Wings lost one game... MOD
You want to criticize one player, but refuse to acknowledge the entire team played bad starting with the Captain on down to the rookie Smith. Everyone was bad. Howard was horrific and definitely not top 5, let alone top 15 material in the NHL. Gus was better.
Bert didn't even play, but if he did over Mursak, maybe Detroit wouldn't have gotten pushed around as much. Sammy is atleast bigger and can shoot. You want to replace him with a tiny Nyquist? Nyquist and Tatar would have gotten KILLED out there.
As far as Quincey, he is what he is. He is bad some nights and brilliant other nights. He needs to get comfortable and find his groove. That is his problem right now.... the entire team needs to find their groove, and fast!
So I guess saying "The D is bad" is me trying to criticize only one player? It's called giving an example to prove a point. I don't have to go through every single player to do that.
You know who did play over Gus/Tatar? Cleary. Slow as hell Cleary. Cleary on the freaking PP. Holy hell. Come on. You don't think we could use a skilled player like Gus or Tatar on the PP?
Or let's talk about the PP. For the past 3 years it's been the same boring predictable crap. Pass the puck to the point, one time it, hope for screens/tips. Wow. That's surely going to keep working without Lidstrom/Homer. It wasn't even really working last year. Let's CHANGE IT UP. We have a Datsyuk and a Zetterberg. We can make a half-hearted attempted to be a tiny bit creative on the PP, but we haven't. It used to be very good. Go back to 2007-2009. Puck movement like crazy, nice crisp passes, good setups. Not the same crap that every team knows to expect from the Wings now.
Q has **never** been brilliant. Ever. I watched every single game he was in last year with the Wings, and the one scrimmage this year and one game this year. He was at best, passable. He was never brilliant. I've been saying how little faith I have in Q for months now. I've always placed Kindl ahead of him in terms of how much I trust them not to suck. Q makes me nervous every single damn time he goes near the puck. Last night just showed how right I was, as has basically every other game.
Do you know why this crap don't work no more?
Because we waited too long. Do you know why I want Gus/Tatar up even though they probably won't make a big difference? Well, let's point to our two best players, Datsyuk and Zetterberg. Whenever they are interviewed about this, they say the same thing. "Being able to play, learn, develop under guys like Fedorov, Hull, Yzerman, Lidstrom, Larionov. I just improved so much because of that." They played with the best in the business and they learned a lot from it. They played with vets who had a lot to teach them. That's exactly what we should be doing with Gus/Tatar while we still have Datsyuk around. They need to play with elite NHL talent to play at an elite NHL level. Same with Smith. How much could Smith have learned from a whole year with Lidstrom?
Well, we'll never find out. And maybe we'll never find out with Gus/Tatar either. Point is, our great players had that opportunity and they turned out fantastically for it. Gus/Tatar/Smith, have not.