random thoughts Jimmy Howard has not been good. I am not blaming him for the Wings being down a game, but he has not made any big saves. No one in Detroit seems to be making an issue of his play even though he has given up 12 goals in 3 games I think players like Adrian Aucoin show how much better of an organization the Hawks have become. Aucoin was a good dman who signed with the Hawks during their bad years and played like complete crap. He gets away and has become a good dman again. My guess is he would be a solid 3rd guy if he joined the Hawks again. I am really not sure what to make of the Sharks. I think they probably really need to start crashing the net some more and not worry about puck possession as much. But that will expose Nabokov more and I am not sure he is up to the challenge The Flyers beating the Devils is the biggest surprise to me so far. Kopecky on the PP...WTF!! One of the more underrated issues with the Wings from this past offseason was the losses of Hudler and Samuelsson. I love players like Draper, Eaves, Helms and Adlekadar. However playing 4 players like that instead of 2 does take a lot of scoring ability away. Also, Cleary does not create for himself well so playing on a line with Helms and Miller takes away a lot of his scoring ability