conundrumed

But what do we have to lose, really? We have 2 goalies not cutting it. Boot Mackey to waivers, Wolf isn't waiver-eligible, so why not give him a look? The worst case is seeing what he needs to work on with an NHL look.

Vrana draws in vs his old team Bertuzzi-Larkin-Perron Rasmussen-Copp-Fabbri Vrana-Veleno-Berggren Zadina-Suter-Sundqvist Pretty solid. Hopefully Jonny Burgers will be serving up some delicious one-timers for Vrana. When Raymond gets back we'll be at full health for the first time all year. Who do you sit is a good problem to have. Kubalik sitting tonight. Good scorer, but one-dimensional. Would LOVE to see the preseason PP back with Raymond-Vrana on each side putting on a show. But we'll see how Vrana looks first.😅

HUUUGE game vs WASH tonight. Come away with a win and they're in the driver's seat for games in hand. Would LOVE to see DET and BUFF take the 2 wildcards. That would be a story for the East, finally. Have to overtake the Pens. Lots of games in hand vs FLA, WASH & NYI. Keeping expectations low for both teams as they're really not supposed to be here yet. But I've always said rebuilding teams arrive a year earlier than expected. It's been a really fun season, as opposed to my favourite team in the west. Seems official that the Wings aren't selling at the deadline. A surprising season in a fun way.

Should also bring up the zero trade talk with Joonas Korpisalo. He's a good goalie and pending UFA. NJ, EDM, BUF, why wouldn't you? 3.14gaa on a terrible, injuy-riddled team, but a .913sv%. No idea why he isn't being discussed. He knocked the Leafs out of the playoffs in the bubble. He was a huge factor.

It's fast becoming a league for giving young goalies a chance. They're getting their chances via injury, and a lot are really helping their teams. Ersson looks fantastic, as did Kochetkov had Carolina not had the logjam, he'd still be their guy. Woll looks solid for TML, Ottawa is going through goalies like no tomorrow and their prospects are doing decent. Oettinger literally ripped the starters role for himself last year. So here we are suffering with league bottom goaltending. Somebody please, tell me why we're not calling up Wolf to try to instill some at least avg goaltending? It's worth a shot at this point. It's our last chance to catch the dragon by the tail. If it doesn't work, oh well, it wasn't working anyways.

The Hanifin-Andersson pairing hasn't been good defensively this year. This isn't a new thing. Konecny played their switch off perfectly. It was a 1-on-2 and they'd have been better to not switch. It only served to confuse Markstrom. Plus Andersson should have never let that play form, he looked gassed from the second Konecny got the puck. I know Konecny's fast (former Sting), but Andersson had zero jump, though still could have kept him to the outside without the switch. This team gives me a headache. I'm going to the goatending thread.

He's been excellent.

It's high time to prove that our outstanding 5v5 possession metrics mean anything!!

I'm frightened.

Damn I hate having this thread when it's a Flames game, so apologies.😅 5 game heater, 2 back of Caps(3) and Cats(4), 3pts back of Pens(-) and NYI(4). () = Wings having games in hand. Crazy. Sens and Sabres still in the hunt. 7 teams fighting for 2 spots. None can catch 3rd place in their divisions without a total meltdown by a top 3 team. Now for Stevie it becomes decision time on Bertuzzi. Keep him for the fight and let him walk for nothing? Kind of have to, imo. Would hate to upset the group when they're finally playing meaningful games in February. It's a fun ride when nobody really expected it and fans still have a lot of patience regardless of where it goes from here. So much added last offseason: Husso Perron Copp Kubalik Walman Maatta Chiarot All having a positive impact teaching the kids how to play a full season has been great for development as opposed to playing 30 meaningless games to close out the season. So if you'd like an E team to cheer for...lol I know we have our history, but they were in the West back then. So who has an E fave team? I'd forgive NJ and Buffalo. Maybe Philly. NEVER the Rangers!!!!

Woah, that's a nice trade for T dot *spit* O'Reilly adds a ton of Top 9 grit and Acciari is a solid 4th liner. They HAVE to be all in so what they gave up is a whole bunch of whatever. Army's doing a solid job of re-tooling. Retaining salary to get more back. Up to 3 1st rders now. Not sure the prospects mean anything, but Toronto's prospect pool is weak regardless.

Is it just me, or is expectedGF/GA the most utterly useless metric in all of hockey? It means absolutely zero. Save it for Nintendo. We've taken everything into account for individual players to provide you with an utterly useless, robotic guess. We've delved into +/- to provide something even more useless.

Many teams would prefer not to rent, outside of big $$$ stars. It's hard to say which West team actually wants the 8th seed, all 3 are looking like garbage. We had the 1st 10 minutes of the game to jump all over the Wings. They couldn't get going. But apparently that either wasn't the plan or we're just not capable. Once they got moving, which in large part was due to the Flames taking penalties as per usual, Detroit's just a better team at creating scoring. Their PP and PK have turned into fire recently. Maybe the Flames should watch why their PP is effective, move the puck fast. Once the 2nd period got rolling, the Wings did too and Calgary looked pretty hapless. SOG don't matter. They continually get 23-25/gm and 5 goals. The Flames constantly get 40 with a goal or 2. Hellberg's a pretty weak backup, but it never seems to matter with the Flames. They just don't generate much quality and the goalie sees most shots quite easily.

Do we strongly consider being sellers?

Detroit plays fairly chaotic. So that's a problem trying to dictate play/implement system. But mainly, the Flames take sooo many penalties and the Wings don't.

Oof. 4th line vs 1st line.

The Wings got healthy. They're playing some really good hockey. They just dummied Van back2back. I think they're officially a dangerous team. They've been playing great. Everyone's going for them. Gotta get Hellberg moving. He's a mess holding his structure laterally. I'm okay with a 7-6 game. Maybe it'll wake our scoring up. Otherwise, they're making us look like Van.

Oops.

Dube came to play!

Name me a better player than Fabbri with as much injury woe. So much talent there.

What happens if the results are the same? Or has anyone considered that yet?

The Flames have to get to Hellberg. He never starts. The team is hot, everyone's making a difference, now it's his turn. Get him moving and shoot. He's gotta be tense. Detroit WILL get in a shootout with anyone, and they've had 3-4 goal comebacks in 3rd periods alone. So get a lead, and don't stop. They'll gladly play 6-5 games. This should be really interesting. Since they beat us 2-1, they've shellacked Van back2back 6-1 and 5-2. Gave Edmonton all they could handle for the SO win. This isn't the ARI-bad Wings anymore. This is a good matchup to see where both teams stand.

Gru's minions looking a little tired.

Oof Hellberg. Don't make them play Husso another 20 in a row.

Detroit took a bit to get going.