Detroit Red Wings in a nutshell

[Buffalo Rick]

My take on the Detroit Red Wings who I finally got a good look at vs my Sabres is that they are a very fast team.  But they are playing with wreck less abandon.  They send 3-4 guys deep and try to skate around you and constantly turn the puck over in their own zone.  Absolutely brutal on turnovers.  We had more chances than I can count and Howard was very good. But they are not very well coached IMO.  Even though they have been a 500 club since the disastrous start.  They had best stop the turnovers.  They are going to score some goals with their speed, no doubt.  But their defense stinks

[yave1964]

7 hours ago, Hockey Junkie said:

My take on the Detroit Red Wings who I finally got a good look at vs my Sabres is that they are a very fast team.  But they are playing with wreck less abandon.  They send 3-4 guys deep and try to skate around you and constantly turn the puck over in their own zone.  Absolutely brutal on turnovers.  We had more chances than I can count and Howard was very good. But they are not very well coached IMO.  Even though they have been a 500 club since the disastrous start.  They had best stop the turnovers.  They are going to score some goals with their speed, no doubt.  But their defense stinks

Pretty fair assessment Junkie. 

 

  The big problem with the Wings is we get caught in transition way too much, our goalie is left high and dry, so far Howard and Bernier seem to always be outshot double digits every single night but somehow keep us in games. 

[Buffalo Rick]

10 hours ago, yave1964 said:

Pretty fair assessment Junkie. 

 

  The big problem with the Wings is we get caught in transition way too much, our goalie is left high and dry, so far Howard and Bernier seem to always be outshot double digits every single night but somehow keep us in games. 

The turnovers vs the Sabres were brutal.  Rob Ray made note of it and he read my mind.  I am disappointed my Sabres did not blow them out.  They had the chances to.  Howard is a good goalie.  Without him you guys would be toast

[SpikeDDS]

@Hockey Junkie

 

Certainly, our defensive mistakes, more than any other issue, will be what prevents us from contending. We have the offensive skills on hand to compete for a playoff spot. Our goalies have both played more than well enough to warrant a playoff position.

 

Our Achilles heel is and will be the learning of and commitment to playing responsibly on the defensive side of the puck while maintaining offensive pressure and skills. This will take some players longer than others to grasp. Vanek is probably not the best example for our young players in THIS regard. In fact, after Zetterberg retired, it left a void in our veteran staff for a player who is a serious offensive threat who also plays a consistently solid two-way game. Nielsen may be the closest thing we have in our forward corps, but his offensive threat is nowhere near “elite.”

 

Truthfully, the player who best emulates this is...Dylan Larkin. He is now the example to follow. The stats confirm this. No one on our team is as well-rounded at such a high level as he.

 

Green is good for Cholo though. But even Green can get caught forward at times. But on the D side, Green is about as good an example at present (Tip o’ the hat to Kronner for his past play) of a two-way D-man. Oh, Dekeyser is an example of a relatively solid defensively-minded D-man, but not nearly as much puck movement or distribution as we had hoped.

 

The only players that I might say are elite two-way players are Larkin, Green, and maybe AA. There are solid guys like Nielsen, and guys like Nyke and Vanek who are better on the offensive side with some defensive deficiencies, but the very young will have to look more to the young for examples of two-way play than to the true vets.