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ECQF Game 1 Post-GDT: at Tampa Bay 3, Red Wings 2

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1) Mrazk is the better goalie. Play the better goalie. Howard can make a few great saves, but he gives up soft goals, does not handle the puck well, and is not as mentally strong in games that are tied or in which we have the lead going in the third. Howard is always good for giving up that critical goal. It's mental. The team is not good enough to survive mediocre goaltending. You have to go with Mrazk the whole way.

2) Since 2008 this team has gotten worse and worse and worse. That is on Kenny Holland. He like Joe Dumars was for the Pistons. Resting on past glories while f'ing up the present big time. He basically ran Filp out of town only to sign Stephen Weiss. Filp is a solid 2 way player and Weiss was damaged goods on arrival and afraid of touching the puck. He spent years resigning 37 year old washed up players and wasting the prime of Dats and Z after we won our last cup. He signed Ericcson to a 4.5 million dollar contract when he is barely a 3rd pairing guy. He has constructed a team of smurfs that gets pushed around. Holland should just retire. The game has passed him.

3) Our line combos are a joke. We have the all slow line of Dats-Z-Abby. All of a sudden we decide that we need to play Andersson again. On a team that struggles to score. Great....

4) We have no consistent net front presence. We have no one who is actually hard on the puck.

5) We are satisfied to play a close game against a team from a non hockey market missing it's two best players. Really disgusting.

Frustrated that we seem to be satisfied to play to a level where we lose games by one goal...we are mentally weak.

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I think Howard played fine, but that's by no means stellar goaltending. Lots of room for improvement

Wings are such a better team when they are leading. They get a certain moxy and play with confidence so that tieing goal was a back breaker. Their play in there own end is shakey then they get penned in and everything goes out the window they forget how to play hockey and it effects them through large portions of the game. Just can't shake off a bad shift

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1) Mrazk is the better goalie. Play the better goalie. Howard can make a few great saves, but he gives up soft goals, does not handle the puck well, and is not as mentally strong in games that are tied or in which we have the lead going in the third. Howard is always good for giving up that critical goal. It's mental. The team is not good enough to survive mediocre goaltending. You have to go with Mrazk the whole way.

Before mid february yes. After mid february no. Unfortunately we are passed mid februrary

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One month doesnt ruin a career. When it comes in the middle of a playoff race in the last month of the season though you cant expect to keep your starting job.

Of course not. Howard played better down the stretch so he deserved to play, Just saying that some have overreacted to Mrazek's decline in play and think Howard is playing better than he actually is.

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Any line with Z and D can't get down ice - neither gets skating down ice fast enough and the play goes side to side. Doesn't matter who you put with them.

Okay I disagree with you those guys still get down the ice maybe not with pure speed but pav can still break in the zone fairly easily, z does it more with strength, and I believe those two will get better they always take a game to get adjusted to playing with each other again. I think mantha would be the perfect fit with them. Not every line has to be fast those two are smart enough and can make plays that they don't need pure speed. Then your 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lines are pretty quick

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Any line with Z and D can't get down ice - neither gets skating down ice fast enough and the play goes side to side. Doesn't matter who you put with them.

Move Z down to the third line and give him easier minutes just to see how we look it's like the only thing Blashill hasnt tried this year. Z has not looked good but he always seems to quietly pick up points like he's our leading scorer but looks so average at everything

I think Blashill thinks Z will eventually just snap out of this funk

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One more thing, the Lightning D didn;t look all that great handling the puck at any point where you'd HAVE to back off the forecheck. In fact they bumbled it enough I think I'd like to see Helm, Tatar, Nyquist and especially AA act like heat seeking missiles and really disrupt their outlets/breakout/control, like Dallas used to do and the Wings somewhat adopted it. I truly thought there was gold to be mined there tonight but it didn't happen often enough or long enough.

Edited by Jersey Wing

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Any line with Z and D can't get down ice - neither gets skating down ice fast enough and the play goes side to side. Doesn't matter who you put with them.

Not true at all. Dats has never been a burner. He is the teams best player at entering the zone tho because his stick handling forces players to back off. Even in their primes their game was East/West so why do you see it as a problem now?

Edited by GoalieManPat

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Instead of going on about what went wrong I'll just say Richards and Green definitely stepped up and they have been stepping up all down the stretch these last couple weeks. Green was our best defensemen tonight and Richards might have been our best forward (I'd imagine playing vs Tampa is a nice motivator).

Edited by Number19

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Agreed. Green and Richards were exactly who we needed them to be. Richards has impressed lately, in general. Athanasiou looked good, and Abdelkader had good hustle, if he was a little bit of a numbskull there at the end. Larkin looked good, too. Those are the pluses for me.

Also, for the frustrating finish and the fact that their flaws are still there, unsolved, it wasn't an embarassing loss. They competed at least.

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Holland is the idiot, It's clear who's running the show in Detroit and its him he constantly ices this s***ty defense. I'm sure he inclines Blash to play the vets too AA and Larkin need more ice time and the other needs to start playing center asap. If that doesn't happen and Mrazek doesn't get the net in time this series is over, future is bright indeed.

Tell me why Larkin deserves more ice time? He hasn't done anything for 25-30 games, teams figured out they need to slow him down in the neutral zone and he has done nothing to adjust.

WHy all the panic? It's total amateur bandwagon fan hour around here. The series is 1-0 and it obvioiusly clear we can play with these guys. Mix up the lines a bit and bury our chances.

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Tampa really wasn't that impressive. One ridiculous Bishop save away from 3-1, and they collapsed from there. The Nyquist and Green chances have to go. Hopefully they bring their scoring touch Friday.

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Tell me why Larkin deserves more ice time? He hasn't done anything for 25-30 games, teams figured out they need to slow him down in the neutral zone and he has done nothing to adjust.

WHy all the panic? It's total amateur bandwagon fan hour around here. The series is 1-0 and it obvioiusly clear we can play with these guys. Mix up the lines a bit and bury our chances.

Agree with everything you said except juggling the lines. They were juggled quite a bit mid game so I dont think thats the answer. We just need our top guys to finish when they get the chances.

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Joakim Andersson played more than AA tonight. Luke Glendening played five more minutes than Dylan Larkin.

Winnable series being thrown away by this incredibly stubborn organization. Honestly, the decision making and usage is beyond inexcusable at this point. I have never been so frustrated by a team refusing to change their ways.

Play the freaking kids. At least if we are going to lose, do it with something to gain in the process. Losing is one thing, but to continue taking this stupid approach of veterans at all cost is ridiculous.

Larkin was awful tonight. Definately a welcome to the playoffs game for him.

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Didn't like the Ds game. Marchenko was the best of the bunch in his own end. Ericsson consistently gave the puck away. Smith is faster and dare I say smarter, he will be in if they lose game 2. All in all not bad can't get steamrolled for long periods like they did.

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Was at the game. First off, the ice was pretty crappy. Guys losing their edge all over the place. Second, if stamkos were in there, this would have been bad. The puck handling was really poor and the passes were not crisp exiting the zone (Rafalski anyone?). Third, the first goal was def on howie, second was on helm facing away from the puck handler, third was just all skill, credit where it's due. The non goal was a combo of poor D and poor goaltending. Jimmy can't stop those kind of shots on net. He's just guessing most of the time. Fourth, Z and pavel are just way slow. There's no getting past that. Can't tell you how many times it hurt watching Pav just lose the puck trying to make something happen. I was sitting on the end where the wings played offense twice facing the benches. Fifth, the wings had some really high quality chances, the puck just bounced out of reach or couldn't get a decent second chance on juicy rebounds. Sixth, Kyle Quincey impressed me jumping through the zone with the puck. I think some times the better play is just skate with the puck when the defense is giving you room. Tampa did that plenty at the blue line. The dmen could have just kept carrying it on their stick when they expect you to pass. Kyle caught them by surprise a few times. Seventh, the power play didn't score, but they came really close. Eighth, I swear on everything that's holy giving Ericsson that contract was way worse than keeping franzen over Hossa. That guy is like a non hitting non fighting non puck handling smaller Darren hatcher. He's just a big slow body. I would rather have Oulett or Sproul in there. Ninth, was glad to see the guys stick up for Larkin when Coburn tried to rough him up. I wanted Justin to break his face for that chicken s***. Tenth, if they watch the tape and shake up the lines and figure out how to deal with that s*** ice, there's no reason they can't go back to the Joe tied. So tired of watching them lose in Tampa, 4 straight in the regular season, yet they dominate them in the D. I even changed jerseys tonight. Ugh!!!!!!!

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Looks like if we tweak a couple of things, we might be able to keep up with them. I love starting on the road, all you have to do it take one out of two and you're off to a good start. Less pressure on the road. Just eliminate mistakes and we take game 2.

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All you saying Z is done. Not that I don't disagree, but I remember a couple months or so ago when I said "Z should retire" and "we have 5 more years of him" I caught holy hell, even got a 7 day suspension arguing about it. I even called him Old Man Logan lots of times. Nice of you all to join me on the wagon!

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