Which End of the Ice Do you Find Most Frustrating?

[bringbackfontez 36]

While this question likely has an obvious answer, there's no question Mrazek and Howard have been hung out to dry all year. That being said, it truly is mesmerizing to watch this team not only struggle to find the back of the net, but to watch what appears to be some sort of shooting epidemic. I don't remember ever witnessing a team literally scared to shoot the puck. 3rd to last in the league with 28 shots per game and it seems like for the last week, they play about 10 minutes of the 1st period in the defensive zone and let the opposing goaltender take a nice little half period cat nap. It's not as if this team lacks offensive talent. But why is a defenseman not named Brent Burns second on the team in both points and goals scored? Why is your worn down, 36 year old captain leading the team in scoring? The offensive woes of this team are staggering. I understand slumps and struggles (sheahan, Tatar, Nyquist), but as offensive minded forwards, the only way to get yourself out is to continue putting pucks on net. Which, for some reason, no one seems to want to do.

[DickieDunn 2,571]

Offense starts in the D zone. Bad breakout passes= bad offense.

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[DatsyukianDekes 2,428]

From one trapezoid to the other.

[Richdg 267]

Offense. We spend time in the O zone. We don't score. Many reasons for this. Lack of front of net players, to many guys with limited offensive skill but are given top 6 minutes: Glendening, Helm, Sheahan. The the old guys that have fallen off at a faster rate than the young guys have developed. We have 200ft players that don't play O, so they really are not 200ft players. The only natural goal scorers are Mantha, Vanek, Z, and Larkin.

[ChristopherReevesLegs 7,022]

4 minutes ago, Richdg said:

Offense. We spend time in the O zone. We don't score. Many reasons for this. Lack of front of net players, to many guys with limited offensive skill but are given top 6 minutes: Glendening, Helm, Sheahan. The the old guys that have fallen off at a faster rate than the young guys have developed. We have 200ft players that don't play O, so they really are not 200ft players. The only natural goal scorers are Mantha, Vanek, Z, and Larkin.

Perhaps we can trade Mraz for some goal scoring help b4 his stock shrinks to untradeable levels

[kickazz 5,459]

Offense. When we still had it we went round two against Chicago game 7 even without Nick Lidstrom as long as we had a solid goalie (that year was Howard). 

In Mickey Redmond's words "You can't win in this league if you don't score". 

Break out passes suck true but even in our O-zone play is painful. 

Edited December 23, 2016 by kickazz

[frankgrimes 1,836]

Offense may win you some games, but defense wins championships so the answer is obvious.

There is a reason why coaches and GMs are quoted like .." you are building from the backend"..

[Hockeymom1960 5,107]

8 hours ago, ChristopherReevesLegs said:

Perhaps we can trade Mraz for some goal scoring help b4 his stock shrinks to untradeable levels

Not going to happen.  He's part of the rebuild.  

[DickieDunn 2,571]

The PP is a train wreck in the middle of a dumpster fire during a s--t storm.  But that's 99% on Trashill's "system."  Give the team a decent PP and they're at least close to a playoff spot.

[GoalieManPat 1,007]

Behind the bench end

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[Richdg 267]

To date we are middle of the pack in terms of goals allowed. But we are near the bottom in goals scored. The PP is completely useless. If we are a middle of the road team offensively we are a playoff team. But after last nights games we are the 5th worse team in the NHL. We are 2 points from the bottom of the EC.

[kickazz 5,459]

10 hours ago, frankgrimes said:

Offense may win you some games, but defense wins championships so the answer is obvious.

There is a reason why coaches and GMs are quoted like .." you are building from the backend"..

That quote is so outdated and untrue. Look at every MVP in playoffs and look at every team that's won the Stanley cup the last few years. Each team had maybe 1 actual top D man but the offense is what carried them. 

Crosby, Kessel, Malkin

Hossa, Kane, Toews

Kopitar, Williams, Carter

Duncan Kieth may be the only notable D-man that was the biggest aspect of a Stanley Cup win. Aside that if it came down to anything on the defensive end it's the goalie. Look at Quick and Tim Thomas winning the Conn Smythe.

Regardless of how good your defense is, if the goalie doesn't make saves you don't win. Regardless of how good the defense is if you don't score at least one more goal than your opponent you won't win. It's common sense. 

What's the difference between this year and 2013 when Niklas Lidstrom left? On paper we have a slightly better defensive core with Green, Dekeyser rather than Colovacio and Ian White. So we're technically better defensively. But what about our offense? No longer do we have the elite offensive guys Datsyuk and Zetterberg who scored 49 and 48 points in 47 and 46 games played. No longer do we have Franzen who scored 14 goals in 41 games. Yet in 2013 we went Round 2 game 7. This year with an anemic offense we're bottom of the league in standings out of playoff picture. What does any of the defense matter when we can't score  goals? What does any of Jimmy Howard's 40 saves, 30 saves matter when we can't score a goal and thrn get shutout or very close to it? 

 

Edited December 23, 2016 by kickazz

[Buppy 1,720]

51 minutes ago, kickazz said:

That quote is so outdated and untrue. Look at every MVP in playoffs and look at every team that's won the Stanley cup the last few years. Each team had maybe 1 actual top D man but the offense is what carried them. 

Crosby, Kessel, Malkin

Hossa, Kane, Toews

Kopitar, Williams, Carter

Duncan Kieth may be the only notable D-man that was the biggest aspect of a Stanley Cup win. Aside that if it came down to anything on the defensive end it's the goalie. Look at Quick and Tim Thomas winning the Conn Smythe.

Regardless of how good your defense is, if the goalie doesn't make saves you don't win. Regardless of how good the defense is if you don't score at least one more goal than your opponent you won't win. It's common sense. 

What's the difference between this year and 2013 when Niklas Lidstrom left? On paper we have a slightly better defensive core with Green, Dekeyser rather than Colovacio and Ian White. So we're technically better defensively. But what about our offense? No longer do we have the elite offensive guys Datsyuk and Zetterberg who scored 49 and 48 points in 47 and 46 games played. No longer do we have Franzen who scored 14 goals in 41 games. Yet in 2013 we went Round 2 game 7. This year with an anemic offense we're bottom of the league in standings out of playoff picture. What does any of the defense matter when we can't score  goals? What does any of Jimmy Howard's 40 saves, 30 saves matter when we can't score a goal and thrn get shutout or very close to it? 

You really need both a good offense and a good defense (including good goaltending). Of the last 11 Cup winners, 8 have been top-8 in scoring, and 5 in the top-3. 9 have been top-7 on defense, 6 finished 1st or 2nd. 

Our problem this year is we're just not very good at anything. No doubt the offense is worse, but the defense isn't helping either.

[kickazz 5,459]

Sure, defense is really important. But my point is without offense you will most likely NOT win a championship and that quote "offense wins games, defense wins championships" is nothing but a myth/fairytale line in todays hockey. 

And yes our problem has become twofold now. It used to be defense in 2013-ish and now we've got both offense and defensive issues.

Edited December 23, 2016 by kickazz

[kliq 3,755]

2 hours ago, kickazz said:

Sure, defense is really important. But my point is without offense you will most likely NOT win a championship and that quote "offense wins games, defense wins championships" is nothing but a myth/fairytale line in todays hockey. 

And yes our problem has become twofold now. It used to be defense in 2013-ish and now we've got both offense and defensive issues.

I agree. I think one of our biggest problems as well is that our D are not offensive at all. In a perfect world you have D that are very good at actually defending, but can also move the puck and create offense. I would love to see a stat on how many shots from the blue line are tipped in now compared to the Lidstrom/Homer era.

[kliq 3,755]

1 hour ago, Jonas Mahonas said:

Our mid 20's guys (nyquist, sheahan, tatar, pulkkinen, jurco) just aren't good enough.  Not enough speed, not enough strength, not enough "it".  

You need balance. Some of these guys (why are you listing Pulkkinen he's on Minny) could be great fits on certain teams in certain situation, but together on a team without elite talent they aren't being utilized properly. Not to mention the constant changing of lines by Blashill.

You take a player with Nyquist's talent and put him in Chicago on say Kane's line, I bet he would look amazing. You float him around from line to line in Detroit and he looks ok.

Also, when a team is losing blame gets passed around to everyone. If we weren't what we were in the late 90's, early 2000's no chance guys like Draper, Maltby, McCarty would be praised as much as they were. On the flip side, take Abby and Helm and put them on our 1997 team instead of McCarty and Draper, not a bad thing would be said about them.

[Donaldjr2448 43]

On 12/23/2016 at 11:18 AM, GoalieManPat said:

Behind the bench end

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I have to agree with the comment above. I think most of the struggles this team is having is from behind the bench. Most of the posts on here have stated that the offense begins in our defensive zone with the first pass, there is no question that is our bread and butter. The issue with our bread and butter is the rest of the NHL knows this now, look at all of the turnovers created with our "breakout" offense.... other teams are forcing the Wings to breakout up the boards (similar to what New Jersey did to the Wings in the 95 Cup Final) and taking away passing lanes up the middle of the ice. The Wings are forced to either dump and chase or short breakout passes that either get tipped/intercepted to lead to a turnover in our own zone. 

 

It would almost seem the key to beating the Wings is to play a full court press (to use a basketball term), that all falls on the coaching staff, the coaches need to make the changes.

The Power Play has also been the worst I can ever remember! Again, teams playing that full court press on the Wings, only allowing a dump and chase, we do not have the bodies to dump and chase. The Kings and Blues do, why the coaching staff cannot see this is beyond me.

[Donaldjr2448 43]

On 12/23/2016 at 6:28 PM, kliq said:

You need balance. Some of these guys (why are you listing Pulkkinen he's on Minny) could be great fits on certain teams in certain situation, but together on a team without elite talent they aren't being utilized properly. Not to mention the constant changing of lines by Blashill.

You take a player with Nyquist's talent and put him in Chicago on say Kane's line, I bet he would look amazing. You float him around from line to line in Detroit and he looks ok.

Also, when a team is losing blame gets passed around to everyone. If we weren't what we were in the late 90's, early 2000's no chance guys like Draper, Maltby, McCarty would be praised as much as they were. On the flip side, take Abby and Helm and put them on our 1997 team instead of McCarty and Draper, not a bad thing would be said about them.

I actually agree with this post as well. Balance is indeed important. With certain injuries to key guys like Helm and Abby other players are tasked with filling roles they are not accustom to. Helm and Abby are huge on the Power Play for the Wings, Helm especially on the PK. 

Hopefully it won't be too late once Abby and Helm get back.

I also agree with Blashill changing up the lines way too much. In a 3-2 game the other night Blash put Tatar on the 4th line to start the third period.......  come on now!

[The Secret 304]

THE most frustrating thing on this team is found behind the bench inside Jeff Blashill's shoes... get rid of that as fast as possible please!