gehringer_2

The other problem is 'coach speak.' Every manager is obligated to do it, and it can make it difficult to separate fact from fiction, and blur the borders between statements of strategic principle and mere clubhouse PR. Certainly you *must* assume much of what Hinch said last season wrt players like Willi Castro was pure coach speak. None the less those statements go out as the truth as delivered by the man in charge which is not good for the perception that the man in charge knows what he is doing. This tension is pretty much unavoidable, but some managers do handle it better than others. I have been thoroughly impressed at how the Wings' Derek Lalonde can discuss his team in such a perfectly straightforward manner without either trying to obfuscate the obvious failures or yet ever appearing to thow his players under the bus either. Of course that skill is nice, but can he/will he win?(!?!?!)

Well, we shouldn't have to go that far.....maybe.

IDK. I'm willing to believe Harris is the real deal, though he has to prove it on the field in some reasonable time. I have to admit I'm less sold on Hinch than I used to be. I not completely sure Hinch may not just be the glib chameleon personality who sucks up to any new boss and thus always begins as the star pupil of the regime. I'm not claiming the argument, but just saying that for any number of vague, indefinable reasons I have more questions about Hinch than I once thought I did.

Chairman of the foreign relations committee?

I don't think it's necessarily a problem if a cornerback disrespects quarterbacks. It's their goal in life to make them look bad!

I just hope we don't see something we have seen in the past with the Tigers, which is where they have so many candidates for some posititions that nobody can play enough in ST to resolve anything.

I think the game gave us an interesting marker in where the Wings are improving and where they are still so weak. SJ is a bad team, but it was still interesting to see how the mismatch played out. The Wings generated possession time sufficient for the game to have been a rout, but couldn't put the puck in the net enough to win in regulation. To me that is an indication of how Yzerman is building from the blue line out. Faster, better passing/puck handling D men have definitely improved their ability to hold the puck in the offensive zone. A wing forward can cycle the puck out to the line with some confidence there is someone there to get it and can beat the pursuit to keep things alive, but the guys deep in the zone still lack skills as finishers.

They had already lost me at 'Chili Spaghetti'.

the counter is if some of that scoring is available - say with Kasper, without giving other things up and it will be here by next season- then that's where SY has to make a call. Especially if we are more or less writing this season off. How much do you care to get better for the rest of this year? In my perfect world Bertuzzi had made a splash - coming back strong before mid-season, they sign him and then trade him for someone more 'reliable'. That one appears to be down the drain!

maybe we'll keep Rasmussen!

who wants to be reasonable? We want Stevie Y to pick someone's pocket!

I'm a bit thick - struggled to see the connection to anything here until the SO reminded me Ono spent time in Cinncinati. I guess the key is on the outer carton - it's an Ohio product he maybe missed in B.C.

what's the deal on his line? Last couple of years he's had 50% more goals than assists. Not a classic ratio for a center.

Beyond the supply line and turbine maintenance expertise required, another issue with Abrams is that they are a 60 ton tank - they won't be moving around much in any spring mud! USDOD analysis about their suitability for the task is probably spot on, but you do what ya gotta do.

this is fine. Ukraine can make a show of running a few Abrams around and then use the rest for fixed defenses if they have to while they climbe the learning curve - but if it unsticks the coordination of the larger international effort we can live with a move that creates some suboptimal logistics

Can you play next to Larkin? (asking for a friend)

Lindsay does have this dangerous (to himself) talent for occasionally stumbing into the truth. It can take his best effort but he always does manage to get up again and move past it.

also true.

The Pistons are a hot mess. Bad coach, bad team, high picks spent on players that are not panning out (Hayes), can't get on the court (Cunningham), or still have to learn to shoot the basketball (Ivey) or would be great players for an older era (Duren). The headwinds are just too much for this franchise to get anywhere.

Really? Whose mind do you think it changed about anything? I tend to think that is was the at the cutting edge of the American system of media confirmation bias - but Lear was clever enough that it confirmed everyone's biases both ways. I think Liberals who think it was some kind of landmark at pushing cultural boundaries completely misunderstand how all the real Archies watching the show understood it. And I think Lear knew that perfectly well, basking in the glow of liberal affirmation while trotting to the bank with the proceeds of the conservative viewership's simultaneous self-satisfaction.

I mean really. Have we ever had an off season whirlwind of activity to match this one?

I guess I'm in the minority but I never found AITF very funny. Maybe because my father was a big fan who liked it because he never saw it as satire at all. I suppose that guaranteed a negative response from my youthful oppositional self. Jean Stapleton was brilliant though. Her ability to stay in that character through any and everything was epic.

LOL. Then again, Price at least speaks in complete sentences ecapsulating discrete concepts, which puts him in a league beyond what Matt Shepherd achieves on any regular basis.

Rassussen is nice player but I think he's shown he doesn't have quite level of value that would prevent me from including him in a reasonable trade.

True, and the coaches on the team who drew them up would know more about whether a receiver is running his routes precisely.