Babcock really raved about how Helm in the lineup makes such a significant difference to the bottom six. He seemed excited as hell. I'm sure now he's trying his best to shake off the dejection.
Helm was bottom6, but in the playoffs, everything is about depth. You need balanced scoring, or at least, not a bottom6 that gets pushed around. That's what Helm allows. He's fast, a forechecking demon, a hitting machine. A little ball of energy. Without him, who steps up...? Babcock is right, he just makes the entire bottom6 that much stronger. With him, the third line becomes kind of a scoring threat. The fourth line gets so much stronger because we're not using Abby as a third line center. We could even drop Emmerton! But we can't do that anymore.
And don't forget how important he is on the PK. A PK we had to make use of 1920309 times last night.
Helm is one of the reason, another would be bad roster decisions and lack of depth.
Funny watching a guy no one wanted here own the Wings last night. While Quincey was average at best....which means he might have improved.
Babcock has been begging for big forwards for years, Holland gets a defenceman instead of a big forward who is a stud in the faceoff circle. you know winning key faceoffs, something we've missed since Draper in 08. What's a bigger game changer?
Maybe. Helm is huge for this team and against the opposition. I don't know if they can win the cup, but they can certainly make a run, but that depends on most of the rest of the team standing up. Hopefully Nyquist can be magical in the bottom 6 and break out with a good series. Someone is going to have to.
I would also like to know where Filp has disappeared to. Would be nice if he stepped up.
No. It's just about as large of a hurdle they will need to leap, but anything can happen and anyone can step up. As a whole the Wings need to step up and cover for him.
Losing Helm sucks.. but then again, he is part of the bottom six..
Given our depth or perceived lack thereof, is the Stanley Cup now a pipe dream for this year?
Or can we still make a run at it?
I understand, anything is possible.. but losing Helm just resets my expectations for this year..
We can win without Helm.
Best option is to make Franzen a center.
Flip Zetterberg Hudler
Nyquist Datsyuk Holmstrom
Bertuzzi Franzen Mursak
Cleary Abdelkader Miller
As good as helm is, he's kind of a tricky player for our roster. His performance demands more than 4th line minutes. But when he's a 3rd line center, that means we've got two lines that can't possess the puck worth crap.
It def hurts. Just like Eaves. There are no suitable replacements, unless somebody like Tatar or Sheahan are miraculous revelations. It is irritating given the Lidstrom window that we didn't add a Gaustad and/or Moen. The guys who are going to get thrown in are either not ready, or not physically capable of being effective. But, we didn't overpay......
And don't forget how important he is on the PK. A PK we had to make use of 1920309 times last night.
In fairness the PK has been just fine without him, Ericsson is the most important part of the PK, Helm adds great speed but we can survive a man down without him.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Motown Beatdown
Helm is one of the reason, another would be bad roster decisions and lack of depth.
Funny watching a guy no one wanted here own the Wings last night. While Quincey was average at best....which means he might have improved.
Babcock has been begging for big forwards for years, Holland gets a defenceman instead of a big forward who is a stud in the faceoff circle. you know winning key faceoffs, something we've missed since Draper in 08. What's a bigger game changer?
Gaustad had a decent game, but I'd hardly say he owned anything other than the faceoff dot for a minute and a half at the end of the game.
He managed only 1 shot on goal, and technically it was only a shot because his centering pass bounced off Stuart and went in. His final faceoff #'s were only 12-8 and he registered just a single hit.
Gaustad may have made us marginally better this season but we'd be worse off next year when he hits Unrestricted Free Agency and possibly leaves us with nothing on our investment. Quincey was brought in to compete for Stuarts spot next season when he leaves.
Quincey had just as good of a game as Gaustad did last night. He had the same amount of points and contributed to a perfect penalty kill that had more work last night than any game I can remember this season.
I'm not ready to start throwing in the towel based on a bad bounce, a lucky tip and a game with no flow because the refs decided they wanted some attention. We could just as easily be on the good end of that luck in game 2.
Gaustad owned us? LOL now we're just looking for things to be emo about. He had one fluke goal, didn't hit anyone, was alright but not great in his own end, but he won some faceoffs.
But since we demand the world of Q and anything less makes us childish and hate-filled, we think the trade was bad. It's hilarious how short sighted some people get after a loss.
