Wings vs. Stars

[WingNut722]

AA does it again!.. And again!!  This kid is amazing, and Howard played extremely, up to the level he had been before his decline.  What an excellent way to get some confidence back in him, particularly with Mrazek out for a bit.

 

I gotta say, that was as fast a game as I have ever seen!  These guys were FLYING out there the whole time.  It looks like Dallas dictated the pace for most of it, but the Wings didn't have a lot of trouble keeping up

 

Regarding Colton Sceviour's goal i the second,  I amy be baised as a Wings fan, but it sure looked to me like a kicking motion.  In watching the DRW feed for this game, Darren Eliot, made a point that if Sceviour's movement weren't a distinct kicking motion, then he's not sure what is, particularly on skates.  I'm a little inclued to agree with him.

 

Nevertheless, though, the Wings came a way with two HUGE points and get a day of rest before meeting the Hawks in a home-and-home.  Looking forward to these two games but the Wings need to ride this hot streak to at least three points, (although if they got two I wouldn't be disappointed).  Still, the Lighting are one a hot streak, and the Wings surely need to keep up.  Boston can go hot and cold, and I hate to see another regular season come down to the final game waiting on whether another team loses to decide if the Wings enter the postseason.

[yave1964]

6 hours ago, WingNut722 said:

AA does it again!.. And again!!  This kid is amazing, and Howard played extremely, up to the level he had been before his decline.  What an excellent way to get some confidence back in him, particularly with Mrazek out for a bit.

 

I gotta say, that was as fast a game as I have ever seen!  These guys were FLYING out there the whole time.  It looks like Dallas dictated the pace for most of it, but the Wings didn't have a lot of trouble keeping up

 

Regarding Colton Sceviour's goal i the second,  I amy be baised as a Wings fan, but it sure looked to me like a kicking motion.  In watching the DRW feed for this game, Darren Eliot, made a point that if Sceviour's movement weren't a distinct kicking motion, then he's not sure what is, particularly on skates.  I'm a little inclued to agree with him.

 

Nevertheless, though, the Wings came a way with two HUGE points and get a day of rest before meeting the Hawks in a home-and-home.  Looking forward to these two games but the Wings need to ride this hot streak to at least three points, (although if they got two I wouldn't be disappointed).  Still, the Lighting are one a hot streak, and the Wings surely need to keep up.  Boston can go hot and cold, and I hate to see another regular season come down to the final game waiting on whether another team loses to decide if the Wings enter the postseason.

I thought that with the more passive rules in regards to a kicking motion that it was a good goal by Scevior. Last year? Meh, probably being waved off, but this season they are trying to get scoring up and that kind of goal where it is not overtly blatant is going to be allowed almost every time. It is all good, it worked out for the best.

  Howard two straight good games, his first win since early December. Wow. Right now we need points any way they can come, Howard may have gotten a big boost of confidence with the Ranger game that carried over to this one.

  AA, wow his speed is something else, his legs are just ridiculous long. Almost as long as his eyebrows. What the hell are up with those? Maybe someone should tell him he will be more aerodynamic if he gets them trimmed......

  We beat the Avalanche and the Stars back to back, if we take out the revamped BlackHawks Wednesday it would be three of the best of the West back to back to back, setting the tone for the final turn.

  Looking at the standings, wow four teams within four points. Wide open, it would be nice to not only make the playoffs but to win the division to get home ice for two straight rounds. At this point anything can happen.

 

[SpikeDDS]

@WingNut722 @yave1964

 

Im unfortunately with yave on the kick. It really wasn't a distinct kicking motion. It was more like a skate redirect. I know that sounds like playing with words, but I'm a soccer coach, and to my eyes, that really wasn't a "distinct kicking motion." It certainly WAS intentional use of a skate to redirect the puck into the goal, but that is legal, as players do that as they stop while changing the angle of their skate all the time. This was admittedly a little more than that, but not enough to call it a distinct kicking motion, IMHO.

 

To say AA is raising some eyebrows is an understatement! I'll just leave that right there.

 

Seriously, I actually thought that AA had every bit as good a camp as Larkin did, but the media frenzy was all about Larkin. Not that Larkin didn't deserve the attention. He did. But it stole the spotlight from AA's performance. I remember posting about the significant snub of AA as the season started. I was very impressed with him this preseason. I thought he was the story no one was talking about. No one is ignoring him now.

 

Now as far as the speed goes, let's be honest: Jimmy Howard stole this game. Though I thought we kinda kept up with Dallas on the offensive side. Defensively speaking, we got lucky, because Dallas had many really good looks and chances which were generated by their speed. I was very impressed with their quick passing. They made several very quick passes at full speed. It really reminded me of how far we, as a team, need to come yet, particularly on the PP.

 

What we generate from our speed has usually been individual opportunities. Larkin using his speed to go after a puck behind the D to generate a chance. AA grabbing a puck and dekeing out a Dman I.e. Odouya to score. (That sure was pretty!) But I am starting to see Larkin and AA working together to put some things together, which is encouraging, but Dallas reminded me of the offensive level I hope the I am beginning to see. I should mention Pav too. Not that he is as fast as these two, but his mind is.

 

This kind of quick thinking along with speedy movement off the puck is the answer to our PP woes. But AA can't help much on the PP if he is sitting down. It boggles me a bit that even though Blashill has shown that he is willing to mix up the lines to find the right combos on our regular lines, he hasn't done it much on the PP--the most glaringly deficient part of our game! It's high time we gave these kids serious opportunity to see what they can accomplish on the PP.

 

The bottom line is this: The more we make opponents have to choose which line or which player to defend as the greater of two evils, the better we are as a team. The addition of AA gives us enough threat in enough, players where we now have multiple threats on multiple lines creating conundrums for opposing defenses.

 

Now, if we can just get Tats and Nyke going again...whew! We'd honestly look like Dallas offensively.