Post-Game Talk: thread to discuss whatever the **** we just watched

[Cyborg Yzerberg]

It boggles my mind that people think the team's lack of success is from Blashill when the result of the team is part for the course over the last 5 seasons. This is a team with no first line players and no top pairing defensemen, yet somehow people are surprised by players' diminishing numbers when they are all playing against competition they are not suited for. Talk about short term memory and unreasonable expectations. This team has been getting worse and worse every year since we won the Stanley Cup at incremental steps, we are only following the logical curvature. It's just the problem is that Holland has tied up so much of the cap with crap over the course of the next 5 years that it makes anything we do going forward incredibly difficult. He's Paul Holmgrem at this point, more or less.

 

[InGusWeTrust]

That 4th was a kick to the groinal region. Not just Lashoff but Glendening, Zetterberg, and Green such a massive fail. They slammed that puck home in a powerful way and quickly, was honestly a nice goal.

Oh for sure. However, it should have been an easy play to break up for Lashoff.

 

[Henkka]

This is just what happens when a bad team on the second game of a road back-to-back has a lead. They let up and let the other team do what they want.

More important question is, why did we do the same, from the start? We started the game with dumping the puck, why not puck possession from the start?

Players refused totally to dump the puck in the 3rd and that did lead to domination.

If I would be a hockey coach, Dump-and-Chase would never be any option, but in winning hockey, I understand that at first you play puck possession and try to get lead. Then Dump-and-Chase when you lead, kind of safer play. I've seen also flashes in many games that our team can still complete that puck possession very well, but Blashill just refuses to use it.

We weren't going on that game for taking that lead. We went to dump the puck against another Dump-and-Chase team. If you choose a non-winning tactic from the start... that's intentional losing for me. Called also tanking.


***

50% of people will want Blashill fired, when he could be doing a tank job. 50% of people want high draft picks. So let Blashill complete his "job". Only 50 games remaining.

 

[aar000n]

It boggles my mind that people think the team's lack of success is from Blashill when the result of the team is part for the course over the last 5 seasons. This is a team with no first line players and no top pairing defensemen, yet somehow people are surprised by players' diminishing numbers when they are all playing against competition they are not suited for. Talk about short term memory and unreasonable expectations. This team has been getting worse and worse every year since we won the Stanley Cup at incremental steps, we are only following the logical curvature. It's just the problem is that Holland has tied up so much of the cap with crap over the course of the next 5 years that it makes anything we do going forward incredibly difficult. He's Paul Holmgrem at this point, more or less.

it boggles my mind that you cant see the **** poor lines and the **** poor playing time, the lack of any plan on the power play and the overuse of scrubs instead of putting talented players out there. Kronwall on the power play he is not the man he use to be. Last year we gave him a pass and this year he is showing why he is over his head “If you look at the game in totality, we had tons of opportunities. Did we play down to our competition? I don’t think so,†Blashill said. “I think in the end, we had tons of opportunities.â€http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2016/12/14/the-flaw-in-blashills-defense-of-the-wings/.

 

[Claypool]

it boggles my mind that you cant see the **** poor lines and the **** poor playing time, the lack of any plan on the power play and the overuse of scrubs instead of putting talented players out there. Kronwall on the power play he is not the man he use to be. Last year we gave him a pass and this year he is showing why he is over his head “If you look at the game in totality, we had tons of opportunities. Did we play down to our competition? I don’t think so,†Blashill said. “I think in the end, we had tons of opportunities.â€http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2016/12/14/the-flaw-in-blashills-defense-of-the-wings/.

What? You want the coach to come out and say the team sucks and/or he's not doing his job? Not sure why people read so much into his post-game comments. He says what any other coach in his situation would say.

 

[Pavels Dog]

This is a team with no first line players and no top pairing defensemen, yet somehow people are surprised by players' diminishing numbers when they are all playing against competition they are not suited for.

This theory kinda falls apart under any sort of scrutiny, when you see players like Tatar/Nyquist/Sheahan struggle in the same 3rd line roles they had previously in their career, and when we suck on home ice where Blashill can control matchups. 15 minutes of no SOG on home ice against a tired Arizona team isn't because guys are playing against too difficult matchups.

 

[vladdy16]

Lots of indicators point towards the coach this year. Last night was ominous.

Way too many lost points, goals against and turning points can be attributed to the coach. Last night looked like a revolt. If you don't make a change soon you'll end up as lost as the Tigers.

 

[aar000n]

What? You want the coach to come out and say the team sucks and/or he's not doing his job? Not sure why people read so much into his post-game comments. He says what any other coach in his situation would say.

How about a we were outplayed in the game.

 

[vladdy16]

What? You want the coach to come out and say the team sucks and/or he's not doing his job? Not sure why people read so much into his post-game comments. He says what any other coach in his situation would say.

Nah, a more competent coach would be comfortable with the fact that putting up SOG against teams that already have a lead against you isn't the same thing as having a functioning offense.

Last night was an obvious F, it's FSD's job to paint it like a C-, but the coach should know better.

 

[jkutswings]

This theory kinda falls apart under any sort of scrutiny, when you see players like Tatar/Nyquist/Sheahan struggle in the same 3rd line roles they had previously in their career, and when we suck on home ice where Blashill can control matchups. 15 minutes of no SOG on home ice against a tired Arizona team isn't because guys are playing against too difficult matchups.

How about this:

The team isn't closer to contending for the 8th seed because Blashill isn't making smart moves.

The team is nowhere near contending for a Stanley Cup because Holland prioritizes risk aversion over talent evaluation.

 

[aar000n]

How about this:

The team isn't closer to contending for the 8th seed because Blashill isn't making smart moves.

The team is nowhere near contending for a Stanley Cup because Holland prioritizes risk aversion over talent evaluation.

so take one point and discuss it. Like tell me why Sheham deserves top 6 min, why aa was sitting to start the season. Why sproul is not playing and defend it. Please tell me how Blashill is doing his job.

 

[Winger98]

so take one point and discuss it. Like tell me why Sheham deserves top 6 min, why aa was sitting to start the season. Why sproul is not playing and defend it. Please tell me how Blashill is doing his job.

what is anyone else doing to deserve that top6 spot? If Larkin, Z, Nyquist, Tatar, Vanek, Mantha, and Nielsen were finding the back of the net (and/or if Gator and Helm were consistently healthy) then Sheahan would have a harder time getting that top6 spot. But we're not scoring, guys are injured, and some shuffling is going to take place.

AA was sitting because Holland signed a ton of vets. Vets are going to play first and we both know it. This is the Wings, it's how they do it and have done it.

Sproul is sitting because he made a couple of awful mistakes that cost us some games/points.

Do I agree with any/all of these moves? No, but none of these moves are exactly foreign to NHL hockey or to the Wings.

 

[aar000n]

what is anyone else doing to deserve that top6 spot? If Larkin, Z, Nyquist, Tatar, Vanek, Mantha, and Nielsen were finding the back of the net (and/or if Gator and Helm were consistently healthy) then Sheahan would have a harder time getting that top6 spot. But we're not scoring, guys are injured, and some shuffling is going to take place.

AA was sitting because Holland signed a ton of vets. Vets are going to play first and we both know it. This is the Wings, it's how they do it and have done it.

Sproul is sitting because he made a couple of awful mistakes that cost us some games/points.

Do I agree with any/all of these moves? No, but none of these moves are exactly foreign to NHL hockey or to the Wings.

But they are costing us games and yes other teams screw up as well.

 

[Cyborg Yzerberg]

it boggles my mind that you cant see the **** poor lines and the **** poor playing time, the lack of any plan on the power play and the overuse of scrubs instead of putting talented players out there. Kronwall on the power play he is not the man he use to be. Last year we gave him a pass and this year he is showing why he is over his head “If you look at the game in totality, we had tons of opportunities. Did we play down to our competition? I don’t think so,†Blashill said. “I think in the end, we had tons of opportunities.â€http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2016/12/14/the-flaw-in-blashills-defense-of-the-wings/.

You don't remember Mike Babcock's poor lines? Like putting Cleary with Datsyuk to get him going? Like 2/3rds of the coaches in the league don't know how to efficiently maximize their rosters' talent based off line combinations and usage, but it's real silly to ever blame a coach for a roster's sheer talent deficiency. I'm not even defending Blashill, it's just he's not really the problem with the team. We gave him a pass last year? He put up comparable results as Babcock the previous two years with a slowly decaying roster.

This theory kinda falls apart under any sort of scrutiny, when you see players like Tatar/Nyquist/Sheahan struggle in the same 3rd line roles they had previously in their career, and when we suck on home ice where Blashill can control matchups. 15 minutes of no SOG on home ice against a tired Arizona team isn't because guys are playing against too difficult matchups.

Tatar and Nyquist were utilized with more offensive zone starts with hall of fame players that were younger and more equipped to handle first line assignments. Now that the team doesn't have any first line players, it is more difficult for either player to produce. Even then, Tatar should start producing more relative to what he's produced so far because his shooting percentage is unsustainably low.

And just looking at zone starts, Nyquist and Tatar are utilized almost exclusively in offensive zone starts still. It's just this is a very talent deficient roster right now, and from an aggregate sample size, it's really not difficult to see why this team is where it is right now.

Did people expect this deteriorating team to improve upon Babcock's last two seasons here or Blashill's season last year? That's literally absurd.

 

[jkutswings]

so take one point and discuss it. Like tell me why Sheham deserves top 6 min, why aa was sitting to start the season. Why sproul is not playing and defend it. Please tell me how Blashill is doing his job.

He's not, and I can't pretend to defend any of those moves.

I'm saying that coaching is about a third of the problem, and a lack of talent is about two thirds of the problem, if you're strictly talking about winning as many regular season games as you can.

But personally, the scope of my interest is greater than winning regular season games. I think a team is contending, rebuilding, or irrelevant. So while I fully admit that Blashill is doing a bad job, I'm actually glad about that, because it hastens the beginning of a rebuild - or at a minimum, helps show how ridiculous the current approach can be.

 

[Cyborg Yzerberg]

He's not, and I can't pretend to defend any of those moves.

I'm saying that coaching is about a third of the problem, and a lack of talent is about two thirds of the problem, if you're strictly talking about winning as many regular season games as you can.

But personally, the scope of my interest is greater than winning regular season games. I think a team is contending, rebuilding, or irrelevant. So while I fully admit that Blashill is doing a bad job, I'm actually glad about that, because it hastens the beginning of a rebuild - or at a minimum, helps show how ridiculous the current approach can be.

It's just like, this is the same kind of narrative of things we were criticizing Babcock for too. This isn't like a unique thing to Blashill, nor was it unique to Babcock. A lot of coaches do really dumb things with their roster. Hakstol, who's proving to be a pretty coach, had Voracek on the 4th line for a long stretch of the season last year for no reason. Quenneville has played Toews with Carcillo and Kane with John Madden. Coaches do dumb **** all the time. Blashill's gaffes aren't what separate us from a playoff spot. Us lacking talented players is what separates us from a playoff spot. Simply put, if your team doesn't have a single top line player, it isn't going to make the playoffs. If your best two players are 20 and like 37, and that 20 year old isn't McDavid, it isn't going to make the playoffs.

 

[jkutswings]

It's just like, this is the same kind of narrative of things we were criticizing Babcock for too. This isn't like a unique thing to Blashill, nor was it unique to Babcock. A lot of coaches do really dumb things with their roster. Hakstol, who's proving to be a pretty coach, had Voracek on the 4th line for a long stretch of the season last year for no reason. Quenneville has played Toews with Carcillo and Kane with John Madden. Coaches do dumb **** all the time. Blashill's gaffes aren't what separate us from a playoff spot. Us lacking talented players is what separates us from a playoff spot. Simply put, if your team doesn't have a single top line player, it isn't going to make the playoffs. If your best two players are 20 and like 37, and that 20 year old isn't McDavid, it isn't going to make the playoffs.

To be fair, I'm noticing dumb things with Blashill much more often than with other coaches, but I agree that it was definitely time for Babcock to move on, and that coaches in general are far from perfect.

Here's to hoping the draft class of 2017 continues to improve...

 

[Laser Rayzor]

IMO Blashill is like a flat tire on a car that's about to fall apart. Sure it'll drive better if you replace the tire but that doesn't change the fact that the car is need of major repair.

 

[ap3x]

It's just like, this is the same kind of narrative of things we were criticizing Babcock for too. This isn't like a unique thing to Blashill, nor was it unique to Babcock.

Thing is that we didn't wish for Babcock 2.0. We wished for Jeff ****ing Blashill that had a great stint with our farm team, incl. a cup win.
Someone that does things differently & puts youth first. But here we are, having gotten a cheap imitation of the very same Mike Babcock.

And please don't tell me it's just Holland limiting his abilities of making adequate personal decisions.

 

[Winger98]

But they are costing us games and yes other teams screw up as well.

assuming they are costing us games. Right now we're a small winning streak from pushing back into the playoff picture, a bubble team, and I think we're a bubble team regardless.

 

[TheMule93]

To be fair, I'm noticing dumb things with Blashill much more often than with other coaches, but I agree that it was definitely time for Babcock to move on, and that coaches in general are far from perfect.

Here's to hoping the draft class of 2017 continues to improve...

Probably recency bias. People *****ed at Babcock's lines every night. Toronto fans complain his lines constantly too.

 

[Pavels Dog]

How about this:

The team isn't closer to contending for the 8th seed because Blashill isn't making smart moves.

The team is nowhere near contending for a Stanley Cup because Holland prioritizes risk aversion over talent evaluation.

I agree with your general assessment, except I don't know what kind of "talent evaluation" would have lead to this team having more elite talent on the team right now. If Holland got what he wanted we'd have Babcock coaching a team with Suter and Stamkos on it, imo that would have been a pretty good team.

Tatar and Nyquist were utilized with more offensive zone starts with hall of fame players that were younger and more equipped to handle first line assignments. Now that the team doesn't have any first line players, it is more difficult for either player to produce. Even then, Tatar should start producing more relative to what he's produced so far because his shooting percentage is unsustainably low.

And just looking at zone starts, Nyquist and Tatar are utilized almost exclusively in offensive zone starts still. It's just this is a very talent deficient roster right now, and from an aggregate sample size, it's really not difficult to see why this team is where it is right now.

Show me the receipts. It's already been disproven many times that Tatar's numbers were due to Datsyuk/Z. He produced with everyone. Tatar-Sheahan-Jurco was the first "kid line" and they did great. They were even deployed like a 2nd line for some periods of time when we had injuries and whatnot, so it's hard to argue that they only produced because of easy matchups.
Nyquist is producing decent numbers now but even so his numbers are clearly hurt from poor coaching (non-existant PP) and Nyquist said the coaching staff was on him about shooting the puck more which lead to him scoring 28 goals. Now with Blashill he has become a 10-20 goal scorer.

There is a talent defiency but the same players who looked talented playing tough matchups 2-3 years ago even when Dats and Z were injured now look completely lost and untalented playing 5-on-4 hockey against Arizona. Something is wrong, clearly.

 

[jkutswings]

I agree with your general assessment, except I don't know what kind of "talent evaluation" would have lead to this team having more elite talent on the team right now. If Holland got what he wanted we'd have Babcock coaching a team with Suter and Stamkos on it, imo that would have been a pretty good team.


Show me the receipts. It's already been disproven many times that Tatar's numbers were due to Datsyuk/Z. He produced with everyone. Tatar-Sheahan-Jurco was the first "kid line" and they did great. They were even deployed like a 2nd line for some periods of time when we had injuries and whatnot, so it's hard to argue that they only produced because of easy matchups.
Nyquist is producing decent numbers now but even so his numbers are clearly hurt from poor coaching (non-existant PP) and Nyquist said the coaching staff was on him about shooting the puck more which lead to him scoring 28 goals. Now with Blashill he has become a 10-20 goal scorer.

There is a talent defiency but the same players who looked talented playing tough matchups 2-3 years ago even when Dats and Z were injured now look completely lost and untalented playing 5-on-4 hockey against Arizona. Something is wrong, clearly.

Talent evaluation includes both judging what players will be good, and what players are no longer good (or good enough, as the case may be).

Since 2012, this franchise's run of actually contending for a championship was over. At that point, talent evaluation should have included trying to trade assets while they still had value, not continuing to stockpile average players and hand out long-term deals with no movement clauses.

Fan reaction be damned: the proactive path would have included things like trading Datsyuk once you knew he was flaky about staying here a week after signing a new contract.

But Holland - whether through his own hubris, an edict from ownership, or a combination thereof - just doesn't know when to let go. So here we are, sliding towards limbo, with little to no assets to help build it back up.

And had they added both Suter and Stamkos - however unlikely that possibility - they're still a 2nd or 3rd round exit. Now had they made those moves, and had more success because of it, maybe they also make another move or two, and they win another Cup, or at least make the Finals again. But that's a whole lot of ifs. What DID happen is that, in each scenario, they had a #1 target that, in hindsight, was never likely to come here, and they had no great Plan B for the chance that they struck out.

 

[Run the Jewels]

This theory kinda falls apart under any sort of scrutiny, when you see players like Tatar/Nyquist/Sheahan struggle in the same 3rd line roles they had previously in their career, and when we suck on home ice where Blashill can control matchups. 15 minutes of no SOG on home ice against a tired Arizona team isn't because guys are playing against too difficult matchups.

Has he lost this team? The last game certainly makes it look that way. It's hard to imagine just over a year ago the guys were giving each other high fives over this new coach.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Fan reaction be damned: the proactive path would have included things like trading Datsyuk once you knew he was flaky about staying here a week after signing a new contract.

Reveals quite a bit about how "realistic" your ideas for what the organization should have done are. Do you dump your girlfriend if she wants to talk about your relationship because you fear that maybe 3-4 years in the future she will leave you and you want a headstart on finding a new girl?

Just accept that this team was always heading for a natural decline at some point, and no GM/Owner in the world would have tanked such a succesful franchise on purpose and lost the organization billions in revenue in order to MAYBE rebuild the team at some time in the future into something 99.9% likely to not be as good as what they already have.