PavelValerievichDatsyuk

Eaves was great tonight. I keep seeing these other threads with people saying he's deadweight or a bad contract or taking up a roster spot. And then I watch him play like he does. Go figure.

Maybe my brain is just contrarian but in this day and age of parity, getting swept actually makes me think something else was at play. Sweeps seem rare in this day and age, but this is completely anecdotal and the stats probably don't back me up

It was the illuminati I say!

except Abby back in Sammy back out

Can they take Sammy out after he scored. He didn't look great other than the goal...but since we're having trouble scoring...

 

 

This board is funny - series over? We're down one game.  If Brunner scores on the breakaway, we win. It was a Good game and saw a lot good things. Really liked Nyquist's poise with the puck. Just too many youthful defensive mistakes from different players.

How about a drink for every time Howard sniffs in an interview. You'd think the guy was a coke addict.

We also should be positioning ourselves to look attractive to potential free agents. If we're not a playoff team we look like a much less attractive destination.

I don't know about your comparisons. I understand you were making size comparisons, but you just compared Brunner to some of the best small guys to ever suit up. As for the .65 points per game...That's only applicable to the first half of this short season. The guy has been non existent for about a month or two. Once the league got in shape and up to speed, he's vanished. He doesn't even get many scoring chances. I mean, as for the Red Wings sake, they love small skilled forwards that can skate their hearts out on the perimeter, and take really hard shots from the boards..But that's not gonna cut it in this league. I'm also kind of tired of hearing "if he was on a line with a better scorer, or a team with better scoring" No, bad excuse. Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Filpulla, those guys are the scorers, they shouldn't need a top 3 top 6 guy to make them produce more. It should be the other way around, they should be the ones making other guys produce. Aside from Datsyuk, If I was the coach, I wouldn't be please with any of these guys. A guy like Zetterberg, when his scoring falls off (which it does ever year, until the playoffs), he's got great defensive play to keep him on top of the ranks. As for Brunner, Franzen, if they arent scoring they are almost absolutely useless. We have guys like Cleary, Abdelkader, Bertuzzi, Sammuelsson to reap the benefits of our top guys hard work...A guy like Brunner should be replaced with someone that will alone create some space in the middle of the ice instead of rocketeering along the outside and getting benefited from his line mates harder work on the inside.  Thats just my opionion, I respect and understand that others wont see it this way. 

He didn't compare Brunner to St. Louis, Fleury, etc. He was just giving examples of undersized hockey players showing that size isn't everything.

Ugly game in the end but we needed the win and got it. 

 

Good to see Brunner score a nice one. Nyquist set it up beautifully and was great all game. 

 

It's painful to see the personnel decisions this season. We'll see what happens, if anything, before the deadline. It's pretty clear to me this team is not better with White on D. Coliacovo doesn't impress a whole lot either. I'm hoping Dekeyeser can at the very least make solid hockey plays, keep it simple and clear the zone etc. He doesn't have to tear the league apart. Him and Lashoff could make our D atleast bearable. Then maybe we can either pick someone up as a top 6 winger, or atleast bring up Tatar. 

COliacovo's first game back. Judge him later

"Rough reviews"? Or "realistic"?

I've seen him play in the Swiss League. And I've seen every Wings game this season but two.

So he did get better throughout his games? I only partially agree. He's floating around a lot less, and shooting less. That's what makes him better now, compared to his first few games. He's still a sniper.

 

What hasn't changed? He's still a liability in the defense (currently, game-to-game, changing how big that liability it is).

 

As for "willing to learn at age 26": Brunner's got to surprise me here. AFAIK player's don't "learn" new behaviours at age 26 easily. For Brunner, this means he will never become any solid defensively, i.e. he will never effectively attack a player holding the puck, will never place an effective check in the offensive zone etc. He's too old to "learn" that, guys. His style is different. He's got his chance playing in the Swiss NLA by scoring terrific goals, and eventually they let him play with the best players on his line.

 

The outcome is Babcock, who lets him play with good working players (Z) also. Result: Brunner scores. But he's neither working hard for the team, nor solid defensively. Let's be realistic.

 

Btw, I hope Brunner scores 25+ this season.

He's been in North America just over a month and a half. He's the leading scorer on the Wings. He's adapted to the North American game amid a frantic condensed season without the luxury of a full training camp. These are great achievements that most have said exceed expectations. I think it's unrealistic to expect that his game would be fully rounded amid these factors. At least give him time.

 

Oh, and don't understand how you could perceive him as not working hard for the team.

Andersson, Bowman, Nill, Devellano.

Those guys know what they are doing.

You seem to really like to complain about Holland. If you don't like the decisions the have been made in the recent past you must know that Nill has been in on those decision. You praise Bowman and Devellano but you know that Holland was part of that GM threeway. Unless you have some insider information about who was chiefly responsible for which decisions it doesn't seem logical.

Yeah, they should all suck it up and play through their injuries. Oh wait, Clearly did that last and that didn't go too well...

Babcock's wearing a livestong bracelet.

Mursak, Tatar, Filppula and Brunner are ahead of Malkin! I know, I know they're in different leagues...

I've said it before, I'll say it again: This is going to be a big year for Mursak and I think he's going to surprise some people. No broken foot or ankle or whatever part it was - He'll tear it up

Time to start watching AHL games. Look at this...the Oilers's farm team just got Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jordan Eberle, Magnus Paajarvi, and Justin Schultz.....and Taylor Hall soon to follow when he gets off IR.

Go OKC Oilers? LOL

Kind of a shame that the Wings don't have any younger regulars.

Smith, Nyquist, and Brunner will be there. That will be pretty entertaining to watch them. I think the fact that Brunner will get some time on the North American size rink before the NHL should end up to be one postive out of all of this.

Hey, I've got another piece of positive thinking that I'll throw out there to try to lighten the negativity around here. Minnesota is the second best place that these guys could have ended up. I mean the could have really helped us, but them with the wild hurts us the least, I think. Imagine The Pens, Flyers or Chicago if they gotten one or two of these guys. To me, the fact that they're now on a weak Wild team dulls the impact these guys could have had. Sure, the wild will be competitive now, but other teams would have been extremely tough competition by acquiring one of these guys.

Babcock isn't the type of coach to call players out to the media. Calling players out in the media never made sense to me, anyway - He can talk to them one-on-one. When a coach criticizes players in front of the camera all it achieves is that the media will build up the story, ask the players to respond and compounds the problem and the stress on the player. I always used to cringe at how Ron Wilson used to do this.