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Kevin Allen On The Wings

by IwoCPO on 11/30/07 at 07:37 PM ET
Comments (5)

Don’t get all excited. It’s a day old.  But I just read again the transcript of the Allen interview with Stoney and Bandwagon Bob (Wojo) on WDFN and a few things jumped out at me that I think deserve my genius analysis.

...it puts Mike Babcock in a very difficult situation. I think he’s handled it as well as can be expected. He keeps saying the right things, Dominik’s the right guy or is the No. 1 guy, and you know, he can say that because Chris Osgood is a great team guy and understands how it works.

This wouldn’t work, this goalie controversy situation, anywhere else.  And it wouldn’t be working if it wasn’t for Chris Osgood.  Ken Holland brought him in here with this type of scenario in mind.  Exactly this, where he’s outplaying Hasek in every conceivable category or situation? No.  But a situation where, perhaps due to injury, he’d need his backup to play significant minutes then willingly accept slipping back to the number 2 job when Hasek gets healthy again.

Of course, I doubt anyone anticipated this little twist where the organ-I-zation has to provide some party line of BS that no one believes.  What was it Babcock said, “he’s our starter in the second half?” Ok.

“There’s nothing wrong with having a veteran goalie that’s No. 1 in Chris Osgood and then having [Jimmy] Howard. Howard should be ready. If he’s not ready, he should be. So I think it would be in the Red Wings best interest that they bring him up and see what he can do.”

Allen doesn’t come right out and say it, but he doesn’t have to.  Because I will.  Cutting Hasek loose (when the tantrum comes, and it will if he doesn’t very obviously, and very publicly, regain the starter’s job) wouldn’t be the worst thing if Howard is ready.  Of course, if the Wings do jettison Hasek and Osgood gets hurt?  Despair.

“He’s an important player and the one thing I always say about Kris Draper is that when Canada goes to war—and nobody puts more into their international competition than Canada—they call Kris Draper, because they understand how important he is to a team. He’s a guy that understands his role and he’s a better scorer than he gets credit for. He doesn’t have great hands but he somehow manages to score a few timely goals.”

Terrible hands is more like it, and we accept that because of everything else Draper brings to the table.  Defensively, he’s the best in the league--still.  Yeah, better than Brind’Amour.  And he’ll do whatever is necessary to win.  In 14 years, we’ve never heard him complain.  Kris Draper is the epitome of an athlete “just happy to be here.” Allen said in another quote I’m not using that Detroit’s lucky it was only 10-14 days.  Right on the money.  But...with Draper and Maltby out, look who had a game last night?  Kopecky scores. Hudler scores. Drake actually showed some sort of flair for offense. 

“I love this guy. I love his enthusiasm for the project, and what I really like is he does it in a very gentlemanly fashion. The fight where he told the referee, ‘Stay away, we need to go a little bit longer,’ and when it was done he patted the guy on the head. That’s NHL fighting that we want to see, where it is just part of the gamesmanship of the game.”

Yep. He’s talking about Aaron Downey, and yep, Ken Holland and Mike Babcock made the right call in keeping this guy.  He’s a Verbeek, a Rouse, a Gilchrest.  Character guys respected by their teammates for what they’re willing to go through or do to play hockey and to win. 

Filed in: | Abel to Yzerman | Permalink
 Tags: Babcock, Downey, Draper, Hasek, Howard, Osgood,

Comments

“Drake actually showed some sort of flair for offense.”

That is a back door cheap shot, Duke.
TBL was the first game that Drake was able to play without the deep sea divers helmet, and went with a half visor.  While he was weighted down with that rig minus the long air hose, he took a lot of criticism by shallow fans who failed to recognize all the open ice he created.  There is a lot more to hockey than Goals and Assists, just as you mentioned when canonizing the Drape.

Downey is a keeper for sure.  The Wings have brought up heavyweights in the past that would fight just for the sake of fighting, but Downey has real good sense.  He only seems to drop ‘em when cheap shots have been handed out. 

The Lightning played a real clean game last night, and unlike Calgary refrained from intimidation in the closing minutes, when the game was out of reach. 

T’was another mismatch.  The fans are getting cheated by little gary.  Teams coming in here after the Hawks have made them their bitch the night before, WTF.?  And the same goes for the next up - Phoenix is losing tonight to Chicago in the third 6-0.  If teams play back to back, it should be the same for their opponents.

Of course that had nothing to do with the empty seats last night, it has to be the economy.

It is time you dropped this Ozbunny crap.  You have wasted too many words on this.  The Don would say “You just DON"T change anything when you are winning”, and leave it at that...Scotty too.

Posted by HockeyTownTodd from upset when blogs don’t live up to my expectations on 11/30/07 at 10:49 PM ET

Umm...Chief, you have several penis enlargement spam messages in your season preview post. I thought somebody was playing around but, nope, just straight hard spam. ew

The good thing, however, was that I found your response to my concern about calling up Howard there. I agreed at that point that Hasek wouldn’t last a full season––although it doesn’t seem like we need him to (just be amazing in the playoffs)––I asked if brining up Howard would be a good idea, considering he had a fantastic training camp.

SRT,
I don’t think it would be smart at all to bring Howard up unless injuries dictate that move.  I do believe though, that if (when) the crazy bastard goes down and if (when) Osgood doesn’t perform up to (our) standards...many of us will start yelling for Howard.

I don’t think we are at this point yet, but just wanted to remind everyone your early prognostication-ary powers…

Finally, yes, it does make sense to keep playing Ozzie as he keeps winning. Don’t change when things are working. Right. That’s not really the concern as much as the emotional health of the man tagged #1 is. Secondly, and this hasn’t been said, Ozzie’s game will slip at some point and if we just yank him then, what does that do to him? Another appointment with the sports psychologist?

Posted by srt on 12/01/07 at 12:34 AM ET

No cheap shot intended toward Drake at all Gramps.  Especially not a back door one. 

I’ll take your suggestion regarding Osgood under advisement.

Posted by IwoCPO from Washington, DC on 12/01/07 at 07:20 AM ET

SRT, agreed.  My prognosticallitory powers are amazing.  I think, though, they were a little skewed back in October though because I said Osgood’s performance wouldn’t be up to par.

As for the penis enlargement spam.  It’s all part of the A2Y experience.

Posted by IwoCPO from Washington, DC on 12/01/07 at 07:22 AM ET

I don’t understand why taking a shot at Drake is a big deal.  He’s sucked all year, except for his one fight that happened like 20 minutes into the season.  Since then he’s been crap.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 12/01/07 at 08:01 PM ET

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