Joey v3.4

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Joey v3.4 last won the day on December 31 2010

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About Joey v3.4

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  1. Joey v3.4

    Howard......

    Those same people, are also the ones that seem to think that we could trade Helm for Ovechkin, because they don't have a realistic grasp of hockey. They look at it from a band-wagoneer stance, where all they see is their teams strengths and flaws (And mostly their flaws). They never bothered noticing there are 30 other teams, each doing their absolute best to create a Cup winning team. Simple fact is, Howard has been better in goal for us this year, than just about anyone we've had in a goal in a while. Given that in most of the periods of most of the games he has played, Detroit has simply been outplayed (Last night even, outshot like 40-20), he has probably done better than any playoff goalie we've had in my lifetime. When Osgood lost, it would be like, we'd outshoot oponents 40-25, and the opponents goalie was always just clearly better than ours (No disrespect to Osgood, I'm just saying). If you're a huge Ozzie fan and are offended, then replace "Osgood" with "Joseph". Anyone who has been watching for a while can remember a ton of games where we clearly out-shot the crap out of the opponent (Calgary. Anaheim), and still lost the game because they snuck a few garbage goals in. Howard has more than risen to this occassion. And considering he is now 2-0 this year when facing elimination. We'd be retarded to not sign him as a starter for next year. If we had Tim Thomas, people would still complain. I say, have a little faith. Datsyuk and Zetterberg weren't all-stars their second years in the league, they were just good. Howard is just good right now. He has some huge potential, and anyone who doesn't recognize that, should go be a Boston fan -- Since maybe they have the goaltending you're looking for. Well, statistically. I'd like to see Thomas in the West....see how he does then. In the East, every team practically has one line, and 3 lines of guys who buy the main line rest.
  2. Joey v3.4

    Howard......

    Jimmy is the only reason we didn't lose worse in games 1 and 2. And he's the reason we stayed within range in game 5. He isn't playing to the level of Roloson or Thomas, but he's sure as heck saved our arses a million times. I think Howard has it. If the offense can produce, Howard is more than good enough to win a cup. I don't think there is any question this year. Howard, Datsyuk, and Lidstrom have hands down, carried this team.
  3. Joey v3.4

    Wings in Seven

    Admittedly, my theory on a blowout game, would have been worse than what we actually ended up doing. A blowout game, a team can say "Eh, we blew it, get back on the horse and ride". A game like last night, where they had the lead the entire game, and still lost, has got to be more mentally frustrating than anything. Now I say, a blowout at home, would be nice. That will really make them wonder. I think last nights game was far from perfect, but that type of win was perfect. Now, if we teeter out a 1 goal win at home, game 7 is anybodies competition. But if we blow them out at home after squeaking out two 1 goal wins, I think it will complete the paradigm shift
  4. Joey v3.4

    This Pens fan thinks the Sharks lost the series

    No doubt. Whatever Detroit did in that 3rd period was phenominal. I have NEVER, EVER, seen a comeback like that in such a pivotal game. When they went up 3-1, I was like, "Oh crap....that's game". But I watched, hoping, and praying. Then suddenly, wham, wham, wham, three gorgeous goals, and the best penalty kill I've seen out of Detroit in years. It was like...suddenly, they just got hungry, and suddenly they just figured it all out. Even if they lose game 6 or 7, watching Detroit play at that level for even one period, made the entire playoffs worth it for me. That was purely incredible. That is the "Redwings" we all know can be out there. I think Niemi won't be soft, but I think we are in his head. I think he looked sloppier. I've watched the third period four times over and he wasn't overly confident. The Sharks still have a 3-2 edge. They know it. They will come out flying in game 6, but if we can that one (Thank god it's at home), then I'll think about a true paradigm shift. The first two periods of that game we played like crap, and yes we stepped it up in the third, but we also got lucky that our hard work paid off for once. But we're in their head, and now every Detroit player knows there is hope. Awesome third period. Could not have literally possibly come at a better time. I was really proud to be a Wings fan last night. That Datsyuk pass was incredible. At first I was like "WTF IS HE DOING!!!!!" I thought for sure it was going to be one of those plays where he steals it (Twice, mind you), and ends up sending it wide, but he didn't shoot.....he passed back and blam. Datsyuk is the most entertaining player in the world.
  5. Joey v3.4

    Can The Wings Win This Series?

    I didn't say, or do anything against the rules. Why was my post deleted? I didn't even voice an opinion against the wings, considering I am a wings fan. I talked about what they really needed to do in game 5, to win. I didn't swear. Didn't argue. Didn't slam. Didn't even acknowledge anyone else. Just posted my thoughts. (Moderator didn't like them?) Gist of it was, if they win game 5, with a huge win, they have a chance. If it's a squeaky win, then game 6 is just as questionable. Why did you delete this? I save all my posts. I will be asking the site owner about it.
  6. Joey v3.4

    The NHL's new 'catch-up' officiating

    Complaining about officiating is just finding excuses. Occassionally, yes, a series or a particular game is poorly officiated, but it doesn't win or lose series typically. Any time I see a fan complain about officiating, I usually just stop listening to the rest of what they have to say. It DOES happen, do not get me wrong. And yes, I do believe honestly and genuinely that in the secret referee meetings, there is a little bit of corruption. But you could find flaws in the officiating in any game, ever. There are a few types of penalties that we see: 1) The type that can't go unnoticed. It's blatantly obvious, and you just HAVE to call it, regardless of how it actually influences the game. If player A skates over and slaps player B in the face with a stick, you have to call that. Regardless of it's outcome, or timing, everyone says "Yeah.....yeah he did it" 2) The type that are penalties but may or may not be called, largely based on factors of even-ness. For example, if your team has taken 5 penalties and the other team only 2, so long as what you do is not in category 1, it might not be called. Meanwhile, for evening purposes (Because if they weren't even, lets face it, we would ALL complain), they are less lenient on the other team, and might call them on something that seems less than something the other team did. 3) The type of penalty that strikes the conspiracy debate, were a penalty is seemingly called at a critical point, or largely in favor of the team that is down by one goal, or just called to even the penalties out at an inopportune moment. I will admit, in order for me to make this a category (And it's entirely based on my observations), it hints there could be occassionally some crookedness. 4) The type of penalty where you're like, "OK, do these referee's get any training? Because I watched the replay and it was NOTHING like that!!" Unfortunately, unless it goes to video replay, the rule of the league is that it always stands. Not very many penalty calls EVER go to video replay, so yes, the referee could have been wrong, or thought he saw something that you are certain didn't happen, but whatever, these always go both ways. 5) Lots more. A few truths, that most people ignore: ---If the referee's called every penalty, five on five play would not exist. There is a potential penalty just about every shift. If you really want to get technical. It's kinda like, you can't walk from your house to the store without breaking a law.....not because you are evil, but because there are a billion laws. Same for penalties. Not a billion, but many different interpretations of them, and a lot of them that could be called. For example, they could call "Delay of game" for problems in the face-off, but they never actually do. ---As fans, regardless of what is actually happening on the ice, we expect the penalties to be fair. If one team played dirtier than another, and ended up with 15 penalties, while the other team took 2, there would be an outrage. Everyone on the losing side would cry conspiracy. So basically, to ensure "Fair" they do try to keep them relatively even. So as a referee, you have to appease the fans, while trying to referee the game. It's still a sport, ie a venue of entertainment, so you've got fans, coaches, players, everyone all with different perspectives on what did or did not happen, breathing down your throat to do it the way "They" want, meanwhile, you have a job to do that is not suppose to specifically fit what any of them want. --On TV, you cannot see or hear what is always happening on the ice. It is one thing to watch the bombing of pearl harbor on TV. It is, entirely another to be sitting on a boat outside Hawaii when it happens. I could go on with mainly worthless, relatively unimportant factors, but the bottom line IMO is: Referee's don't win or lose games. The teams do. They MIGHT have an influence, and their mistakes can flip-flop a series. But they're not robots. And they're not all-seeing. And they're not perfect. Is their corruption in the ranks? I don't know, for sure. My instincts tell me that yes, there is. But I've watched a lot of hockey in the last two decades, and EVEN if there is, it is NEVER EVER an excuse for a team losing. The problem with blaming the referee's is that people get really commited to the idea that "OH they would have won if not for the cheater referees!!!" And that is simply not true. Good teams win, despite the referee-ing. Even if there was a conspiracy, it is only a small portion of it. Blaming the referee's or even really spending a lot of time fired up about them, it's kinda immature in my opinion. Vancouver got HIGHLY screwed on penalties in their first series, yet they won. I reviewed the penalty logs for that series, and I had to wonder if it was a bunch of trainee's. Yet, they still won. Edit: Excuse my spelling. I drink a lot
  7. Joey v3.4

    Wings in Seven

    Well, you're right for one game What we need now is a dominating game. If we lose game 5, well, we all know what the big problem there is finding something else interesting on TV since the Wings won't be playing anymore. If we win game 5, by a slight margin, we're still down, and probably wearing out faster than the Sharks at this point. Games 6, and 7 will be progressively more difficult. It's not so much about playing the odds of the series score, as much as it is gauging the amount of effort, and exhaustion that comes with making a slow comeback from such a series. Philly did it last year, but they didn't win the cup, and looked beat to death against chicago much of the time. Every game gets harder as a series goes on, and this applies to both teams, but it tends to seem to affect the team that is fighting for survival more. Game 5 will be harder. This is why, in order to have a shot in this series, we obviously need to win game 5, but even more important is we need to blow them out in game five. As proven in game 4, a 3 goal lead is not a safe lead. Unfortunate, because usually it would be. We need to blow them out in game 5, if we want to push it to 7. Blow them out in game 5, put them on their heels, make them question what they have, and create a sense of urgency. Force them to play aggressive, and hopefully sloppy in game 6. Their goaltending was solid again, but shakier. And now we're scoring on spin-o-rama's, and pond skip bounce style shots. Two "NO WAY DID THAT GO IN!!!" goals in one game, will perhaps inspire the wings to take the uncalculated shot, take the sloppy shot, and just shoot, shoot, shoot. We beat Niemi twice on very strange shots. OK, if he wants to play a perfect game against a perfect system, perhaps we just need to shoot ANYTHING at him. Cause it worked once, and if it works again.... Crush a goalies confidence, and he loses skill points Game 5 really doesn't mean much (Aside from total elimination), because we still have two chances to lose it, versus 1 chance to win it, even if we do win it. We need a blow out. Something to make them realize, we are not done. We don't need to squeak by with a 3-2 style win, we need a good solid 5-1 type win. So my call to all LGW fans is get TWO lucky rabbits foots, pray, meditate, and Sacrifice a goat (I don't care, steal one if you have to, we need all the gods covered).
  8. Joey v3.4

    Tell Lidstrom we need him for another year!

    Thi ain't Nicks last year. He plays at a top line defenseman caliber, despite his age. If he retired it would certainly not be because he reached a point where he has nothing left to contribute on the ice. He just scored two goals, in an absolutely vital game, and one of them he swatted a puck out of the air. That shot will be on highlight reels for a week. To be honest, I think Nick is restrained by Detroit's system. I honestly do not even believe he has been able to play at his full level of play and mastery this past year, and yet he's still a Norris nominee. He has spent much of his time being paired with skilled, yet "Still learning" defenseman. He has been playing a system that has largely gone away from defensive shooting, and focused on forwards scoring. I think he's getting older, and I think sometimes you notice it in his play. A few times this season he seemed a step behind what you'd expect, but the only reason you notice when Lidstrom is a step behind for half a second, is because it's so rare. It's like, if bigfoot walked across the street, you would notice, because it's not normal that bigfoot walks across the street. He still plays at a level that is worthy of a top two defenseman. And lets not even go into the fact that he is playing as a TOP LINE DEFENSEMAN, yet guys like Chelios wound down their career by playing 2nd and 3rd string. There is no logic why a defenseman who is still playing on the top line, is anywhere near done. This isn't wishful thinking, or delusion. It's simple fact of matter. If Lidstrom retires, it will be for his own personal reasons. It will have nothing to do with his production. Sorry, but I find the arguments that Lidstrom is done a bit presumptuous. Norris nominee. Could win it. None of the other finalists are still in the playoffs, and Nick basically won that game 4 for us. He was the second highest scoring defenseman in the league this season. Honestly. Think about it. If Nicklas Lidstrom was 21 years old, and did what he did this season, you would be saying, "ZOMG!!! THIS GUY IS GOING TO BE GREAT!!!" Honestly. If a 21 year old young defenseman did what he (Lidstrom) did this year, you'd assume he had superstar potential. You would think he was one of, if not the most promising young defense-man in the league. Well he did it at 40-41 years old. These arguments are all originated because of his age. Lidstrom has never said he's retiring. The organization has never even hinted at it. You are all looking at his age, and jumping to conclusions. So stop :-p But I'll sign the petition anyway, to help sway his personal reasons in our favor P.S. This rant is not geared at anyone posting above. It is a generalized rant, to all :-p
  9. Joey v3.4

    Can The Wings Win This Series?

    wewr
  10. Joey v3.4

    Evaluating the Rafalski "Deal"

    Rafalski is our best offensive defenseman right now. No disrespect to Lidstrom, but when he's healthy Rafalski is probably our best. I agree, his injuries have sidelines him, but how can you question a five year deal made before he was injured? That is callous, and doesn't make sense. You cannot predict an injury. It is a risk you have to take. Any player can get injured. Simply because he is now injury ridden a bit, when we signed him he was not. You can't invest in something for 5 years, and when it goes bunk up the arse 3 years later, you can say "Ope, bad investment", but if you had invested in something that skyrocketed 3 years later, you'd say "Ope, great investment". The difference in the two is entirely intangibles that could not have been forseen. To say, it's not working out as planned, is fine. To say it was a bad investment, you cannot look at NOW versus when we made the investment. When we made it, it was a good investment. Investments, imply, a chance of failure. Go find me one player in the NHL, who absolutely has no chance of injury. We invested in Datsyuk for years as well. What if he gets injured at the start of next year? What if he misses three seasons? Was it a bad investment? Or just a failed one? Rafalski is incredibly good, and will easily take Lidstroms spot for defensive scoring on our team. Sure, he's injured. But he's worth keeping. When Lidstrom goes, Rafalski will be our best offensive defenseman, and will have worked with and under Lidstrom for years. He is a good investment. Even if it doesn't work out, yes, I believe he was a good investment.
  11. Joey v3.4

    Tampa Bay vs. Washington

    In the modern league, replacing a goalie is not a hard task. It's not like the days of Roy and Brodeur, where high level goalies were rare. Now, heck, rookies make entire cup runs. The question isn't, "Can they get a good replacement", the question is just, will they pick the right one? I'm fairly convinced with the level of goaltenders today, you could draw from a hat, and potentially get a goalie that will get hot come playoff time. Roloson is standing on his head for Tampa Bay, sure, but his track record prior to this year isn't spectacular. Goalies get hot, and cold. Rookies can take a team deep, and veterans can flop like fishes. They might not pick up a veteran, sure. But if they go all the way (IF, not saying they will just yet. Until the East Conf team plays the West conf winner, it's all flipped coins and dust in the wind), they could easily pick up a decent goalie that will give them a few years of relative success. Nobody in the NHL really has a dynasty anymore though. One cup is kinda the standard now. Detroit is nearly out of this round. Pittsburgh is gone, and Chicago was out the first round too. The age of dynasty has come to an end. I really don't see the point of discussing longevity of a team at this point in the playoffs. Simply because us Detroit fans have been blessed with two decades of playoff runs (And 16 exits, despite our 4 wins), is not cause for judging other teams longevity Cause Frankly, it's very unlikely we're winning this year either. I wouldn't say it's wise to compare teams in terms of longevity to Detroit. Detroit accomplished it's feat in mostly a different time, and different era. The NHL is a changing place. If Chicago can win a cup, and barely make the playoffs, then get pranced in the first round, that should tell you that longevity is not a part of todays NHL
  12. Joey v3.4

    Ice time

    Finally, a post I can agree with. Rafalski is a better PP man right now. No disrespect to Lidstrom, but Raf probably would have outscored him this year if he had been in all season. Lidstrom should be on the PK. Hell, at the rate it's going, a duck in a clown suit might be a good bet on the PK. Our penalty kill problem isn't exactly only defense though. It's clumped offense. We have two powerplay modes. 1) We pressure the point very hard, and they get it down low and suddenly have 3 guys deep cycling the puck 2 inches from the net. 2) We pressure deep, and end up with 4 guys in one corner, and they have someone standing in the slot clipping his fingernails waiting for the puck to get to him. Our biggest weakness on the PK is that we can't seem to make up our minds on which strategy to play. Diamond with aggressive point checking? We always have someone miss an assignment down deep. Collapse on the net, we let them shoot endlessly from the point. Collapse on puck carrier, they put a guy in the slot, and we seem shocked when he scores. Those are the three defensive PK strategies detroit is using, and it's like people are just missing assignments. If you play Diamond, there needs to be a solid rotation of who is pressuring the point. We miss that assignment a lot, because we'll have 2-3 guys pressuring the point, and one guy deep. If you roll a collapse on the net, you still need people to be aggressive when the point check presents itself. We usually hesitate and wait. If you collapse on Puck carrier, well, you can't collapse the whole damn team on the puck carrier deep in the corner, which is exactly how they scored their first goal. Our PK sucks. I think, I BET, Detroit has spent so much time working on it since it's sucked all season long, that now guys are just confused. We are sucking so badly on Penalty kills because it has been screwed with so much all season long, to try to fix it, that nobody has the system down, and nobody is confident. You know how when we go on the PK, you get that gut wrenching feel of "Oh god, please not again". Trust me, the players get that too, pros or not. If it sucks, it sucks....and the players know it sucks EVEN MORE than the fans realize it sucks. It's stressful to watch, imagine how it is to play it? And now, we'll go golfing because we overtrained, and underestimated the Penalty kill. Simple. As. That. We're so solid 5 on 5 because it's the system we played all year long. Our PK was "ok", but our defense wasn't great. We won enough games to get our slot because we could score (2nd highest scoring, overall). We were never particularly good on Power plays, or penalty kills all year long (Not particularly bad either), but now that teams are fighting for gold, our failure to have a solid system in both the PK and PP, has left them an avenue to exploit a clear cut weakness in our team. And Howard has little to do with it. If anything, our PK could be a lot worse, if he wasn't playing solid. In any 5 on 4 situation, one man is theoretically always open. The real trick to PK is to ensure that nobody in a shooting position is open, despite the fact that one guy will always fundamentally be open. Four professional players cannot keep five professional players contained at all times, ever. But don't even get me started on that subject. That subject is one of positioning, puck control, and a lot of deep play variables.
  13. Joey v3.4

    Tampa Bay vs. Washington

    Heard a joke tonight. Go into a bar, and order an "Ovechkin". If the bartender doesn't know what it is, tell him: "It's a white Russian, with no cup" They'll be tweaking their golf game pretty soon. Tampa probably won't
  14. Joey v3.4

    WCSF Game 3 GDT: Sharks 4 at Red Wings 3 (OT)

    We could still win this series. All we need is some of the following: 1) Niemi must contract a fatal and fast acting disease, tonight. 2) We take no penalities, ever again. Ever. 3) The Sharks show up late to the arena, forfeit the game, and we win by default. 4) Detroit replaces all it's players with robots. 5) We genetically engineer a Fedorov, Yzerman, and Shanahan, all in their prime. 6) We draft super heroes. I'm thinking Iron Man, Spider Man, and the girl from Kick Ass...for starters. If those conditions are met, we could win.
  15. Joey v3.4

    WCSF Game 3 GDT: Sharks 4 at Red Wings 3 (OT)

    Sharks are no strangers to OT, since they've gone to OT in like....almost every game. Not to be pessimistic, but the Sharks are not the team you want to play against in OT.