The Red Wings have recalled Gustav Nyquist from Grand Rapids and reassigned Tomas Tatar to the Griffins, GM Ken Holland said.The reaction in Wings nation seemed to range from "Yeah Goose! Poor Tatar!" to "This is bull shit I want them Both now, what the hell is Babcock/Holland doing?!" It's true, you can never please everyone, and I'm darn glad the Wings organization doesn't try. What a heap of doodoo we'd be in if they listened to us fans.
— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) March 12, 2013
Filppula is coming off IR (either playing tomorrow or Saturday) so we do need to send someone down in order to bring Goose up.
In regards to sending Tatar down to Grand Rapids, Babcock said:
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With Flip coming back it appears that Babcock is going back to looking for offense from the 2nd line (instead of using it as a shut down/defensive line).
There was a Holland quote today where he said that he hadn’t wanted to bring Nyquist up unless he was going to get play in the top 6, and with so many of our top 6 injured, and Babcock using the 2nd line as a defensive/shutdown line, Nyquist wasn’t going to be playing in the top 6, so he stayed in Grand Rapids. Tatar can play the bottom 6, more grinder/physical style if he needs to, Nyquist isn’t as effective at that roll.
These lineup changes make both the 2nd line and Andersson’s lines better when you look at the whole picture. It sucks that Tatar was sent back down, but in return we get Flip back, Nyquist up and on Datsyuk’s wing and Abby and cleary back where they belong. It’s just logistics and what can be done to serve the greatest good for the team as a whole. Dare I say I like the looks of those lines?
I think Goose will probably stay in the top 6 while he’s up here (I hope). Abby and Cleary were on the 2nd line because we only had 4 top 6 players healthy. Knowing that we couldn’t put together 2 true top 2 lines with only 4 top 6 players, Babcock chose to use the 2nd line not as a true “2nd line” in it’s function, that’s why Abby and Cleary were put with Datsyuk. He knew our “2nd” line wasn’t going to be able to be successfully offensive against the other team’s 2nd lines, so he use it as a defensive shut down line. With Flip coming back, and Nyquist coming up, we now have an actual 2nd line again, that can be a scoring line. Since that is now its purpose again, I doubt Babcock would compromise it by putting Abby or Cleary back up, even if Goose starts off slowly.
Also, Holland not wanting to call Goose up unless he was going to be on the top lines tells me that he’s discussed this with Babcock, and if the plan wasn’t to keep Goose in the top 6, then Holland probably wouldn’t have called him up in the first place.
Also on the players returning from IR front Khan said
Colaiacovo is a bit mysterious because last I heard it was a shoulder injury, and a I think it was last week we heard he was "almost ready to go" and then suddenly no news at all. I have no idea what's going on with him.
Helm is closer to a couple weeks away, but he’s making progress and that’s encouraging.
Dana Wakiji tweeted that Helm said he’s aiming at returning around March 20 and tweeted some quotes from Helm.
Helm said:
We're finally starting to get some good news on the injury front, we have 2 top 2 lines again, I'm going to remain realistically optimistic.
Deep breathe,
Let's Go Red Wings!
In practice today, Babcock had the following lines:I think Filppula’s back in so suddenly there’s no power-play time for Tatar. We’ll give Gus an opportunity. I thought (Tatar) played good. I thought he played good and he did good things. If suddenly you’re not on the power play, where’s (Tatar) getting his touches? We don’t perceive him as ahead of Fil.
24-40-51
93-13-14
8-63-11
17/20-25-22
With Flip coming back it appears that Babcock is going back to looking for offense from the 2nd line (instead of using it as a shut down/defensive line).
There was a Holland quote today where he said that he hadn’t wanted to bring Nyquist up unless he was going to get play in the top 6, and with so many of our top 6 injured, and Babcock using the 2nd line as a defensive/shutdown line, Nyquist wasn’t going to be playing in the top 6, so he stayed in Grand Rapids. Tatar can play the bottom 6, more grinder/physical style if he needs to, Nyquist isn’t as effective at that roll.
These lineup changes make both the 2nd line and Andersson’s lines better when you look at the whole picture. It sucks that Tatar was sent back down, but in return we get Flip back, Nyquist up and on Datsyuk’s wing and Abby and cleary back where they belong. It’s just logistics and what can be done to serve the greatest good for the team as a whole. Dare I say I like the looks of those lines?
I think Goose will probably stay in the top 6 while he’s up here (I hope). Abby and Cleary were on the 2nd line because we only had 4 top 6 players healthy. Knowing that we couldn’t put together 2 true top 2 lines with only 4 top 6 players, Babcock chose to use the 2nd line not as a true “2nd line” in it’s function, that’s why Abby and Cleary were put with Datsyuk. He knew our “2nd” line wasn’t going to be able to be successfully offensive against the other team’s 2nd lines, so he use it as a defensive shut down line. With Flip coming back, and Nyquist coming up, we now have an actual 2nd line again, that can be a scoring line. Since that is now its purpose again, I doubt Babcock would compromise it by putting Abby or Cleary back up, even if Goose starts off slowly.
Also, Holland not wanting to call Goose up unless he was going to be on the top lines tells me that he’s discussed this with Babcock, and if the plan wasn’t to keep Goose in the top 6, then Holland probably wouldn’t have called him up in the first place.
Also on the players returning from IR front Khan said
I asked Khan about new on Samuelsson and he saidFilppula looks like he’ll be back Wed. Helm at least a week away. Bertuzzi and Colaiacovo not coming back anytime soon.
@slapshotg0al @wingsfan5 Samuelsson not on Western Canada trip. They hope he returns during West Coast trip (March 22-28) or shortly after.The only news of Todd Bertuzzi I could find was a quote from Holland that said
— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) March 12, 2013
“We were optimistic a few weeks ago, but then [Bertuzzi]s back wasn’t feeling so good,” Holland said. “On Friday there was optimism again. We’re going to give it another week to 10 days and then decide where he’s at.”And word from Chuck Pleiness that Bertuzzi is able to do workouts right now, which is progress.
Colaiacovo is a bit mysterious because last I heard it was a shoulder injury, and a I think it was last week we heard he was "almost ready to go" and then suddenly no news at all. I have no idea what's going on with him.
Helm is closer to a couple weeks away, but he’s making progress and that’s encouraging.
Dana Wakiji tweeted that Helm said he’s aiming at returning around March 20 and tweeted some quotes from Helm.
Helm said:
There are still a few things I want to overcome, strengthening it, I really don’t want to feel any pain after skates. I did take a big step after last week. I started skating Monday, little twirls around the rink, nothing really too hard. Thursday, Friday I pushed a little harder. Today was the first day I’ve been on with the team in five or six weeks. I felt that I could push myself pretty hard out there. I was getting a little tired there since I’ve been out so long. A couple weeks ago we kind of said (March) 20 against Minny, not positive how close we were going to be to that. I want to be as healthy as I can before I get back out there and not a thought in my mind about it. We’ve come so far to have a little setback here. We’re definitely taking it slow and smart and making sure we do this right. Conditioning still I’m pretty far away, strengthening I’m still pretty far away, probably a good wk or a wk and a bit away. I don’t think my legs will take as long, but timing will. It’ll take a while for me to get back to where I want to be at.
We're finally starting to get some good news on the injury front, we have 2 top 2 lines again, I'm going to remain realistically optimistic.
Deep breathe,
Let's Go Red Wings!
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