—Franzenstein, before he decided to dominate

I’m with you on all that. Babcock is trying to emulate Scotty Bowman in this, but the issue is that Scotty was a genius at putting new groups of players together at just the right time. Babcock, on the other hand, isn’t. His re-thought combos often look like they’ll work on paper, but the reality isn’t always so positive. Bowman counted on natural chemistry to suddenly put different players together at a given time. Babcock’s line mixing is reliant on acquired chemistry but treated like natural chemistry.

But I agree with him on splitting up the forwards and D pairings. Why is Babs so afraid of Datsyuk and Zetterberg playing together on the road? Just because they have to play a more physical line doesn’t mean they’ll just curl up in a ball and hide. Hank has shown he’ll throw his weight around, and Dats is necessarily physical, but he just continues with his game, he doesn’t get intimidated. Those two with Holmstrom is arguably the best line in hockey. You don’t ever break it up. Chemistry is everything, especially in the playoffs. Babs needs to stick with four set lines, or at least three. If he subs out Helm, just have it affect the 4th line only, but those guys can practice together anyways. But the top three should be clearly defined.

Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Holmstrom
Filppula-Franzen-Cleary
Hudler-Draper-Samuelsson
Drake-Helm-McCarty

Personally, I’d put Hudler on the second and Fils on the third, because Hudler’s been playing better. But the point is, once you get those lines, don’t change them. Keep them going. If Filppula gets hot playing with Draper, why split them up? It means you have a third line scoring threat. I bet every team in the playoffs would salivate at the thought of having a third line that can score.

And I thought the point of having Lidstrom-Rafalski and Kronwall-Stuart together was so that we had two bonafide scoring lines? Those four are the best offensive defencemen for the Wings, and our style of play means we need good puck-moving D-men. By splitting them up and putting each with a defensive defenceman, we’re wrecking our own style.

I think Babs has to stop trying to micro manage so much, and just his team do it’s thing. What needs to do he say the right thing at the right time. The players will take care of the hockey, but he needs to motivate them to win the game.