Blash

Henkka

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
31,077
12,077
Tampere, Finland
12th (with Datsyuk)
15th (with Datsyuk)
25th (without Datsyuk)
26th (without Datsyuk and sinking with regressed Kronwall and Zetterberg)

Don't really see how the team has floated around 20th.

Edited a bit.... nothing personal. ;)

Quite easily you can see a Datsyuk-effect.

Even with Scotty Bowman we would have seen the same regression.
 

ricky0034

Registered User
Jun 8, 2010
14,862
6,941
Don't get too caught up in points. I know, I know - It's how the NHL does scoring. It's total fools gold though. The hallmark of the good teams is found in ROW. If you can get points by winning games in regulation or OT, you're playing good hockey. And Vegas has 15 ROW. Of the 25 games Vegas has played, they've walked away with a true win 15 times (60%). Top in the league is Tampa with 17 ROW (65%).

Detroit is sitting at 8 ROW in 27 games (30%). There are literally only 2 teams with less - Arizona and Buffalo (6 ROW).

Detroit is playing bad hockey and scraping by with loser points to make them appear clumped near the middle. They aren't. They are, yet again, a bottom team. And after this shelling tonight, they sit at the 3rd worst goal differential in the league. Surprise, only Arizona and Buffalo are worse.

i'd agree if we were talking about a stat that only tracked regulation wins here

ROW is becoming an increasingly useless stat though,now we have regulation wins lumped in with wins from a freaking 3 on 3

might as well just include shootouts too in it at this point
 
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lomekian

Registered User
Oct 28, 2013
1,871
891
London
Obviously KH has made errors in recent years...FA signings, lack of proactive trades bar the ones that sent Jarnkrok and Janmark away ( Though Legwand going from low level 1st line centre enjoying his 2nd best season to borderline 4th liner in a month was surprise, as was the otherwise impressive Erik Cole picking up a freak spinal injury), overpaying for our UFAs rather than exploring trades.

But at least his actions at present make sense. If he trades youth for experience or doesn't trade away UFAs this season, it would be unforgiveable...but over the last 12 months I support every active decision he's made (though like most I would have traded away more pieces & for sure some Euro UFAs would have been worth exploring). So even if he's being as conservative as ever, at least its trending in the right direction after a couple of rough years in a row.

Blash though...every time it looks like the team are starting to flourish, it takes one poor loss and he's throwing out increasingly random lines and pushing for even more hail mary desperation passing. I thought the end of last year and the start of this, he might be getting his message through and creating something cohesive, particularly when he started saying he was happy with his lines and would let them run.

Since then...chaos. He gives the impression of someone flailing in the wind in desperation. He needs to work out what he wants to do and let it settle and live or die by it.

I'm not going to suggest any insight about the dressing room. None of us know. No team looks happy when the the stool samples hit the fan with increasing regularity. But I do know that its gone back to being almost impossible to work out what Blash is even attempting to do right now.

In terms of talent and know-how, I rank us about 2oth in the NHL looking at the roster. In terms of clarity of coaching, I'd say we're nearer the bottom, because as soon as we have a couple of bad results the team looks confused and lost.
 
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lomekian

Registered User
Oct 28, 2013
1,871
891
London
Edited a bit.... nothing personal. ;)

Quite easily you can see a Datsyuk-effect.

Even with Scotty Bowman we would have seen the same regression.

Depends on how much you believe Bowman had an influence on roster shaping....and also Bowman had one massive advantage over Blash...he was brilliant at knowing which buttons to press with which players to get a reaction. That and with Scotty, the minute a veteran player starting slacking, they'd know about it.
 

Rzombo4 prez

Registered User
May 17, 2012
5,975
2,695
His time has run out in Detroit. I hope at some point Blashill gets another opportunity, I still believe he can be a good coach at this level. It will not be with this team though, I think we need a change unless the plan is firmly to tank which I would support at this point. But you can't have them not showing up for games at all, if they have tuned Blash out, he has to go and it is as simple as that.

I expect that this will prove to be a correct assessment, but I don't, however, expect to see Kenny rush to that judgment. Kenny rightfully sees five periods of bad hockey, not seven games of bad hockey. If we come out super flat tonight and Saturday I think there is no question that he has lost the room for good and needs to go on those grounds alone.
 

Bench

3 is a good start
Aug 14, 2011
21,200
14,889
crease
12th
15th
25th
26th (and sinking)

Don't really see how the team has floated around 20th.

For starters, if you average those positions it's exactly 19.5. How about that? But OK, averages are lame, I guess.

Since Lidstrom retired (at the end of the 2012 season), the Wings rank 23th in goal scoring over nearly 400 regular season games. Only Arizona, Colorado, Edmonton, Florida, Carolina, Vancouver, New Jersey, and Buffalo fall below.

The Wings are 21st in Regulation Overtime Wins (ROW) since the Lidstrom retirement.

They barely scraped into the playoffs a few times, got soundly beat in the 1st round, and now they are going to miss the playoffs the 2nd straight year. Dude, what more evidence do you need this team has been floating closer to the bottom 3rd than the top 3rd for the last 5 seasons?

Simply pointing to the standings isn't a very compelling argument when every other piece of trackable information we have shows this roster is underperforming and has for a significant amount of time.
 

Red Stanley

Registered User
Apr 25, 2015
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5 periods? It's been 5 years since the team has looked like it could sniff any success. I've posted the stats a billion times, but over that span the franchise is bottom 10 in nearly every category. I can't believe management, with tools to way more than NHL.com stats, isn't taking a hard look at that and wanting to CHANGE SOMETHING.

Holland seems totally content his team that has floated around the 20th place mark for years now. It's staggering indifference to complete mediocrity.

The lack of fire and frustration over these poor results is the part I hate the most about this management. Making a contender takes some luck and doesn't always work out. I've seen teams do everything right and still come up short. But holy hell, at least pretend your failure is unacceptable and you're working on it.

Did you actually watch the interview, or is this moral outrage based on someone else quoting something out of context?
 
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Bench

3 is a good start
Aug 14, 2011
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Did you actually watch the interview, or is this moral outrage based on someone else quoting something out of context?

Moral outrage? Let's dial it down. More like entertainment related frustration. The same frustration one might face when your favorite TV show jumps the shark but you keep tuning in hoping to hell the showrunners can string together a decent season despite the fact it hasn't been that good in years.

And Holland has been complacent in his responses for years. Anything can happen. We like our team. And so on and so forth. He hasn't ever talked like the current state of affairs is unacceptable and he's going to make wholesale changes. Instead it's a steady stream of platitudes about staying the course and kicking tires.
 

theYman

Registered User
Feb 28, 2008
21,188
1,689
Last year 13-12-3 28 games
This year 11-12-5 28 games

So we're a little worse than last year actually while the PP and PK are clicking. Why can't we score 5 on 5 like we were last year it seems? Because the PP was a comlplete dumpster fire last year. If we could we could go on some winning streaks.
 
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Red Stanley

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Apr 25, 2015
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Moral outrage? Let's dial it down. More like entertainment related frustration. The same frustration one might face when your favorite TV show jumps the shark but you keep tuning in hoping to hell the showrunners can string together a decent season despite the fact it hasn't been that good in years.

And Holland has been complacent in his responses for years. Anything can happen. We like our team. And so on and so forth. He hasn't ever talked like the current state of affairs is unacceptable and he's going to make wholesale changes. Instead it's a steady stream of platitudes about staying the course and kicking tires.

So you didn't actually watch the interview, because none of the things that frustrated you about it happened. It was direct answers to direct questions. The only time he rambled on a bit was when asked about Blashill, which to me showed he was trying really hard not to throw him under the bus and, funnily, it ended up being the only concretely positive bit about the whole interview. The quote that led to your entertainment-related frustration was made out of context.
 

Pavels Dog

Registered User
Feb 18, 2013
19,735
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For starters, if you average those positions it's exactly 19.5. How about that? But OK, averages are lame, I guess.

Since Lidstrom retired (at the end of the 2012 season), the Wings rank 23th in goal scoring over nearly 400 regular season games. Only Arizona, Colorado, Edmonton, Florida, Carolina, Vancouver, New Jersey, and Buffalo fall below.

The Wings are 21st in Regulation Overtime Wins (ROW) since the Lidstrom retirement.

They barely scraped into the playoffs a few times, got soundly beat in the 1st round, and now they are going to miss the playoffs the 2nd straight year. Dude, what more evidence do you need this team has been floating closer to the bottom 3rd than the top 3rd for the last 5 seasons?

Simply pointing to the standings isn't a very compelling argument when every other piece of trackable information we have shows this roster is underperforming and has for a significant amount of time.
All averages, which are definitely lame.

In 14/15:

10th in Goals For
13th in ROW

Was in a playoff position all season and narrowly lost a 7-game series, hardly getting "soundly beat".

We've been on a mostly downward trend for about 7-8 years, doesn't mean we haven't had some good seasons. Of course the averages will look worse and worse as the team hits the bottom 5 in the standings. But what are we gonna do? If we finish bottom 5 again it still doesn't mean we're floating around 20th.
 

DetroitRed

Crashes the Crease
Apr 7, 2013
2,871
951
Detroit
I think we've seen Blashill develop right alongside some of his players. I think he's better than he was when he first came to Detroit.

Remembering that, since they sold at the deadline last season, he now doesn't have much to work with in terms of talent, or not as much, I don't really blame him for where the team is at now. In fact, I think the Wings are ahead of where most predictions placed them. I don't see how you justify arguments against him until the inverse becomes true.

I've seen a lot of unorthodox methods for coaching hockey teams, and some times those methods have been frustratingly confusing, but a lot of times I've also seen guys with different approaches get a hockey team to work despite causing frustration and confusion. So, I don't care about method so much as performance.

This was a team that was supposed to look like crap and have their heads down all season. We haven't seen that. At worst, I think you can say they've lacked consistency but have still performed slightly better than expected. Coaching does factor into that.

Remember that they've even missed some significant pieces (like Dekeyser and Athansiou) through relatively large portions of the season so far. I'm not saying those guys are going to be Hall of Famers, but they are significant pieces for this Wings team right now. This is a Wings team which, by all rights, shouldn't be able to lose anything in terms of depth and still be capable of achieving anything remotely approaching success. Yet, although they've been streaky, they've toughed it out pretty well. They're even getting contributions from veterans, who speculation and rumor suggest, aren't supposed to like playing for Blashill. So, I don't see justification.

They could bring aboard the winning-est coach in hockey history right now if they could get him drunk enough, but I doubt you'd see much of difference in the standings at this phase of rebuilding.
 

Bench

3 is a good start
Aug 14, 2011
21,200
14,889
crease
All averages, which are definitely lame.

In 14/15:

10th in Goals For
13th in ROW

Was in a playoff position all season and narrowly lost a 7-game series, hardly getting "soundly beat".

We've been on a mostly downward trend for about 7-8 years, doesn't mean we haven't had some good seasons. Of course the averages will look worse and worse as the team hits the bottom 5 in the standings. But what are we gonna do? If we finish bottom 5 again it still doesn't mean we're floating around 20th.

This is a wonderful exercise in hair splitting, but I don't know why you're pushing so hard against the fact this team has been painfully average to below average.

You point out one year they were a middle of the pack roster. I'm using numbers that exist outside of my opinion to show that, over an extended period of time (400+ games) this roster struggles to score, struggles to get wins, etc. That's it. I keep pointing it out because I feel like the playoff streak has obscured how blah this roster has been since Lidstrom left. Full stop. That's it. The numbers bear it out and it's only getting worse.
 

Pavels Dog

Registered User
Feb 18, 2013
19,735
14,704
Sweden
This is a wonderful exercise in hair splitting, but I don't know why you're pushing so hard against the fact this team has been painfully average to below average.

You point out one year they were a middle of the pack roster. I'm using numbers that exist outside of my opinion to show that, over an extended period of time (400+ games) this roster struggles to score, struggles to get wins, etc. That's it. I keep pointing it out because I feel like the playoff streak has obscured how blah this roster has been since Lidstrom left. Full stop. That's it. The numbers bear it out and it's only getting worse.
It's because I don't see ~top 10 and ~bottom 5 as average positions in the standings. We clearly just look at team performance differently. If we finish bottom 5 one year and top 5 the next, I'm not going to say we've been average for two seasons. In that case we had one awful year and one great. An overall downward trajectory does not change the fact that there was good performances during those years as well. And those good performances don't make bottom5 finishes into "average", we flat out sucked last year and look on track to be the same this year. I don't find a bottom 5 team painfully average, they're just painful.
 

jkutswings

hot piss hockey
Jul 10, 2014
10,842
8,560
But the point is that significant team decline isn't a phenomenon that just started 1-2 years ago. Since Nick retired, the good run against Anaheim and Chicago was the exception to the trend. So Holland now saying that missing the playoffs for one year isn't a thing to make major changes over, actually glosses over all the other strong indicators that this team has been sinking for quite awhile.

If you like, throw out one example at each end of the bell curve; disregard last year, as well as the playoff run. What's left is a handful of seasons with a bubble team that's clearly outmatched in the first round, yet still is clinging to a playoff participation trophy, rather than playing the kids instead of yet another veteran depth signing.
 
Last edited:
Jul 30, 2005
17,659
4,588
I mean, what is location, really
Let's keep him. The tank is on!

But I suppose this is sort of complex. If Holland doesn't think he's coming back, he doesn't want to hire another coach. They'll just go interim, and then the next GM can hire whatever new coach he wants. And if Holland doesn't think this team is improving much, then what would be the point? Save the money, keep Blash, and move on next year.

I wonder what Chris Ilitch is thinking, too. Is he pushing Holland to fire Blashill while the Wings can still theoretically go on a crazy tear and make the playoffs? Or is he being reasonable about the Wings' chances this year?
 

Goalie guy

Registered User
Jul 8, 2011
3,063
444
Taylor MI
Let's keep him. The tank is on!

But I suppose this is sort of complex. If Holland doesn't think he's coming back, he doesn't want to hire another coach. They'll just go interim, and then the next GM can hire whatever new coach he wants. And if Holland doesn't think this team is improving much, then what would be the point? Save the money, keep Blash, and move on next year.

I wonder what Chris Ilitch is thinking, too. Is he pushing Holland to fire Blashill while the Wings can still theoretically go on a crazy tear and make the playoffs? Or is he being reasonable about the Wings' chances this year?
I don't think the pizza kids give a shit about the team, they only care about the money coming in.
 

Goalie guy

Registered User
Jul 8, 2011
3,063
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Taylor MI
If Ken Holland does not fire Blashill, then it is apparently clear he is embracing a rebuild. Who here wants to embrace it with him?
I say Holland will not fire him till the off season and use him as the reason the team was bad and not the fact that he him self screwed the team up years ago.
 

TheMule93

On a mule rides the swindler
May 26, 2015
12,466
6,512
Ontario
Again, if this really is Holland's last year and he knows it, Blashill's future will be decided by the next GM.
 

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