wings_fanatic

Lose Yourself- Eminem

That has been my favorite pump up song for years... it ALWAYS gets me going. I always listen to it before my hockey games on my ipod. More than that, I was at game 6 this playoffs against the Ducks. The Wings had lost their 2 goal lead late and the arena went dead. But right at the start of the overtime, the arena played "Lose Yourself" and it got the arena going again... it really pumps you up and is my favorite song. 

I agree people worry about PROSPECTS. Guys who have value but proven NOTHING. We are talking about PROSPECTS for an MVP type player.


This is a league where teams with stars win. The best teams this year have 2-4 superstars. Then a bunch of good and great role players.


Can you build a team through free agency? No. Can you through draft and trade? Yes.

Proven nothing? I don't know if you missed the playoffs this year, but for those of us who watched it saw HUGE growth in our young guys from start to finish. Nyquist was fantastic. Brunner was fantastic. Smith and Kindl struggled at times, but also had moments where they showed growth. We all know Danny D is going to be a stud and I personally believe if we had him playing we would have beaten the Hawks. 

But to say that our prospects and young guys have showed nothing is simply ridiculous. Yes, Malkin has won an MVP and has put up a ton of points. But why on God's earth would you trade away guys who showed so much growth in just these playoffs? Nyquist is going to be a stud. In 2002, when Pavel Datsyuk showed signs of brilliance, should we have traded him to get a guy like Jagr? No, because we saw that he was coming into his own, much like our young guys now. Nyquist will not be Pavel Datsyuk, but there is no reason to say that we won't be something special for years to come. Have some faith, believe in the system because when everyone wrote the Wings off this year, they just kept coming because they believe in their system. 

We've only scored two goals the last two games (not counting empty netters).

 

The offense needs to wake up. 

Pavs and Hank should be put together to A) Shut down the Hawks top unit of Kane, Toews, Sharp. and B) To allow Pavs to set up Hank to score some goals and get the offense going. 

Some of you guys are acting like children. Bench Eaves? He made one bad play... but he has been one of our best players this series... always providing energy, getting shots to the net. It was not Smith's fault that he got a bad pass at the blue line like that. IMO the only one to blame is Babcock. He should not have had the 4th line out there on the powerplay. IMO Nyquist has looked FANTASTIC tonight and there was no reason the 2nd pp unit could not go back out once pavs and hank came off. Having the 4th line out there is what led to the turnover, and t he resulting powerplay goal. Therefore, Babcock deserves blame.

Besides that, the Wings played a great period. Dominated play, got good shots to the net, had scoring chances. They hit two posts. The nice thing about the Ducks scoring when they did is it allows the Wings 15 min to regroup and come out strong like in the 2nd. Have some faith.

I am wondering why Babcock is even playing Sammy. He looks AWFUL. Not only is he not even shooting the puck, but he cannot even receive a simple breakout pass. IMO bert looks great again, and was one of the few players that looked good that period... he should DEFS be on the top line over Sammy.

Other than that, the period played out pretty much as I imagined. The Ducks do NOT want to go back to the Joe where the Wings can eliminate them and are going to play their hearts out in this game. Howard was fantastic, the rest of the team was mostly a step behind. I think the WIngs will regroup, focus and come out stronger next period. They need to be much much better in FO's, and need to get shots to Hiller and start taking the game over.

They already get a ton of monster cycles going because of Kindl.

I agree. The WIngs have had a fantastic season and have been led in a great way by Pavs, Hank and Kronners. But I would just like to say the guy who deserves a lot of credit is Mike Babcock. I have openly questioned him a LOT this season and a lot of others on here have called for him to even be fired, but the fact is, he did his job and got his team into the playoffs for the 22nd year. We all questioned Abby playing with Pavs and thought Babs was a moron (despite Pavs wanting it). Now look how smart Babs looks. That top line has been UNREAL towards the end. IMO, given all the injuries the WIngs have had (after losing Nick and Stu and Rafi a year prior) MIke Babcock deserves the Jack Adams because there is not a team in this league that could have sustained the injuries the Wings have and still made playoffs. GO WINGS!

I love how it takes over a month of poor/ inconsistent play for Babcock to FINALLY put pavs and hank together on the same line. He does it, then they literally win us the game against the Avs. Then the Wings have a bad period, as seen yesterday, and Babcock already splits them up. I love the job Babs has been doing with the young guys, but the job that he has done with the top 2 lines this season has been poor. We need goals, that is a fact. In response to that, we have Brunner playing on the 3rd line so that CLEARY can now play on the 2nd line AGAIN?! If babs does not want to play Pavs and Hank together, then I think Fil should play with Pavs so that we can get Fil going.

Filpulla- Datsyuk- Abs

Franzen- Hank- Brunner

That is what I would go with as of now. 

Top 2 lines keep them

Get rid of Quincey both goals against were his fault. Play lashoff instead

Much needed 2pts. Hope dekeyser stays in from now on. Play him any other team in the league would

Quincy missed 10 games and has to get used to the cage. It is easy to blame someone so easily, but before he was injured he was playing much better than the beginning of the season. Personally, I would like to see Babs continue with the following pairings for the remainder of the season:

Kronners- E

Carlo- Smith (I think they have potential to be a solid 2nd pairing this season given more playing time together)

Dekeyser- White (I really liked Danny D last night and I would not even mind him on the 2nd pairing. I thought him and White played extremely well together, and I like having a right handed Dman in the games so White gets my vote over Quincy at this point in time.)

The fact of the matter is, with so few games remaining, Babs needs to decide on his 6 Dmen and play them so they can get used to their partners for playoffs. That is crucial.

I have been saying for a long time that Brunner should be playing with Pavel... not on the bottom 6 and not with Hank... with Pavel.

Brunner has proven he can score goals and, more than that, he competes which is something Franzen does not do. IMO Brunner deserves to play with Pavel much more than Franzen, and I think we will get better results as well.

4 periods and no goals. And Franzen is still with Pavel doing absolutely nothing, while Brunner is on the 3rd line... o and sammy has magically been put on the 2nd line with CLEARY! Babcock needs to do a better job with his forward lines! I understand having Hank out isn't easy, but that does not excuse Babs for playing Brunner on the 3rd line. How about:

Brunner- Datsyuk- Abdelkator

Franzen- Filpulla- Sammy

Those look like a better top 2 lines without Cleary on them. The 2nd line has always worked when put together, and Brunner is one of the few forwards, along with Abs that looks like they are skating out there very well... so lets change these lines and get going. Call me crazy, but for some reason I have a good feeling about the Wings coming back.

off the top of my head .... seen some fans of other teams for instance as well as pens fans coming on the boards when we were struggling earlier this season laughing at the redwings and how we were over and having a good old time

Doesn't mean we have to stoop to that level. Don't forget, not all Penguins fans are like that. Some choose to be fans that simply cheer for their team in the same way that we do for the Red Wings. You are deciding to be the type of Red Wings fan that goes out of the way to piss of fans of other teams the same way that those Penguins fans you described were doing... why stoop to their level?

Furthermore, wishing a guy like Crosby to be hurt or to be glad he is hurt, is like a fan from another team being happy if say Pavel or Hank were to get injured and I don't think many of us on here would appreciate that. Maybe you should just enjoy the game.

Why the eff is Cleary now on the 2nd line with Hank?!? Jesus christ Babcock needs to get over his man crush for Cleary. Cleary is fine on his 3rd line but does not belong on the top 2 lines. 

Also Franzen is doing nothing for me on Pavel's line. I think Brunner has a lot of jump this game and is creating some chances and SHOOTING THE PUCK. Why not put him on Pavel's wing instead of Franzen?

Abdelkator- Datsyuk- Brunner

Franzen- Zetty- Fil

Whether for better or for worse, there's no way in actually knowing that. The LA Kings would've been the LAST team most people would've picked to win the cup last year out of the 16 teams who made the playoffs. Hockey, more than any other sport when it comes to the playoffs, is highly dependent on how a team is playing leading up to and during the playoffs.

Well most people picked them to win the Cup before the season began... they just underperformed all season. I am tired of people using that logic just because LA won the cup from the 8th seed... they were a top notch team that finally got their act together. 

I would love to see how many teams in the nhl would still be in the playoff race like the Wings are with the amount of injuries that they have sustained this year. The number of teams would be extremely small so Kenny was right on