Carman

He's always been a good player.  People just irrationally translated his injury history as meaning he is a bad player.

I hope he stays around.  Obviously with his history we can't rely on him, but it's good to have him for insurance.

Don't count backman out either he could push hard for a spot

As soon as my editor posts my new blog entry, you should check it out.  It is a pretty heated slamming of Ken Holland for going against his word and stringing Nill along.  This is the WORST THING TO HAPPEN TO DETROIT in the past 20 years.  The only thing that would be worse is losing Hakin. Holland is spent and he said he was going to retire post Lidstrom.  Now he can't because the guy who deserved the job a year ago is leaving to Dallas and I am angry and embarrassed.  I have no faith in this organization if they string along Jim and then lose him in favor of Holland who seems too timid and tired.  I really hope this is wrong, and if it is right I hope Holland gets fired before Nill signs in Dallas.  I felt secured in the future of the team until tonight. 

If anyone took what Ken Holland said seriously about retiring when Lidstrom did, you have some serious issues.  Best of luck to Jim Nill. 

His last 4 games, he has been huge.

 

4GP - 2G - 8A - 10P

 

Way to go Captain!

Ok where's BottleofSmoke?  We need her awesome positive posts!!

I'm here!  I'm so nervous I could puke, but I'm here!  I was hoping to not have to do this again (f*** you, Lumbus!), but here goes:

You know what? Z has done a s***ty job as captain. He never deserved the C, and now he's clearly showing why. He can't carry this team on his back, and because of that we can look forward to losing many years' worth of must win games because we have no leadership. Where are our veterans?! We have a bunch of kids running around in poopy diapers, spazzing all over the ice and tripping over their own dicks because they're toof****** excited! This DelKeyser kid makes too many mistakes because he's out there ripping around, taking chances, and trying to show off. I mean, WTF?! And is Brunner not the laziest son of a ***** you have ever seen? He doesn't even try! Don't get me started on Tootoo. What af****** *****! My grandma could kick his ass with her diabetes monitor. Mark my words--this team is going nowhere, so get used to The Suck. I don't know about the rest of you, but I will be jumping off this bandwagon like af****** Titanic survivor after the game tonight. Whatever.

LGW!!

Agreed... Would love to see Minny take a lost tonight along with the blues... even though I have elliot in net tonight for fantasy... sigh haha... 

 

On a side note i know i will be taking in every moment of silence I can and I am rooting for a big Boston win tomorrow for the city of Boston and Martin Richard...

 

"Severely" is an exaggeration.

I generally think of severe injury as something that keeps a guy out of the lineup, so that probably is overstating it.

Still, the point still stands that Hossa had a rotator cuff injury that required surgery in the offseason. That's pretty clearly something that would affect his performance.

I think I'd bawl my eyes out if he walked unassisted to the podium seats at Lidstrom's number retirement next year.

I didn't see this posted yet, thought I would spread the image.  The webpage wasn't working for me but it was for others.

http://translate.goo...82.html&act=url

http://cmsimg.hometo...eman-s-recovery

It's definitely a weird feeling knowing that our playoff chances could come down to the last game. I'll be happy as long as they make the playoffs. I want more Red Wings hockey and I want to keep that streak alive. I'm not ready for this half season to be over.

My guess is that everyone who has to play against Ott is going to be in favour of making them mandatory!

 

It was kind of hard to tell from that angle, but it almost looked more like he stuck his tongue out in a licking motion rather than actually licking him.   I don't think he was actually trying to lick.

 

Haha, I watched Brendan Shanahan's video explanation of the incident.  According to Shanny every player is responsible for their own tongue, and much like their stick, they must be held responsible for ensuring its proper use.  Additionally, while there was clearly intent to lick, no penalty was assessed by the on ice officials.  Furthermore, it must be taken into account that Jeff Halpern was not injured as a result of the incident and was able to return to the ice later that period after squeegeeing off his visor. 

 

In Summary:

 

Clearly intent to lick

No "licking" penalty assessed

Halpern was not (physically) injured; no mention of the psychological effects

 

Because of this the Department of Player safety has decided to issue a warning to Buffalo's Steve Ott.  He will be considered a repeat "licker" going forward. 

We like our team

 

The usage of this quote was clever at first. Several thousand uses later, it is getting very tiresome, even more so because it comes up in almost every single thread about the team.

Draft well? Nill admitted that drafting Pavel wasn't some stroke of drafting acumen, but in fact dumb luck. As Mickey says 5 times a game 'Sometimes its better to be lucky then to be good'. For every gem you give me I can show you how other teams have done the same, maybe not with 6th or 7th round picks, but with picks after the 2nd round (which just about every scout will admit anything after the 60th pick is a crap shoot). 

 
http://www.coppernbl...s-draft-success
This isn't any new data but it shows the odds you have of drafting a successful player based on your position in the draft between Holland's first year as GM until 2005. To be considered a top player in this chart you have to play at least 200 NHL games with a PPG average at or above .5 PPG.

The second chart is Holland/Nill's success in the draft compared to the rest of the league.
Basically what it shows is that during that time period the Wings were better than the league average in every single slot, but more than twice as likely to land a top player past the 101st pick in the draft. They were also an astounding 7 times better than the league average drafting between 51 and 100.
 
Some of that might be luck, but 7 times better has to have some skill involved as well. Credit where credit is due, our management team's preference of skill over being NHL ready has paid dividends for this team over the years.

This might be the first game this season that they've won when I (hastily) made the GDT.

 

Huzzah!