Finally, after missing 55 games this season, Detroit winger Johan Franzen (also known as The Mule) returns tonight against the St. Louis Blues.
The problem, however, is that the Red Wings lost Holmstrom, Eaves, Miller and Kronwall to injuries just before his return. Red Wings fans aren't even suprised anymore with all the injuries this year.In fact, the Red Wings have lost 279 man-games this season.
279.
Thats alot of games missed by Red Wings players this season, and it is also the reason the Wings are on the outside looking in at the playoffs for the first time in..... at least 11 years (I'm really not sure how many). And what is worse, they are on pace to tally up 393 games missed.
Now heres a little fun fact, there are only 82 games in an NHL season. This means that the Wings have played less than 5 of their games with a full roster, and for a period of a few weeks, their roster was basically cut in half. Most of the time, a team loses a good player here and there, rarely for a long period of time, and they play through it until the player returns, but I have never seen a team as injured as much as this years Red Wings. At one point, 4 of their top 6 forwards and 3 of their 6 defenceman were injured.
Hopefully, Detroit can now stay healthy and make a run at the playoffs.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Finnish Fail Flies To Philly
Late last week the Detroit Red Wings traded winger Ville Leino to the Philadelphia Flyers for a 5th round pick in the draft, and young defenceman Ole-Kristian Tollefsen. Leino was expected to have a breakout year with the Wings this year, but after being a healthy scratch for most of the year due to poor play, he will not be missed. Last year, he came in as a highly anticipated rookie after tearing up the Finnish Elite League by setting a franchis record for points, he delivered in his very first game in the NHL:
But this year he either looked invisible, or flat out bad, getting checked anytime he had the puck. Sadly, after looking as bad as he did with the Wings, he will probably go score 30+ goals with somebody else. Normally, I would have liked to keep him to see if he could break out of this slump, but the Red Wings needed to dump some salary to make room for the injured Johan Franzen and Andreas Lilja, who are just now returning from Long Term Injury Reserve.
On the other hand, Detroit gets 6-foot-2 defenceman Ole-Kristian Tollefsen in return. The most games he has ever played in a season is 70 in 2006-07. He ended up with 5 points, as a +2, and...wow... 123 penalty minutes....
Detroit has promptly placed him on waivers to make more salary cap room. If he clears,(hopefully he will), then he will probably play the rest of the season with the Grand Rapids Griffins, the Red Wings farm team, unless Detroit makes another trade and needs to call him up.
He will be a welcome addition if he can do some more of this:
But this year he either looked invisible, or flat out bad, getting checked anytime he had the puck. Sadly, after looking as bad as he did with the Wings, he will probably go score 30+ goals with somebody else. Normally, I would have liked to keep him to see if he could break out of this slump, but the Red Wings needed to dump some salary to make room for the injured Johan Franzen and Andreas Lilja, who are just now returning from Long Term Injury Reserve.
On the other hand, Detroit gets 6-foot-2 defenceman Ole-Kristian Tollefsen in return. The most games he has ever played in a season is 70 in 2006-07. He ended up with 5 points, as a +2, and...wow... 123 penalty minutes....
Detroit has promptly placed him on waivers to make more salary cap room. If he clears,(hopefully he will), then he will probably play the rest of the season with the Grand Rapids Griffins, the Red Wings farm team, unless Detroit makes another trade and needs to call him up.
He will be a welcome addition if he can do some more of this:
Thursday, February 4, 2010
The Trade
Well, it happened.
The Atlanta Thrashers traded Ilya Kovalchuk to the New Jersey Devils.
I've watched Kovy play for years and the loss will hurt Atlanta deeply.
I wont even write about how one-sided the trade was-I'm now immune to the Thrashers making dumb decisions, trade after trade(Coburn,Heatley,Hossa) they seem to always get rid of good-to-great players. But I really can't disagree with the decision to trade, as he had already turned down a 10 year $102 million deal, and also a 7 year deal making $10 million dollars a year. Anytime you pay one player more than 1/6 of your salary cap, it is a bad decision. And to keep the young talent that they do have, Atlanta just can't deal with his demands.
The biggest question is what the Thrashers will do now. I can't see anyone actually wanting to come play for them now without a real star player, and I just hope that they can ice a good enough team next year to pull themselves out of relocation possibilities.
The Atlanta Thrashers traded Ilya Kovalchuk to the New Jersey Devils.
I've watched Kovy play for years and the loss will hurt Atlanta deeply.
I wont even write about how one-sided the trade was-I'm now immune to the Thrashers making dumb decisions, trade after trade(Coburn,Heatley,Hossa) they seem to always get rid of good-to-great players. But I really can't disagree with the decision to trade, as he had already turned down a 10 year $102 million deal, and also a 7 year deal making $10 million dollars a year. Anytime you pay one player more than 1/6 of your salary cap, it is a bad decision. And to keep the young talent that they do have, Atlanta just can't deal with his demands.
The biggest question is what the Thrashers will do now. I can't see anyone actually wanting to come play for them now without a real star player, and I just hope that they can ice a good enough team next year to pull themselves out of relocation possibilities.
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