If the season started today

[Bench]

Well, that's the problem of the f***ing forwards and defensemen then. It's not the goalie's fault that they have the mental fortitude of Walmart lawn furniture. That shows me that you've got a team of low character pieces of trash rather than it being an indictment on the goalie. Like I can understand dejection from giving up a bad goal... but at some point... you're a damn professional yourself. I saw a bunch of "defensemen" who left Bernier and Howard to their own devices. Bernier would make FANTASTIC saves to keep his stats a bit better and Howard wouldn't make those ones. Just like how you remember what you do... I remember a bunch of times seeing Bernier out there balling out in a game which they'd end up losing 3-1.

Howard was definitely bad... but Howard wasn't uniquely bad last year. Eric Comrie and Calvin Pickard got games and put up the same stats. Look at the stats and Braden Holtby's GSAA was -16 something. Not as bad as Jimmy's abysmal goaltending... but that's a guy that a team happily tossed several years and 4 million plus at.

The primary difference isn't the "give up" factor. I agree with you there. Although weak goals do deflate a team mighty fast.

The primary difference will be seen in how aggressively the team thinks they can play in front of their goalie. If you feel every odd man rush is going into the back of the net, your penchant for pinching up on a play or making a more aggressive forecheck becomes diminished.

And as a result, you're playing more reactionary, conservative hockey than controlling the tempo with your attack. I mean, not that the Wings could even do that if they wanted, but you know there are moments guys wanted to pinch from the blueline but thought better of it because they've been burned so bad before.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

The primary difference isn't the "give up" factor. I agree with you there. Although weak goals do deflate a team mighty fast.

The primary difference will be seen in how aggressively the team thinks they can play in front of their goalie. If you feel every odd man rush is going into the back of the net, your penchant for pinching up on a play or making a more aggressive forecheck becomes diminished.

And as a result, you're playing more reactionary, conservative hockey than controlling the tempo with your attack. I mean, not that the Wings could even do that if they wanted, but you know there are moments guys wanted to pinch from the blueline but thought better of it because they've been burned so bad before.

Yes. You're right. I guess I'm just jaded from my beer league experiences. I just give the goalie the benefit of the doubt when the forwards and D clearly are lacking because I've faced that experience. If your team is outgunned at both levels in front of you and you know they couldn't score in a brothel, you as a goalie start playing tighter too. When you think you have to be perfect to have any chance of a win or a tie, it's really easy to flop.

At the end, it's partly both of them. Greiss and Bernier may give them a feeling they can trust the back end. And Bernier/Greiss have to be able to trust their team can score.

 

[Gniwder]

Yeah, I said "Ideally" traded.

Please don't remind me of Flip "playing" 2C... I watched every game.

He was a pretty solid 3C for the Isles before signing this contract. 2C is just above his game.

"Ideally" we get McDavid for free, lol.

 

[ricky0034]

The primary difference isn't the "give up" factor. I agree with you there. Although weak goals do deflate a team mighty fast.

The primary difference will be seen in how aggressively the team thinks they can play in front of their goalie. If you feel every odd man rush is going into the back of the net, your penchant for pinching up on a play or making a more aggressive forecheck becomes diminished.

And as a result, you're playing more reactionary, conservative hockey than controlling the tempo with your attack. I mean, not that the Wings could even do that if they wanted, but you know there are moments guys wanted to pinch from the blueline but thought better of it because they've been burned so bad before.

that sounds like the kind of thing that's at least partly on the Coach to counter to me

or should be anyways,if the Wings actually had a real Coach

 

[kliq]

Dude.
If you think Greiss is as good as Bernier, all you have to do is extend Bernier's points/per game average to get an idea of how much better we should expect to be, at a minimum.

Howard won 2 games and got two loser points. out of 27 starts.
How many do you think Greiss can get?

If Greiss gets the same lack of support that Howard did (in terms of goals for), which from the post above was 1.7 GPG, I don’t think Greiss alone gets us 15 more.

Now if we also can increase our GPG, then I think in combination with Greiss we could do it.

My point is that him alone won’t get that many.

 

[Winger98]

The primary difference isn't the "give up" factor. I agree with you there. Although weak goals do deflate a team mighty fast.

The primary difference will be seen in how aggressively the team thinks they can play in front of their goalie. If you feel every odd man rush is going into the back of the net, your penchant for pinching up on a play or making a more aggressive forecheck becomes diminished.

And as a result, you're playing more reactionary, conservative hockey than controlling the tempo with your attack. I mean, not that the Wings could even do that if they wanted, but you know there are moments guys wanted to pinch from the blueline but thought better of it because they've been burned so bad before.

Especially when it happens game after game after game... . After awhile you begin dreading going out there with that guy, and the moment he screws up...well, there it goes. Another long night in front of the human sieve.

It's not like Howard would string together some solid starts and then implode, his season was more like the inner workings of the sun, a long seemingly neverending series of fusion reactions, where suck slammed into suck releasing vast quantities of hot, glowing radioactive suck across the rink.

 

[Ghost of Ethan Hunt]

FFWD 1 season
Finally some light at the end of a now 5 year dark tunnel...

'21-'22
*=TBD/interchangeable

Raymond-Larkin-Mantha
Bertuzzi-*Fabbri-Zadina
*Rasmussen-*Veleno-Berggren
Svechnikov-Pearson-Brome?
Timashov
Nielsen
---------
Turgeon
Smith
Hirose?


DeKeyser-Hronek
McIsaac-Seider
Stecher-Lindstrom
Johansson?

Greiss
Bernier?

 

[GreatGordie9]

FFWD 1 season
Finally some light at the end of a now 5 year dark tunnel...

'21-'22
*=TBD/interchangeable

Raymond-Larkin-Mantha
Bertuzzi-*Fabbri-Zadina
*Rasmussen-*Veleno-Berggren
Svechnikov-Pearson-Brome?
Timashov
Nielsen
---------
Turgeon
Smith
Hirose?


DeKeyser-Hronek
McIsaac-Seider
Stecher-Lindstrom
Johansson?

Greiss
Bernier?

The fourth line players may not be a part of the Wings starting roster. McIsaac may not be ready for the NHL. Ryan if he does really well could get signed for another year and Merrill also could get extended. Nemeth might get extended for one more year. I am hoping Cholowski can crack the line up. I also cannot see Turgeon in the NHL.

 

[GreatGordie9]

that sounds like the kind of thing that's at least partly on the Coach to counter to me

or should be anyways,if the Wings actually had a real Coach

Blash will be on a short leash and if he fails bring in Gallant.

 

[Ricelund]

FFWD 1 season
Finally some light at the end of a now 5 year dark tunnel...

'21-'22
*=TBD/interchangeable

Raymond-Larkin-Mantha
Bertuzzi-*Fabbri-Zadina
*Rasmussen-*Veleno-Berggren
Svechnikov-Pearson-Brome?
Timashov
Nielsen
---------
Turgeon
Smith
Hirose?


DeKeyser-Hronek
McIsaac-Seider
Stecher-Lindstrom
Johansson?

Greiss
Bernier?

FAs of interest next year:

- Saad (28)
- Hamilton (28)
- Tatar (30)
- Murray (28)
- Larsson (28)

 

[lilidk]

FFWD 1 season
Finally some light at the end of a now 5 year dark tunnel...

'21-'22
*=TBD/interchangeable

Raymond-Larkin-Mantha
Bertuzzi-*Fabbri-Zadina
*Rasmussen-*Veleno-Berggren
Svechnikov-Pearson-Brome?
Timashov
Nielsen
---------
Turgeon
Smith
Hirose?


DeKeyser-Hronek
McIsaac-Seider
Stecher-Lindstrom
Johansson?

Greiss
Bernier?

Switch Bergreen and Rasmussen
Brome and Svechnikov

 

[Bench]

that sounds like the kind of thing that's at least partly on the Coach to counter to me

or should be anyways,if the Wings actually had a real Coach

The coach can draw up the perfect system all day, but if the guys don't have the skill to win 1 on 1 battles with the opponent (be it speed, strength, puck skills), you're still going to struggle.

Hockey moves so rapidly, there's a lot of 50/50 decisions taking place each shift. Take the extra step forward and cut off the pass? Or retreat backwards and shell up? Both could be correct, but your execution will vary depending on the player.

On a psychological level, I feel like people will retreat on those judgement calls more if they don't have confidence in the goalie behind them. And no amount of coaching, other than "always push forward" will change that.

 

[Ghost of Ethan Hunt]

The coach can draw up the perfect system all day, but if the guys don't have the skill to win 1 on 1 battles with the opponent (be it speed, strength, puck skills), you're still going to struggle.

Hockey moves so rapidly, there's a lot of 50/50 decisions taking place each shift. Take the extra step forward and cut off the pass? Or retreat backwards and shell up? Both could be correct, but your execution will vary depending on the player.

On a psychological level, I feel like people will retreat on those judgement calls more if they don't have confidence in the goalie behind them. And no amount of coaching, other than "always push forward" will change that.

Yeah, with Howard in net our guys became conditioned to not "go for it" etc., more so than with Bernier.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Yeah, with Howard in net our guys became conditioned to not "go for it" etc., more so than with Bernier.

I would argue that they weren't conditioned to go for it OR to collapse backwards.

The Wings had a bunch of either low hockey IQ guys or guys who physically are so decrepit they need to cheat to keep up now. So you either had guys who were at a loss of whether they should go for it or not and when the decision was made, they were DOA. I really really truly don't think they played a lot different in front of Bernier than they did in front of Howard, Bernier just made a bunch of saves that Howard didn't because he wasn't as broken down.

Basically, Mantha, Bertuzzi, and Larkin are very high hockey IQ guys. But they weren't healthy together much.

Bowey, Biega, Hirose, Abdelkader, etc. fall in the first group. Trouble reading the play and are slow to react. This was Brendan Smith's real bugaboo. When it was the playoffs and he just had to trust his instincts because he didn't have time to do anything else, he looked like a legit top 4. Otherwise, he was trying to think the game and was just behind everyone.

Filppula, Nielsen, Helm, Howard fit in the second. At one point in their careers they were able to divine the game with the required speed. Now, even if they see what should be happening, they can't keep up and so they look like garbage. This is exactly what happened to Cleary by the end of his career too.

 

[Oddbob]

Are you still trying to defend Howard's historically awful season?

By the way, I'm looking at the following GS/60
Howard: 1.84
Bernier: 1.96
Very little difference.
And I'm guessing Jimmy "Let's give'em a 4 goal head start" crushed a lot of desire to go out there and score goals.

Want to know where the difference was? Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out.
Howard: 4.20 GAA
Bernier: 2.95 GAA

Howard: .882 sv pct
Bernier: .905 sv pct

Getting a Bernier level goalie to replace the historically awful Howard is going to be the single biggest thing Yzerman can do to put an end to shitshow and make us somewhat respectable.
There's no way around it.

Nobodies defending Howard, it is more that our team is terrible, horrible defence and horrible offence. Jimmy was bad, but more than just a little of his bad was on the atrocious D, despite this pretend notion that our season was only bad simply because of Jimmy. This coming year we are still going to be quite bad, and Greiss will face a much harder atmosphere then the cozy defence he got from the NYI D.

 

[Ghost of Ethan Hunt]

I would argue that they weren't conditioned to go for it OR to collapse backwards.

The Wings had a bunch of either low hockey IQ guys or guys who physically are so decrepit they need to cheat to keep up now. So you either had guys who were at a loss of whether they should go for it or not and when the decision was made, they were DOA. I really really truly don't think they played a lot different in front of Bernier than they did in front of Howard, Bernier just made a bunch of saves that Howard didn't because he wasn't as broken down.

Basically, Mantha, Bertuzzi, and Larkin are very high hockey IQ guys. But they weren't healthy together much.

Bowey, Biega, Hirose, Abdelkader, etc. fall in the first group. Trouble reading the play and are slow to react. This was Brendan Smith's real bugaboo. When it was the playoffs and he just had to trust his instincts because he didn't have time to do anything else, he looked like a legit top 4. Otherwise, he was trying to think the game and was just behind everyone.

Filppula, Nielsen, Helm, Howard fit in the second. At one point in their careers they were able to divine the game with the required speed. Now, even if they see what should be happening, they can't keep up and so they look like garbage. This is exactly what happened to Cleary by the end of his career too.

reread my initial post below. (you're really saying the same thing)

"with Howard in net our guys became conditioned to not "go for it" etc."

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

reread my initial post below. (you're really saying the same thing)

"with Howard in net our guys became conditioned to not "go for it" etc."

I'm not saying the same thing though. Conditioned "not to go for it" would be "conditioned to turtle". If the Wings picked a route, like what Bench had said, they would have a consistent idea and they might have stood a chance at either scoring more goals (if they said damn the torpedoes and went for it) or better low-event hockey (if they turtled).

But what they did was some sort of weird analysis paralysis where they would think about whether their goalie could stop it or not. I also don't think it's really Howard-centric because when Comrie and Pickard came in... they performed at Howard's level.

 

[jkutswings]

Draft Week: Hooray! New prospects!
Free Agency: Hooray! New players!
48 Hours Later:

 

[jkutswings]

I'm not saying the same thing though. Conditioned "not to go for it" would be "conditioned to turtle". If the Wings picked a route, like what Bench had said, they would have a consistent idea and they might have stood a chance at either scoring more goals (if they said damn the torpedoes and went for it) or better low-event hockey (if they turtled).

But what they did was some sort of weird analysis paralysis where they would think about whether their goalie could stop it or not. I also don't think it's really Howard-centric because when Comrie and Pickard came in... they performed at Howard's level.

I'm other words, don't poke and don't hope?

 

[Oddbob]

Draft Week: Hooray! New prospects!
Free Agency: Hooray! New players!
48 Hours Later:

It would at least be more exciting if some of the top young guys were playing next year, but I think Zadina will be the only one.

 

[14ari13]

I'm not saying the same thing though. Conditioned "not to go for it" would be "conditioned to turtle". If the Wings picked a route, like what Bench had said, they would have a consistent idea and they might have stood a chance at either scoring more goals (if they said damn the torpedoes and went for it) or better low-event hockey (if they turtled).

But what they did was some sort of weird analysis paralysis where they would think about whether their goalie could stop it or not. I also don't think it's really Howard-centric because when Comrie and Pickard came in... they performed at Howard's level.

It is better to lose 3 to 1 than 8 to 2?

If the team had done what you suggest I think we would have get destroyed and embarrassed every single game and set the unbeatable record for low points and huge deferential for gfa and gaa.

 

[Henkka]

It is better to lose 3 to 1 than 8 to 2?

If the team had done what you suggest I think we would have get destroyed and embarrassed every single game and set the unbeatable record for low points and huge deferential for gfa and gaa.

It's better to lose 3 to 1. Always.

Last season had moments, that our players stopped playing totally at 15-20 min range, when the game was over, usually thanks to easy Howard-letted goal.

But having close games will prepare you for better future, when there's a reason for players to play as good hockey as you can. You can lose, but have that right attitude until the last minutes is the right way. Being 1 goal behind, there's still a chance. You lose for an empty-netter at 59min, Then it's time to let the game go.

But not after 1st period.

 

[datsyukfan]

Is brome even going to be able to play. I know SHL isn’t letting players leave mid season (Seider). Does brome have an out?

 

[Zetterberg4Captain]

We want to suck next season

We just want to do it with more class. Then we draft top 4 again and get a centre in 2021 draft then hopefully add someone decent via free agency

Rinse and repeat 1 more year

 

[14ari13]

We want to suck next season

We just want to do it with more class. Then we draft top 4 again and get a centre in 2021 draft then hopefully add someone decent via free agency

Rinse and repeat 1 more year

Yes.

We only have to find a way to lose a bit less ugly so we do not lose too many fans.
And basically that is the agreement between Yzerman, Blashill and the players.
We need another top 5 draft pick.