BinCookin
Registered User
I am in pretty strong agreement with RobertGuess on this one.
Abdelkader provides lots of intangibles to his hockey game. He competes hard, he hits hard, he works hard. He is a perfectly competent and capable FOURTH LINER!
It is not his fault they put him on the first line. So I do not at all dislike Abdelkader.
Now I never played hockey myself. But I have been watching hockey since the early 90's. I really do not see the "size" argument as a "big players always beat small players" fact. I believe the opposite can be true.
Let Boston play their goons against our 4 lines of "skilled" players. (each line should be stronger than theirs). They will lose the game. Over the last 10 years, most teams that player Detroit do NOT play their goon that night. They generally play thier most skilled players and scratch their "grittier" players.
Thats what I have noticed.
But lets face it... we don't really have a choice here.
Our team is small.
Putting Abby on the top line is like trying to match Boston's Lucic with an entirely inadequate player. Thus we will LOSE trying to play their game. Make them play our game. Our game will be SKILL, all skill. They check the top line, our third line takes them apart. The DRW can win this way. Babcock seems to want to play a "tough" game, and I don't think we need more size. We need more smarts.
Z-D-Nyquist could be a dynamite line. Or Nyquist doesn't mesh, and he cant handle playing against top line people. But you have to try him there to see. What if we never tried playing Datsyuk and Z against top line players because they were small? Where would we be now??
The best players on our team include Tatar and Nyquist. They are the ONLY ones to potentially be the next FLIP and Hudler... or maybe even better than that. Cleary, Sammy, Bert, Abdelkader... well we know what they provide. They are veterans. These players have no more "potential" They are maxed out, and we know what they are.
Healthy Sammy and Bert are good players. I don't need to say they are bad. But our team NEEDS someone under 30 to be good too!
Tatar and Nyquist are those guys.
They really NEED to play this year. Fail or Succeed, they need to play so we can find out.
Abdelkader provides lots of intangibles to his hockey game. He competes hard, he hits hard, he works hard. He is a perfectly competent and capable FOURTH LINER!
It is not his fault they put him on the first line. So I do not at all dislike Abdelkader.
Now I never played hockey myself. But I have been watching hockey since the early 90's. I really do not see the "size" argument as a "big players always beat small players" fact. I believe the opposite can be true.
Let Boston play their goons against our 4 lines of "skilled" players. (each line should be stronger than theirs). They will lose the game. Over the last 10 years, most teams that player Detroit do NOT play their goon that night. They generally play thier most skilled players and scratch their "grittier" players.
Thats what I have noticed.
But lets face it... we don't really have a choice here.
Our team is small.
Putting Abby on the top line is like trying to match Boston's Lucic with an entirely inadequate player. Thus we will LOSE trying to play their game. Make them play our game. Our game will be SKILL, all skill. They check the top line, our third line takes them apart. The DRW can win this way. Babcock seems to want to play a "tough" game, and I don't think we need more size. We need more smarts.
Z-D-Nyquist could be a dynamite line. Or Nyquist doesn't mesh, and he cant handle playing against top line people. But you have to try him there to see. What if we never tried playing Datsyuk and Z against top line players because they were small? Where would we be now??
The best players on our team include Tatar and Nyquist. They are the ONLY ones to potentially be the next FLIP and Hudler... or maybe even better than that. Cleary, Sammy, Bert, Abdelkader... well we know what they provide. They are veterans. These players have no more "potential" They are maxed out, and we know what they are.
Healthy Sammy and Bert are good players. I don't need to say they are bad. But our team NEEDS someone under 30 to be good too!
Tatar and Nyquist are those guys.
They really NEED to play this year. Fail or Succeed, they need to play so we can find out.
