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Pulling big for Nyquist at the Kentucky derby today. Also been seeing on social media a lot of Wings fans there.

Nyquist wins!!

Late jockey change at Churchill Downs: The owner has decided it's best if Nyquist gets ridden by Wings fans just like at JLA.

Not bad at all I agree with most of your ideas. I have suggested moving Ericsson to net front presence/forward a couple of times on the forums before. Given that we are stuck with him, let's use his size and let him sweat it out at the crease. Some of your moves are not possible I'd reckon, for instance Datsyuk wouldn't be coming back because of Radulov. But if they were, I'm good with them. Addon: I am hearing good things about Marchenko such as him having much more upside that we have seen from good sources, I'd like to keep him a little longer to see if that's true.

He's +4 with 6 points in 5 games in the playoffs so far...

Sarcasm? He's playing top line and top power-play...

Add Jurco to the list of players having an impact at the tournament. I sure hope our coach learns how to finally utilize these guys next season...

2-2. Ouellet on a beautiful pass from Athanasiou.

AA is ridiculous... what a play and feed to Ouellet.. 2-2 2 min in

Tangradi makes it 2-1 on the PP with 3.4 sec left in the 1st... Still 1:52 of PP time for GR to start the 2nd

Also D-Boss Larkin is playing the 1C position I believe. That is invaluable experience and bodes well for next season.

If you've proven yourself to be better than all the rookies (McDavid), I don't really have a problem with playing less games. It's not like an MVP award where you can say "how can he be MVP if he missed so many games" - I don't think he'll win, because of the games missed, but I'm sure that's the thought process for people that voted for him.

We are not going to regret any deals. Get over the fact jarnkork and Janmark are gone. They wouldn't have helped us, and they certainly haven't proven anything either. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think I agree with the minority here, I like Gostisbehere because of his vast improvement of play game after game in his rookie season, and I think it's a lot harder to adapt to being an NHL level defensemen successfully over being an NHL level scoring forward, and how quickly he did should speak volumes about why he's a nominee. I know he likely won't get it, but Gostisbehere has my vote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlcngdW2Ju4

Sean Day sounds like someone I'd be really happy for us to draft. I was thinking that even before the story (thanks for that btw). After reading that story.. It'd be really cool if we could get him and Max Jones together. They sound like they'd help each other continue to develop too.

So wait, your original argument was that we were relying too much on the draft, now you're saying that we didn't make the right picks, but then in the next paragraph you go back to drafting too much. I don't think you even have any clue what it is you want to say.

Each player that we "could have taken in the 1st" or we missed out on, there are 29 other teams that missed as well. There are also players that we managed to "steal" in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th rounds that teams missed out on 2, 3, 4 times each. It happens. Hindsight is 20/20 and you can't expect to land every big name on the board in any draft. Sure, there have been some questionable picks, some that I haven't personally liked (Saarijarvi), but I trust that management know what they're doing... When has Ken Holland ever said that he expects this team to improve while transitioning from the vets to the youth?

Again, this term means that expecting less going in, can only be that much more exciting when those expectations are surpassed. IMO this is what Kenny meant. Remember a time when we had a lineup full of unproven, yet good players that created the Dynasty core? Lapointe, Draper, Maltby, McCarty, Brown, yes even Larionov, Fedorov and Yzerman had much to prove before they started winning. That core grew together, and learned to become winners together, all along they way losing in the 1st rounds of multiple playoff years. BUT, when they weren't "expected" to win Cups every year, don't you remember how exciting the season was when you just didn't know what was going to happen? Remember when making the playoffs was the thing you looked forward to when the season started? Sure, you had fantasies about winning a Cup, but when those expectations weren't automatically there, the regular season was so fun to watch, individual stats were more fun to follow, certain teams were more fun to play against just because of who they were, not if they were possibly a 1st round matchup or not. There was never "acquire this vet to win him a cup" attitude and "he could be our motivation," it was "none of us have been there before" and "win this for the fans." For sure, I want to win Cups, but I also want to enjoy the entire season to. When I look back, how lucky was I to "grow" with that core back then and watch them build from missing the playoffs in 1990 to what they became. We need to go back to that attitude with this young group, Larkin, Mantha, AA, Mrazek, Dekeyser, yes even Tatar and Nyquist, and watch them with unbridled excitment and grow with them. I do believe that if I watch the regular season with far less "expectations for a Cup" it can and will be a lot more exciting. Doesn't mean I won't be as upset when they get elimintated, but then there's always next year...rememeber having that attitude? That is what made Red Wings Hockey for me. I'm ready.

I don't understand the statement, "at that rate it will take 23 years to even field a full roster"... I think 1-2 players on average making it per draft for any team is pretty standard, and I don't think any team ideally wants to bring in any more than 1-2 rookies per year... I don't see the purpose of only listing the players we drafted that are currently on our team. If your trying to figure out our success rate in drafting I think a more effective way is to list all the players we drafted in that time frame that are currently or are going to make the NHL... 2001 - 0/7 < Traded 1st round pick > 2002 - 4/10 (Hudler, Fleischmann, Filppula, Ericsson) < Traded 1st round pick > 2003 - 2/8 (Howard, Quincey) < Traded 1st round pick > 2004 - 1/8 (Franzen) < Traded 1st & 2nd round picks > 2005 - 3/9 (Kindl, Abdelkader, Helm) 2006 - 1/7 (Matthias) < Traded 1st round pick > 2007 - 2/5 (Smith, Andersson) 2008 - 1/6 (Nyquist) 2009 - 3/7 (Ferraro, Tatar, Nestrasil) - (*Jensen*, *Callahan*) < Traded 1st round pick > 2010 - 4/7 (Sheahan, Jarnkrok, Pulkkinen, Mrazek) 2011 - 5/9 (Jurco, Ouellet, Sproul, Quine, Marchenko) - (*Backman*) < Traded 1st round pick > 2012 - 1/6 (Athanasiou) - (*Frk*, *Paterson*) < Traded 1st round pick > 2013 - 2/8 (Mantha, Janmark) - (*Nastasiuk*, *Bertuzzi*) 2014 - 1/7 (Larkin) - (*Turgeon*, *Holmstrom*) 2015 - 1/6 (Svechnikov) - (*Saarijarvi*) I think that would be considered pretty solid drafting if compared to other teams, especially considering we have never picked higher than 15th overall in that timeframe, we never had a first round pick in 8 of the 15 years, and our average first pick was 39th overall... Also, like PVD mentioned, our current team is stocked full with homegrown talent. Last season, of the 29 players that played a game with the Red Wings, 22 were drafted by Detroit, another 3 were signed as free agents straight from College / Europe. Some have / will move on next season, and they will be replaced either by more home grown guys or via trade / free agency. Either way, a team made up of 85+% of home grown talent have to be doing something right at the draft table. We have been very good at drafting and developing and we have a pretty good stable built, however we do need to start trading some of these assets to upgrade in some areas, mainly defense. Whether or not Holland can get it done, we'll find out soon enough...

Oh look, Brian Boyle scores another goal when he should have been in the box.

The UP is America's best kept secret

Eichel had only 8 more points than McDavid, in 36 more games. I don't think it takes any ifs and assumptions to say that McDavid was the better player. If he wins it I wouldn't like it, but I think he deserved the nomination. I also think Gost should win. Phenomenal performance for a rookie defenseman.

I am one of the BIGGEST Holland critic here, but I heard the excerps and then watched the entire presser. The quotes are for sure taken out of context. I think he means by "less is more exciting" and "if you expect Cups, you're in the wrong league" that when the fans realize they need to lower their yearly expectations, they may enjoy the seasom much more. Now, I am not saying its ok to NOT expect a Cup, but we all know you just cannot win it every year. He said we're here to win Cups not just make the playoffs, but the fans also need to realize that after 25 years of making the playoffs and winning 4 Cups in that span, you don't always get the best players in the draft. Plus, the fact that the Cap is here, and instead of 4-6 teams being favorites every season, there are 25 teams that can make the playoffs and compete for it, so not landing the top UFA's like those 4-6 teams used to (or even be on a players "accept a trade to" list) is something the fans need to get used to as well. Does anyone really think that if there wasn't a cap making virtually every team competitive that we'd have lost out on Suter/Parise or Niskanen? When the wallet is bottomless and payroll can be limitless, we'd still be favorites every year. I too, think that if all expectations to win a Cup every season, were lowered a bit, we may enjoy the competition to get to the playoffs. He said, he plans on being agressive with trades at the draft, he is going to move younger players up the roster and bring up more kids from GR. He said he needs to change the style and makeup of the team, and is already planing on NOT having Datsyuk. He will trade the contract if he can find a taker but he won't trade it if that taker wants to deplete out minors or draft picks. He is ok with taking the cap hit for one year to protect the likes of AA, Larkin, Bertuzzi, etc... and high draft picks. I think he means it this time. I think, even though ownership said that they support him 100%, that he was told, do something or we won't be so supportive in the near future... I like that he said he'd like to have Helm, but he understands that he needs to make a family decision because this is a very important contract for Helm and is prepared to move on without him. I really think we won't see any other re-siging of our UFA's outside of the possible Helm deal. Also, VERY excited about his opinion that Howard has to be traded (paraphrasing) because he cannot have so much money in a goalie combo. Something I've been saying for two seasons. Here is a link to the entire presser for those who haven't seen it... youtube.com/watch?v=SlkPQejiHCo