of Dan Cleary at this point to find a guy that gives a s*** and seems to at least have emotions is profoundly pathetic. And I generally like Dan Cleary, and on a more balanced Red Wings team, I'd be fine having him around at the right price. But the role it seems he has on this team as practically the only loud mouth who plays through pain is ridiculous.

But that said, I don't know what scares me more: the 2013-14 Red Wings with Dan Cleary as the one emotional loud mouth or the 2013-14 Red Wings with no emotional loud mouths.

What's tremendously unfortunate is that we happen to have a lot of good role guys that should have more stable spots on this team, but due to so many terrible moves by Holland, things are always in flux. Guys like Eaves and Miller are bargains at their prices with lots of upside and plenty of potential to exceed what most would expect of them in the right roles. But instead, we've gone from leaning on them too hard to waiving them to sending them to the minors, and when not having to deal with injuries, these guys end up frustrated in a press box every other game because Holland signs too many s***ty mid-level guys that are too expensive to bench.

Oh, except now we even have overpaid mid-level guys that are so non-essential that we'll bench them or ship them to the minors because we can't take the cap hit. No one's feeling sorry for ol' Sammy, but you've got to imagine that this hasn't gone at all how Tootoo expected it would, and I can't imagine him being very happy about it.

Remember when we valued our checkers and didn't call them checkers or 4th liners? Remember when we actually didn't have a checking line or a 4th line? Remember when instead we had The Grind Line? What other teams had 4th liners who had their own t-shirt?

It's not that Maltby, Draper and Kocur/McCarty were the most talented guys or most charismatic guys. They were just The Grind Line. That's what they did. That was their role. That was their identity, and they leaned into it and they became an incredibly important part of this team.

But even without injuries, we'd struggle to ice a consistent 4th line that could have that kind of impact because we have serious cap issues, and the worst kind of cap issues. Not cap issues because we signed big time impact players, cap issues because we signed too many mid-level and utterly inconsequential players.

Some keep saying that it won't stay like this, but what proof do we have that Holland really knows how to navigate out of his managerial rut with this team? This is the same guy that in the last 4-5 years...

Signed Franzen at a descent cap hit but for a million years after essentially one good season,

Let Hossa go to a team that got him at a $5 million cap hit, a team that also has own two Cups since that time,

Let Rafalski and Lidstrom retire and Stuart leave while only bringing in the great Kyle Quincey as any sort of defensive replacement before getting geographically lucky and snagging DeKeyser to help a bit more

Signed Sammy again for real, actual money,

Signed Cleary when he needed defenseman and already had cap issues along with too many forwards,

Signed Weiss long term for Hossa money, and while Weiss could turn it around, thus far he's been a total dud followed by becoming the injured 24/7 locker room hoodie guy.

Perhaps his best recent signing is Alfredsson, but he's on a farewell tour and clearly not a long term asset.

And half these kids aren't even supposed to be here!

(Though maybe some should be and if we planned for that, we'd allocate money differently and pursue different players, but who thinks that differently just because the cap has fundamentally turned managing a team upside down?)

You add it all up, and it's not hard to see why this team has no identity and no fire. It's barely a team, because even without all the injuries, it's tough to know what the team would look like given the complexities brought on by the cap issues and underachieving mid-level guys. This club is a big mess with tremendous potential still at the core, but it's potential that's being squandered because for 4-5 years now, Ken Holland hasn't had what it takes to build a winner around two of the greatest players of any era.

And I barely talked about the defense. That's just too depressing to really go into...

Wow, where should I start?

Miller and Eaves are basically the same player, except Miller shoots left and is usually healthy and Eaves shoots right and has an injury history, including concussions, and therefore was deemed expendable.

The Grind Line was the checking line with a clever name and was around when the Wings could just load up on salary. Were they a great checking line? Yup. But with cap considerations I don't know that you could spend that much on a check line, unless it's your 3rd line and your 4th was done as cheaply as possible.

The amount of injuries this year has everything in flux, and when you have guys playing different roles all the time, and 4 lines without a center who can play that role well, you're not going to have much of an identity or stability. If they were healthy, the 4th line would pretty easily be Miller-Andersson- and one of Cleary or Abdelkader. A good defensive line that could chip in a few goals.

Franzen's deal was signed after the 08-09 season, after he had scored 27 and 34 goals the 2 previous years and had big playoff runs. The deal was essentially 8 years because he wasn't necessarily expected to play the last 3 years, certainly not the last 2, and was structured to lower the cap hit so they could fit other guys, most importantly Zetterberg, under the cap going forward. The last 3 years are only an issue now because the NHL is retroactively punishing teams for signing legal contracts.

I don't believe Hossa was a sure bet to sign here. He was giving the same lines he gave Pittsburgh before he came to Detroit, and if he really had wanted to sign here I think he would have gotten something done.

Hossa's contract is about $1.3 mil a season more than Franzen's, with a lot more money. His actual salary for the first 7 years was $7.9 mil, pays him almost $12 million more over the life of the deal, and is for a year longer. Since Hossa left, his regular season per game numbers are better, but Franzen's playoff numbers are FAR better. As far as I'm concerned, either way was going to be a push.

Everyone was caught off guard by Rafalski, and there's no way to replace Lidstrom. I was impressed he got a pick for Stuart in the offseason when everyone knew he was probably going to end up in SJ anyway. He didn't replace any of them with Quincey, he planned on replacing them with Ericsson, Kindl, and Smith, and Quincey in the 4/5 role. In other words, he let young guys take over instead of signing an over the hill overpaid vet, which is exactly what a lot of Wings fans think they should do. Until it actually happens, of course, then the same people cry that the kid are no good and need to be dumped and why the hell didn't Holland get off his ass and spend money?

Weiss's cap hit is close to what Hossa's is. He isn't getting Hossa money.

They didn't need a d-man, because like I said they want to give the young guys a chance to show what they can do. But again, people only want that to happen if the kid comes in and is a star from day one. If not, Holland is an idiot.

Finally, proof of what Holland can do is right in front of you. He took a team that was built through free agency and trading picks and prospects, transitioned it to a team that lost about half the spending power from the year before, and ended up winning the Cup, and almost back to back Cups a short time later. He's then kept the team in the playoffs and at least in the conversation for the Cup if not in actual contention for it. He's also rebuilt the farm system from the ground up to the point where the team is in playoff position despite losing every damn veteran forward and all 4 projected starting centers for a large chunk of the season because the kids he's brought in can come in and win enough to keep from going completely down the toilet.

His "mistakes" that he let go recently was a one dimensional winger who thinks he should be getting a ton of minutes without having to earn them, a small skilled player who was going to be more expensive than the 2 small skilled wingers they were going to be bringing in, and a center who didn't want to be here, mailed it in last year, and wanted $5 mil a season on the strength of one good season 2 years ago. Weiss has not done anything, but Holland can't predict his groin issues, and any free agent has the risk of injury. Samuelsson was a big RH winger the team was familiar with who didn't work out mostly because of injuries, and who they should have been able to buy out if he hadn't still been hurt. Tootoo's lack of ice time and banishment is a bit baffling to me, I thought he'd fit in well on the 4th line. Cleary this year was a mistake. Bertuzzi probably should have only gotten one year his last contract, but it's not like he's making $4 mil and until this year he's been relatively productive for his salary.

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Actually it is. When you get to the point of predicting losses, it's time to start focusing on the problem. Some people will blame the coach, others will blame the defense/goalie. Fact is all these games we lose are in fact winnable if we work harder and show some emotion.

I wouldn't mind losing as bad if we earned the loss, rather than giving the opposition the win.

You're really reaching.

Most of our recent losses were very hard-fought games with heavily banged up rosters. We lost to the Ducks by a goal. We lost to the Rangers by a goal. The Blues game was a disaster, but whatever. We beat the Kings twice. We beat the defending Cup champs in epic fashion. The Habs tried to come in our building and push us around, and we dug in, pushed back, and embarrassed them. We should've won the game on Sunday, but, again, not a lifeless, lazy, we-have-zero-grit-and-that-is-why-we-lost loss. The game last night - we didn't have a chance. This literally was an AHL roster. Would I have liked some more emotion? Yeah, I guess. But I'm not about to say that someone needs to be fired because we're not working hard enough or whatever. You know what could've really helped us? Having any one of Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen. Not to mention our second-line center (bad though he'd been) and our starting goalie (shaky though he's been). Again, Joakim Andersson was our first-line center. Joakim Andersson. We were an embarrassment before we'd even hit the ice.

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our bunch of iron mans, are dudes what doesnt know pain and injuries. But mainly i hope, that our "grandpa's" are relaxed at the Olympics... great dedication
I dont know why is babcock so good trainer, we loose no matter what state of team is.
Edited by Cloune

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They just need to keep fighting. They have an insane number of injuries to our top 6.

Bad bad luck this year is what we have had a lot of. I cannot see the Olympic break helping our injuries at all obviously with our guys having the roles they have there. It'll turn around ladies and gents, we're the detroit red wings! LGW!

edit-some of the longest posts of life on here today

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Dickie, I usually love all the things you say and agree with 99% of it. I loved your last post, I always like reading informed user's thougts, BUT I have to stop you in your tracks when it comes to Hossa v. Franzen...

If ANYONE hates "The Choice" more than anyone else, it's me. With that, if anyone knows all the comparables at least as good as anyone else, again, it's me. You say that Hossa's regular season stats are better than Franzen's, but Franzen's playoff stats are FAR better than Hossa's, let me break it down for you:

Hossa - Regular Season: 293gms - 275G - 143A - 418pts. 1.42 PPG

Franzen - Reg. Season: 252gms - 90g - 96a - 186pts. .73 PPG

Regular season, you are spot on, but maybe you should have used the words FAR better when it comes to Hossa in that regard.

Hossa - Playoffs: 54gms - 12g - 26a - 38pts. .70PPG

Franzen - Playoffs: 39gms - 13g - 15a - 28pts. .71PPG

although Franzen is .01ppg more than Hossa has been, I would not call that FAR better playoff scoring, and would go as far as not even calling it better period. Especially when you factor in that Franzen was chosen over Hossa because he was supposed to be better in the long run...add to that Franzen has 4 PP goals in the playoff to Hossa's 6, in that time span along with 2 GW goals for Franzen to Hossa's 4. Hossa is there more when you need him.

This was a bad, BAD choice to keep Franzen over Hossa, but it is done and there is nothing that can be done to change it. Holland just needs to address it NOW, today and make right what he has wronged since July 2009...

Edited by LeftWinger

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Where did you get your numbers? He's never been above a point a game in Chicago, how can his totals there be 1.42 PPG? He's never come close to that in one season in his career even in his highest scoring years.

Hossa has played 293 regular season games with Chicago. He has scored 118 goals, 143 assists, for 261 points, per game averages are .403/.488/.891 Per 82 games he's had 33G/40A/74 pts. Playoffs he's played 54 games, 12G/25A/37pts, per game .222/.463/.685

Franzen regular season 252 games, 90G/96A/186pts, per game .357/.381/.738. Per 82 games he's had 29.3G/31.2A/60.5 pts. Playoffs he's had 39 games/13G/14A/27 pts, per game .333G/.359/.692.60.5pts

So Hossa scores a few more goals and has more assists in the regular season. Once you get to the playoffs, Franzen has more goals in 15 fewer games. Chicago has won 2 cups more because of Kane, Toews, and that defense group than because they had Hossa, a guy whose production drops in the playoffs every year.

Let me ask you something now. How much is 4 goals and 9 assists worth to you? Is it worth paying someone an extra $1.3 mil against the cap and $2.4 mil in real money? That's $100k and $185k a point, respectively. Paying the extra money also means losing other depth players and replacing them either with less vets or rookies you don't think are ready.

4 more regular season goals and some assists and lower production in the playoffs for $1.3 mil more in cap hit, and $2.4 mil in actual salary isn't really worth it in my opinion. That's ignoring the fact that Hossa wasn't guaranteed to sign here and not signing Franzen when he was willing to sign would have meant possibly losing both. Players have egos, and they're not likely to wait around while you talk to another guy when they have the chance to go somewhere else and probably make more money.

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