lordstanley

It is competitive, but we're finally starting to see some separation. Teams 11-16 in the conference are now between 11-16 pts behind the Wings. A few of them have three games in hand - Philly, Florida, Ottawa - but with the possible exception of Florida I don't expect any of those six teams to play better than the Wings in the final 35 or so games the rest of the way, let alone make up a double digit deficit. The Wings are in a playoff spot by 8 points over Toronto and Washington. Even if Toronto and Washington surge and overtake the Wings, the Wings should be able to beat out two of Montreal, NYI, Buffalo, Boston or Pittsburgh. The Wings aren't a great team, but at this point I'd say they have as good of a chance to finish 2nd in the Atlantic than they do of missing the playoffs. Send Gibson to a Caribbean island during the Olympics break and tell him to rest up.

Tampa's 11-game winning streak is snapped. They do pick up a point in a shootout loss to St. Louis. Tampa, Carolina and Detroit are tied in points atop the Eastern Conference (tied for 3rd in the NHL right behind Dallas' 63 pts 48gp) with 62 - the Wings have played 49 games, Carolina 48, Tampa 46.

Hope so. Then we can call him Kasper The Former Ghost instead of Kasper The Failing Ghost.

Kasper with the ENG! His first in 37 games.

With the Sharks finishing a back to back, there is no excuse for the Wings to not win this game.

More than halfway through the season and I still haven’t figured out the value to the viewer in drawing a red circle around a player on the power play. I can figure out the likely sniper on my own.

Holy, Johansson, where the heck did that come from, ha.

Kane and DeBrincat give each other so many chances.

Kasper sighting! Threads a nice pass to Compher for the tying goal. 2-2.

Gibson gifts one. 1-1.

DeBrincat scored into one of the most wide open nets you’ll ever see. 1-0 Wings vs the Sharks.

The irony is that I think taking a safety and giving away 2 points, if it had been deliberate, when you have 3rd and 10 at the 1 is arguably a smart move. You’re not going to convert that 3rd down, you’ll be punting from the back of the end zone, at worst the other team will get the ball just inside your half and almost be in field goal position already for an easy 3 points. Whereas after the safety you get a free kickoff from the 20 and have a chance to get the opponent into more or less normal field position. I think if you get called for a safety you should have to kick off from the goal line.

Even a bit better than that, as the Lions were tied for 4th in pts scored with 481 and just 2 points behind 3rd place Seattle. I'll take that production anytime. Shows how unusually good the 2024 Lions were - that team scored 564 points which was 39 points more than 2nd place Buffalo and 46 points more than this year's leaders LA Rams and 34 points more than the only other team (the '21 Cowboys) in the 2020s to hit 530 points.

Games played and points scored isn't the be all and end all for evaluating a pick 2 1/2 years after a draft but this table is good for ASP. 8 defensemen were taken in the 1st round of the NHL draft, including 3 ahead of ASP. Of those 8, 5 of them have yet to play an NHL game, including #5 overall David Reinbacher. Of the 3 who have played in the NHL, ASP is first in games with 48 (2nd is 35), goals with 5 (second is 2) and points with 17 (second is 12). Even when expanded to include all positions, #17-drafted ASP is 8th in games and 8th in points. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl2023e.html