BDS to Detroit: Play better hockey

Just because I feel like posting another Entourage clip to sum up how I feel:

Specifically, I’m feeling pretty similar to the last ten seconds.

Alright, where to start? I wanted to write this post yesterday. But it would have been much, much angrier. I’ve had some time to calm down, and think about it, and be reasonable. That said: This team sucks right now, and I hate almost everyone on it.

I’m not happy. I’m not happy with the play on the ice, and I’m not happy with what everyone else is saying about the loss.

To preface, is it time to panic? No, not to that extreme. Do we need a trade? Not yet, but let’s just say Kenny H. shouldn’t leave his phone on silent anytime soon. Do we need to wake the hell up? Yes, I think so.

The effort last night was unacceptable, and it starts right at the top. I see a lot of people blaming Bertuzzi, Meech, Kronwall, etc., all the usual. But I can assure you, these are the only players not at fault for yesterday’s loss: Darren Helm, Justin Abdelkader, Valtteri Filppula, and Jimmy Howard.

I can’t believe the stuff I’m reading today. Osgood looked “great?” On which of the five goals that he let in do you think he looked best? I personally like the one where he fell over against the post and left a whole net open. But the one where he kicked a rebound up the middle off a stuff in by a rookie defenseman to a grinder, and then stood up so his five hole would be open — that one was pretty good too. He looked great there. And, my goodness, the way he moved off his post so Clarke MacArthur could stuff one in was just veteran savvy at it’s finest. Left a gift of a rebound for Stafford to put in for the first of the game as well, you don’t think he knew Stafford was there?

Let me clarify; none of these goals were tremendously bad, blame can be placed elsewhere. But at some point, Chris Osgood needs to step up and make what should be easy saves, regardless of who makes a mistake leading up to the goal. That’s what the goalie does. He’s the last line of defense. Defense. He’s part of the defense. So Myers may have walked Jason Williams and Derek Meech en route to the stuff in that led to Patrick Kaleta’s goal, who was untouched and unbothered by anyone as he sneaked in, but why the hell did Osgood just leave that in front of the net and stand up? Kronwall passed to Patrick Eaves’ knee cap on the second Vanek goal, but you can’t tell me Osgood can’t move better laterally to the point where he doesn’t topple over when he needs to stop quickly. There were all kinds of turnovers in the corner that led to the MacArthur goal, but he cheated off his post and I have no idea why. It was a terrible angle, that is not a goal that should ever go in.

He was not great, and I’m blown away that people think so. He looked good in the first, but by no means does four goals against in a period equate to a great performance. A great performance entails making the big saves to keep the team in the game, regardless of how sloppy they were. If Buffalo was just burying goals, or if they were all going in of Nick Lidstrom’s stick in front, that is something you can’t do anything about. But considering the ease in which Detroit allowed Buffalo to walk right to the net, Ozzie didn’t face a variety of difficult shots.

I understand what people mean by not placing the blame on him. I’m not either. It really doesn’t matter how he plays when Detroit isn’t mounting any offensive attack. But “great” is not the word I would use. He was left out to dry, and he did nothing to help his own case. Just watch the highlights. Don’t watch the turnovers leading up to the goals, because I’ll touch on that later, just watch the goals themselves. Picture to yourself that Detroit is playing well and Osgood is letting up goals on those types of shots. If you can do that, and tell me Osgood looked great, I will e-punch you in the face and let you know that you know nothing about hockey. But I won’t really e-punch you because I’m quite frail and afraid of conflict in real life. He was bad, but he was not at fault for the loss — it’s a team effort. Do you see what I’m getting at here?

And I’m not taking the easy road here and blaming the loss on Bertuzzi, Williams, Meech, and the decision to bench Draper and Maltby. Really? Draper and Maltby would have made the difference tonight? I realize they have more goals than our top line, but this is another stupid statement. Those two have never had that kind of impact, let alone in their waning years here, I’m sorry. And while I think Draper at least needs to come back in, May-Abdelkader-Eaves was Detroit’s best line last night. They were the only guys out there skating and trying to get the puck. But none of them were offensively competent enough to do anything with it, and Draper and Maltby would have been no improvement.

I’m blaming the loss on Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Nicklas Lidstrom, and Mike Babcock. It starts at the top, I’m tired of hearing about everyone else when these guys have done nothing this season.

I can lump Zetterberg and Datsyuk together. These are the Eurotwins. Why haven’t they had a good shift yet? And, to clarify, there’s a different between a good shift for a line with Brad May on it, and one with the Eurotwins on it. May’s job is to never stop skating, punch people, and hit anyone who he can possibly catch. Zetterberg and Datsyuk’s job is to dominate all three zones of the hockey rink. At no point in these first five games have I seen that. They’ve been good defensively (more on that later) but their job isn’t to be checkers. What happened to last season when they were able to hem a team in their defensive zone for 90 seconds and finally score a goal when the defense finally lost their will to live? Datsyuk barely even touches the puck anymore, he just dumps it in. Zetterberg keeps trying to dangle, but he gets it taken away constantly. More shots, more possession, better passes. No excuse for 0 goals combined in 5 games.

Nicklas Lidstrom had four giveaways. He knocked a puck into his own net (not his fault, but it didn’t help his case). He was the defenseman that didn’t touch MacArthur when he stuffed one past Osgood, not Ericsson as other people have been blaming. He was not good. He was outmuscled and outhustled for pucks all night. Very un-Lidstrom. Cost himself the Norris with this performance, I guarantee it. The media has gotten wind of his four giveaways tonight already. This is how it was last season. Nick has a series of not great games (nothing this bad) and everyone decided he had lost a step, even though he was perfect for the second half of the season. He’ll be perfect from this point forward, I have no doubts, but this four giveaways thing is going to kill him, even though in Washington they consider that a good game for Mike Green.

And Mike Babcock, along with the whole coaching philosophy. I blame him in part for why Z/D don’t explore the offensive zone more. This whole concentration on team defense needs to stop now, because it’s not working. Detroit decided they were going to make up for goals by not letting in so many. But here’s a newsflash: Toronto, Florida, Calgary, and Washington are the only teams who have surrendered more goals than Detroit. Calgary is a mess right now. Kipper looks terrible, but they do have two more games played than Detroit — Detroit will probably pass them, at this pace. Toronto and Florida are terrible, and Detroit and Washington don’t exactly have the same caliber defensive group. Great start. I’m just worrying more and more that this defensive concentration is hurting the creativity of our offense. Let’s not change the system. Let the forwards do what they do offensively and outshoot teams 40-20. Hopefully we’ll win a few 7-6, 6-5 games along the way.

But that’s something I don’t anticipate will change. I’m just bringing it up now because no one else will say it. The way Detroit plays, and how they coast through most of their games, there’s no way this system will hold up an entire season. But what does need to change are the defensive pairings. This is the second full season of them, save for Ericsson instead of Lilja and, for now, Meech over Lebda (wash). Lidstrom will be better off without Rafalski. Stuart and Kronwall may be the Bash Brothers or the Twin Towers or whatever you want to call them, but really they’re the pairing most likely to make colossal, game-changing mistakes. Even through last season, this is the one pairing I did not like. Babcock always splits them up when he juggles lines, but I think we need to make a permanent change. The offense needs to be juggled too, this is what I’d suggest:

Filppula – Datsyuk – Bertuzzi
Cleary – Zetterberg – Holmstrom
Leino – Helm – Williams
Abdelkader – Draper – Maltby

Lidstrom – Kronwall
Ericsson – Rafalski
Stuart – Lebda

Just.. anything different. Maltby will probably come in for Thursday, but I don’t think Eaves deserves to sit yet. I’d rather see Draper than May, as well. Draper is important to the PK, and Abdelkader has been awful on faceoffs this season. Drapes needs to stay on that 4th line, and then May and Maltby can be rotated in with Eaves and Abdelkader whenever. But if this continues.. something drastic needs to be done. Sit a star. Sit Kronwall, sit Cleary, sit Williams, I barely noticed these guys last night (which is both good and bad, because I noticed al ot of other guys for the wrong reasons). Eaves and May, as much as they’re not helping with the goals for or the goals against, do actually move their feet. Maltby doesn’t really move his feet, and neither does anyone on the top two lines right now. Babcock needs to send a message. I do like him as a coach, and I’m certain he screamed himself hoarse a few times already this season, but nothing cures complacency like a well-timed healthy scratch. Bowman was the king at it, but so far since Babcock took over the biggest name he’s tried to send a message is Kris Draper. Set some examples, make this team hate you. We’ve got tons of cap space now, bring up some Griffins if you need to. Waive Meech, sign another defenseman who’s looking for a chance in the NHL. On a team like this, new blood — guys who want to play regular season hockey — should be at a premium.

As I finish this post, I learn courtesy of Drew at NOHS that Datsyuk and Kronwall are getting “looked at” (and like Drew, the first thing I wondered was if they were getting mentally evaluated) and didn’t practice. Lebda, Maltby, and Draper are coming back in the lineup, and there’s no starting goalie yet. The Wings need to play a 60-minute effort on Thursday. Even if they win 6-1, if they’re not hustling for a full 60 minutes I’m not going to be happy. I’m not going to rest until they do. I’m tired of writing such nice things after a win when the team still did so much wrong. Fix these problems, please!

UPDATE: Finally a post-game take that I like. Eric Duhatschek hits the nail on the head a couple of times. Even though I didn’t exactly exercise patience in this post, I find it to be a soothing and accurate read.

There’s a Charlie Batch reference in this recap

I had a discussion with loyal BDS citizen Zach before the game. We mulled over the various stages of grief over our Franzen-related depression, and we both agreed upon the importance of this game. I noted it in my last post, but I’m not sure if I stressed it enough. This game was to showcase our depth, and nothing would have made me happier than to see Detroit dominate. It would say good things about our depth, and just.. re-assure me that we can do good things without Franzen. Because, if you think about it, Franzen was pretty much just a checker until late in the 2007-08 season. He was like Filppula, in a sense, that he just looked like he has all kinds of skill but it looked like he might never break out of his role. I feel like I, along with many fans, has been been waiting for Filppula to do that, and he’s got a chance to do so this year. So we scored hilarious amounts of goals before the Mule got super confident in himself, and I was hoping to see some of that tonight.

It wasn’t completely as I had hoped, but I was impressed with the win tonight. To expand on that, my attention wasn’t 100% in tune with the game. The 8 PM Michigan/Iowa (dammit Robinson) and Florida/LSU (zzz) games started,  so the Wings got pushed onto my laptop, forcing me to rely on inconsistent streams and sometimes lose a little focus because of crucial plays in between those games. So I don’t have any hard-hitting, well-supported analysis from the Wings, just general impressions of things I noticed when my wireless was cooperating.

- I thought Filppula looked like a man possessed. FSN’s pre-game kind of unfairly singled him out as the guy the Wings were looking at to step up with no Franzen. I expect him to as well, but I was looking at Bertuzzi, Williams, Eaves, Leino, and Abdelkader more, because they’re all new guys I’ve said in the past can really break out for Detroit. Needs to be a committee, in my opinion. But Filppula seemed to be the only guy to really take that challenge seriously. In the first, I felt like he was trying to do too much. He Samuelsson’d it and made an extra move at the line, twice, sending himself offsides and Leino (partially his fault) on another occasion, and tried an unusually finesse and powerful move in trying to split the defenseman (well, one was Mike Green) on the play where Green took a holding call on him. However, in the final 40 minutes he seemed to be all over the place. And for a player on who’s balance I rip on almost all the time — it is pretty bad — he knocked 6′3 super-gump Tyler Sloan on his back and came out on top over contact with Ovechkin. He seemed angry. I like it.

- Oh boy! Williams scored from the point. But don’t acknowledge it, so you can bash him when he makes his once-every-three-game mistake despite the fact that he’s been the better PP2 point man than Kronwall 4 out of 4 games. However, he was invisible other than that, to me. Better than being visible for the wrong reasons, I suppose.

- One big switch from the line combinations from the pre-game. Bert took Holmstrom’s wing spot with the Eurotwins and Homer was bumped down to Abdelkader and Williams. I think that’s the first time in the Mike Babcock era that Holmstom hasn’t been with one of the Eurotwins. However, he responded well. He looked angry as well (that’s what I want to see in this team, if you haven’t figured that out yet), and scored that big goal. Bertuzzi didn’t do much with his new linemates, but I like the idea — I’m hoping he’ll get a few more games there. I haven’t been blown away yet, and frankly I thought he’d be a little more involved offensively (however, he’s been better defensively than I thought he could be), but if he can regain his form and become a player that can take over a game, as he’s said he thinks he can, he’s certainly getting the right opportunity to. Like him or not, I think you have to admit if there’s a hidden gamebreaker on this team, it’s gotta be Bertuzzi. And again, I did notice additional anger in him, but no penalties or… incidents. Probably an unneeded shot there, but I’m going to leave it in, as I’m the only blog that doesn’t take regular shots at that.

- Biggest problem on this team right now: Draper/Maltby goals: 2, Zetterberg/Datsyuk goals: 0. Okay, so neither Datsyuk or Zetterberg have had the luxury of a shorthanded breakaway and a retarded defensive zone turnover leading to a short break on Huet the super-sieve, but credit to Draper and Maltby for making those things happen. I wasn’t opposed to Maltby being scratched tonight because he hadn’t done much outside of the first period of the Blues game, but I have been impressed that both of them finally look like they realize they’re not guaranteed lineup spots in a Babcock lineup. Datsyuk and Zetterberg have been noticeable in spurts, but for the most part, too quiet for the roles they play. I feel like Zetterberg especially has been trying to do too much. He’s never been the guy to make a quick move through three defenders; he’s so good because he always makes the right play and finds the open guy.

- Patrick Eaves looked like a player tonight who decided he didn’t want to be a regular healthy scratch on his new team. He was energized, and had a couple of shots, but no great chances. However, Babcock noticed and tried him with Zetterberg and Datsyuk for a while. I don’t recall for how long, and he didn’t do much. But I hope he realizes that that’s a hell of an opportunity. This is a guy who was bought out over the summer, and then he finds himself in a close game on a line with two of the best players in the world. If you want to revitalize your career, you’ve got to take a few chances and make an impact. Detroit could sure use it.

- Barely noticed May tonight other than the occasional heart-stopping feeling I instinctively get when I see the Wings’ #24 with the puck. Only 6:24 played I see. Just noting this because I’m only going to notice him if he’s running guys questionably late, Aaron Downey-style. Just hoping that May comes out if/when Maltby comes back in; Eaves was much better, and like I said when Abdelkader got sent down, he’s not here to sit. Darren Helm is targeting a Tuesday return as well. I’m thinking Detroit might not actually send May down because they have so much cap space now with Franzen on LTIR, so I hope the 4th line rotation can keep everyone in that mix (May, Eaves, Draper, Maltby, and Abdelkader to an extent, though he will get more leeway since he’s not as old as time or Patrick Eaves) honest. Need to make your minutes count if you’re staying in — May did that in the pre-season, but not tonight.

- For the time being, no longer clenching up inside every time a puck goes towards Osgood. The first goal was weak, but he was excellent for a second straight night. I expect he’ll have a few off nights — I don’t expect playoff form every night. All I expect from our goaltending is to not be the reason we lose. Teams that see that more often than not are teams that have hard times making the playoffs. Detroit has too much talent to lose on goals that they lost in with Osgood/Howard in Sweden.

- Meech has been decent in his two games, but the Wings need to be able to count on a 6th defenseman for more than 10:05. I realize a lot of speculation in the past few days has been for a cheap top-six scorer, but I wonder if the Franzen cap space makes a  Lebda + mid-round pick trade for a more reliable, stay-at-home #6 a possibility instead of waiting for Lilja. The trade would come at a cheaper price than a deadline deal, and it’s going to all be wasted cap space anyhow, regardless of when Lilja comes back. You wouldn’t need to worry about him being rusty or slightly less effective, either.

- I’ll try to keep people updated on the Griffins as well. They dropped to the Toronto Marlies tonight. Jeremy Williams and Doug Janik gave them a 2-0 lead but the Marlies took it 3-2.  Daniel Larsson took the loss. Tomas Tatar was still a healthy scratch — was almost positive Curt Fraser said he’d get in this weekend. I’ve said that he needs to be on the scoring lines to make an impact, but there’s no sense keeping him scratched when he could be playing meaningless 4th line minutes to get adjusted to the speed of the game. He’ll definitely see a few games, but this tells me that Plymouth is looking like a good option for him. And clearly, Plymouth needs him. They won 9-2 tonight with the help of five points from Tyler Seguin, who’s already improved his stock from “definite first round pick” to “challenging for #1 overall” with a rather impressive 25 point in 10 game start. Tatar is starting to look mouth-wateringly good as his winger. Ohhh man.

Panic level has fallen about 10 levels. A nice win tonight. Give me some thoughts on the comments — I did not pay as much attention to the game as I would have liked, and I’ll probably re-watch it on NHL GameCenter (which is infinitely improved from last year with full screen multi-game, more HD broadcasts and, subsequently, adaptive streaming quality, as well as the pausing/rewinding functionality) tomorrow if it’s up in time for when I inevitably shut the Lions off whenever the Steelers are by up enough to put Charlie Batch in. I want to look a little harder at Williams, Bertuzzi, Eaves, and Filppula.

Projectile Vomit

I hate hockey so, so much.

Ugh. Just when Detroit showed some, but not a whole lot, signs of being a competent and competitive team not in the Taylor Hall sweepstakes, this happens.

I don’t even want to write about this. I’d recommend you check out On the Wings, because Matt was on top of all the updates and comments from the team.

Basically, here’s what happened from my perspective. My post-game concern was for Jonathan Ericsson, who looked like he was in a world of hurt after a shot off the foot and he could barely get off the ice. Post-game, I was relieved because Mike Babcock said he’d be okay. Yesterday morning, they said Ericsson should play against Washington tonight, but Franzen might not practice. It seemed precautionary. I rolled my eyes, because that’s just what Franzen does. He gets minor injuries that never change his effectiveness on the ice.

Then I went for a quick skate, came back… and… I don’t want to even say it.

He tore his ACL!? What? No, no, no, no, no, no. Why does Franzen always get hurt against Chicago? In October. I hate hockey.

Franzen, initially reported to have “gotten bumped” in the Chicago game. In the first period. Before he scored. In a game he finished. With a blown ACL. Cocaine’s a hell of a drug.

This is the part of the video game where I’d turn it off without saving.

So now we get too see how deep we are. Dammit. This means significantly more Abdelkader, he may be a Wing permanently now. Most likely, a lot more May. And more than that, the Williams, Bertuzzi, and Eaves signings I defended because I viewed them all as three players who could have breakout/comeback seasons.. need to live up to that hype. Eaves is only making his debut tonight after doing not a whole lot in the pre-season. Williams looked good to me the first three games, made too many mistakes against Chicago (though I felt like Kronwall has been the weak link on that powerplay so far). Bertuzzi has actually been the opposite of how I thought he’d be. He’s actually playing well in his own end and backchecking hard, but so far he hasn’t been a factor offensively.

George Sipple just posted tonight’s lines against the Washington Ovechkins. We’ve got Eurotwins:

Henrik Zetterberg | Pavel Datsyuk | Tomas Holmstrom
Ville Leino | Valtteri Filppula | Dan Cleary
Todd Bertuzzi | Justin Abdelkader | Jason Williams
Brad May | Kris Draper | Patrick Eaves

Babcock says the Eurotwins reunion isn’t permanent. But it will be if they each score 4 goals tonight, which is what I’m expecting. I still want them together, I felt they were separated too much last season. Right now neither have been much of a factor, so hopefully together they can do some damage. Meanwhile Leino and Filppula have been playing really well together, I think that’s a solid second line. And that third line.. interesting. Abdelkader is going to need to play a lot better than he did in the pre-season to make it work. Bertuzzi keeps saying he feels like he can take over a game still — he needs to on this line. I’ll be watching those three like a hawk tonight. Eaves gets his shot tonight as well — if anyone on the top three lines is struggling, he moves up, so he needs to give Babcock a few reasons to put him there.

On the bright side, Osgood was quite good against Chicago. The team was on their heels early, but they withstood the Kopecky-led barrage and got the win. This is the part of the season where the team hopefully realizes they no longer have the skill needed to win games in a period. Complete efforts. Nobody slacks. And naturally, that’s got to be as difficult as possible against a team that can score 14 points in a period.

On a side note, now that he’s not in the lineup instead of Abdelkader, I kind of like that we have Brad May. His fight was impressive, a clear win, and I love how he went right after Cam Barker after he leveled Maltby. He’s noticeable on the ice and that’s something that we haven’t always had in our 4th line the past few years. As long as he doesn’t get too comfortable here, I like it. Also, as I tweeted, his interviews are great. The way he looks at the camera, and how soft he speaks, just make me feel like he’s about to say “My, uh, new series of audiobooks is available on Amazon right now.” Just soothing. I would listen to those audiobooks.

On a more depressing side note, two career-length contracts for Zetterberg and Franzen. It starts with Zetterberg missing the pre-season with a groin injury, and Franzen missing more than half of the first season. Great.

I miss the Mule.

http://onthewingsblog.com/2009/10/09/breaking-franzen-out-at-least-4-months-with-torn-acl/

This town needs a good story

I’m not a baseball fan by any means. In my mind, the only acceptable time to watch the sport is a) in person or b) with your grandparents. These are the only times I will watch the Detroit Tigers.

Yet, somehow, I got caught up in the Tigers hype yesterday. I’ve been vaguely aware about how they had been choking away their playoff hopes, but I hadn’t watched a minute outside of what was forced down upon me via SportsCenter. I had no intentions of watching the tiebreaker game they had with the Minnesota Twins. I had class until 9 PM anyways, but I most likely wouldn’t have watched it even if I wasn’t. Sorry. Just can’t get into it. And if you’re on Facebook, you learned yesterday that 90% of the people you’re sure don’t watch baseball will watch a big game simply so they can coach the team via status updates, which was rather annoying. I did not want to be one of those people.

But I’m aware of what happened. The fellow that sat in front of me during my night class was following the GameCast on his laptop, so at times that was more interesting to me than different all the millions of scene transitions we were going over in Film Culture. Only at times, though. I’m not a fan, but I’m not one of those people that’s going to root against the hometown team just for the hell of it. I wish them well. The city of Detroit just seems like a happier place to be in when the Tigers are doing well. I noticed that they were up 3-0, and I was happy. The next time I looked, it was 4-3 Twins, late in the game.  I then learned via my Twitter feed how exciting the end of the game was, and I almost wished I watched.

I watched the game highlights, voluntarily — the first time in my life such an event has transpired. And honestly, I felt bad. The team essentially choked their way out of the spot, it’s not like they worked their asses off and just fell short (and that Cabrera drunkeness news is just hilarious to me, and certainly didn’t help the team), but I didn’t realize how much it would bother me. Not just for the Tigers, but for the fans. They’re definitely a legit team, unlike in the early 2000s, but no playoff success other than the World Series run.

And while they likely would have been crushed by the New York Yankees, that’s not a certainty. They would have been a big underdog, the way I understand it, but this town needs a good story. They need a pick-me-up. And now.. the good story possibilities have been greatly reduced. The Tigers just played like 300-something games in one season, and didn’t make the playoffs. The Lions won one game — making this season a drastic improvement over the last — but even if Stafford was healthy right now they’re only going to win like three or four games max, making this season another meaningless one in the ever-lasting rebuild process.

The Pistons were a mess last year, but I follow them with less interest than the Tigers so I don’t know how they’re shaping up for this season. Regardless of who you follow in college football, that season is shaping up poorly as well. The Spartans looked like their season was absolutely lost, leading most to start wondering when college basketball starts, but then they beat an undefeated Wolverines team, delaying their run back into national prominence. I’m a Wolverines fan. I didn’t think they would go undefeated by any stretch, and I don’t think this changes the fact that they’re going to play in a bowl game (likely on January 1st). But if you’re not winning the National Championship, you need three things for a good season — a win over Notre Dame, a win over Michigan State, and a win over Ohio State. I would be happy if Michigan went 3-9 every year as long as those were the three wins. But now, with the severe likelihood of only one of those three things happening, I’m a little less enthused. That said, a win in Iowa on a beautiful ABC night game would be outstanding.

So, it’s up to the Red Wings to provide the good story. And they couldn’t look any worse right now. With Vancouver leading Montreal 3-1 late in the 2nd period, there’s a good chance Detroit could end up back in the conference cellar by the end of the night. While that means nothing at this stage of the season (Taylor Hall, here we come?), it’s still never happened in my lifetime. It feels weird. And the first two games sent the message that this team is exactly like last year’s team, which leads to less than happy thoughts when you figure you don’t have Hossa or Conklin to bail you out. As much as I don’t miss either, they did bail us out last season on our patented 20 minute effort games.

It’s time to step up. It’s time to forget about Sweden and play like a team that’s actually angry and actually wants to atone for shitting the bed last season. We’re on a four game losing streak, in games that matter. That’s no good. Get the act together.

Home opener tomorrow night against Chicago. Tomas Kopecky says it will be fun to beat Detroit. Yeah… remember the three games you played well in while you were in Detroit, Tomas? Because most people think it was too, but I think it was three.

Everyone’s least favorite player Brett Lebda is benched for tomorrow night, and everyone’s second-least favorite player Derek Meech is in, according to Ansar Khan. Also, Darren Helm is certainly out, and Patrick Eaves may come in for Justin Abdelkader or Kirk Maltby. I realize he’s (tied for the lead) leading the team in scoring right now, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s much more useless than Justin Abdelkader, who wouldn’t be in Detroit right now if he was about to be a healthy scratch to Patrick Eaves and Kirk Maltby.

Meech will be paired with Ericsson. I hope he plays well, and eventually, that pairing is split up. Meech or Lebda, I don’t like either with the rookie Ericsson. I think a Lidstrom-Kronwall (an official passing of the torch), Ericsson-Rafalski, and Stuart-Lebda/Meech is a much more rounded out lineup. All I know is I’m going to throw a tantrum if Detroit struggles defensively and Babcock doesn’t mix up the pairings, because it occurred to me tonight that I probably should have been calling for that when Detroit was letting in hilarious amounts of goals last season, but that never happened. Either way, we need Lilja.

Lastly, via Bob McKenzie, Detroit signed Brad May today, after his tryout with the Griffins. Not a big surprise. I’ll write a little something on that later tonight. I like it a lot, but I’d be surprised if he wasn’t a Griffin for the entire year. But that’s just a nice player to have at your disposal.

Anywho.. be a good story, Red Wings.

Rabble rabble rabble: sieves, sieves, and sieves

Well, that sucked.

For the first time since I can remember, Detroit is 0-2. 0-2 in what should be considered two homes games. I’m not sure if the Sweden thing turned into a distraction, but I hope they were because I don’t want to see this team play like that ever again.

Detroit came out absolutely flying both Friday and Saturday afternoon. I can’t even remember a time, regular season or playoff, last season where Detroit came out so motivated. Ignorant and forgetful of how many times they fell apart last season, I commented on Friday during the second period how comical Detroit’s domination was. They must have felt the same way, because they stopped trying.

So what do we know after two games:

• Our goaltenders possess qualities similar to sieves.
• This team still doesn’t understand that when the pressure is on, you need to ICE the puck and not finesse it out of the zone.
• This team is still going to try to win games with inconsistent efforts, i.e., taking full periods off.

Fantastic! I can’t wait to write about the same problems as last season.

On the bright side, it’s just two games. And St. Louis is a good team, a team that could have challenged, at least Chicago, all of last season if they got their act together sooner than January, for the third straight season. I think Andy Murray is a tremendous coach, and I think his “we may not be more talented, but we will work harder” strategy is very effective, especially considering they’re quite talented to begin with. But still, the sky is falling and such, and we need to panic, I guess.

What concerns me the most is both of our goalies blow. Sorry, I wish I could have been more delicate with that one. I was patient all of last season with Osgood letting in a lot of goals and Conklin looking rather bad but somehow not letting in as many goals, but I was hoping just one of our goalies would have had a good start to the season. Unfortunately, Osgood was busy letting in a lot of goals on very few shots, while Howard was busy letting in very soft goals at very bad times.

I was a little surprised to see that the consensus on other blogs and message boards was that Howard sucks, and I even saw people suggest Danny Cloutier. Ugh. While I wish Howard performed better, both goalies sucked equally. Osgood didn’t let in any weak goals, really, but anyone letting in 4 goals on 17 shots every night is not going to hack it in my Thursday night Aluminum adult roller hockey league (TNAARHL), let alone the National Hockey League (NHL). Osgood just has a problem making semi-difficult saves. He let up one bad rebound that led to a goal, but other than that, the shots weren’t that bad. But in a starting goaltender, you expect that he’ll make some saves to keep you in the game.

Howard, meanwhile, was rather good for about half the game. He didn’t have a lot of work in the first period — shots were 14-1 at one point, but at one point in the second they were 18-15 for St. Louis, and he made most of those saves. He had no chance on Tkachuk’s goal, which was just luck, but the rebound on the Andy Mcdonald goal was not great. So through about 18 shots, he had 16 saves — more than Osgood. Then he decided to show the entire NHL what it took the AHL a while to figure out — Howard has an exploitable five hole. Brad Boyes barely squeaked on by in, and 12 seconds later, Patrik Berglund blew a shot through him. A good shot, and he never should have had that mini-breakaway, but he did go five hole and it was a back breaker — Howard probably should have had it.

However, he did make 27 total saves. At Chris Osgood’s save percentage, Detroit would have lost 7.5-3. Howard sucked and there’s no getting around that, but I’m just suggesting that people calling for his head give him a chance, because what we need is a regular season goalie. Osgood is clearly the playoff guy, but both are going to need to be much better for Detroit to get to that point, not just Howard. Give it time, it’s two games under strange circumstances.

Now, in defense of both, the Red Wings in front of them enjoyed a leisurely skate around the ice while a professional hockey team on the other end outworked and embarrassed them. Really, Detroit controlled most of the play for both games. But St. Louis capitalized on their chances and took advantage offensively when the ice was tilted in their favor. Ugh. This is really not at all what I wanted to write about today. On the bright side, they probably outworked the Michigan Wolverines through about three quarters of their game. Garbage.

So what else to we know? Brett Lebda is really, really bad and was at fault for most of the goals scored this weekend — and that’s not even a joke. He took a hard jolt from Tkachuk and seemed to favor his ribs, but the Detroit News’ Chris McCosky suggests that Babcock used the injury as an opportunity to keep Lebda on the bench. I hope he realizes that Derek Meech is Lebda’s backup. Dammit. What’s the point of such a deep top 5 when that #6 is going to be that bad. Honestly. How bad would Darren Helm, Justin Abdelkader, Patrick Eaves, or any quick forward, look on the blueline. Sure they’ve never been trained to position themselves, or keep their composure, or read the play, but neither has Lebda. To his credit, he started last season this same way and was actually pretty solid for the final 55 games or so, though many people were already convinced that he sucked because of what they saw in the beginning of the year. Still, not cool.

The rest of the defense didn’t look too bad. For having more people there than anyone else, Niklas Kronwall was probably the worst. He had a hard time keeping pucks in the zone on the powerplay — I hope the J-Willy haters out there saw that as I did, because while I’m okay with Williams, I’m watching his play on the point like a hawk, and it’s clear Kronwall was the weak link on that unit. Nobody else on the blueline looked that bad.

Up front, Ville Leino, Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, and Johan Franzen were really the only players with discernible hunger out there. Slick Kirk Maltby is tied for the team lead in scoring, but even he didn’t do anything after he somehow found himself with two points after the first 20 minutes of the season. I like the guy, and I like nothing more than seeing a guy like him go shelf on a shorthanded breakaway, but I hate how he only seems to have these games when his job is on the line. It’s no secret it was him or Eaves down to the wire for that final forward spot, and now that he won, it might be a while until Eaves is a regular, but I assure you it will be before Maltby records his third point of the season.

Bertuzzi looked.. okay, in spurts. Better today than yesterday. I don’t like him at all on the powerplay. I know he plays the “rover,” but I don’t think that fits on Detroit’s powerplay. He seems to stand too close to the puck carrier and it makes it really easy for a defender to cover him and the puck carrier, eliminating the advantage part of the man advantage. Speaking of powerplay, Filppula needs to be about 50x more noticeable than he was to stay on it over Ville Leino — I see no reason why he should be, right now, but I’d take both over Bert.

Anywho.. it was a very disappointing weekend overall. Neither game was even particularly enjoyable, because once St. Louis started pressing you just knew they’d take the lead soon, even when Detroit was up two goals. I just so wanted at least one of last year’s problem to be eliminated, but so far, no good. My heart goes out to brave souls like Drew who flew out to Sweden to watch that garbage in person. Hopefully the beautiful Swedish women made up for the ugly Swedish hockey. In much better news, my first Friday Prospects feature went up on Winging it in Motown on, you betcha, Friday. Give it a gander and let me know if that’s something you might be interested in.

Spoilers!: The 2009-10 NHL season leaked

Here’s a little something exciting that might hopefully spark some discussion on this blog that isn’t centered around Hudler. I’ve actually done this the past three seasons for my own personal amusement, predicting the standings and Wings’ stats before the season starts. Ideally, the goal would be to look at this midseason and see who produces, who chokes, etc. Of course, there are a lot of other factors coming into play which will probably make all statistical things irrelevant. Discussion, criticism, and violent and baseless threats on my livelihood are encouraged and appreciated as always.

First, stats of the Red Wings players. The first thing to consider for the Wings’ stats is last year’s season. Detroit scored 295 goals last season after 257 the year before. I’d assume this year’s team is capable of scoring somewhere in between that, and as an optimist I’m shooting for the higher end there because I think they can do it.

Lines are just assumed because I still don’t know where the hell anyone fits, plus we can pretty much guarantee we will be seeing a lot of changes. I’m just going with the “four strongest centers” look because I feel that’s best to role 4 lines.

At a glance:
Dan Cleary (77, 24+31=55) | Henrik Zetterberg (80, 33+56=89) | Johan Franzen (73, 34+30=64)
Tomas Holmstrom (50, 16+20=36) | Pavel Datsyuk (82, 32+69=101) | Todd Bertuzzi (75, 21+20=41)
Ville Leino (72, 14+28=42) | Valtteri Filppula (82, 22+38=60) | Jason Williams (70, 17+30=47)
Patrick Eaves (57, 5+19=24) | Darren Helm (79, 6+18=24) | Kris Draper (71, 6+8=14)
Kirk Maltby (46, 3+4=7) | Justin Abdelkader (24, 3+3=6)

Nick Lidstrom (78, 15+50=65) | Brian Rafalski (82, 9+45=54)
Brad Stuart (72, 4+20=24) | Niklas Kronwall (79, 7+43=50)
Jonathan Ericsson (75, 5+17=21) | Brett Lebda (52, 3+5=8)
Derek Meech (16 1+2=3) | Andreas Lilja (21, 1+4=5)

For a grand total of 285 goals. High? Sure. But this team can do it.

Notes:

• Predicting a big year for Dan Cleary due to Canadazation, which I believe is a medical term for Canadian hockey players that stems from over achievement due to a stroking of the international ego (which has happened to Cleary even though he hasn’t made the team [yet]).
• Zetterberg has a big year because a lot of his PP minutes were cut into by Hossa. He gets them back, and he uses them wisely. Consequently, Datsyuk and Zetterberg play more together and Datsyuk breaks the 100-point barrier.
• Filppula is the main breakout candidate, as I took into account his additional playoff production and decided he finally hits 20 goals, 60 points. Third line center technically, but a lot of time on the second powerplay and second line.
• Whoever ends up as Datsyuk’s winger is going to score like crazy. Be it the crippled Holmstrom, the oafish Bertuzzi, or the redundant Williams (or a combination of all three and maybe a little Eaves, as I’ve predicted).
• Eaves will play more than Maltby. It’s hard to predict long injuries, and it’s safe to assume we’ll have one. I think both will end up playing closer to 60, but the only guy I predict is going to miss a good chunk of the season is Holmstrom. Also, I’m still 95% sure Eaves is not on a two-way deal.
• Helm is really tough to place. I had him at 10+15 at first because there’s no way he’s on the 4th line all year long. I think he’ll get scoring minutes when guys are hurt.

And now.. standings, with brief explanations of each.

WESTERN CONFERENCE
1 – Detroit Red Wings: Yeah, this team isn’t going anywhere. We have more than enough talent to make up for what we “lost.” More importantly, this team is going to be focused and this lazy defensive play is done. Period.

2 – Calgary Flames: Hell of a team already that found a way to add Jay Bouwmeester and keep Olli Jokinen. The big mistake last year was riding Miika Kiprusoff too hard and he wore out when it came time to shine. But Mike Keenan’s gone and Brent Sutter has proved to be a winner for a while. Also, watch out for Mikael Backlund.

3 – Anaheim Ducks: Makes me sick, but they were clearly no 8 seed last year. The loss of Pronger hurts, mainly because Scott Niedermayer is overrated, but this division is really not strong and their “tough” forwards will likely be all they need to run away with it.

4 – Chicago Blackhawks: Had them lower at first, but ended up moving them up. The good is that they haven’t lost any big parts yet. The bad is the Hossa/Havlat ordeal, the RFA ordeal, the GM ordeal, and now the Kane ordeal. It’s just been a trying offseason for a team that was supposed to be the definition of chemistry last offseason. Plus, Huet is their goalie.

5 – San Jose Sharks: I have no idea what they did this offseason. Their defense got a lot worse, they have all their eggs in the Nabokov basket (but leave it to San Jose to churn goalies out of the abyss) and their offense isn’t as deep (though still lethal). The Heatley rumors heat up, but I don’t know if a deal involving Marleau actually helps them out in the long run. Good, but no contender.

6 – Vancouver Canucks: I have this theory that every Vancouver Canuck is overrated. Clearly, Luongo is not an issue in net and the Sedins are talented, as much as I think they’re now overpaid, but I don’t think they’ve ever had a defensive corps as deep as this now with the late offseason additions of Ehrhoff, Schneider (sucks, but a good #6). They would most likely be higher if not for Mikael Samuelsson.

7 – St. Louis Blues: Everything hinges on health for them. Paul Kariya needs to stay healthy. Andy McDonald needs to stay healthy. I think people forgot how good Erik Johnson is as he missed all of last season. A young team adding a couple more prominent prospects in Alex Pietrangelo and Lars Eller. They just need to work on starting seasons as strong as they’ve been finishing them.

8 – Minnesota Wild: I might be in the minority in that I love the Minnesota Wild brand of hockey, but under a new GM and new coach they might start drifting away from that. To me, I still think they’re built to win with the old “boring” style, and now the addition of Havlat (keeping in mind they were good last year without Gaborik) is really going to juice the offense. Playoffs for sure, but this conference is finally deep beyond the top 4 teams.

9 – Nashville Predators: They just missed out last season, and I think they’ll just miss out this season. Their defense is going to be absurdly good, but they still haven’t found a home run threat up front since they lost Alex Radulov. Look for Colin Wilson to get some minutes this season, but he doesn’t look to be any different than the two-way, hard-working players that already populate the Predator lineup.

10 – Edmonton Oilers: It looked like they might land the missing element this offseason when the Heatley rumors were tilted in their direction, but they didn’t, and now they’re left with virtually the same roster that missed the playoffs last season. Khabibulin is going to be stronger in net than Roloson, and they’ll make a push for the playoffs, but they don’t have the offense yet.

11 – Phoenix Coyotes: They could be the feel good story of the year. With the growing uncertainty of their franchise status, what’s overlooked is that they have a great young lineup. All of the teams in this range are legitimate top line player away from jumping right into the contenders in the West. But Phoenix is rebuilding the right way and giving those minutes to young players for now.

12 – Columbus Blue Jackets: Definitely a tough call slotting them all the way down here, but I don’t know if Steve Mason is going to be able to dominate the same way. They’re still missing a legitimate top pairing defenseman, and a lot of their offensive success hinges on the success of second-year players Jakub Voracek and Derrick Brassard, in addition to potential Calder winner Nikita Filatov.

13 – Los Angeles Kings: The Kings are similar to Phoenix in that they could have been better if they made more of an offseason free agency charge, but the commit to the rebuild gives guys like Drew Doughty, Anze Kopitar, and Jack Johnson the chance to evolve into stars instead of spending money on outside talent. However, I still say Jonathan Quick is not the answer and they’d be a playoff team with Manny Fernandez.

14 – Dallas Stars: Everyone wrote off the Stars last season because of injury woes, but I’m just not sure. Everyone else is making moves and/or bringing in young talent and Dallas signs Karlis Skrastins and Warren Peters? I’ve never been a huge Marty Turco fan, but he’s in for another long season playing behind that defense and Alex Auld is no successor.

15 – Colorado Avalanche: I don’t think any roster looks quite as pitiful as Colorado’s. To me, even Dallas could jump up to maybe 9 or 10. Colorado just sucks. Stastny is a clear star but if he gets hurt again, the streaky trio of  Hejduk, Wolski, and Svatos are going to ensure that this team gets the #1 overall pick. Craig Anderson is a good goalie, but he’s no savior here. Advice: Give all the minutes you can for Matt Duchene and ask him if he has a good relationship with Taylor Hall.

EASTERN CONFERENCE
1 – Washington Capitals: I hate focusing on players and not team depth, but Alex Ovechkin is going to be an animal this season after coming so close and then seeing his “rival” capture the Cup. Semyon Varlamov was eventually exposed in the playoffs but he’s not going to have to stop many pucks with the offensive totals that Washington will put up this season.

2 – Boston Bruins: They still might need to move a forward, and they won’t have it so easy now that everyone knows how good they are, but they’re still crazy deep and they have the best defense in the East.

3 – NY Rangers: So the Rangers basically prove that they still haven’t learned what the salary cap does when they sign Gaborik, Kotalik, Prospal, and trade for Chris Higgins, but I think it works. They’ve got the goaltending, they’ve got the talent, and most overlooked is that they have three sensational rookies ready for primetime in Evgeni Grachev, Artem Anisimov, and Matt Gilroy.

4 – Philadelphia Flyers: Hate ‘em, but they have Pronger now. Only question is Ray Emery. And that’s a big question.

5 – Carolina Hurricanes: The ‘Canes turned some heads in the playoffs and they added some role players up front and on the back end. That’s usually a recipe for success. The weak Southeast Division is really going to help Washington and Carolina inflate some win totals.

6 – Ottawa Senators: Whether or not they trade Heatley, the Senators are in great shape. A Heatley/Spezza/Alfredsson/Kovalev combination is scary and it could get scarier if they can trade Heatley for two young scorers. They also finally have a real goalie in Pascal Leclaire.

7 – Pittsburgh Penguins: Yeah, yeah, maybe I’m bitter. But all everyone talked about before Detroit last season was how there was this string of Stanley Cup hangovers and those teams never get far in the playoffs. I could easily see Pittsburgh having a rocky start, especially because for the second straight season they had a pretty high turnover on their team. But any Pens fans who might read this and take exception, make no mistake: I don’t see them going out early in the playoffs.

8 – New Jersey Devils: They took a small hit in free agency, but Brodeur is going to be healthy all season and Zach Parise pretty much negates the losses the Devils had up front, as well as rookies Nicklas Bergfors and possibly Mattias Tedenby or Patrice Cormier.

9 – Buffalo Sabres: Buffalo slowly has lost a lot of talent through free agency over the past few seasons and they don’t replace it with much. Tyler Myers will help on the backend, but I’m not sure if they have the scoring to compete with the teams in front of them.

10 – Montreal Canadiens: This is definitely as low as you’ll see Montreal, but I see them missing the playoffs. I’ve never seen a team overhaul in one offseason the way Montreal did. Sure, I might be hypocritical letting the Rangers succeed with Montreal failing, but at least the Rangers have elements of last year’s team left. Montreal is nothing like they were last season, except for Carey Price, who I think might be the most overrated in the league.

11 – Toronto Maple Leafs: As much as I hate Brian Burke, this team has a great defensive corps right now. They’ve got a few high profile rookies coming in. They just need a few stronger centers and they might be a playoff team again.

12 – Tampa Bay Lightning: Tampa Bay is the cutoff for good teams and bad teams in this conference. They fall on the correct side, for the first time in a few years. They cut all the dead weight that failed for them last offseason. They’ve got an experienced Stamkos, Tanguay, Hedman, and Ohlund. A healthy Mike Smith. All of these teams will challenge for 8th.

13 – Atlanta Thrashers: The goal of this season should be to do enough to make Ilya Kovalchuk not leave. I just don’t see that happening. Defense is better, but they just have no direction right now.

14 – NY Islanders: Tavares is nice, and so is three starting goalies, but it doesn’t make up for the weaknesses on nearly every forward line and throughout the defense. At least they still have some veterans so they can continue to compile draft picks at the deadline.

15 – Florida Panthers: I was a really rooting for them to get in the post season last season, but they didn’t. I think the loss of Bouwmeester is huge. They’ve been rebuilding forever and all that’s left is second and third line players and Tomas Vokoun. Yikes. I don’t see things going well this season.

Bam. There it is. Comment. Tear it apart. It’s all for fun, and it’s definitely something that’ll be good to look back on throughout the season. At the very least, I’ll be more accurate than The Hockey News who had Detroit 4th. And I had to pay for that shit — this is free!

Amusing musings in August

What is this post? Who knows? While I encourage further discussion on the current hot button topics, such as our good friend Jason Williams, I just can’t wait for Detroit to sign someone and end all the guessing. I guess my point here is, I’m finally really growing tired of offseason mode and I can’t stop thinking about next season. I’m definitely restless. I’m not sure if I ever mentioned it before, but I do remote data entry work and on days like today, ten-hour, late night Sunday shifts, the mind tends to drift. My managers might not want this broadcasted, but at times my focus shifts a bit to the web and I check up on the occasional free agent tracker or Google Reader, but alas, there was not much pumping out today.

One of the benefits of my job and my two monitor set up is I can afford to have a small window open in the corner of something interesting to watch. Since I’ve exhausted the list of shows I wanted to get into (Arrested Development, Breaking Bad, Heroes), I watched a ton of hockey today. My afternoon consisted of the Slovakia/USA World Junior upset that I never saw where recent draftee Tomas Tatar victimized Thomas McCollum for three goals (ok, one was an empty netter). This just aggravated my prospect craving so I watched a game from last September’s prospect tournament between Detroit and Atlanta (A+ performances from Abdelkader, Kindl, Larsson, and Axelsson). After a hockey break and a few episodes of Conan courtesy of Hulu, I somehow got to watching highlights on NHL.com. The last bit of my shift saw me watch the highlights of every single Red Wings playoff game. All except for one.

And somewhere between Brad Stuart introducing RJ Umberger’s brain to the inside of his skull and Darren Helm establishing himself as a rising star in this league with one short shift, the inspiration for a post like this hit me. There’s been a lot of free agent talk and I’ve put out some prospects filler, but I haven’t posted about the team itself in a while, and I feel like a few things need to be said. The message? It’s simple — we’re okay. We’re alright. We are not going anywhere.

Most fans of the team already know this. Hell, the mainstream media has been pretty good about it, other than a few columns a week about how this is the beginning of the end, and a whole cloud of smug coming from Chicago about how they’re the new team to beat in the Central now. But more on that later.

So now, at 1:30 AM on the first week of August, I’m incredibly fired up about hockey. About two months until meaningful hockey starts up and five weeks until people even start showing up to camp. So this is my release.

There has been a fair amount of people looking past the Wings this season. Which is fine with me, but I haven’t seen anything written to really refute them, and I guess that’s going to be my goal of this post. Maybe I’m a little insecure myself, who knows. I think the worst thing I said was that Detroit won the division, but maybe they won’t win 50 games. But now I think that’s a myth. I think it’s a myth that Detroit has lost 88 goals. I think it’s a myth that they’re not the team to beat in the West. I think it’s a myth that “the cap has finally caught up” to them, which is surprisingly a direct quote from Senior Vice President Jimmy Devellano.

First and most obviously, the Hossa loss is being made to be a bigger deal than it should have been. Everyone knew at the beginning of the year it’s a one-year window. At one point, some cap-savvy media people were thinking that Detroit would only be able to keep one of Zetterberg, Hossa, and Franzen in order to keep Samuelsson and Hudler, too, thinking a guy like Franzen in particular would figure out what he’s worth and walk away. But they were able to keep two, and were about $1 million in cap space away from keeping Hossa or both Samuelsson and Hudler. But remember, Detroit won the Cup without Hossa. From that team, Dallas Drake, Jiri Hudler, Mikael Samuelsson, Chris Chelios, and Dominik Hasek are gone. That’s not really a whole lot of turnover in two years when you consider how many young players they had on that team that have received new contracts since then.

No distractions anymore. I liked Hossa here, and I’d have taken him back if we found a way to fit him, but there’s no doubt that Hossa became a distraction in the Finals. He wasn’t scoring, so he took some heat, but then he played his ex-team and that became the rallying point. More pressure built up onto Hossa and I think he tried harder to score — too hard at times, even though he was still playing well off the puck. That’s gone now, and there hasn’t been a whole lot of talk about a third straight trip to the Finals for the Wings from the mainstream media. This team seems to play best when no one talks about them.

I don’t think we’ve really “lost” 88 goals. I get that it’s not supposed to be taken that literally, but the overall sentiment is that Detroit’s offense has taken a hit and the depth that everyone’s marveled about is supposedly gone. I don’t see it. They scored 38 goals more than last season, which, admittedly, looks to be a good summary of Hossa’s time here as he had 40 goals, but it’s actually their second highest total since the lockout — 2005-06 was higher.

Regardless of who we sign, we’ve still got our depth. In all likelihood, we’re going to sign somebody to a one-year deal that the fanbase will be torn on. Williams for example. There’s no doubt in my mind that whoever they sign can put up 50 points. But they’ll likely also make a few stupid mistakes defensively,they won’t really ever steal a game for us, and they’ll probably going to keep the fanbase split next offseason when you think about re-signing them. But they’re still going to have 3 solid scoring lines.

They’ve got a youth movement of sorts, but as the joke goes that Detroit is an old team, this is going to be an “old” youth movement. Darren Helm is a legitimate NHL player who has yet to score a goal outside of the months of May and June. He and Jonathan Ericsson have racked up so many games that neither are actually eligible for the Calder, though they’re still rookies in my book. Ville Leino barely makes the cut for both games played and age on the Calder ballot, and seems to be penciled in for 15-20 goals. Jimmy Howard, at 25, is finally ready for an NHL job and hopes to not break the trend of backup goalies that largely outplay the starter during the regular season (Legace, Osgood, Conklin). Abdelkader’s a young one, but won’t be out of place no matter how many games and minutes he plays.

There are plenty of redemption candidates on this team. It starts with Chris Osgood, who, pretty surprisingly, no one is actually doubting can get the job done. He was rough last season, and will probably hit a slump or two, but a lot of teams will kill for Osgood to be their guy going into the playoffs. Many, including myself, aren’t sure about Tomas Holmstrom as a regular shift player after a poor playoff performance, but despite his injury issues over the past two seasons, he’s still seems to be good for 25 a year. Brad Stuart, Niklas Kronwall, Dan Cleary, and even Kirk Maltby were all guys who were just remarkably better in the playoffs than in the rseason. Some guys are just born playoff performers, but even if you can get one of these guys to really step up for the regular season, that helps immensely.

It could be Cleary. When you think about the impact Hossa made, it starts with the prime offensive minutes that he ate up. He took Cleary out of the top six, and he didn’t really get a chance to get back there until the playoffs, when he went on a big scoring run. Henrik Zetterberg was on and off the top powerplay, and despite his 73 points on the year, you can probably pencil him back into the 85-90 range, especially if the Euro twins are reunited. Valtteri Filppula has definitely been the sexy pick to be the breakout player and I’m definitely on board. He was a guy who’s offensive production was higher in the playoffs, and honestly, the Hudler/Filppula/Samuelsson line was never my favorite. He’ll slide onto the second powerplay and probably center the second line for most of the year, he’s probably good for 50 points.

Johan Franzen — I don’t think even this guy thought he was this good. He’s 29 and all but he’s still raw as a scorer. He was never a big offensive player even in his junior days, I think he’s got a few years as a 40 goal scorer yet to uncover. Pavel Datsyuk is hitting his prime, where does he top out on points? Already touched on Leino and Helm as guys that are going to contribute. Regardless of who they sign, nothing says this team can’t challenge it’s goal total from last season.

Overall, the philosophy is better. Detroit had the same issues all season with clearing the puck out of the zone and getting too cute with the puck. Holland has said even though they’ve lost some offense, they can tighten up defensively. That’s the bigger issue — the team’s goals against rocketed up 60 and there’s no way Dallas Drake made that much of a difference. Consistent goaltending, and more attention to the penalty kill and taking care to not cause so many turnovers is going to be the key — not offense. I think we could very well be a better regular season team if we can stay motivated, but as we’ve all seen with the Wings over the years, motivation is sometimes a big if.

Who’s going to challenge us? Chicago is good, yes, but from a management standpoint their offseason has been a disaster, and you’ve got to believe Marty Havlat’s ghost will be haunting them as a reminder to what was so hyped as being a close, tight-knit team, will a real world dose of the coldness of the NHL business side of things have guys like Kane and Toews thinking about their future? They’re a talented team, but sometimes off-ice issues mount and things fall apart. See the 2008-09 Montreal Canadiens if you don’t believe me. Columbus is better, but like Chicago, we stomped them in the playoffs. St. Louis and Nashville, both will be challenging for playoff spots all year, but they’re not at division-contention level. The division is good, and it’s finally getting respect as one of, if not the, toughest in hockey, but there’s no reason to think Detroit can’t control each season series.

That’s a lot to think about, I suppose. I’m sure some of you were probably thinking this already, but I don’t know, I’m just ready to get this under way. Are all these things going to happen? Is everyone going to break out and Detroit’s going to win 50 games, easily? No, absolutely not, that’s not what I’m suggesting. But any combination of a majority of these things easily keep Detroit in that contention spot. And I have no doubts this team can succeed in the playoffs. For what’s mostly a young group, these guys have certainly seen some battles.

Bring it on.

Two more months.

Stealth edit – oh yeah, as I hoped, the arbiter shafted Hudler. The numbers are due out today and George Malik, despite being on vacation, seems to have broken the numbers first. If this Czech site is accurate, Hudler gets a 2-year deal worth $2.75 a season. After all this drama, that should make some fans smile. More on that tomorrow when more information leaks out.

OMG New Schedule!

Since Ken Holland seems content to wait for the Jiri Hudler situation to work itself out before signing a free agent, leaving a blogger like me to stare at his free agent wishlist and just keep crossing names out, I obviously don’t have much to write about. This makes the schedule very exciting news, which should be evident by the “omg” in the title. That’s why I put it there!

Detroit’s schedule available for your viewing pleasure here. And the full NHL schedule is also available. Now, if you clicked that second link and your face began to gravitate towards your palm, you wouldn’t be the only one. Yes, that’s right, the NHL managed to outdo themselves again, just when you thought there might be some hope that it might be a legitimate organization and competitive sports brand.

Why the hell aren’t the European games kicking off the season? We’ve got four games on October 1st before the first set of Scandinavian games on October 2nd. Brilliantly, on October 3rd we’ve got every single team in the NHL playing. Granted, the Scandinavian games are both in the afternoon, but, just, why? I believe this event is called the “NHL KickOff” which only makes sense if it’s before the rest of the teams. It’s a special event and it deserves its own stage. The idea is to have everyone watching these games to get excited for the NHL regular season. It’s a little more meaningful to open the season in Europe in front of a bunch of people who have never seen live NHL hockey before. But now we’re just going to bury it among a bunch of other games and churn away viewers. You need to force people to watch these games, make them notice that you’re trying to do something special here. If casual fans are only going to sit through one game in a day, you better believe they’re going to watch their team and not Detroit play St. Louis in Sweden. I just don’t understand. If you want the event to mean something, don’t schedule 13 other games the same day. It’s just these kind of mistakes that pile up and pile up and make the NHL just look really, really bush league.

Also, in last week’s news which I neglected, Detroit’s pre-season schedule is out. And, yes, it was assembled by a masochist. Let me get this straight. We finally get Chris Pronger out of the division, but we’ve potentially got him twice in the pre-season. He’s going to injure somebody in the pre-season, I guarantee it. And I’m sure Detroit fans are going to absolutely love Pittsburgh coming into town the second-to-last pre-season game. If Detroit wins, it’s meaningless because it’s a pre-season game, and Pens fans will gloat “woulda been useful four months ago, don’t you think?” and if Pittsburgh wins, Detroit fans will be reminded of how shitty their summer was. However, that last game against Farjestads should be interesting. Unfortunately we signed the only Detroit prospect that played their last season, Dick Axelsson. Their current roster lacks some of the star power that won them the SEL championship last season. That said, I kinda hope they beat Detroit. Metallurg (KHL) played the Rangers last season and they went up 3-0 (maybe 2-0) before the Rangers came storming back in dramatic fashion. It would be a big boost for European hockey.

Their roster this year, though, lacks their leading scorer and starting goalie, Rickard Wallin and Jonas Gustavsson, both signed by the Maple Leafs. Eero Somervuori, Dick Axelsson, Mikael Johansson (Wings pick in ‘03, signed with Montreal this offseason), Jorgen Jonsson, and Dominik Granak were all among their top 10 scorers, moving on this season.

Anyway, some regular season highlights:

• Hossa is our home opener and season-closer. Joy.
• Washington, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh are the Eastern Conference teams that we see twice.
• We only have four homestands longer than two games.
• First glimpse of Mikael Samuelsson is Oct. 27.
• Toronto on Nov. 7, Montreal on Nov, 21, both Saturday nights, good bet that’s HNIC. Same with Calgary on Oct. 31, Ottawa on Feb. 13, and Vancouver on Mar. 20.
• Olympic break means Detroit has no games from February 13 to March 1.
• 12 games in October, 14 in November, 14 in December, 15 in January, 6 in February, 15 in March, and 6 in April. That’s a lot of games per month, but at least we won’t have our annual February meltdown (or if we do, I suspect Team Sweden will be the team feeling the pain).
• Traditional New Years Eve home game is back (Colorado).
• Late October (PHX-COL-VAN-EDM-CGY), early February (PIT-SJS-ANA-LAK-STL), and mid-March (CGY-EDM-VAN) are really as bad as we have for road trips.
• Except for this strange thing to kick off the new year — PHX-ANA-LAK-SJS-NYI-DET-DAL-DET-WSH-MIN from January 2 to January 21. That’s a lot of miles covered.

That’s all I noticed. Any other observations?

And since I have nothing else to write about, here’s the part where you make suggestions to me. More prospects? More cap scenarios? More Griffins? Anything? I’ve got a few ideas but I have to say a lot of them fit the idea of “filler”.. so I can guarantee most of you will probably be indifferent towards a lot of it.