kipwinger

I.E  D,Byfuglien

I disagree on that one.  He is big, no doubt.  But with defensemen, 50 pts. seems to be the magic number and Byfuglien's done it three times as a d-man.  I don't love the guy or anything, but that's a lot of points from the back end (like, Keith Yandle type points from the blueline).  If Myers was anywhere close to that I might understand the hype.  But he's long way off. 

I've been saying that about Myers since the rumors started.  He's not that good.  He's only an average defenseman.  If he was 6'1 and 205 lbs. but did everything else exactly the same nobody would be impressed by him at all.  For whatever reason hockey fans are mesmerized by "bigness" regardless of whether or not the biggie has much talent. 

Anybody else think that the "euro twins" should really be the "euro triplets"?  Kronwall plays so well with D and Z.  He reads them just as well as they read each other. 

Bob Hartley would also be an interesting choice

Are you implying that you'd be ok with Bob Hartley as the coach of the Detroit Red Wings?  Bob Hartley? 

Let's just agree to disagree on this one... I don't think a defenseman in the middle of the diamond makes sense at all, that is the last place I would put Smith. The player in the middle is who you want directing traffic, and can make the quick one touch passes and can also be a trigger man.

 

I also disagree that Smith wouldn't be capable of manning the point, even if he were the last man back in the diamond. He has improved his defensive game immensely and is much smarter with the puck. Even if he does make a mistake, he is our fastest defenseman, so the chance of him recovering is much higher than any of the other d, in my opinion.

 

Either way, I'm done with this. I just want our power-play to improve. It's clearly not getting it done now, whether that's on the system they're using, the coaching strategies or the personnel, who knows...

I like the idea of trying Smith on the PP point (I mean, what could it hurt) but it's not going to work unless Babs' is going to let him use his wheels to make plays.  Utilized in that way Smith could be dangerous.  Utilized in the traditional "point shot-rebound-goal" strategy I think he's not much of an improvement because he's got a decent wrister, but not a noteworthy one timer.  But again, Babs would have to let him wheel and deal to be effective, which I can't see happening. 

I also agree with you that there's not really a problem with trying him on the PP despite his defensive gaffs.  Subban and Wisniewski are two players who come to mind who are awesome on the PP despite being shaky defensively (at times).  I'm not sure why we can only use guys who are defensive studs...though I suppose that's not too different than the rest of our game.  At times I think we're so petrified by the thought that the other team might get a scoring chance that creating any of our own becomes a secondary priority. 

How many points does Helm have to not score on the wing before everybody realizes he's not good on the wing?  If the fact that he blew about six scoring chances last night doesn't convince people that he can't take a pass, I don't know what will. 

To reiterate.  Helm.  Is. f******.  Terrible.  On.  The.  Wing.

Terrible. 

Babcock is a funny man

 

Babcock, on why he doesn't try Brendan Smith on power play: "I’m not getting into every detail why I play everyone and why I don’t. That’s the beauty of being the coach. You get to decide. You guys get to speculate why I don’t do things."

Sooo...no good reason then?

 

 

Big decision coming up when Franzen comes back who is the odd man out? Nesty/Jurco I would assume Jurco sents he can go through waivers

God I hope they don't demote Jurco.  Nestrasil isf****** garbage.  I have no idea why anybody thinks he'd get claimed off waivers (not that you're saying this, but I've had the 'don't want to lose Nesty for nothing' discussion about 200 times this week).  They need to get that kid out of the lineup.  He's clearly not ready to play in the NHL and is just another one of Babcock's pet projects. 

Our zone coverage has been really good.  Our passing and transition game from the back end has been horrible, to the extent that our beat writers were discussing our "turnover problem" by about game 3 of the season.  Two of our loses are directly attributable to massive defenseman turnovers that led to goals.  Also our defense has produced a combined 7 points, so anybody ready to pat them on the back for "creating offense" should think again.  So let's not sing kumbaya just yet eh boys?

Everyone that is crying that we didn't have enough offense is stupid. Yes, two goals won't win you MOST games but SOMETIMES it's enough to win a game. This is hockey, you guys know that it's not always going to be high scoring. We scored two goals yesterday in a very TIGHT game. You've never seen a hockey game end 1-0 or 2-0? It happens!! Yes of course we could have took advantage of the Power Play but we didn't. Bottom line is we scored more than they did and we should have won. You're not going to win many games when goals are taken away from you. Absolute bull call and took away a highlight goal away from one of the best players in the game. I seriously want to crush Montreal so bad the next time we play them.

You're right.  We are stupid.  I've changed my tune; from now on I'll form my impressions based on what should have happened. 

 

Maybe because the coaching stuff expected more from him (including pre-season ?). ) It doesn't matter how much money a player is making if he doesn't perform Babcock won't play the guy, simple.

Is that what's going on? 

Because Babcock and Holland's own comments suggest that he's not playing because they want to bring him along slowly, but that they've impressed by his attitude and hard work. 

This seems like another installment of "Frank speculates on something but plays it off like fact". 

If we continue to play soccer, every bad call will affect us. If we are up 6-2 or down 7-1, who cares if a ref blows a call. We don't have an elite goaltender. We have a good goaltender, but not an elite one. You have to have an elite goaltender if you wanna play soccer.

I understand the point you're making, but lets not get carried away.  I don't want to win or lose by 4 goals a night.  That's not going to get you into the playoffs.  But 50% of the 10 games last night were decided by two or more goals.  So it's not like offense and defense are mutually exclusive.  I'd just like to be reasonably sure that if we're down by a goal we've at least got a chance to come back, and if we're up by a goal we've at least got a shot at being able to score again.  As it is, I have no faith in either of these things.  And the only way anybody seems to be able to justify our current approach is by pretending we live in a fantasy world were refs don't occasionally make bad calls.

Was I the only one last night that KNEW Montreal was going to get the next goal and tie the game?  I would have bet anybody on LGW if they had waged Detroit would score again before Montreal scored to tie it. 

Filppula wanted out and I think TB will regret that deal. He's never had 2 back to back healthy productive seasons.

What's the over/under on "healthy, productive, season"?  Because I'll take your bet. 

Low scoring approach? Not sure any team advocates that

I wouldn't call any of those team run and gun offense, maybe Tampa and Ny, but they've turned corners recently. The real contenders: LA CHI BOS etc are all high possession teams.

I know what GF means, hence why I referenced it and the fact that my original point had nothing to do with it.

You're talking in circles.  All those teams create more offense than Detroit and still play good defense.  You were the one who brought up "run and gun" and how it didn't work.  All he did was criticize Babs' preference for low scoring games.  You were trying to make his argument appear wrong headed without coming out and saying it straight up.  Now you're trying to obscure that fact by changing the subject. 

The next time someone criticizes Babcock's "soccer" strategy, the correct response should be something along the lines of "what alternative do you propose" and not "So you'd rather we be a run and gun team? The type that never wins cups?".  Then you could have a conversation about offensive vs. defensive strategies without all the not so subtle "your position is wrong" inferences. 

Well, when you only score one or two goals a game this is what you get. I think they've looked decent so far this year, but they have GOT to start scoring more. Then we won't have to worry about bulls*** waving off of goals or uncalled penalties or what the f*** ever.

Exactly.  If your strategy is to win every game by a single goal, then you don't have a large margin of error.  There was a time when if we were down by a goal going into the third period, you could almost bank on us getting it back.  Not anymore.  Nowadays we can't protect a lead going into the third unless every single thing turns out perfectly in our favor because that's the only goal we're getting that night. 

Get some offense in the lineup or get used to bitching about the refs ALL SEASON LONG.  Because there's going to be a lot of bad calls that cost us games if every game is this close. 

Also, since when did our fan base because so full of complainers?  We're not the only team that will lose a game because of a bad call this week.  Let alone this season.  You don't see good teams getting all bent out of shape because of a disallowed goal, or a questionable call.