wings_fanatic

Great game by Mrazek... he has made some big saves for us at key times. Also, I LOVE the way he handles the puck. Some might not realize it, but having a goalie be able to handle the puck like that helps the Defense a lot when coming back to get it.

 

Besides that, all around great effort by the Wings. Assuming things continue as is, this will be a huge win for the Wings given the fact that our bottom 6 have finally scored us some big goals and were a huge factor in our success tonight... we needed a game like this badly.

its pretty bad when the refs basically handed the Wings this game with that horrible call. 

 

 

Yah it was a horrible call... that was a clean hit clearly. As a fan of hockey it pains me to see the officiating, not only in this game, but seemingly every single game this season. Every period I watch is DOMINATED by penalties... it is not even fun to watch. The refs need to put their whistles away and stop calling this garbage and let the boys play the game of hockey that we all know and love. While I feel the refs were a huge factor in the Wings win tonight, I am not going to complain because God knows it will even out sooner rather than later. I feel for the Blues and their fans... they played a solid road game after playing last night and probably deserved a point... its a shame the refs had to ruin what was an excellent hockey game. Anyways... go wings!

I would go: 

 

Zeterberg- Datsyuk- Bertuzzi

 

Brunner- Kronwall

 

AND

 

Eaves- Filpulla- Franzen

 

White- Smith (when White is back next week)

 

I think that moving Bert up to the top unit will create more room for Pavs and Hank and Franzen with Fil will provide a shooter out there. I think this will balance things out more which is what the powerplay needs.

I wonder how long Babcock is going to keep these powerplay units before he realizes that they are not working.... Kindl has been horrible on the powerplay, and Cleary has no place out there. I cannot wait until White comes back so that we can have White and Smith back there on the point. Also I would like to see Eaves take Cleary's place on the powerplay because he has some skill and a good shot.

I thought Brendan Smith was fantastic that period (he has been really good all season but still). I love the way he skates the puck and he has a smart, active stick. He reminds me a lot of Scott Neidemayer in some ways... 

 

Also, as many have said, I am sitting here wondering what the hell Cleary does for this team to continue to not only get ice time, but to get POWERPLAY ICE TIME! IMO Cleary needs to be gone and my patience for Franzen is running very thin as well.

 

Other than that, I think the team played okay during the first. Howard looked sharp again. There were a couple shifts where we could not get it out, but we also recovered and generated some scoring chances as well. HOpefully the Wings come out and outwork the Hawks in the 2nd and 3rd since the Hawks played last night and bring us home a "W".

I don't understand why Babcock is only choosing to play Smith for 15 minutes... he is clearly better than anyone not named Kronwall. Kronnrs should be at 26-27 minutes a game and Smith and White should be able to handle around at least 20-24 minutes. Then Quincy, Ericsson and Carlo can play whatever is left.

I agree with what Axe said regarding Datsyuk and Zetty.

Regarding Franzen... if I could I would construct a time machine to take us back to 2009 and have Holland sign Hossa and let Franzen walk ...

Filpulla... shoulda always been Fil over Hudler anyways.

Helene St. James ‏@HeleneStJames
Perhaps next the NHL & NHLPA can book meeting at UN Security Council - another place where nothing binding ever happens.

Ouch.

Too bad the NHL was not run like the UN Security Council because then we could have a Permanent 5 have access to a Veto vote- - anything that gets vetoed does not happen. The UN P5 consist of USA, Britain, France, China and Russia, all of which finance a large percentage of the UN and, because of that, they have a large say on what happens on matters. Why can't this be the same for the NHL. We could have the P5 consist of the Red Wings, the Maple Leafs, the Habs, the Rangers, the Blackhawks... for example, if Gary Bettman asks the owners to vote on a lockout and one of the permanent members veto it, then it can't happen. Since it is these teams that make a very significant amount of the NHL's money, and share their revenues with the poor teams, than this should happen and then we wouldn't have to deal with this lockout bulls*** every 7 years.

To me Stevie was great. He was a great player, a great leader and even a better person. BUT, Nick Lidstrom is slightly a step up in that he was never phased, was always on his A game whether he was 25, 30 or 42... the guy simply always had it. I have went to several Red Wings games in my short 21 year life, and I can honestly say that anytime number 5 came on the ice I felt safe, I felt like there was nothing the team had to worry about because he simply did everything perfectly and so effortlessly. More then that, he was literally ALWAYS there.

As you guys have said, we are spoiled to even be able to have this debate in the first place, but for me Lidstrom was the guy who I always idolized growing up and I met him 4 times and he was just such a nice guy. I cried when Stevie Y retired and I cried harder when Nick retired... it is like losing a family member. Lets just be thankful we have so many great memories of both of these greats.

No one can sit here and defend Bettman. Bettman is ruining hockey in many respects. His job is to RUN THE LEAGUE. Since he took charge of the NHL, there have been 3 lockouts, one of which lasted an ENTIRE SEASON- - and this one does not look too promising. Simply put, allowing 3 lockouts is not doing his job. He is a terrible negotiator, and is running the league into the ground. On another note, the ONLY reason he still has the job is that he has pleased all of the poor ass teams that can't afford to run their own franchises. But if the league is locked out all year, these poor ass franchises will not ever be able to recover, and I think that will spell the end of Bettman finally.

Best current forward: Pavel Datsyuk (simply the best all around hockey player in the world)
Best current Dman: Niklas Kronwall
Best current goalie: Jimmy Howard

On a side note, I also go to U of Windsor and I hear you guys from China are pretty smart, so if you can come up with a way to clone a younger version of Nick Lidstrom so that he can come back and play forever, please let us know!

I think we will be okay to everyones' surprise. Why do I say this? Because the Red Wings best move of the summer has been bringing in Tom Renney as assistant coach for the Defense. He has a lot of experience working with younger players, and has a very good defensive approach to his system. When he was the coach of the NY Rangers, they played a very solid defense system, and had an outstanding penalty killing system. There were several times, back in 2008, when Mike Babcock praised Renney and his system and sometimes even had the boys watch tapes to help them out. So I think Renney will be a huge help. By no means am I saying that we will be just as good as years past, but we won't be as bad as everyone seems to think.

I mean honestly, look at Jersey. Our dmen are way better then theirs, and they just came within 2 wins of a Stanley Cup. How about s***sburg? Their D is not that strong. Also, as someone said, we play a good TEAM defensive system. I guess we will have to wait and see, but I expect Babs and Renney will get things together.

It is often said that many hockey players have tons of superstitions. Nick Lidstrom, imo the greatest Dman of all time, was VERY much so. As a guy who has played hockey since I was 5, and a huge fan of the Wings, I too have many superstitions.

Anyways, in my depression that I have been in since Nick's announcement, I have been watching some old dvds of when the Wings won the Cup in '08 and noticed some things. First of all I noticed the fire that used to shoot out of the big screen after every Red Wings goal. I go to a lot of games every year and the past couple of seasons the arena switched to smoke coming out of the big screen instead of the fire and, ever since then, the Red Wings have experienced early playoff exits. To top that off, the Wings now use tons of different songs to play after goals are scored instead of the traditional "hey hey hockeytown", "jock jam" and the one for when Hank scores. Again, ever since they made the switch, the Wings have experienced early playoff exits.

I know this sounds silly, but I am one of those people who think you should never fix what does not need fixing and they should have never changed these 2 things. I know these 2 things actually had no impact on the team, but quite frankly the fire was WAY better than the smoke is, as well as the traditional songs used after goals that the Wings used for years. I think they need to go back to what worked for years!

Nicklas lidstrom was in his prime for all 20 seasons he was with us in detroit... No joke. The man brought his A game night in and night out, and every single night, he was the most important piece to our teams success.