dobbles

get to see game 4 instead of game 5 now... debating heading back down tomorrow for game 5 as well. hoping we can get around ok in OKC with all the damage.

 

i will try to get some pics with my crappy digital camera and let everyone know how the boys look.

Sorry if this is deemed to be the wrong place for this, but wanted to ask.

 

With the Griffins still in the AHL playoffs, who can we send down to bolster the roster? I recall that we wasted all of our post deadline roster transactions on a few players so that they would be eligible for the AHL playoffs. Am I wrong in how I am remembering things?

this thread has now killed any legitimate attempt for rational fans to be displeased with smiths poor play.

 

roughly everyone that has been on smiths case lately does NOT want him traded. most people just want him sat so he can learn a lesson and stop hurting the team with boneheaded plays.

 

however, now everyone on the smith bandwagon will instantly turn to this thread and make the generalization that anyone that critiques smith is a moron.

 

let me say this though, he made at least half a dozen mistakes in these first 2 games that are worthy of a weeks worth of bag skates. scoring a goal from 10 feet away into a wide open net thanks to the strong play of linemates does NOT redeem someone from all those mistakes. additionally, smith has been bad in his own end all year .

 

many of you keep saying how absurd it is to rag on smith because hes a rookie. however you are all just as guilty of lumping anyone that is down on smith as the irrational reactionary type of fan when many of us have legitimate gripes about his play.

i also feel tootoo should be in. especially with abby out, we need a physical player. would have been a nice 2 game stretch to have him in there.

 

i think bert slots in better than sammy on the first line and then you sit sammy and reconfigure the bottom 6 to accommodate both eaves and tootoo.

While I  understand the point you are making when it comes to players leading this team, but with all due respect, Hank and Pav are far from the next Sergei and Steve....If they were, we'd have more than 1 Stanley Cup in the last 10 years...but again, I undertand the point you are trying make....

 

while this is totally tangential to the actual conversation, in their primes, both sets of players were top 10 talents. obviously the wings haven't had as much success with cups lately, but i dont think that can be attributed to 13 and 40. i think the big difference is just the eras they played in. stevie and sergei put up super pimp numbers because goal scoring was much more common back then.

 

on topic, i just remember back to a time when fans were lamenting that the wings had no young players to replace yzerman, federov, shanahan, etc. and then low and behold we managed to keep scoring goals without having to overpay for top end forwards. i genuinely feel some of our young players have the ability to make it happen again. i also think there is a ton of reason to be excited about our defensive prospects.

I think you're misunderstanding me, I'm not knocking the guy.  What I'm saying is that Nyquist, like Brunner, is a good player but who doesn't currently have the ability to create offense alone.  There's a place on teams for guys like that, but to defend them, all you have to do is shut down the workhorse.  By stopping Zetterberg you also stop Brunner.  Same goes for Nyquist, he doesn't create offense himself, and therefore putting him with Datsyuk would do the same as putting Brunner with Z.  Stop the main guy and you stop the other guy too. 

 

Think about other good lines in hockey, or good players and you'll understand what I'm saying.  Double team Ryan Getzlaf and see if Corey Perry doens't tear you up, or Bobby Ryan or whoever.  They create offense all by themselves.

 

Nyquist is just young, that part of his game will develop, but it hasn't yet at the NHL level. 

 

By having two guys on a line that can "do it themselves" when necessary, you open ice up for everyone because it becomes too dangerous to double team anyone and leave the other guy open.  Right now nobody is afraid to leave Nyquist, Brunner, Franzen, Cleary or Abby open by double teaming Z or Dats.  They figure "if the other guys can beat us then let them".  Obviously they can't. 

 

Edit:  Actually now that I think about it, they should put Tatar with Datsyuk.  That kid has shown that he can, and will, beat you if you give him space and time.  Nyquist, not so much.

 

i disagree. i think nyquist has the skill to quickly become one of those players. really he has already shown it as he has generated a lot of chances and even some goals with his own skill. compare that to players like franzen, cleary, abdelkader, who's only skill is standing around waiting for datsyuk to do all the work and give them a tap in goal that my grandma could finish off.

 

this organization has been TERRIBLE at putting players in a position to succeed. for years we will have a guy with potential and we leave him in the minors forever and then when they do get a chance, they play 8 minutes a night on the 4th line. sure, i understand that players have to 'earn' what they get, but how can you earn something when you are put in a position to fail?

 

nyquist, and others like tatar, if given the chance to play with datsyuk or zetterberg for more than a couple of shifts, could really show to be effective top 6 players in the nhl. that would allow them to grow as players and then become the type of player that can not just be part of the top 6, but be the leaders once datsyuk and zetterberg are gone.

not to derail yours guys nyquist debate, but as far as lashoff is concerned, i think this is a move that could be for the best. he has spent significant time in the nhl and now can spend a little time in the ahl working on the parts of his game that weren't nhl ready. this is a much more effective development strategy than just leaving guys in the ahl for years at a time. it causes development to plateau. whereas with this route, lashoff got the chance to grow a ton in the nhl as a regular and now he can take a breather, work on some things, and come back more motivated than ever.

Honestly, Pierre gets a lot of hate because of his "love" for the Penguins but that man has the sickest amount of hockey knowledge on this earth. There is no question in my mind that Pierre is one of the most knowledgeable and passionate hockey commentators. Would I want him on FSD? No. He wouldn't be good working or a single team, but he does a damn good job at working national games. He has the knowledge and can talk the game. He certainly isn't worst than Doc "DRIVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" Emrick.

 

I feel like pierre doesnt necessarily know hockey that well, he just knows a lot of hockey facts. every game i watch i want to break my tv because he always tries to play 6 degrees of kevin bacon hockey edition. what i mean by that is he always tries to show off that he knows which players played for which junior team and had some random coach that no one cares about. hes like the worst example of a name dropper.

 

yet i feel like his actual analysis is often not that great. he often tries to lead edzo into additional analysis by proposing theories but i find they usually are off the mark.

 

in my opinion he is an example of someone that is book smart about hockey but not street smart about the actual game.

 

 

 

 

 

regarding murph, i hate to see him go. a couple years ago he got a decent amount of time on the nhl network wrap up show at night. i felt he was very solid on there. (certainly better than that tool jamie mclennan they have now!) i also hope this does not mean an increased role for darren eliot as i feel he is TERRIBLE with a capital T. i do not like him at all and will actually mute the tv or turn the channel when he is on.

May as well lock this ridiculous crap. It's not about opinion or unbiased debate anymore, it's officially turned into a contest.

 

until this site decides to crack down on people who are obviously trolls, all threads devolve into this. i don't care if this gets me in trouble for saying this, but this site has turned into a garbage heap of terrible posters. i know sites have to try and be open to anyone, but it makes for a terrible environment for honest and genuine discussion. the day that matt instructs to moderators to crack down on trolling will be the day that lgw takes 50 steps forward as a hockey board.

 

 

as far as the thread is concerned, i will reiterate that howard is a well above average goalie. 'elite' is such a loaded term these days in all sports. but jimmy is one of the better goalies in the league, and one of the most valuable and skilled players on our team.

 

the defense is atrocious this season and has been for several years. do we have anyone that would be considered a shut down defenseman? have we for a few years? even lidstrom wasn't the best in his own end the last couple seasons. stuart was a strong shut down guy for yeasr, but seemed to be mentally checked out last year so even that didnt help.

olczyk is still convinced that the wings are the only team in the league that has ever run a little pick... man that guy is a tool.

Howard's days are numbered.

wish we could say the same for you here....

why is it people always try to compare every goalie to quick now? 15 months ago, quick was still looking over his shoulder at bernier. he had a great year last year and a great playoff run, but its not like he has been a top goalie for a decade or anything... 1 solid season does not make an 'elite' goalie...

 

 

jimmy howard is extremely underrated by most wings fans. he isn't perfect, but he has made the team a lot better than it would have been with someone else. the wings defense has been crap for 2-3 seasons now and even nick was fairly badin his own zone at the end. everyone has been guilty of poor defensive play. the sheer number of odd man chances the wings give up compared to 5 or 10 years ago is embarrassing.

i still dont understand how the owners can cry so much about a deal that they came up with. they won the last labor dispute and now all of a sudden its the worst situation ever? to me the owners are 100% to blame. they were the ones that created the current agreement and they are the ones that let their gms continue to hand out these giant contracts.

i think the players can certainly give up a few percentage points of the revenue, but anything more than that is just the owners trying to grab leverage.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the Flames haven't made the playoffs since he's been there and that the Panthers have after he left

i dont think its a coincidence you had to totally change the point...

its just luck. the reason the panthers didnt deal him at the deadline the year he left was because they were so close to making the playoffs. for several years they have been one of those young up and coming teams. but it really was tallon bringing in the variety of free agents the last year or two that allowed them to develop. so its not as if he was holding them back from making it while he was there. as i stated before, his numbers there were top notch in the 4 years after the lockout.

conversely, calgary has been a team on the decline since their cup run in 04. they have never really been a legit contender and havent won a playoff series since the lockout regardless of whether they had bouwmeester. i still readily admit that bouwmeester has been disappointing for them, but to imply its his fault the flames missed the playoffs and the panthers made it, well thats as silly as suggested jakub kindl is as good as jay bouwmeester...

keep going though, your absurdities are fun to read! i can't wait to see what your next totally unrelated counter point will be!

Oh, you don't like how I put that? OK, I'll put it this way: he's far below what his production should be for his salary and for what the Wings would need to put out in order to receive him. His numbers in Florida are irrelevant. How sought-after he was when his previous contract ended is irrelevant. What is important is the present stage of his career, and in this present stage of his career he has been unable to put up the offensive numbers expected of him in Calgary. He has, as such, been considered a dud there. His acquisition was meant to make Phaneuf expendable, and in this he has thus far been a failed project.

And whose numbers should improve when they go to Calgary, you ask? Certainly the numbers of someone going from a bottom feeder to a quasi-contender should at least remain consistent even if they don't rise.

sure he is overpaid. sure he has not lived up to the hype in calgary. but answer me these:

what defenders on our roster are better than bouwmeester?
what other top pairing defenders are realistically available?

to me the answers to those question are kronwall and probably no one.

bouwmeester to me is a top pairing guy. sure everyone likes to complain that all he does is eat minutes. but when he is on the ice, so is the opponents top line. aside from this past year, he has had a decent plus minus, which means when he is on against those top lines, its an even matchup. to me thats saying something considering the bad teams he has played on. and while calgary is a quasi contender, do you have any idea who he has played with? this past year it was chris butler. i would imagine most have never really heard of him. he played a year with regehr who is at least decent, and his first year in calgary was with giordano who at the time was a nobody. it was the good year they had together that catapulted him into top 4 status.

and if you really think what happened in florida is irrelevant, this conversation has zero value. those years provide context into what he is capable of. and if you can't recognize that, you have no interest in hearing anyones opinion but your own. everyone loves to talk about how players benefited over the years from playing with lidstrom; that fact gave context to the numbers players put up. its the same situation here.

bottom line is that jay bouwmeester has spent the last 7 years playing top pairing minutes, usually putting up top end offensive numbers, and playing well enough defensively that he has had solid plus/minus numbers when he is normally without top quality linemates.