GDT: WCQ Game #1 | Detroit Red Wings @ Anaheim Ducks | 10:30 PM EST | FS-D / NBCSN / TSN

[DRWCountryClub]

It's hard to believe Kindl played his first playoff game last night. I thought for sure he had prior experience.

 

[Flowah]

It's hard to believe Kindl played his first playoff game last night. I thought for sure he had prior experience.

You would hope so right?

That's the overripe philosophy for you.

 

[benusmc]

We got outplayed. Its that simple.

As for all the complaints about howard...

Watch the NYR game and tell me how good Lundquist should be for his salary. I will agree he is a better goalie than howard. But... watch his next game. Then come back and tell me how bad Howard is.

The complaints about our team here are borderline insulting.

Blame Howard, Z and D for not doing enough (yes not everyone insults these guys, this is directed to those who do). Then realize who EVERYONE else is on our team and shut it. We should be lucky to be in the playoffs at all. Complain about our 3rd liners, or rookies or whatever. Or better yet, stop complaining. We are basically supposed to lose with series in 4-5 games. If we lose in 7 we have done well. I on the other hand hope we win. But lets see. But enough ragging on the stars of our team, [mod] and unwarranted.

I'll repeat on here what I did on LGW because it has started to really bother me about Wings fans, and lack of critical thinking skills: A few people on this board should really reflect on their opinions before they express them. They scream the Wings will be a lottery pick at the beginning of year. Then when that changed, we are just going to be mediocre, then we won't make the playoffs. Now we do make the playoffs, those same people previously stating we won't do anything, are now complaining about us losing Game 1, against the number 2 seed, at their rink, and with a terrible line up and combos all year long (according to majority of the board). So which is it, is it SC worthy and under achieving or is it a lottery team that is over achieving?

 

[Yemack]

our D couldn't cope with size and speed of Ducks but their biggest problem was not being able to make a clean outlet pass. That killed our team last night more than anything in my humble opinion. Defense-wise, it was only a 2-1 game and although Ducks had alot of puck I thought we did good job considering how many playoff rookies we have in D.

However, our D could not deliver the puck to our forwards from mid game onwards when the pressure was on. we lost alot of possession because of it and our forwards couldnt hit their full strides resulting to very limited penetration. If only our D can deliver the puck, we will see Wings getting the puck in to their zone consistently with some speed. And trust me we can do alot of damage if that were to happen because I wasnt that impressed by Duck's defensive ability in their zone neither.

what can we do about it? I dunno. It's not something that you simply get better overnight because coaches tell them to be better.

I hear that Dekeyser improved Wings outlet pass department quite a bit. I shudder to think what would have looked like beginning of the season. It must have been really frustrating for our forwards.

 

[RedWingsNow*]

I'll repeat on here what I did on LGW because it has started to really bother me about Wings fans, and lack of critical thinking skills: A few people on this board should really reflect on their opinions before they express them. They scream the Wings will be a lottery pick at the beginning of year. Then when that changed, we are just going to be mediocre, then we won't make the playoffs. Now we do make the playoffs, those same people previously stating we won't do anything, are now complaining about us losing Game 1, against the number 2 seed, at their rink, and with a terrible line up and combos all year long (according to majority of the board). So which is it, is it SC worthy and under achieving or is it a lottery team that is over achieving?

This post is absurd coming from someone complaining about others' "critical thinking skills."

You're literally making things up.
You don't know who "THEY IS."

You consider anyone who criticizes as "THEY," and therefore, your criticism is ridiculously absurd.

We have some people who thought we were going to beat the Ducks. And many of them were upset because they believed the Wings didn't put forth a great effort.

We also have some people who thought the Wings were a bubbled playoff team who would probably lose in round 1.

These two groups ARE NOT the same "THEY," for the most part.

 

[Flowah]

I'll repeat on here what I did on LGW because it has started to really bother me about Wings fans, and lack of critical thinking skills: A few people on this board should really reflect on their opinions before they express them. They scream the Wings will be a lottery pick at the beginning of year. Then when that changed, we are just going to be mediocre, then we won't make the playoffs. Now we do make the playoffs, those same people previously stating we won't do anything, are now complaining about us losing Game 1, against the number 2 seed, at their rink, and with a terrible line up and combos all year long (according to majority of the board). So which is it, is it SC worthy and under achieving or is it a lottery team that is over achieving?

Lottery pick? Most people had them 6-10. They came in 7 down to the last game of the year.

I'll repeat in here what I do all the time because it has started to really bother me about Wings fans.

They make up opinions or take the opinions of a tiny tiny tiny minority and then try to portray the entirety of the people they don't agree with, as having those opinions. They epitomize the straw man argument.

And learn the difference between losing due to talent, and when you're losing due to bad decisions. Players that played badly last night were capable of playing better. The line combos are capable of being better. We have better players that are sitting instead of guys like Cleary. If we were the Panthers, fine. There's not enough talent there to win. That's not the case.

 

[RedWingsNow*]

our D couldn't cope with size and speed of Ducks but their biggest problem was not being able to make a clean outlet pass. That killed our team last night more than anything in my humble opinion. Defense-wise, it was only a 2-1 game and although Ducks had alot of puck I thought we did good job considering how many playoff rookies we have in D.

However, our D could not deliver the puck to our forwards from mid game onwards when the pressure was on. we lost alot of possession because of it and our forwards couldnt hit their full strides resulting to very limited penetration. If only our D can deliver the puck, we will see Wings getting the puck in to their zone consistently with some speed. And trust me we can do alot of damage if that were to happen because I wasnt that impressed by Duck's defensive ability in their zone neither.

what can we do about it? I dunno. It's not something that you simply get better overnight because coaches tell them to be better.

I hear that Dekeyser improved Wings outlet pass department quite a bit. I shudder to think what would have looked like beginning of the season. It must have been really frustrating for our forwards.

The Wings are working to hard below their goal line. When Datsyuk spends 20 seconds behind his net, don't expect offense that shift.

Dekeyser is an improvement over Lashofff.
But we saw DD exposed last night -- especially with the Wings down 2-1, and DD trying to make passes.

He's a coachable kid who stripped down his game to a very simplistic level and looked solid.

Give him credit for that. But that's exactly what KQ did for us in the 07 playoffs.

Lots of people can do that.

DD has lots of learning to do. And as he makes his game more sophisticated, he'll make mistakes and learn from them

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

The Wings are working to hard below their goal line. When Datsyuk spends 20 seconds behind his net, don't expect offense that shift.

Dekeyser is an improvement over Lashofff.
But we saw DD exposed last night -- especially with the Wings down 2-1, and DD trying to make passes.

He's a coachable kid who stripped down his game to a very simplistic level and looked solid.

Give him credit for that. But that's exactly what KQ did for us in the 07 playoffs.

Lots of people can do that.

DD has lots of learning to do. And as he makes his game more sophisticated, he'll make mistakes and learn from them

DD's worst game for the Wings thus far. He coughed up the puck about as much last night as he did the entire end of the regular season run. That Koivu line was in part so effective because DD and Kindl could not break the pressure. Kronwall and Ericsson are going to draw the Getzlaf line it is on Kindl and DeKeyser to break Cog's and Winnik on the forecheck, they couldn't do it last night.

 

[kuick]

You don't understand this logic?
Jimmy loses to the Sharks. Jimmy loses the Sharks. Jimmy loses to the Preds.

Alright, I get what you're saying, it's just a really poor argument.

At some point, Jimmy Howard makes the big save that allows his team to stay in it and win it.

And we were in it. Down one goal with an entire period of offensive pressure and the forwards couldn't convert more than one measly goal. That's not on Jimmy. He was good enough to win and good enough to lose. The roster in front of him was only the latter.

In other words -- he's a decent goal.

Not a freakin' MVP. Not a 6-year, $5+M, NTC goalie.

And if people would just temper their expectations instead of pretending he's the son of God in goalie pads, conversations about Jimmy Howard would be a lot more sensible.

Speaking of tempering expectations, you need to do the same. As bad as calling him our team MVP for the season, there's no need to trash him because he was behind Datsyuk and Z in terms of importance this year.

He's an above average starting goalie right around top 10 in terms of goalie caphit (not counting those due for raises). He's relatively solid and fairly consistent. He's not a gamebreaker. He's not paid like one. He's doing his job in net, if our team can't score more than one goal than that doesn't automatically make him some small game playoff sieve. Plenty of series left to take still.

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

our D couldn't cope with size and speed of Ducks but their biggest problem was not being able to make a clean outlet pass. That killed our team last night more than anything in my humble opinion. Defense-wise, it was only a 2-1 game and although Ducks had alot of puck I thought we did good job considering how many playoff rookies we have in D.

However, our D could not deliver the puck to our forwards from mid game onwards when the pressure was on. we lost alot of possession because of it and our forwards couldnt hit their full strides resulting to very limited penetration. If only our D can deliver the puck, we will see Wings getting the puck in to their zone consistently with some speed. And trust me we can do alot of damage if that were to happen because I wasnt that impressed by Duck's defensive ability in their zone neither.

what can we do about it? I dunno. It's not something that you simply get better overnight because coaches tell them to be better.

I hear that Dekeyser improved Wings outlet pass department quite a bit. I shudder to think what would have looked like beginning of the season. It must have been really frustrating for our forwards.

As bad as our defense was last night, the forwards weren't exactly working very hard off of the puck when it came to breaking the puck out of our zone. The failed stretch passes got very old, very quick. It looked like a bad drop-in session.

 

[Yemack]

The Wings are working to hard below their goal line. When Datsyuk spends 20 seconds behind his net, don't expect offense that shift.

Dekeyser is an improvement over Lashofff.
But we saw DD exposed last night -- especially with the Wings down 2-1, and DD trying to make passes.

He's a coachable kid who stripped down his game to a very simplistic level and looked solid.

Give him credit for that. But that's exactly what KQ did for us in the 07 playoffs.

Lots of people can do that.

DD has lots of learning to do. And as he makes his game more sophisticated, he'll make mistakes and learn from them

I'm not really harping on our D or Dekeyser. It's wouldn't be fair for me to ask a guy straight out of college to perform flawlessly or over their ability.

of course, there is always this glimmer of hope that somehow they will settle down and suddenly see things but mostly I'm just trying to discuss our situation the way I see it... and kinda realizing that I took that aspect of our team for granted when Lidstrom was playing.

 

[RedWingsNow*]

Alright, I get what you're saying, it's just a really poor argument.



And we were in it. Down one goal with an entire period of offensive pressure and the forwards couldn't convert more than one measly goal. That's not on Jimmy. He was good enough to win and good enough to lose. The roster in front of him was only the latter.



Speaking of tempering expectations, you need to do the same. As bad as calling him our team MVP for the season, there's no need to trash him because he was behind Datsyuk and Z in terms of importance this year.

He's an above average starting goalie right around top 10 in terms of goalie caphit (not counting those due for raises). He's relatively solid and fairly consistent. He's not a gamebreaker. He's not paid like one. He's doing his job in net, if our team can't score more than one goal than that doesn't automatically make him some small game playoff sieve. Plenty of series left to take still.

Trash him?
I'm calling him what he is.

A good starting goalie -- a work horse. But someone who hasn't put the team up on his shoulders for even a series yet.

 

[Nut Upstrom]

Funny that many are on Howard for giving up a goal to Selanne, saying a 5mil goalie should make that stop.

At least he didn't give the puck up on a 4minute PP in overtime leading to the winner.

What does that say 14ari?

Bam!
Well said indeed.
I thought Howard was very good. good enough to win if he'd have had some more support both offensively and defensively.

 

[Zetterberg4Captain]

Trash him?
I'm calling him what he is.

A good starting goalie -- a work horse. But someone who hasn't put the team up on his shoulders for even a series yet.

very few goalies to be fair have carried their team for an entire playoff series.

currently,

crawford-nope
backstrom/harding-nope
hiller-nope
schenider/luongo-nope
niemi-nope
quick-yes
elliot-nope/halak-yes

fleury-nope
nabokov-nope
price-nope
andersson-nope
holtby-nope
lundqvist-debatable
rask-nope
reimer-nope

so of the 16-19 current NHL starting goalies in the playoffs only 2 for sure have carried their team for an entire series and been the sole reason they won that series with one other, the best in the world, to maybe have

 

[JPE123]

Dekeyser did have his weakest game I've seen last night. I am hoping it was just first playoff game jitters and he returns to his previous form. I think he's gonna be a solid D man for hopefully a long time but coming straight out of Western to NHL playoffs in 6 weeks is a big leap and mistakes are expected.

 

[8snake]

Usually teams that try to stretch a defense out like we were doing last night have great speed up front and good passing d-men. We are extremely slow at forward and have MAYBE two d-men who can accurately pass the puck beyond 2 feet. I don't understand thathat gameplan at all.

 

[RedWingsNow*]

This team needs to have speed through the neutral zone and once they gain the line, they need to go to the net and stop trying to set up.

Other than that, this is going to be a powerplay series...

And look, I support going with a defense that has two rookies and another inexperienced guy with ZERO playoff games coming into this season... but understand that it comes with a price.

Like a Dekeyser-Smith PK unit.

 

[BF3]

Can we stop saying 6 years, $5.3MM per is outlandish and should be reserved for "elite goaltenders" or whatever. It makes Jimmy the 10th highest paid goaltender as of today. By the beginning of next season (when the contract actually kicks in), it will most likely be 12th highest. Considering most people think Howard is at least a top-12 goaltender, he is being paid what he is worth. He would have absolutely gotten more per year on the open market, and he also would have gotten the 6 years. The NMC and NTC clauses are not burdensome either. All Red Wings goalies appear to be doomed until the end of time for being insufficient and/or overpaid.

Just because he doesn't stand on his head every night doesn't mean he is overpaid or terrible. He had a good game, our defense played terribly, and we couldn't score. I don't care who the goalie is, no team is going to win a series with terrible scoring and defense. Our playmakers need to rack up points, our bottom six needs to be more assertive, and our defense needs to remove heads from ***** and make a simple pass every once in a while.

And considering all of this, they only lost by one (ignoring empty netter) against the 2nd seed on the road on the west coast playing our 5th game in 8 days.

I'm looking forward to Howard stealing a game for the team one of these nights, but I don't expect it every night. What I do expect is for Babcock to actually coach - rework the lineup and gameplan for Thursday - and go from there.

 

[BinCookin]

We can't be critical of the best players on our team?

Damn, didn't know that. Thanks for filling me in!

We have about 4 good players and 19 Crap bags!

Yet people keep mentioning the 4 good players as if they can drag our entire team into something good. Its unreasonable.

 

[BinCookin]

very few goalies to be fair have carried their team for an entire playoff series.

currently,

crawford-nope
backstrom/harding-nope
hiller-nope
schenider/luongo-nope
niemi-nope
quick-yes
elliot-nope/halak-yes

fleury-nope
nabokov-nope
price-nope
andersson-nope
holtby-nope
lundqvist-debatable
rask-nope
reimer-nope

so of the 16-19 current NHL starting goalies in the playoffs only 2 for sure have carried their team for an entire series and been the sole reason they won that series with one other, the best in the world, to maybe have

Agreed.

 

[DRWCountryClub]

We have about 4 good players and 19 Crap bags!

Yet people keep mentioning the 4 good players as if they can drag our entire team into something good. Its unreasonable.

What? What are you talking about?

First you get all bothered by people criticizing guys like Datsyuk, then go on to talk about people calling the bad players crap bags?

It's a discussion forum. People can have their own opinions. You aren't even coherent at this point.

 

[GoAwayDanCleary]

Another problem is our bottom-six has no identity. Look at Anaheim with the speed and scoring (3rd line being their shutdown line) or LA with the big in-your-face grinders. Our bottom-six is really underwhelming. They don't provide much physicality, speed or scoring. They don't do much at all to change the outcome of the game.

Come to think of it, our entire team doesn't have an identity. Mostly just a bunch of misused spare parts.

 

[TheOtherOne]

Trash him?
I'm calling him what he is.

A good starting goalie -- a work horse. But someone who hasn't put the team up on his shoulders for even a series yet.

At what point does the offense become relevant? If we lose every game 1-0, does that count as him putting the team on his shoulders? Or does he still get credit for the loss?

If we had won that game 3-2, would it have counted as him putting the team on his shoulders?

Is stopping all but 1 in a game where we win by 1 in OT more impressive than stopping all but 1 in a game we lose?

 

[RedWingsNow*]

At what point does the offense become relevant? If we lose every game 1-0, does that count as him putting the team on his shoulders? Or does he still get credit for the loss?

If we had won that game 3-2, would it have counted as him putting the team on his shoulders?

Is stopping all but 1 in a game where we win by 1 in OT more impressive than stopping all but 1 in a game we lose?

Oh stop trying to be clever
The offense always counts.

But Jimmy Howard has never won a playoff series where we didn't drastically outplay the other team.

If you don't want to see this and acknowledge that, fine.

To me, this is a critical aspect of what you want in a goalie -- at least the kind of goalie you make a 6-year commitment to.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

The offense always counts.

But Jimmy Howard has never won a playoff series where we didn't drastically outplay the other team.

If you don't want to see this and acknowledge that, fine.

To me, this is a critical aspect of what you want in a goalie -- at least the kind of goalie you make a 6-year commitment to.

Phoenix 2010?