GDT: Game 1: Carolina Bunch of Jerks @ Detroit Red Wings - 1/14/2021 - 7:30 PM - FSD

[Henkka]

What exactly is the system? Stick 5 guys in the crease then fling the puck out of the zone?

Appears to be no transition in this system at all....

There's not enough transition players.

Maybe Djoos will help.

They were great defensive team, just like expected. Good goaltending and defensive D helping the goalie.

That's what adding Merrill, Stecher, Staal does.

One big step from the last season, when goalies were let to die on the field.

There was no offence, pretty much like expected.

But they'll make adjustments. Think they have to split up Mantha and Larkin, both drive own line.

Bert - Larkin - Zadina
Fabbri - Names - Mantha

Forget Fabbri as center. Need to win the faceoff for puck possession. Not lose them all.

And add Djoos. He is great with his passing.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

What a hell...


Arizona has some audience on the game.

Like 3000...

well ya know, they only had the highest infection rate in the US last week, why shouldn't they have fans at games???

 

[chances14]

yeah this team is bad and will probably finish in the bottom 5 again, but carolina is one of the best forechecking teams in the league so they will make this team even worse than they are on most nights. Probably doesn't help either they haven't played an NHL game in 300+ days

 

[ShanahanMan]

Nice to see AA score his first game.

 

[opivy]

What a hell...


Arizona has some audience on the game.

Like 3000...

3450

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Nice to see AA score his first game.

He and Carter make for some serious speed to contend with.

Maybe AA can learn some defensive responsibility from Carter.

 

[MBH]

There's not enough transition players.

Maybe Djoos will help.

They were great defensive team, just like expected. Good goaltending and defensive D helping the goalie.

That's what adding Merrill, Stecher, Staal does.

One big step from the last season, when goalies were let to die on the field.

There was no offence, pretty much like expected.

But they'll make adjustments. Think they have to split up Mantha and Larkin, both drive own line.

Bert - Larkin - Zadina
Fabbri - Names - Mantha

Forget Fabbri as center. Need to win the faceoff for puck possession. Not lose them all.

And add Djoos. He is great with his passing.

Carolina's defensive system is overrated. They breakdown as bad as anyone.
They control the play a lot... but give up a lot of dangerous chances.

 

[GreatGordie9]

Carolina's defensive system is overrated. They breakdown as bad as anyone.
They control the play a lot... but give up a lot of dangerous chances.

There has been a lot of sloppy play in most games. It is like watching pre season games for the most part.

 

[odin1981]

Carolina's defensive system is overrated. They breakdown as bad as anyone.
They control the play a lot... but give up a lot of dangerous chances.

I don't think you can draw that many conclusions from teams playing their first 3-5 games this year. Yes Detroit is most likely a bottom five team and a couple others likely are. But aside from that, there isn't much one can draw on from teams just starting up with minimal preseason's.

 

[drw02]

Roster is bad but it’s really not this bad. I dunno how people don’t think a real NHL coach wouldn’t make a difference. Carolina has a good roster and all but what makes them a great team is how they play. How well they are coached. Everyone knows what they need to do, where to be or to go with the puck, who to pick up in the D zone, etc, etc. The whole is greater than the sum of their parts. You just never see that structure and synergy with blashills teams. It’s always a complete mess.

 

[MBH]

I don't think you can draw that many conclusions from teams playing their first 3-5 games this year. Yes Detroit is most likely a bottom five team and a couple others likely are. But aside from that, there isn't much one can draw on from teams just starting up with minimal preseason's.

I've watched Carolina a lot since Mrazek has been there.
Brind'Amour is great at firing guys up - but I don't think he's got much of a defensive system.
And if you go to naturalstattrick you can see, they were 11th worst last year in high danger chances against, and 10th worst the year before.

 

[SimonEdvinssonAtSix]

Which is why firing the coach will result in no change. Just a tar and feather for fan reckoning.

I get the point you're making but we can look back and see the impact new coaches have made on bad teams. Sometimes for worse and sometimes for the better so I completely disagree with you based on tangible facts.

 

[odin1981]

I get the point you're making but we can look back and see the impact new coaches have made on bad teams. Sometimes for worse and sometimes for the better so I completely disagree with you based on tangible facts.

The thing with that though is when aside from our first line and Hronek we as fans have such a deficiency in skill on the team Bowman couldn't even make this team noticably better. In addition, what good coach would want to come here and risk their coaching reputation?

Now in 3-4 year's after this one when the team will be looking to ascend in the standing's and have the personnel to do so that's one thing but before the roster is built to be on the cusp of breaking out Detroit won't be on anyone's place/team to be.

 

[jkutswings]

Larkin's first game as captain is why I would have waited.

2 days after Yzerman got the C, Detroit lost the opener to Quebec 6-1.

Let's take a slightly larger sample size before drawing any firm conclusions.

 

[Shortstuff]

Not sure why all the hate towards the effort level. These guys were clearly busting their asses. We just suck. Plain and simple. Would be nice not having Danny dekeyser on pp1 as well. Larkin had a rough game. Only real guy on the team that you could question the effort level is mantha.

 

[SimonEdvinssonAtSix]

The thing with that though is when aside from our first line and Hronek we as fans have such a deficiency in skill on the team Bowman couldn't even make this team noticably better. In addition, what good coach would want to come here and risk their coaching reputation?

Now in 3-4 year's after this one when the team will be looking to ascend in the standing's and have the personnel to do so that's one thing but before the roster is built to be on the cusp of breaking out Detroit won't be on anyone's place/team to be.

What good coach would want to come here is like saying what good player would want to come here. We can look at this past offseason and see an number of players willing to come here. Forget "good" for the moment and think about reasons.

Money.
Culture.
History.
Perks.
Ownership.
Co-workers.
Benefits.
Location.

Also applying to an extreme like, "Bowman couldn't make the team better" is silly.

Because yes, yes he could. The greatest coach of all time could do a much better job with this roster than Jeff Blashill and saying otherwise is disingenuous.

So, what good coach would want to come here? I'd wager that plenty would be willing to come here. Working for a model franchise under Steve Yzermans control with a storied history along with great benefits, perks and salary would entice a whole plethora of candidates. These are people working jobs, not fans fantasizing about NHL 21 GM mode.

 

[RedMenace]

First Wings game of the season on my birthday, against my home state team. Happy birthday to me, the ground, and Jason Bateman.

Wings win in OT.

f***.me.sideways. Definitely happy birthday to the ground. The ice looked like a half-melted slushie.

Greiss, Brome, and Adam f***ing Erne were the best players tonight, with Merrill and Gagner getting mentions as well.

The rest of the team, especially the defense... jesus.

Mantha, my dude, Big Ern is coming for you.

 

[lilidk]

There's not enough transition players.

Maybe Djoos will help.

They were great defensive team, just like expected. Good goaltending and defensive D helping the goalie.

That's what adding Merrill, Stecher, Staal does.

One big step from the last season, when goalies were let to die on the field.

There was no offence, pretty much like expected.

But they'll make adjustments. Think they have to split up Mantha and Larkin, both drive own line.

Bert - Larkin - Zadina
Fabbri - Names - Mantha

Forget Fabbri as center. Need to win the faceoff for puck possession. Not lose them all.

And add Djoos. He is great with his passing.

Put Mantha at center

 

[golffuul]

There's not enough transition players.

Maybe Djoos will help.

They were great defensive team, just like expected. Good goaltending and defensive D helping the goalie.

That's what adding Merrill, Stecher, Staal does.

One big step from the last season, when goalies were let to die on the field.

There was no offence, pretty much like expected.

But they'll make adjustments. Think they have to split up Mantha and Larkin, both drive own line.

Bert - Larkin - Zadina
Fabbri - Names - Mantha

Forget Fabbri as center. Need to win the faceoff for puck possession. Not lose them all.

And add Djoos. He is great with his passing.

Yeah...I agree with breaking up Mantha and Larkin. The games are too similar, in that they are pass first. You need Zadina up with Larkin for the goal scoring. And Namestnikov with Mantha and Fabbri is what I was thinking as well. It's a simple swap that I think pays dividends almost immediately and keeps teams from hard-matching against our first line.

 

[MBH]

I don't think you can draw that many conclusions from teams playing their first 3-5 games this year. Yes Detroit is most likely a bottom five team and a couple others likely are. But aside from that, there isn't much one can draw on from teams just starting up with minimal preseason's.

I'm drawing my conclusions from
1) How bad we were last year.
2) The quality of players we acquired.
3) How bad our roster is
4) How bad the coach is.

I still expect us to hit 45-47 points thanks to the improvement in goaltending and a slightly better injury situation.

 

[Steve Yzerlland]

2 days after Yzerman got the C, Detroit lost the opener to Quebec 6-1.

Let's take a slightly larger sample size before drawing any firm conclusions.

Ok fair enough. Hopefully Larkin raises the cup as the Wings captain one day with Yzerman building a championship roster around him.

 

[Gyldenlove]

Lafreniere would have helped us so much this is bs.

We are just not a big enough market team for the NHL to care about cheating to help us.

 

[pz29]

We are just not a big enough market team for the NHL to care about cheating to help us.

and Buttmen does not have a bromance with anyone like he does with the cry-baby Antarctic non-flying pigeon.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Not sure why all the hate towards the effort level. These guys were clearly busting their asses. We just suck. Plain and simple. Would be nice not having Danny dekeyser on pp1 as well. Larkin had a rough game. Only real guy on the team that you could question the effort level is mantha.

It's just 1 game this season, so let's see how things develop. But I was hoping last year would be the last time Blashill was completely excused because we don't have a powerhouse roster.

Bad teams can look good on the powerplay. In fact, the powerplay is perhaps the most important weapon of a team that's going to be outplayed 5-on-5 most nights. Why can't we ice a better powerplay? Because of Dekeyser?

Between Hronek, Mantha, Zadina, Larkin, Bertuzzi, Brome, Rasmussen, Fabbri and Ryan (when healthy) we should have the components to ice a decent powerplay. There are no excuses imo. Powerplay is probably 80-90% about systems. It gets exponentially easier with more talent, but we see it all the time that good teams can have bad powerplays and bad teams can have great ones.

Detroit this year SHOULD be able to have decent special teams. 5-on-5? Yeah, I expect us to be outplayed and trying to survive a lot. But the powerplay can not look as terrible as it did in this game, it just can't. That's 100% a coaching issue.

 

[Mount Suribachi]

Wings will most likely be the worst team in the league this year, but they will be better than the 2019-2020 Wings.

That's my glass half full take.

That's a loooooooow bar you've set there. We could have a 50 point season (82 games pro rata) and be better than last year.

In fact, we'd damn well better improve on last season because that was historically bad.