Mr.TaterSalad

I agree largely with what you are saying here about the wall of teams not existing this year. That said, they still have to get through Florida. Once Florida is healthy, I expect them to return to being the top of the division. As well, I still see Montreal as slightly ahead of us, even if they aren't at the moment. We will see how they fare over the next few months as far as being better or about the same as us.

Speaking of selfish, me first folks, our President is the ultimate example about this. One of the least generous, least charitable, most narcissistic, solipsistic people on the planet. A man who has ripped off people with phony charities and charitable scams. A man who also been divorced multiple times and cheated on multiple wives. You don't seem to have a problem with that.

While I think the Wings are off to a nice start, I think the warning signs are there for another collapse. It would not surprise me at all to see a month of hockey and a 15 game stretch where they go something like 5-10/4-10-1 and come crashing back down to Earth and end up in the 9th or 10th spot in the East and on the outside looking in for playoff seeding. I think this team, on paper talent wise, is a step or two below Carolina and a healthy Florida team. I also feel like they are still slightly behind teams like New Jersey and Montreal, even if their current record doesn't dictate that. As for what I feel the warning signs of a collapse are, I feel it is related to goaltending performance, scoring depth, defense, and penalty kill. Right now, Cam Talbot at 38 years of age has a .897 SV% and a 2.64 GAA. I don't think Talbot sustains that throughout an entire season and I think his GAA pushes up closer to 3.00 as it was last season. Furthermore, Gibson doesn't look good so far this year and until he turns it around, I think that becomes more of an issue as we get later on into the season. The other issue I see is the lack of scoring and point producing depth on this team. The top line of DeBrincat/Larkin/Raymond has combined for 69 of the teams 163 points the season. If you put their second line as Kasper/Compher/Kane, that line only combines for 18 points. Right now, we lack scoring depth at the Center position and a Center who can truly and adequately man the 2nd line. We have a 4th line Center in Compher playing up on line 2. I'm going to leave Nate Danielson out of this conversation because he is still a developing rookie, so it's not fair to judge him right now. Anyone not named Patrick Kane or DeBrincat playing with Compher or Copp as their Center on the 2nd or 3rd line isn't exactly lighting the world on fire. AN injury to Larkin, even if it were only for a handful of games, would be catastrophic to this team. Would we even win a game if Larkin was out of the lineup for anything beyond a game or two? Third, I still don't believe in this defense yet nor the penalty kill. I think this is still a bottom 10-12 defense, when it comes to playing actual defensive skills like clearing the puck out of the zone, getting it swept out from tight corners, blocking shots, and killing penalties. On the PK specifically, I believe we rank somewhere around middle of the pack in-terms of PK%. I wonder what our PK looks like (how bad it looks) when Gibson is in net and not Talbot. And if Talbot's performance even drops off a tiny, little bit, what does that do to our PK% overall. I hope the winning keeps up. I hope this is a sustainable model towards the playoffs. I hope we stay fully healthy. I hope Talbot keeps playing like this and doesn't experience a dip at all. I hope we don't have a 12-15-18 game stretch where we collapse and have a losing record that takes us out of playoff position. I'm just not sold yet, given the actions of this team from year's past and the aforementioned points above.

I really hope Carly is one of those people with a hyphenated name to begin with.

I have no idea as to the validity of the claims by Jeffery Epstein's brother. So that may be BS by him or it may be that he is misinformed. That said, I would not be at all surprised if this is true.

Also, we need to remember that in the NFL this is not considered PI, but what the Lions did last night is PI.

Agreed. This front office and head coach are very good, but very arrogant at times, no two ways around it. The identity of this team has been their offensive line. Everything they've done well has flowed hrough their dominate Oline. Goff's consistently strong play, was thanks to their line. Their ability to dominate in the run game, using it to wear teams down, break big plays on the ground, and control the clock were because of their line. Their ability to create play action for Goff and open the field up with the passing game was because of their strong running game and the offensive line offering pass protection that allowed plays to develop. That has all changed this year. And the smartest guys in the room didn't do enough to fix it and made the wrong decisions when they did. I feel their own egos and hubris got in the way. Holmes, Agnew, Dorsey, and Campbell, they all knew Ragnow was contemplating retirement for multiple seasons, and did no real planning to replace him. Their plan, if you can call it that, was to slide a declining, aging Guard, who struggled at times last year, over to Center. Then they tried to rely on rookies like Ratledge to get them by. They needed to bring in a veteran Guard or Center in the offseason and did not. They should have done their damndest to at least try to resign Zietler, and maybe they did and we just don't know about it. They needed to get more depth at Tackle, instead of a project player like Manu and Dan Skipper. Before anyone takes this post as me hating the GM, front office, and HC, it's not that. Not at all. I like most of what Holmes, Campbell, and Co have done with this franchise. But their plan for the offensive line Goff's offseason, the identity of their team, caught up with them I feel like.

In the pie chart of blame, how much are you giving Campbell, how much are you giving Goff, and how much are you giving the offensive line?

Not getting Brock Wright down low on that 3rd and goal was killer in the end. Wright was wide open and Goff never saw him. It wasn't like Wright was on the other side of the field either. He was in the line of sight for Goff because his route crossed underneath the St. Brown route in the back of the endzone.

Once again, the officials boned the Lions with a terrible call on that Pass Interference in the 4th quarter. Should PI be a reviewable call?

Goff is such a Jekyll and Hyde QB sometimes. He looks elite at times and then gets consistent pressure and mentally falls apart.

No team gets robbed by the refs like the Lions.

In no way was that PI. On no planet was that PI.

What a rotten ****ing call

Goff looks like Scott ****ing Mitchell tonight.

Good god Goff looks awful.

That false start was big in that it saved time on the clock for us.

Goff is rattled for sure with the pressure.

Goff looks subpar. He isn't handling the pressure well.

GIBBS ALRIGHT!!!!!!!!!

Not scoring hurt there.

I thought that last one was a low throw.

What's wrong with Goff tonight?

Lane Johnson out.

The offense owes the defense a big thank you!