GDT: 12/2/2017 | Wings @ Canadiens | 7PM ET | FSD

[HisNoodliness]

I'm glad I was playing hockey instead of watching yesterday. This seems like it was a miserable one from start to finish. We gave Montreal 4 huge points on that home and home. Hopefully it's enough to destroy our playoff aspirations.

 

[dragonballgtz]

I think he lost the room after ripping the team leadership after Vancouver.
It's like Zetterberg, off to a great start, just decided he was done.

That is some fail leadership if that's true. Z for all his "we have to look into the mirror... it's on us in the room" talk, if he can't handle criticism then that is just poor on his part just to give up.

 

[Zetterberg4Captain]

An awful GM who wont listen or change or adapt has created a team that is overpaid and underskilled

The coach has lost the room because he has created or allowed a divide to exist.

No veteran avvountsbility coupled with no veteran performance directly causes the young guys to turn their backs.

Changes are needed.

Thr coach
The vets
The middle guys

Fire blashill
Send down ericsson and ouellet
Bench kronwall
Trade tatar and green
Demote helm to 4th line
Promote hicketts and whomever else

Publicly hand team over to larkin and mantha

Play uptempo aggressive speed game

 

[Bondurant]

This game was embarrassing no doubt, and seven or eight lame efforts in a row is terrible, but lets not blow this thing out of proportion with its awfulness. Even great teams get blown out, Pittsburgh says hello, it happens.

A blowout of this magnitude hasn't happened to Detroit since '85-'86. Telling that it happens now. Coach has lost the team, GM contends it's a team built for the playoffs and ownership is absent.

 

[TheMule93]

10 wins in 27 games. Not good

Looking at our schedule, we could realistically drop the next 6.

vs Winnipeg
vs St. Louis
vs Florida
vs Boston
vs Toronto
@ New York Islanders

and then we play @ Philly, who have lost 10 games in a row themselves. I hope we both lose until that game.

 

[Number1RedWingsFan52]

You were spot on buddy!

Yup had it pretty much spot on, Had a feeling that after Mrazek gave up 5 goals that Howard would follow suit also and the way the Habs were playing you pretty much knew that they were going to net 10 goals last night.

 

[Number1RedWingsFan52]

10 wins in 27 games. Not good

Looking at our schedule, we could realistically drop the next 6.

vs Winnipeg
vs St. Louis
vs Florida
vs Boston
vs Toronto
@ New York Islanders

and then we play @ Philly, who have lost 10 games in a row themselves. I hope we both lose until that game.

Yup we've a brutal schedule coming up, Pretty much looking at a big losing streak here. This team might be toast at years end.

 

[Winger98]

Well Zetterberg summed up my thoughts exactly when watching the replay this morning. That was embarrassing. Not good enough in a single area, heck they would have struggled to beat lower level opposition with that effort last night.

If Holland is serious about playing for the playoffs Blashill should probably be out the door. I don't think we have a prayer, but that is the kind of effort in terms of compounding poor play for a considerable stretch with lots of embarrassing moments that gets your coach fired for sure. It is hard to say he is having much of an impact in that dressing room.

I know this is just my speculation, but I don't think we have a healthy dressing room at all. We don't have enough talent especially on D, but the night to night effort has now gone completely wanting from these guys. I am not so sure we didn't run off a cliff the night we played Edmonton and that will be the night our entire season turned towards a bottom five finish.

Did the coach publicly criticizing his leading goal scorer throw off the dressing room? We have been playing like dead fish since that happened.

Yeah, I think just looking at the losing streak as a confirmation that the team isn't a good team is missing the forest for the trees. Bad teams lose, dysfunctional teams get killed. This Wings team is getting killed. Even if Holland doesn't believe making the playoffs is possible, I think you have to replace Blashill just as an attempt to provide more direction in that locker room.

Replace Blashill now and see how the players respond. Then start cleaning house at the TDL and over the summer.

Also, if there is something that I can see pushing Z and Kronwall into retirement (assuming they feel healthy enough to play), it's dealing with this sort of environment all year. They've been around a long time, they've done a lot, if they choose to walk over the summer in any form I think it's a bad statement about where this team is off the ice as much as on.

I think he lost the room after ripping the team leadership after Vancouver.
It's like Zetterberg, off to a great start, just decided he was done.

Z had been leaving it all on the ice, and the other players see it. Everyone in a locker room knows the guys they think can do a little more and the ones who are shouldering more than they should have to. If that's what turned the team against Blashill, it means Blashill totally misread that room. There's a reason Bowman chose to ride Shanny and Fedorov while not touching Yzerman. For all of Babcock's prickliness, I don't recall him ever calling out Z or D in the press, either. The coach has to know what buttons he can push, and Blashill might have just been totally oblivious to the fact that going after Z was pressing a big red button locked under glass.

 

[Flowah]

If it takes firing Blashill and seeing that the team still sucks for people to realize it's 99% on the roster and Holland, I'm all for replacing Blash.

 

[Pavels Dog]

If it takes firing Blashill and seeing that the team still sucks for people to realize it's 99% on the roster and Holland, I'm all for replacing Blash.

I'm curious how much talent you think we need to add to actually win a game, because if losing 10-1 is this roster performing at 100% capacity by my calculations we need to add 2 Lidstroms, a Karlsson, a Datsyuk, a prime Hasek and a Paul Byron in order to win instead.

 

[avssuc]

Whatever the response is by Holland and/or Blashill, it needs to be loud. The kind of loss they just experienced indicates that something is very wrong with this team. This is the kind of thing we saw from the 2003 Tigers or 2008 Lions; it was beyond mailing it in, it was absolutely pathetic.

The problem about their problem is that it's org wide. Coach, GM, players, cap situation... the only thing that is attractive about the Wings is their new stadium and what's left of their fleeting mystique. There is no easy fix here, but it now looks pretty clear that scorched earth may be the only way to stop this virus of mediocrity spreading through the org.

 

[Run the Jewels]

The"we have to look in the mirror" is a Blashill thing. Blash is all about looking into mirrors as his coaching trope. Z is probably realizing what Daysyuk realized a couple years ago: this team is bad and it gets really tiring being told you just have to work harder and everything will be fine. They're being asked to shovel 15 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag. Yes, look into the mirror and convince yourself you're up to the task!

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

10 wins in 27 games. Not good

Looking at our schedule, we could realistically drop the next 6.

vs Winnipeg
vs St. Louis
vs Florida
vs Boston
vs Toronto
@ New York Islanders

and then we play @ Philly, who have lost 10 games in a row themselves. I hope we both lose until that game.

Especially considering in 27 games, only 8 of their wins are ROWs.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Helm is one of the hardest working players on our team, which is hardly doing nothing, and I have been harder on Abdelkader then anyone, but he is actually having a good season, so there is that. These two players have not been our problem. Weak defence and extremely poor team effort have been.

This game was embarrassing no doubt, and seven or eight lame efforts in a row is terrible, but lets not blow this thing out of proportion with its awfulness. Even great teams get blown out, Pittsburgh says hello, it happens. Our team's compete level is the real problem, and that is more on the coach then the players, clearly Blashill is not the right voice behind this group of players, as we have been dogging it as a team for nearly 3 weeks now. Average players is one thing, we can still play better than this, I mean Vegas doesn't have that great a team at all, and they are doing decent, proof with the right coach, a team can play well and win, so Blashill needs the boot and soon, but we annoyingly know he is probably safe until either we lose another 5-10 in a row or end of season. I mean you never even hear anything about him getting canned, so that must mean they aren't even discussing it at the moment. If they want to make the playoffs, change the coach, make a trade that changes the team, and if they want to rebuild, then trade off everyone, Tatar, Nyquist, Dekeyser, Green, Daley and so on.

They keep saying playoffs, yet we clearly aren't good enough right now, so why no trades, or rumours of them trying at least. I realize we have bad contracts, but other teams have worked their way out of contractual jams, without giving up too much, so it is possible.

Helm works hard but it's mostly him finishing checks after guys have already moved the puck or him trying to make an offensive play that turns the puck over. He looks like a 4th liner out there, which would be totally fine if he had the appropriate contract of a 4th liner.

 

[Run the Jewels]

I'm curious how much talent you think we need to add to actually win a game, because if losing 10-1 is this roster performing at 100% capacity by my calculations we need to add 2 Lidstroms, a Karlsson, a Datsyuk, a prime Hasek and a Paul Byron in order to win instead.

Our best defenseman was awful last night. As was Ouellet and Jensen. It cracks me up that some thought Las Vegas would be worse than us. As a first year franchise that is nowhere near the cap, with few if any awful contracts they are already better than we are. All we need is one or two more over priced vets and maybe we can be better than the Golden Knights!! Good thing the cap may go up to $80 million! Go Kenny Go!!

 

[WingedWheel1987]

The"we have to look in the mirror" is a Blashill thing. Blash is all about looking into mirrors as his coaching trope. Z is probably realizing what Daysyuk realized a couple years ago: this team is bad and it gets really tiring being told you just have to work harder and everything will be fine. They're being asked to shovel 15 pounds of **** into a 5 pound bag. Yes, look into the mirror and convince yourself you're up to the task!

I think literally every player that was interviewed last night said the phrase "Look in the mirror."

The players have certainly bought into the Blashill system.

A team that works hard but lacks skill will never give you a good team.

 

[Syckle78]

Yup we've a brutal schedule coming up, Pretty much looking at a big losing streak here. This team might be toast at years end.

We need to be toast by the trade deadline. Glad this is happening now and we have a rough schedule coming up. Fingers crossed things keep going as they are.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

I think it is time to move on from Blashill.

I wish him luck down the road and I do hope he gets a fair shot somewhere else down the road because we are a really terrible team and he never really got to play his system in my opinion. However, the time has come. I think he has lost this dressing room.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Our best defenseman was awful last night. As was Ouellet and Jensen. It cracks me up that some thought Las Vegas would be worse than us. As a first year franchise that is nowhere near the cap, with few if any awful contracts they are already better than we are. All we need is one or two more over priced vets and maybe we can be better than the Golden Knights!! Good thing the cap may go up to $80 million! Go Kenny Go!!

Vegas is also better than Washington, NYR, Chicago, SJ, Minny etc etc. If anything they're the proof that coaching matters more than the names on the backs of the players jerseys. They're not gonna win the cup, likely won't make the playoffs, but Blashill probably couldn't get a team to perform like that unless they had superstars on every position.

If our D is so bad, why doesn't Blash adjust the strategy to make up for it? Our special teams are actually good this year, we don't need to be worldbeaters at ES to have a shot at the playoffs. We just can't allow 4-5 goals per game.

 

[jkutswings]

If our D is so bad, why doesn't Blash adjust the strategy to make up for it? Our special teams are actually good this year, we don't need to be worldbeaters at ES to have a shot at the playoffs. We just can't allow 4-5 goals per game.

You have a defense that can't play defense, can't start a rush, and, in general, can't get out of their own way.

You have an offense that has some ok pieces, but isn't NEARLY good enough to carry the corpses on the blue line.

You have two goaltenders that aren't good enough to carry a bad team on their back, and aren't consistent enough to say that they don't share any of the blame.

While there are still ways to lose with less embarrassment, unless you're proposing to set a record for the number of icings in a game, I'd love to hear the strategy to turn this lemon into lemonade.

 

[Pavels Dog]

You have a defense that can't play defense, can't start a rush, and, in general, can't get out of their own way.

You have an offense that has some ok pieces, but isn't NEARLY good enough to carry the corpses on the blue line.

You have two goaltenders that aren't good enough to carry a bad team on their back, and aren't consistent enough to say that they don't share any of the blame.

While there are still ways to lose with less embarrassment, unless you're proposing to set a record for the number of icings in a game, I'd love to hear the strategy to turn this lemon into lemonade.

Green, Daley and Jensen should, at least in theory, be able to move the puck up ice with some consistency. And ice the puck... I don't know, maybe build a strategy around guys like Larkin/AA/Helm/Nielsen/Glendening who should be able to win some footraces? Bottom line is just that you can't blame the roster when a team is in a long losing streak and posting embarrassing losses in important games against a divisional rival like Montreal. Montreal isn't a powerhouse team. I belive they were bottom 5 offensively until they played us for two games in a row. THIS is the team that we need elite goaltenders, a high-end D and superstar forwards to keep from scoring 16 goals on us in 2 games? I don't expect a lot from this roster, and I was more than prepared to see a lot of losses going into this season. But what I'm not very interested in seeing is losses like this. Even a very, very low talent roster can find ways to play an effective strategy. Lack of talent can, and will, mean we won't score 4-5 goals per game, we won't go on 10 game winning streaks, we won't play dominant 60-minute games often. But lack of talent is never an excuse for being completely outworked, outplayed and embarrassed by teams that, frankly, aren't even all that good.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

I think it is time to move on from Blashill.

I wish him luck down the road and I do hope he gets a fair shot somewhere else down the road because we are a really terrible team and he never really got to play his system in my opinion. However, the time has come. I think he has lost this dressing room.

Honestly I think Blashill should finish the season at least. The worst thing for this team long term would be to bring in a new coach halfway through the season and he gets them to just at or near the playoffs. Because all the underlying issues still remain.

 

[Red Stanley]

Well, that's what you get when a mediocre roster takes the night off. Don't see how any of this is so shocking or even surprising. It's also not an indication of anything other than what we've suspected would be the case for a while now. The team has played this badly plenty of times before in recent history. The only difference is the actual score. And it's not like we're the only team getting blown out this year, either. If anything I'm surprised it took this long for it to happen to us too.

 

[Nut Upstrom]

Too late.
The horse is out of the barn.

You're not going to get a reasonable answer from a player who just got shellacked.

The time to ask questions was back when she was shilling for Danny Cleary's contract.

That's when MAYBE Holland might have been able to avert this impending disaster.

The derailment has been underway for five to seven years. To ask questions about it now, that the train has crashed, is stupid.

What do you think, Helene. Kronwall is old and broken. Jensen is not an NHLer. XO is probably not an NHLer either.
Zetterberg has hit that wall he probably should have hit a year ago.
Larkin and Mantha and A2 are decent young players, but they're not capable of driving the bus today - or maybe ever.

When you were cheering on the KFQ trade, and the Erik Cole trade and the Legwand trade and the Samuelsson and Cleary and Bertuzzi and Modano and Nielsen signings....that's when it was time to ask tough questions.

The free pass media circle-jerk surrounding this team has surely been going on for too long and no one covering the Wings is really free of blame; but I'm certainly not going to dismiss it or say "too little, too late" when one of the town's beat writers finally puts forth the guts to break from her peers who have been towing the line for years and finally ask some real questions. Too bad it took so long, but it's a step toward change and therefore, a step in the right direction.

 

[Nut Upstrom]

That is some fail leadership if that's true. Z for all his "we have to look into the mirror... it's on us in the room" talk, if he can't handle criticism then that is just poor on his part just to give up.

I think we know Henrik Zetterberg well enough at this point to say that the stated example is not the case. The guy has never had any part of giving up and I'm certain some criticism didn't suddenly trigger it within him.