Neat Wins, But...

[SpikeDDS]

Really good that the Wings have made two comebacks the last two games to squeeze out 4 points.

 

BUT, they really only played 3 1/2 good periods out of 6. Both Howard and Bernier bailed them out with superb performances. No way we can continue to play half-games and still expect to win games consistently.

 

having said that, when the time has come, the guys we need to respond have responded. Larkin, AA, and Mantha. This is good news, but the team needs to realize that getting outshot like that have will not lead to victory more times than not.

[Hockey-78]

I sense some positive correlation between the Wings winning and T. Vanek being out of the lineup...

[yave1964]

You cannot maintain for the long term continued success when you are 

a) being outshot by double digits every night and

b) having to come back from multiple goals down in the third every night as the Wings did three times last week.

 

  Fun hockey, lots of action, the Canes announcer explained the Wings better than anyone I have heard all year, they are a poor team when pressured but they do a fantastic job of creating two on ones and taking advantage of the other teams mistakes.

 

  AA coming back has been HUGE, he seems to have decided to be a top six forward, stepping into the Tatar role and actually outperforming what Tats did over the last two years. Howard has been insanely good. Green coming pack along with Dekeyser has stabilized (sort of) our back end.

 

 But by far, the biggest difference this year is Larkin who is getting absolutely zero national press, he has added power to his game without a drop of sacrifice to his game changing speed, he is an All Star, a true star in the game and nobody outside of Detroit seems to have noticed. His game which was good before is simply outstanding now, both ends of the ice. The only quibble I have and I noticed it twice on the power play against Carolina is he seems frustrated with his mates and tries to do too much but that is part of the learning curve as well. He is absolutely a star, he and Horvat in Vancouver have broken out as two of the games best and Horvat playing in Canada is getting the pub, well deserved, but Larkin gets zero ink. I just dont understand it.

[Hockey-78]

I agree, Larkin is a special player.

 

Yeah, Howard is kind of an enigma. I thought that the general audience had already written him off. He's having a nice resurrection.

 

 

[SpikeDDS]

19 hours ago, Hockey-78 said:

I agree, Larkin is a special player.

 

Yeah, Howard is kind of an enigma. I thought that the general audience had already written him off. He's having a nice resurrection.

 

 

This resurrection has been more than just this season. It’s been roughly the last 2 1/2 seasons. It wasn’t too long ago that many of us—myself included—were saying Mrazek was the future for goaltending in Detroit. We were very wrong.

 

Howard will not be the future, unfortunately. He is the guy who is going to keep us in things while our youth discover their roles and potentials. It’s going to take longer than Howard has left to get us back to prominence. 

 

I’m not making less of him when I say that. It is a LOT tougher to gain confidence in your own game if you have no wins to show for it. Our young and near-future leadership need both Howard and Bernier to play like they have lately to keep mistakes from costing us every time we make them. When mistakes cost you most times you make them, this game can become drudgery.

 

In short, there is a BIG difference between Larkin scoring a goal that makes a game 3-2 in the 3rd rather than 5-1 in the 3rd. Howard has been what makes the former possible. He is doing his job very well. 

[SpikeDDS]

@yave1964

 

I wonder how much of it has to do with the fact his game is two-way. The great two-way player reputation takes longer to develop, I think. This is ESPECIALLY true on a losing team.

 

if you are an offensive juggernaut, the SIMPLE numbers—goals, assists, points—make it easy to set you apart. You can more easily identify those players by looking at the league leaderboards.

 

The two-way game is more subtle than that. The reputation is more developed when opposing players say, “I HATE playing against that guy. He frustrates opponents.” That requires multiple voices all saying the same thing. Each team and city only has a few exposures to that player each year, and opposing fans won’t notice unless their star players recognize it and say it. It is especially helpful, though, if their team loses and Larkin is the main reason. 

 

Zetterberg is a great example. His reputation as a player on a national level ballooned once Gretzky identified him as the opposing player who was the toughest to play against. To be truthful, it wasn’t JUST Gretzky saying it, but when the Great One speaks, the hockey world listens. But it was also that the Wings were winning too. That put him more in the hockey news.

 

The same is true with any great two-way player whose game is weighed evenly on both ends of the ice. It is just as excellent as the premier goal scorer. Just tougher to recognize.

 

Players and coaches know. They’ll keep talking and people will listen eventually. Most of the press write what the players and coaches tell them, not what they, themselves, think.