Post-Game Talk: No Mrazek = no win (for those confused, I'm not blaming Howard)

[Henkka]

Actually his best season he was carrying the wings and was our mvp. Babcock even played him on back to back games.
I think many posters remember or should remember that Howard saved wings and Babcock back in the days the same way as Mrazek is doing it now. Howard has hit his slump, but he should bounce back.

Yeah, looks like memory is very short on this board.

Howard was phenomenal at 2010 when this team was struggling after a double-finals talent loss. He was an All Star at 2012. When Lidström was gone, he signed an extension at April 2013 just before playoffs and pushed Blackhawks to game7 and was 7/11 in wins on those playoffs, again, and again, without Lidström. He was also an All-Star at 2015, again and again, when Lidström + all the SUPER-HYPER defence was gone everybody is talking he ride with.

Injuries wihich started at season 2013-14 have just changed everything. It's a bad luck. Nothing more.

Injuries started after his contract extension, so how can you predict that? Nobody has a crystal ball, not Ken Holland or anybody else.

Bad luck after a decision isn't a bad decision. At least we have a plan B, which could better than our current plan A.

 

[Red Stanley]

The last time we allowed 4 goals? Yes, Howard.
The ducks played last night.


And people learned that his good numbers were because the team made him look good.

If the goals he allowed were soft, then you can claim it as a valid point when analyzing goalie performance. There haven't been that many soft goals allowed by our goalies lately, yet we still lose games. Guess hockey is a team game after all and letting one guy shoulder the lion's share of the blame for the collective failures of an entire team is just dumb.

Edit: Also, I chose to compare the two Ducks games this season because they were against the same team and each goalie got a start. In the first game, Mrazek played phenomenally, but was beaten numerous times only to be saved by the post. The Ducks outplayed us and the score could've easily been 5-2 or 6-2, which changes the narrative quite a bit. If a couple of those goals end up hitting the post last night, we win and Howard stole us the game and is great. Yes, that's exactly how shallow some of the fan analysis tends to be.

Oh and Jimmy has never played with a legitimately good team. I don't know where you got that from. If anything, he masked the Wings' defensive deficiencies early in his career. Then injuries really set him back and I'm guessing he has never completely recovered. He's still very solid, though, and all the hatred he gets is just ridiculous.

 

[PuckDynasty]

So we should have Dan Cleary in our top 6 because he was good once upon a time?

Even if he had great stats back in the day, he's not good now. The team does not play well or win when he's in net. The Wings MO over the years is to always, ALWAYS defer to the veteran over the young player. There's a reason they aren't doing so in this case.

Every player would like tons of minutes and to play every game. But you have to earn it now. If he can't adjust to playing sporadically and play well when called upon, he's of no use to this team. While I wish he'd get traded, it doesn't seem to work that way with the Wings.

 

[Frk It]

If he can't adjust to playing sporadically and play well when called upon, he's of no use to this team.

Thank you. You don't cater to the needs of a struggling player, at the expense of the team.

 

[Red Stanley]

So we should have Dan Cleary in our top 6 because he was good once upon a time?

Even if he had great stats back in the day, he's not good now. The team does not play well or win when he's in net. The Wings MO over the years is to always, ALWAYS defer to the veteran over the young player. There's a reason they aren't doing so in this case.

Every player would like tons of minutes and to play every game. But you have to earn it now. If he can't adjust to playing sporadically and play well when called upon, he's of no use to this team. While I wish he'd get traded, it doesn't seem to work that way with the Wings.

He's still solid, but Mrazek is outperforming him and the team is playing better in front of him for the most part. With the apparent end of the two goalie rotation, there's no reason to keep both. Howard is not going to do well as a back up and he's not being paid to be one. Trade him for everyone's sake and try to get either a roster upgrade, or shed salary cap and acquire some assets.

 

[Classicnamesup]

fair enough

i was thinking a starter like howard had that level of value, perhaps not

boy we have a lot of roster payers with very little league wide value if thats the case

You are right about that.

Howard is 7-7-5 on a playoff team with a 908s signed for 5m and 4 more years IIRC. He isn't doing himself any favours

 

[DetroitRed]

I'll be devil's advocate. Play seems to flat pretty often on the second game when playing two games back-to-back. So I kind of expected to see that to some degree.

As for Howard, I thought he played well to start the season, but so did Mrazek, and if both are playing well, then I think you start Mrazek because he's better handling the puck and better one-on-one. Unfortunately though, Jimmy doesn't seem to be very well suited for playing backup.

I acknowledge that there are, nonetheless, good reasons for retaining Jimmy Howard, such as for leverage when the Red Wings start to negotiate a new contract with Petr. However, it may be in Howard's best interest, if not also in the team's, if he were to waive the control that his contract gives him against certain trades, and indeed request that the Red Wings trade him to a team where he can get more frequent starts.

I think Petr won the starting role, but I think that Howard's recent play issues may be the result of his playing so infrequently.

 

[RedWingzz]

Howard starts, we lose. Surprise surprise. What happens next year when mrazek gets paid like he should? Can't have a 5 million dollar backup. Its got so bad that everyone knew before the game that we would lose.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

Howard is a poor man's Osgood. I say trade him if someone is willing to take him.

 

[WingedWheel1987]

Maybe trade for an equally bad contract that is a forward or defenseman?

 

[Classicnamesup]

Tough, a goalie who can't stop the puck is worth as much as a defencemen who cannot defend (or offence). Matt Carle

Would rather look towards an overpaid Brian Campbell but I do not know how he has played the past couple years

Edit: Nvm, don't want him either.

 

[SoupGuru]

The game could have gone to OT if Smith hadn't hilariously over-played Kesler and left the middle of the ice open for him to score the 4th goal.

 

[Dotter]

Yeah, looks like memory is very short on this board.

Howard was phenomenal at 2010 when this team was struggling after a double-finals talent loss. He was an All Star at 2012. When Lidström was gone, he signed an extension at April 2013 just before playoffs and pushed Blackhawks to game7 and was 7/11 in wins on those playoffs, again, and again, without Lidström. He was also an All-Star at 2015, again and again, when Lidström + all the SUPER-HYPER defence was gone everybody is talking he ride with.

Injuries wihich started at season 2013-14 have just changed everything. It's a bad luck. Nothing more.

Injuries started after his contract extension, so how can you predict that? Nobody has a crystal ball, not Ken Holland or anybody else.

Bad luck after a decision isn't a bad decision. At least we have a plan B, which could better than our current plan A.

It's the classic "what have you done for me lately" syndrome. The same thing will happen to Mrazek and Larkin soon enough when a shiny new toy comes along.

 

[Run the Jewels]

Howard is a poor man's Osgood. I say trade him if someone is willing to take him.

No one is going to take that contract. It's brutal, only Holland would pay Howard that amount of money for that long. I guess your best bet is to eat a pretty decent chunk so that when Mrazek gets paid starting next season you have like $7 million devoted to goalies, rather than $10 million. There is a huge disparity between what Ken Holland is paying the most expensive guys on this roster and what they actually provide in terms of value.

 

[Classicnamesup]

I always enjoy hearing "what have you done for me lately", as if it is unfair to evaluate somebody on current performance.

 

[The Zermanator]

It's the classic "what have you done for me lately" syndrome. The same thing will happen to Mrazek and Larkin soon enough when a shiny new toy comes along.

Welcome to professional sports. Mrazek is better, therefore he plays.

Honestly, why are people even debating this? Do you think Howard has been treated unfairly? Despite losing the starter's job last season to Mrazek, both goalies started the season on an even footing. Blashill gave them each equal opportunity to claim the starter's job. Seems about as fair as you can reasonably expect in pro sports (where fairness isn't even a priority, btw). Mrazek flourished and Howard started strong but eventually floundered. Therefore it's Mrazek's job now.

If Howard wants the job back, he can play like he deserves it. What's that? He's a workhorse, you say? He needs plenty of games to play his best? Well too bad, that's not how it works. You're putting the cart before the horse. He gets the games if he earns them. If he's uncomfortable getting few starts, well then that's called adversity. If he can't stand adversity, then why is he fit to take games away from Mrazek?

 

[LarKing]

Howard's too inconsistent to be any team's guy in the playoffs imo. Mrazek has definitely had consistency problems as well to start his career, but now that he's playing less aggressive he seems to be doing much better with that.

 

[sean3250]

In Howard's past 125 games he has sported a SV% of .910 or less. His last good season was in the lockout year.

What have you done lately for me syndrome? I wouldn't consider the past 125 games as lately.

MOD

 

[odin1981]

Oh well. 3rd in 4 + Howie starting I was only thinking 1 point anyway. At least Tampa got spanked as well.

 

[14ari13]

Nice to form a narrative about a player based on how he is currently playing.

Apparently players and goalies can't play well then regress later on. If they start to play poorly their previous success was based on outside factors.

Yeah, looks like memory is very short on this board.

Howard was phenomenal at 2010 when this team was struggling after a double-finals talent loss. He was an All Star at 2012. When Lidström was gone, he signed an extension at April 2013 just before playoffs and pushed Blackhawks to game7 and was 7/11 in wins on those playoffs, again, and again, without Lidström. He was also an All-Star at 2015, again and again, when Lidström + all the SUPER-HYPER defence was gone everybody is talking he ride with.

Injuries wihich started at season 2013-14 have just changed everything. It's a bad luck. Nothing more.

Injuries started after his contract extension, so how can you predict that? Nobody has a crystal ball, not Ken Holland or anybody else.

Bad luck after a decision isn't a bad decision. At least we have a plan B, which could better than our current plan A.

If the goals he allowed were soft, then you can claim it as a valid point when analyzing goalie performance. There haven't been that many soft goals allowed by our goalies lately, yet we still lose games. Guess hockey is a team game after all and letting one guy shoulder the lion's share of the blame for the collective failures of an entire team is just dumb.

Edit: Also, I chose to compare the two Ducks games this season because they were against the same team and each goalie got a start. In the first game, Mrazek played phenomenally, but was beaten numerous times only to be saved by the post. The Ducks outplayed us and the score could've easily been 5-2 or 6-2, which changes the narrative quite a bit. If a couple of those goals end up hitting the post last night, we win and Howard stole us the game and is great. Yes, that's exactly how shallow some of the fan analysis tends to be.

Oh and Jimmy has never played with a legitimately good team. I don't know where you got that from. If anything, he masked the Wings' defensive deficiencies early in his career. Then injuries really set him back and I'm guessing he has never completely recovered. He's still very solid, though, and all the hatred he gets is just ridiculous.

If you read my earlier posts you will see I called Howard our MVP and I pointed out Babcock played even on back to back games. So I know quite well when Howard played great for us. But there is no way around that he struggles now, he has been struggling for 2-3 years, the team just does not win with him in net.

 

[19 for president]

Howard vs Mrazek comes down to one thing. Petr is excellent with the puck while Jimmy is not. We have a lousy puck moving D, so it's huge having a goalie that can play it. Put Jimmy on a team with a decent D and he'd be fine.

 

[LarKing]

Howard vs Mrazek comes down to one thing. Petr is excellent with the puck while Jimmy is not. We have a lousy puck moving D, so it's huge having a goalie that can play it. Put Jimmy on a team with a decent D and he'd be fine.

Yeah there's that and the whole thing where Mrazek stops the puck a lot more often. I'd say that's a pretty important factor here too .

 

[Red Stanley]

Welcome to professional sports. Mrazek is better, therefore he plays.

Honestly, why are people even debating this? Do you think Howard has been treated unfairly? Despite losing the starter's job last season to Mrazek, both goalies started the season on an even footing. Blashill gave them each equal opportunity to claim the starter's job. Seems about as fair as you can reasonably expect in pro sports (where fairness isn't even a priority, btw). Mrazek flourished and Howard started strong but eventually floundered. Therefore it's Mrazek's job now.

If Howard wants the job back, he can play like he deserves it. What's that? He's a workhorse, you say? He needs plenty of games to play his best? Well too bad, that's not how it works. You're putting the cart before the horse. He gets the games if he earns them. If he's uncomfortable getting few starts, well then that's called adversity. If he can't stand adversity, then why is he fit to take games away from Mrazek?

Howard has been treated very fairly by the organization and Mrazek earned the starter job fair and square. Nobody should be arguing that. On the other hand, the coaching staff and players have acknowledged repeatedly that Jimmy has been solid and they need to start playing better in front of him, which hasn't happened yet in his past half a dozen starts.

What I have an issue with is fans who, for whatever reason (objective reality not being one), act like Howard is the main/only reason why we lose games and sometimes appear to even take pleasure in watching him lose. Your mileage may vary, but I find that kind of thing extremely obnoxious. I have absolutely no problem with constructive criticism, but this ain't it.

 

[Kyleftlx]

I wish Detroit and Carolina could get a deal done involving Howard/Ward. Carolina gets a good goalie that actually improves their team, Detroit gets an expiring contract on a goalie that probably could play well enough as a backup down the stretch. Carolina has a really solid defense, but they can't score and they have bad goaltending. Howard would be good for them.

It sucks that he can provide 10 teams he wouldn't want to play for - Holland really should be more careful with his NTC offers.

 

[Perfect Human]

The team plays differently in front of Petr than Jimmy. More blocked shots for Petr and cleaner lanes for him to see the puck. When Jimmy is in net it seems like a free-for-all with skaters thinking they have to do too much to compensate for Howie. Jimmy is not a BAD goalie. He is not an ELITE goalie either. If he gets good team defense and some decent shots blocked he can win. I agree with the topic of this post 100% and wich that things work out better for Jimmy.