what the wings need to win

goals had alot to do with being hung out to dry… defense not goaltending is the issue.

should not have even been considered for replacing Howard. Howard got the team to the playoffs, he played well and as bond021 said the defense hung him out to dry far too many times. I think it’s hard to pin this thing on Howard

Let’s be honest here. Ozzy played 5 or so games in all of 2010. In 2010, he went 0-3.

In 2008, Ozzy started 6 games and played in 2 others in the last three weeks of the season. He was also 27-9-4 that year (7-9-4 this past season) and was dueling with one of the greatest goalies to ever play the game. He was a co-starter that year, not a backup.

Howard earned every minute he played and he let in… what? 3 weak goals in 12 games? Yeah, I’ll take that over a backup who hasn’t played substantial time in six months and had the worst season of his career (also his first ever sub-.500 season).

Howard earned the respect of the fans, the players, coaches, and management in the regular season and they let him prove himself in the playoffs, which he definitely did. Anyone claiming the usual “Red Wings goalies are only good because of the defense in front of them” is an idiot (this isn’t directed at anyone on here). Howard is the only reason we made it to the playoffs in the first place, and the main reason we made it out of the first round.

We should all be thankful that he did what he did, too. We now have a franchise netminder who is only 25 that saves us the need to go out and sign an expensive guy or rely on someone who is much, much older and unreliable.

they need a top of the line goalie that only allows 1 to 2 goals a game not 3 to 4 a game

You mean like… Brodeur? Luongo? Miller? How far did they get their teams?

I like the Wings model best. Spend the big bucks on quality D and Forwards who can play both ends of the ice. Hire a solid if not spectacular goalie.

It seems to have worked pretty good the last 15 years.

i really think u dnt no ur hockey. U thought howard sucked?? Seriously, howard led us to a series victory over a great team in pheonix in which they have a great offense and goaltending. Now when it came to san jose, san jose was well rested and detroit was tired. Yet, they came into game 1 and almost pulled it off but too many bullcrap penalties cost them in the series. Remember in that series every game was decided by a goal except for wings blowout victory. Plus look at the great goaltenders, Brodeur lost in 1st round, Fleury second, Luongo, second, Miller, 1st and Rask 2nd. Enough said

All we can say is that we had a great season especially after dealing with injuries early in the season. When the wings were in 9th place, my friend, who is an avs fan, kept ripping on me saying look at them avs in second place. at the end of the season, i told him could u tell me the standings from top to bottom and he shut up. Also, Babcock is not the type of coach where he changes goalies in the playoffs, when he picks a goalie, that’s it, it is his duty. Howard was the best goalie and i thought was great in the playoffs. Howard is our goalie of the future and we needed him to get some experience in the playoffs as we progress in to becoming a young and better team.

Jimmy did just fine guys. But at the same time, hung out to dry or not, you can’t (as a team) give up 3-4 goals per game in the playoffs and win – ya just can’t. Defense or Goaltending – they’ve both gotta improve.

I say Jimmy needs to go to Marty (Brodeur not Turco) Puck Handling Camp over the summer. Our defense isn’t speedy (Nicky’s getting older, and Lilja is great on PK, but geez he really is a dog with fleas in a race for the puck, I love Stuie and Kronner, but they’re not the most fleet afoot either, etc.), so Jimmy could help a lot by being able to handle the puck better than he did this year. He pretty much just stayed in the net and watched while it rimmed around, allowing the major San Jose forecheck to get on our D-men.

Better puck handling by the goaltender would help a lot.

Smitty.