Mantha

[frankgrimes 1,836]

I'm of the mindset set now that we've made the playoffs, we've kept the streak alive, we're not expected to go deep, now is the time to start playing for the future. We need to get these kids in the lineup to get them some valuable playoff experience, as well as potentially give us a better shot at winning. I'm okay with Mantha playing big minutes down in Grand Rapids, if that's what management believe is the best for his development.

Sooo many times agreed to this. The all so important streak is alive let's play the kids.

yes, they don't have experience but guess what you don't get playoff experience by not playing! The vets are close to the end of their careers, the transition had to start now sink or swim with them!

I don't know why this staff is so reluctant to let the kids play it just doesn't make sense, guess the Wings would have send down McJesus or Ekblad too

[marcaractac 3,963]

Have you ever coached a team?

There are plenty of positives you can take from a loss.

Rotating in rookies or substituting in a defenceman who hasn't played in almost a month - are desperate moves we don't need to make after a very close game 1. We aren't the 2008 versions of ourselves. We came in 8th place. We aren't supposed to win. Does Brendan Smith change all of that? The guy had 2 assists in the last 17 games he played.

When we win tonight with the exact same lineup - I can't wait to hear what Blashill should have done different to win by a higher margin.

There, you said it yourself. The coach is relying heavily on older players who have nothing left in the tank. Fact. He is playing a player they didn't even want any more during the regular season in favour of maybe the one guy in our system who can possibly screen Bishop effectively on the PP. Holland decides to refer to him as a spare part. Hate to know what that makes Andersson after being passed on by literally every team in the league. Hell, nobody else even wanted him for their AHL club.

So if we're supposed to lose anyway, why not give young players a chance to get experience and grow? Because we sure as hell aren't gonna win on the backs of guys who are 35+ who have been playing 20 minutes a night all season long. They had nothing left in the tank 2 months ago, let alone now. But like I said previously. Blash won't make any moves until it is already too late. If ever. Until he shows the guts to to hold vets accountable for bad play, I'll continue to hope for a coaching change.

Sooo many times agreed to this. The all so important streak is alive let's play the kids.

yes, they don't have experience but guess what you don't get playoff experience by not playing! The vets are close to the end of their careers, the transition had to start now sink or swim with them!

I don't know why this staff is so reluctant to let the kids play it just doesn't make sense, guess the Wings would have send down McJesus or Ekblad too

Blash would scratch McDavid because he can't defend, and limit Ekblad to 6 minutes of ice time per game because of his age.

In all honesty I'm surprised they haven't called up Cleary yet. Maybe he will be their answer if they lose tonight.

[kickazz 5,459]

Dang Mantha broke LGW.com!

[frankgrimes 1,836]

There, you said it yourself. The coach is relying heavily on older players who have nothing left in the tank. Fact. He is playing a player they didn't even want any more during the regular season in favour of maybe the one guy in our system who can possibly screen Bishop effectively on the PP. Holland decides to refer to him as a spare part. Hate to know what that makes Andersson after being passed on by literally every team in the league. Hell, nobody else even wanted him for their AHL club.

So if we're supposed to lose anyway, why not give young players a chance to get experience and grow? Because we sure as hell aren't gonna win on the backs of guys who are 35+ who have been playing 20 minutes a night all season long. They had nothing left in the tank 2 months ago, let alone now. But like I said previously. Blash won't make any moves until it is already too late. If ever. Until he shows the guts to to hold vets accountable for bad play, I'll continue to hope for a coaching change.

Blash would scratch McDavid because he can't defend, and limit Ekblad to 6 minutes of ice time per game because of his age.

In all honesty I'm surprised they haven't called up Cleary yet. Maybe he will be their answer if they lose tonight.

Anderson > McJesus

Big E > Ekblad

Please don't give them any ideas who knows what will happen if the Wings lose tonight.

[Wheelchairsuperhero 1,453]

wrong thread.

Edited April 15, 2016 by Wheelchairsuperhero

[DickieDunn 2,571]

Genius coach wants his 4th line to be plugs who don't try to do anything fancy like score. Andersson is perfect for that.

[WingedWheel91 271]

Coached longer than many on this forum have been alive-over 20 years at all levels in many different sports. But that isn't the point.

You are right, we are not supposed to win, we finished 8th, and we are not going to win the SC. So why not play the youth and develop them instead of playing old and broken down playrs that are not going to be here next year? Bench Richards, Helm, Andersson, etc.... Play Mantha, Jurco, Pulks and anyone else that has a chance of helping us down the road. By playing those guys we learn what we have. Maybe they make it maybe they fail. But now the team knows what it has going forward.

Right now none of us know if Jurco, mantha, Pulk etc... are going to make it. They only way to find out is to play them. So now these guys are on the bench or in the minors and next fall when we have to count on them we don't know if they can produce.

The problem we all seem to forget is that money matters, just a little bit.

If you believe you should sacrifice todays success to develop our youth - then you don't make the playoffs and get your team into the lottery... And rebuild that way, which I don't disagree with.

If you make the playoffs, you have a responsibility as a coach (especially in your rookie season) to roster what you believe to be the best lineup you possibly can in any given series - every game. In the playoffs, anything can happen and every home game you play brings in about $5,000,000 in revenue. I wouldn't call that an insignificant statistic.

So if you are the average NHL owner, are you asking your coach to give your team the best chance to win these playoff games? Or are you asking him to develop young guys without concern over the results?

Mantha scored 3 points in his only 10 NHL games, Smith recorded 2 assists in his past 17 - and has been a healthy scratch for a month. These guys, despite what we all wish to believe - didn't exactly light it up.

We're down 0-2 headed back home, let's see what happens.

[Barrie 900]

Get Mantha in there for Game 3! Other then wanting him in GR for the AHL playoffs, what are they saving him for?

[Richdg 267]

The problem we all seem to forget is that money matters, just a little bit.

If you believe you should sacrifice todays success to develop our youth - then you don't make the playoffs and get your team into the lottery... And rebuild that way, which I don't disagree with.

If you make the playoffs, you have a responsibility as a coach (especially in your rookie season) to roster what you believe to be the best lineup you possibly can in any given series - every game. In the playoffs, anything can happen and every home game you play brings in about $5,000,000 in revenue. I wouldn't call that an insignificant statistic.

So if you are the average NHL owner, are you asking your coach to give your team the best chance to win these playoff games? Or are you asking him to develop young guys without concern over the results?

Mantha scored 3 points in his only 10 NHL games, Smith recorded 2 assists in his past 17 - and has been a healthy scratch for a month. These guys, despite what we all wish to believe - didn't exactly light it up.

We're down 0-2 headed back home, let's see what happens.

You are falling to realize that with the vets we are not going to win. Period. It is that simple. The ONLY chance we have to to give the young hungry guys a shot. Maybe we catch lightening in a bottle. Right now we are just using broken bottles.

[NerveDamage 4,176]

Blashill explains why Anthony Mantha isn't on the playoff roster

http://embed.radio.com/clip/60420356?ads_ga_page_tracker=UA-17434257-56&ref_url=http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2016/04/20/jeff-blashill-explains-why-anthony-mantha-isnt-on-the-playoff-roster-audio/%3Fcid%3Dtwitter_971theticketxyt&rollup_ga_id=UA-2438645-53&station_id=443

[amato 3,210]

Unable to listen right now.. Can someone post a TL;DR or TL;DL if you will

[frankgrimes 1,836]

Unable to listen right now.. Can someone post a TL;DR or TL;DL if you will

Had to try a different browser because it didn't work with firefox but here it is:

Blashill has rewatched some of the video tapes and doesn't think there is a direct correlation between Mantha and the PP. According to him it's to easy to put it all on Mantha and he isn't sure if calling him up, would be the right thing right now. The final decision hasn't been made but right now it looks like he won't come up.

No one even mentioned the possibility of him getting some much needed experience, learn from Pasha or anything like that.

tldl: Mantha won't be up because of "PP correlation"

[Wheelchairsuperhero 1,453]

Had to try a different browser because it didn't work with firefox but here it is:

Blashill has rewatched some of the video tapes and doesn't think there is a direct correlation between Mantha and the PP. According to him it's to easy to put it all on Mantha and he isn't sure if calling him up, would be the right thing right now. The final decision hasn't been made but right now it looks like he won't come up.

No one even mentioned the possibility of him getting some much needed experience, learn from Pasha or anything like that.

tldl: Mantha won't be up because of "PP correlation"

He has no idea how to figure out why the PP is absolute garbage, but is perceptive enough to know for sure that there was no correlation between Mantha and Its previous success? Mmk.

[frankgrimes 1,836]

He has no idea how to figure out why the PP is absolute garbage, but is perceptive enough to know for sure that there was no correlation between Mantha and Its previous success? Mmk.

It's a shame most people expect them to lose tomorrow anyways, give the young kids a chance. Very disappointed with their decision wouldn't surprise me one bit if Mantha at some point pulls a Drouin.

[lwing 68]

So if you are the average NHL owner, are you asking your coach to give your team the best chance to win these playoff games? Or are you asking him to develop young guys without concern over the results?

At this level, I think you ask them to do both. However, you have to have this commitment all season long and I don't think I am alone in thinking the primary goal here was to make the playoffs no matter what and no matter what our outlook would be in actually winning something once we were in. The drive was a fear of losing, not a desire to win. Now it is simply too late. I listened to Blashill's reasoning about Mantha, and as someone who works with stats (and saw Moneyball :-) ) was not impressed. I really wish someone asked the other question - why keep playing some of the guys who aren't succeeding? If pressed I'm almost certain Blashill would say the reason the PP is not succeeding is due to a lack of PP goals! Now there's a correlation for ya!

[matt198913 932]

Blash is a dope they had to cover a down low presence. Plus the goalie was screened. Tough to do when you're trying to screen Bishop

[chaps80 1,591]

Still no news of a call up with the team on the ropes going to Tampa. f***in idiots.

[marcaractac 3,963]

Had to try a different browser because it didn't work with firefox but here it is:

Blashill has rewatched some of the video tapes and doesn't think there is a direct correlation between Mantha and the PP. According to him it's to easy to put it all on Mantha and he isn't sure if calling him up, would be the right thing right now. The final decision hasn't been made but right now it looks like he won't come up.

No one even mentioned the possibility of him getting some much needed experience, learn from Pasha or anything like that.

tldl: Mantha won't be up because of "PP correlation"

He scored 2 of the power play goals during his time up for god sakes. In a 4 game span. Which is twice as many as the entire team has scored in this 4 game series. f*** Jeff Blashill.

[amato 3,210]

Thanks, frank.

Hopefully we can find a decent power play coach this off season. I feel fairly confident in saying that at least we can all agree that we really need that

I'm not too familiar with coaching staffs around the league.. Anyone have any ideas?

[VM1138 1,921]

The thing that boggles my mind is that he didn't mix up the PP. If it's so abysmally bad, why not try out players who generally aren't considered scorers? Maybe he did and I missed it, but the middle of the regular season would have been a perfect time to try something radical. Or perhaps late in the season. Seems like he just stuck with the same players over and over.

And I don't care if he scored, but Nyquist has been hot garbage. They need someone to crash the net on the power play or they'll never score. I'm tired of seeing the puck go to the front of the net from the wings and having no one within ten feet.

[The Datsyukian Deke 127]

What I don't get is the split of Z and D on the PP...especially when it's a) not working and b) it seems that Nyquist and Tatar are the ones to mess it up most of the time, which they do on both units since they're split, too....hooray!..

IMHO a PP1 with D,Z,Abby, Richards and Green gives us the highest chance of scoring...if you win the faceoff, you're more likely to stay in the zone with that group, than with the units we use right now, and if we lose it and they clear, we're most likely to enter again on the first try....and if we don't, my god, THEN send out a 2nd PP with sheahan, tatar, goose, larkin...and maybe smith, because I don't see any use of Kronner on the PP right now. Even when he was good overall his shots barely came through, and right now he's a mess anyway...

Edited April 21, 2016 by The Datsyukian Deke

[wings4thecup06 504]

AH its all rubbish. They haven't been a good potent consistent PP threat for a long time. Like, they've only got one way to get in, because this team is horrendous along the boards and never wins puck battles. So they constantly do that play where they drop pass at centre back to Dats, and if Pavel isn't out there, someone usually f***s up the entry because the D steps up at the line.

Combine that with the fact that they have no potent threat to shoot the puck from the point since Lidstrom retired (Yes Pulkkinen would help, but he's too one dimensional, and even when he was out there this season they didn't even use him at the top of the circle....baffles me) and they are way too static, don't skate or move the puck fast enough to actually get the penalty kilers out of position to exploit the man advantage, and its easy to see why they suck.

They get the puck and there's no urgency, it's literally like they're waiting for the opposition to make a mistake or bite first.

[brandon27 111]

While I agree with most of this, Richards has been an important part of the team. Especially as of late. We will be happy to have him in the playoffs.

Really? Because brad richards was pretty useless all playoffs.

[Aethernum 276]

Really? Because brad richards was pretty useless all playoffs.

Whoops, I misread the stat sheet. Richards had one point and went -3 - I was looking at Green's two points. That said, Richards had more shots on net than anyone not named Datsyuk. I still don't think his contribution was insufficient for his role - it was our top line that needed to show up.

But can we keep the discussion to Mantha? He needs to be full time next year. What are the odds Blashill actually gives him that chance?

Edited April 22, 2016 by Aethernum

[brandon27 111]

Two people on our team had more than one point in these playoffs. He was one of them.

But can we keep the discussion to Mantha? He needs to be full time next year. What are the odds Blashill actually gives him that chance?

Mantha should have been in the lineup this whole series IMO. What's the point tonight, of Jaokim Andersson and his less than 2 minutes of ice time? Ridiculous.