Red Wings vs Blues Recap
A rather unfortunate loss. I thought Detroit did a decent job against the Blues' system, but not quite good enough.
More thoughts after the jump:
I know some of you are ready to get past all the talk about Ericsson sucking, but I'm not ready yet. The second goal, he needs to tie up the stick, take the body, do something! Don't just stand there next to him. Your body heat isn't enough to stop guys, E.
On the third goal, he has to go to the puck carrier since the only guy joining the rush is covered. Instead, he goes to the guy who is covered and it's 3-1.
Pavel seems to have a harder time against teams that swarm him. I guess that makes perfect sense as I would have a harder time doing my job if I had 3 people sitting at my desk while I was trying to work.
The ice must have been terrible out there since the puck was bouncing all over the place. That's always going to favor no-talent teams like the Blues and make skilled players like Datsyuk and Zetterberg grind it out a bit more than they'd prefer.
Hudler almost scored a goal by shooting the puck which was nice to see. Then he did score a goal by going to the net.
Franzen is playing well right now.
Bert was hitting guys quite a bit tonight. That's a good thing. He hasn't scored since he scored the team's first goal of the year, so he needs to at least start hitting guys more.
Even if Howard had gotten a penalty for going after the guy who ran him, I'm glad to see him do it. He could have been like Elliot and flopped like he had been shot, but he's a man, unlike Elliot, so he attacked. Integrity matters to me. I hate it when people embellish hits and dive when they feel a stick in their skates. I want those people to fail in life and be miserable. I never liked it when Osgood did it either, for that matter, though he rarely got any help from the refs.
So far this year, the Red Wings win and lose in streaks.
Next game is Thursday against the Coyotes.
As far as Commie goes, I just can't believe that he would be that much better than Ericsson. Maybe he is, but I'm guessing that he's not. The Jackets waived this guy and sent him to the AHL. We signed him in June for $1 million. We also signed Ericsson to the 3yr/$9.75 million that same month. The scouts, GM, and coaches, can't all be wrong- he has upside with both his age and size. I (and I'm sure the Wings management) am aware that he is not playing up to what they think his potential is but given our current standings in the division and conference I dont think they are looking to shake things up just yet. I'm cool with that because I just don't think we have anyone at the moment that could jump in and do a better job. Perhaps a free agent but the wings have always been a team to look for a rental player come the playoffs rather than 2 months into the season. But again, I do agree with you guys that he needs to play smarter.
@tjmendiola problem is, ericsson has had plenty of time to prove himself. commie has not. we KNOW ericsson will screw up, but we're not sure if commie will. time to find out.
@Twig You have a valid point there, I don't disagree. We have not seen what Commie can do. But why have the coaches and management not made the move? Certainly they spend more time with them then we do.
Although I agree that Ericsson needs to play smarter hockey I don't agree that they should sit him for Commie or Smith at this time. I'll start with Smith first- he's a rook...and thats not the wings style to push him into everyday play. Even Datsyuk's first year in the NHL he got worn down and could not finish. The difference was that in 02 we had fedorov, stevie, hull, robitaille, larionov, Shanny, etc. to fill the gap. We dont want to push Smith, and where we are in the standings I don't think we are in a need to have him make the full time jump to the NHL even if he is ready.
I am officially done with Ericsson. Done. The second and third goals were directly a result of his bad positioning. Sit his ass in the press box and put Commie on the ice now. Trade him for a 7th round pick or waive him and beg other teams to pick him up, i don't care. he needs to be gone now. I would not go as fa to say Holland made a mistake with that contract. We had the cap space and it should have been a huge motivating factor. Ericsson just has not responded.
I'd really like to see more of Commodore then just on his Twitter account - it'd be great to see Commie in rather than Ericsson. Not sure how E is a +2 so far this year, but I guess the numbers don't lie. It just seems like every time we give up a bad goal defensively, Ericsson is on the ice.
On Elliot's dive, at first the VS. commentators were making it into a big deal, then they saw the replay and shut up. Unfortunately, they didn't call him out on it - not that it would have mattered. Either way, one of the more classless plays I've ever seen a goalie make.
4 Like
Fuck Ericsson... Not sure if we can swear in the comments anymore... Seems good a time as any to test the waters...
1 Like
I completely agree with everything you just said. I actually said a similar thing on Johan Franzen's Beard's facebook about Howard and Elliot. It is not okay to dive ever. Diving is like stealing from stores; doing it not only affects you, it affects everyone else (prices get raised and old people yell at me about the price of toothpaste) and you ruin it for everyone. And regarding Ericsson, he needs to be a healthy scratch for a change. Put Smith back in, or let's see what Commie can do, I know he's got more in him than what we saw when we pulled him up during our skid. Honestly, it seems like every other player who has not played... up to par, this season is either getting moved around to try to get the right chemistry or has improved. But here's Ericsson, still terrifying me every time he's on the ice and leaving Kindl to pick up the slack. He's still creating turnovers, still not using his size, and still trying to use the Jedi mind trick to prevent the opposition from scoring.
Let's not forget about Miller's sweet new career as a ventriloquist with human puppets. That was a pretty impressive feat using that Blues player to high stick his team mate.
But, I think that overall, we could have played better for most of it. The last five minutes are hopefully a preview for how we're going to play on Thursday. I thought we could have pulled it off for a little bit.
@ChrissyKraceva Ericsson pissed me off on the 2 on 1 he didnt even try to take the pass away... he shouldnt have because the other guy was covered, but if he at least tried to block the pass lane he would have looked like he was doing something.
Howard wanted that 5hole goal back .... he knew it shouldnt have gotten through, and that is what I like about JIMMAH he is competitive and seems to do better when he is riled up. I like to see goalies defend themselves. I love this aspect about howard he doesnt take everything like ozzy.
I love to see the wings on an edge and pavel throwing punches :P so the more physical side is what makes me happy but ericsson needs to go somewhere.
also worth noting: the next two times the red wings play the blues, it will be in detroit. however, both games come the day after a road game.
