yave1964

The hit is a hockey play end of story. No discussion. the slam to the ice was not. No discussion. Maaybe a game tops as a first offense.

@SpikeDDS I have read several spots that Blash is on the serious hot seat, a loss against Boston and it is likely it,on Saturday it is Bylsma time.

Okay, so the Wings are not going anywhere this year, but there are kids galore to become emotionally invested in as we watch their progress. It has given me hope, and I am looking forward to the future. With that in mind here is who I see the kids developing into. DENNIS CHOLOWSKI Very easy one for me, he reminds me for all the world of Steve Chiasson. Yeah I know his defense was average but he could shoot the puck and join the rush like nobodies business. JOE HICKETTS the little spark plug is the new Brett Lebda, an undersized 3rd pair guy who can pass a bit and plays bigger than his frame. FILIP HRONEK The easiest of them all, the new Nik Kronwall. He is going to be a perfect complimentary middle pair guy who scores 35 points a year and loves to hit. LIBOR SULAK Pretty easy one for me as well, he reminds me of Ruslan Salei. Rusty was a nice steady boring stay at home guy who liked to hit. MICHAEL RASMUSSEN A center with a massive frame who will likely be moved to the wing, a great power play man mountain in front of the net. The new JVR, 55-60 point guy with 35 goal potential. TYLER BERTUZZI He reminds me of Martin Lapointe, a perfect third liner whose game will get better in the postseason. 20 goal guy with grit. CHRISTOFFER EHN The Wings kept him around because of a tight checking game and a bit of scoring touch. Kirk Maltby type, solid 4th liner who can probably move up if needed. DOMINIC TURGEON will get recalled if there is an injury, not much really. A Cory Emmerton type. GIVANI SMITH Darren Mccarty hands down. Should play bottom pair when he arrives, might move to third line winger with 15 goal ability and snarl. FILIP ZADINA Man I struggled with this one, he is a pure goal scorer who plays solid 200 foot game, I went with Alexander Mogilny who was a sniper extraordinaire who always wanted the puck in the offensive zone and played with a cocky edge. That is it. If I am right the Wings are still gonna suck this year, hopefully tanking and getting Jack Hughes (think Patrick Kane) to mix with the talented young kids and plenty of cap room to make a splash with the free agents at the end of the year. The future is bright , And IMHO while the present is a bit lacking there is definite cause for hope.

Here is what I would like to see for this year.... Larkin establish himself as a true 1C. I believe this almost certainly will happen. Howard, Nyquist, Abdelkader and possibly Helm dealt at or near the deadline for futures adding more draft picks and prospects. Cholowski and Hronek establish themselves as top four defenseman for the next decade. I also believe this very well could happen. Sulak and Hicketts establish themselves as a nice rugged bottom pair defensive pairing. Bertuzzi establish himself alongside Athanasiou as nice complimentary third liners. Rasmussen stick past his nine game trial and have 45-50 points establishing himself as a force as a power forward. Mantha find another gear and become a 30 plus goal scorer. Warts and all 30 goals is 30 goals. Zadina catch fire in GR get recalled and establish himself as a top line sniper. Even if all goes perfect we are flawed and not a playoff team, getting valuable experience for the kids is the best we can hope for.

@pilldoc Saw that, tough one for the Penguins. Fantasy wise, I jumped in and scooped up DeSmith in both leagues and you snagged Jarry. One of us might end up with a steal in net, lol.

4-2 loss last night in Los Angeles, much closer than it looked a few thoughts/highlights/lowlights The Kings are considered a bit of a longshot for a playoff spot in the rugged West but they played like a SCF contender last night, hard hitting, rough and tumble. Wow is the West deep. Bertuzzi and Phaneuf went at it almost from the opening faceoff and neither gave an inch through the game to the other, both not only finished their checks but they seemed to seek each other out to hit each other. fun to see, Little Bert took a double minor for a high stick early in the first and the Wings led by Daley killed it. Then shortly after Daley fired a puck, caught his skate in a seam and went down early in the first and never returned leaving the already undermanned defense even more so. It left Dekeyser, three kids and the inept Jensen back there. Jensen actually looked decent, had a good fight even. Hronek made a rookie mistake,in the third Phaneuf drew a penalty for a cheap shot on Bert and Hronek jumped in getting a 10 minute penalty leaving the Wings down to 4 defenseman for a critical ten minute stretch. I love his physicality and his crisp first pass, I love that he is fearless and is trying to develop a rep but he took the wrong penalty at the wrong time leaving us two defenseman short. Speaking of defense, Cholowski is for real. He assisted on both power play goals and was all over the ice. Incredible talent. Larkin and Mantha both scored power play goals and were on the ice for almost every offensive zone faceoff. Both were a minus 3 but played very good games. Athanasiou hasn't had the start to the year that was expected after he was miles away the best Wing in the preseason. It will come. Bernier gave up two goals that he would have loved to have back but overall wanst too bad. Now the nerves of playing with a new team should be fine. Blashill called out the boys after game 1 for not getting the puck on net enough, they responded with 38 shots last night and really were pretty good. Good to see the boys fire from everywhere. With 2 minutes to go the Wings called timeout and Blash tapped Bylsma on the shoulder and had Bylsma set up the play with the five guys on the ice. It looked unusual is all for the assistant who is clearly looking over Blashills shoulder to run the huddle during the timeout. Kovie still has it. The Kings first goal, he made a sick play, dangling the puck across the ice with a Datsukian deke and drew two defenseman his way and fired the perfect pass to Kopitar who bested Bernier. Absolute great pickup by the Kings.

Opening night! Man I love hockey and I am thrilled it is back. Watched the game last night, watched most of it again this morning. Love opening night. Final score 3-2 Jackets in overtime on a game winner by Panarin. A few quick thoughts. Man it was so damn nice to see skill on the ice from our defense after all these years of watching guys with bloated contracts lugging the puck or making bad decisions. Cholowski looked like a five year vet the way he came flying in and scored the teams first goal on a beautiful pass from Larkin was unheard of in years past. Hronek played with a certified edge and his passes weren't just flip it up the boards and hope our guy gets there first, they were stick to stick and accurate. Sulak was solid defensively and loves to hit, Hicketts was our primary penalty killer on the back end along with Dekeyser. As for our veteran defense, it was nice to see Dekeyser and Daley with the four rookies, they were both solid. Larkin looked ready to take charge as the team leaderand Howard was fantastic in net. But lets face facts folks, the Jackets are a playoff team opening against a non contender and came out firing on all cylinders out shooting the Wings 39-20, winning all key faceoffs. Other than a push halfway through the second for about ten minutes the Jackets controlled the puck and the game most of the night. We outshot them 8-2 over an eight minute stretch and scored our two goals during that time, other than that they outshot us 37-12. We had no answer for the rugged hard hitting line of Anderson/Dubinsky/Jenner and Anderson who showed signs of being a force last year as a rookie was commanding, throwing his big body around and looks to be prepared to establish himself as a top six rugged winger this year. Their top line of Atkinson/Dubois/Panarin absolutely owned us and had the defense backing up all night. The two best players on the ice all night, who we had zero answer for were Panarin and Anderson. Both were brilliant. And Werenski set up at the top of the blueline and waited for passes back to him from his mates pretty much uncontested all night. The fact that this was even a game says lots for the play of Howard. The silver linings: The kid defense may have been a bit in awe over playing against real NHL players in a regular season game but that will work itself out. And in spite of being outshot 2-1 the Jackets took a ton of long range low percentage shots because the kids did a tremendous job of boxing them out.They will get better and in my mind they were very good. The dark cloud Again Blashill under utilized the younger forwards, Ehn only played 9 minutes, he was caught flat footed on the Jackets first goal as he stood there guarding his area with passes all around him not taking a man and Dubois from behind the net found Atkinson out front who buried a perfect shot. Ehn should have moved over instead of literally standing still and bumped Atkinson who is a little guy and doesn't like to play in crowds but he didn't and that was that. I truly put that goal on him. After that though he settled in and the 4th line actually moved the puck up ice a few times and had a few chances. Bertuzzi scored a PPG to tie the game at 2-2 but his total ice time was 11 minutes which is lower than it should have been. Rasmussen barely cracked 12. Now part of that was the ridiculous amount of penalties we had, neither kid penalties and their line was forced to watch for ten minutes of power play time throughout the game as Helm/Glendening were on the ice for six minutes of P/K time each but still, they managed only 14 shifts each while most of the forwards had 22-25. The other forgotten man was Mantha who started on a line with Larkin/Nyquist who were both brilliant but while they managed 25 shifts each Mantha had 14 minutes of ice time and 19 shifts. This looked like more of the same from Blashill as for several years he has bounced Mantha around screwing with his ice time. Mantha has shown he needs 18 minutes on ice a night to get the most out of him. So thrilled with the kid pack on defense, thrilled with Jensen being a healthy scratch, thrilled with the play of Larkin and Nyquist but we have to start carrying the puck and applying pressure to the other team. We stole a point last night.

Yeah I have watched enough of the banner raising ceremonies to know the raisy usually loses. Someone forgot to tell the Caps apparently lol.

@SpikeDDS I had three preseason games still recorded two of which Ehn appeared in. Because I had considered him a longshot at best to make the team I hadn't paid much attention to him but I rewatched both games specifically fast forwarding to his shifts to see what the Wings saw that made him beat out Turgeon and Givani smith for the final forward spot. He won nearly 70 percent of his faceoffs when he was in the midde playing mostly in the defensive zone and cleared the puck nicely, transitioning to offense from the fourth line which would be a breath of fresh air. He seems to be a pass first, shoot only if the passing lanes are clogged which is fine, he and Glendening seem to have an affinity when Ehn plays the wing. So a fourth liner who plays well with Glendening who is responsible in his own zone who likes to carry the puck and attack offensively. He is a big boy, I had to peek but he is six foot three but a bit thin, I read the reports on him, he is a Jiri fischer find and Fischer simply goes on and on about how Ehn will eventually develop his offense to go with his solid defensive game. So if Glendening is playing the Draper part Ehn will be playing the Maltby part. Maltby might even be a great comparison.

What sucks is the idiot can play a bit, either wing on any of the four lines in pretty much every role, he is not a star and never will be but he is very serviceable and his game is good enough to keep him in the league for a long time without this nonsense. I like hitting as much as the next guy and more than most but this stuff has no place in the game. Like I posted somewhere he is the new Raffi Torres, a guy who can play but has a brain the size of a pea apparently.

Saw today that the Canadiens traded sorta prospect William Bitten to the Wild for sorta NHL defenseman Gustav Olofsson. I took a look at the Canadien defense to see where he slots in and shook my head and covered my face, lol. Shea Weber used to be my favorite non Wing, now he cannot stay on the ice and his skill is slipping. badly. Jeff Petry is a very fine number three forced to play as a one. Waaayyyy out of his weight class. Mike Reilly was picked up off the scrap heap after failing in Minny. Ofofsson, same thing. Neither are much more than a 7D filler. Jordie Benn simply cannot play. Oullet was given numberous shots with one of the games worst defenses in Detroit and couldn't crack the roster. Mete is an undersized stay at home defenseman who gets pushed all over the ice and plays because someone has to. Alzner was a poor signing last year who signed for too much for too long out of desperation. Another stay at home guy who was supposed to be good and isn't. Juulsen is a real prospect kinda, at least he has speed but is very raw, in 54 games between the NHL and the A last year he only managed 2 goals and 9 points and was never a scorer in the WHL. Schlemko is a Coyote reject who was meh at best last year and is hurt this year. Probably strained his neck watching forwards fly past him. For years I have watched the Wings defense atrophy and get worse and worse since the Lidstrom retirement, for the past two they are arguably the worst in the game but this, oh my God this is among the worst I have ever seen. no skill, no shut down guys, God love Petry he is still out there trying and Juulsen is a C rated prospect who they hope develops in to a 2nd pair guy but probably wont, it is just an awful mess. I would feel sorry for Carey Price if he didn't appear to be such a jerk in every interview. Maybe they could trade Weber to Nashville for Subban, and Drouin to the Lightning for Sergachev. Oh wait.

First all star deal of the year, to everyones shock and amazement it is between the Foil and Rux. Rux gets: Hellboy Brown Koivu Foil gets Seguin Keller Domi I almost took Seguin over Hellboy at 7 and I have been debating on the merits of it ever since, I felt my offense came up a bit short and needed a boost. Keller and Domi both are multi position qualified which is what I shoot for with my depth guys, Koivu still gets faceoffs but his offense is down and Brown had a career year and is out with a broken finger indefinitely. I got the b 12 shot to my offense, Rux got the guy who in my opinion should have won the Vezina last year.

You had a great draft, it is just that 20 picks between picks that absolutely gets frustrating. I always hold my breath and hope I wind up in the middle. Last year I was 5th, this year 7th, I think the year before I was second and got Crosby and traded him right out of the gate to fill holes from a lousy draft which is an advantage of drafting high I guess.

I would beg to differ that it could be a center league, just the right ones, you need ones who do more than score, Seguin is an absolute animal in this league with his 300 plus shots and 800 faceoffs. I try to avoid hollow scorers in this league, guys who score 60 points but contribute nothing else. All three of your big boys and even Staal bring more to the table. You are absolutely stacked down the middle.

@SpikeDDS Like you Ehn was not on my radar, I wasn't even particularly enamored with him in the five preseason games that I watched. I think he played in three of them and was decent but it is eyebrow raising. As the 12th forward playing seven minutes a night, sure, why not, we are better served with a kid who hustles like him and letting Zadina play 18 minutes a game at GR. Zadina hustled at both ends of the ice but looked raw, he wont be down long and when he comes up it will be for good. As for Rasmussen, great move, we can keep him for 9 games and if he looks lost or not ready return him to juniors for a final year. I think he will stick, I love his big body in front of the net play. WOW Cholowski was the best player in camp, not just the best defenseman but the best player (actually either he or AA) he was slated to start the year at GR but between Green going down and his overall play he forced his way onto the team. He was taken with one of the picks we got from the Coyotes in the Datsyuk salary dump (the other was Hronek) in which Arizona moved up and selected Chychrun. Cholo looks like the real deal quality puck mover from the back end that we need.