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Glendening is out for at least four weeks. Tyler Bertuzzi's back. Looks like he could be taking Glendening's place on the third line. We shall see. HYPE! LGRW

P.S. Happy Holidays and such!

A few months ago they asked Z about his opinion on Mantha, AA and Larkin. Z sort of brushed off Mantha and AA said they're doing well. But then kept drooling over Larkin saying "Someone who has come a long way that you will notice is Larkin, I think his two-way game has really improved blah blah blah" At the time I thought Z was overselling the guy too much. I've never seen him talk about a player that way, not even Datsyuk. And he's had his fair share of compliments on Pav. Now I know what he meant. He called it months ago. Why? Because those players get to watch each other during practice. We're only now getting an "appreciation" for Larkin. But Blash, Z etc saw this coming months ago. And this is exactly why Larkin's ice time has increased. He earned it over that training camp etc. Having said all that, I personally would like to see Larkin continue the performance and show it again next year. Once he's done that, he has my faith. I say this because both Nyquist and Tatar gave us 1-2 years of flash then got exposed by the league. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Boy Hakan Anderson is super high on Dahlin. They're even saying he's ahead of Karlsson and Lidstrom at his age. This is the kinda player who could immediately fix our defense and team. Imagine suddenly inserting Karlsson to our lineup at no cost. Much want.

very fortunate to get out of that period tied hopefully got the kinks out there, and will come on in the 2nd

Frk back on the ice. Phew! (Deja vu...)

Frk lost an edge and crashed into the boards, trainers out checking him this start of ours does not bode well for the outcome of this game, or for the health of our players

I'm wondering if they won't try Z on Nielsen's wing next season. Z's clearly running out of gas. Frk hurt. Lost an edge, went tumbling into the boards.

Bertuzzi back out there

Hanta yo, baby!

Same here. Definitely not the right time to bring him up.

Yup, it seems like every scout has been saying the same thing for the past year now. No defensive prospect has been this good in forever. He could honestly be just as impactful to a franchise as a Crosby or McDavid. Kid is an absolute stud. He'd look great in the Winged Wheel...

1. I completely agree with this. 2. It's unclear if you're talking about Carlson or De Haan / Cole here. If it's the former, he absolutely is a top pair defenseman, it's just debatable whether he's a true number one, or a number two. If it's the latter, I completely agree. We do not need to overpay for more of these type players. 3. I'd be shocked if Cole signs for much more than $4M, but your point stands. At this point, I'd rather keep Ericsson, rather than move him and retain salary, especially with his much improved play. However, if we could move him without retaining any salary and actually gain an asset (this isn't as crazy as some "Errorsson bashers" might think), I'd do it in a heartbeat. 4. I somewhat agree with this. More so to the point that kliq made, about showing weakness, or like you said, other GM's smelling blood in the water. But I don't think the return would effect Green's decision to re-sign or not. There's no way a team doesn't offer significantly better than just a 3rd though. 5. I think Green would be open to re-signing here, but I don't think it's a sure thing. We weren't quite as bad as we are now when he originally signed here, and he's getting up there in age now (for an athlete). He'll probably only sign another one or two contracts, and he may want to chase a Cup at this point. 6. I agree that we shouldn't overpay for any UFA's, but I don't think $7Mx7 is overpayment for a legit top pair defenseman. However, I do agree with kliq and Dabura's point about trying to offload a bad contract or two first. I think Kronwall may actually finish out his contract at this point (maybe), but if he went the way of LTIR(etire), and we were able to offload Nielsen's contract, that would make that $7M very doable, even if he is at worst a number two defenseman.

Try instead searching "bitcoin" this will lead you to many financial investmests that us sports forum simpletons are too dumb to understand. We don't much care for you uppity fancy boy types anyway nance.

Green signed here for an opportunity to play on the top pair instead of the 3rd pair in Washington, the team wasn't as bad as it is now, and that was before everyone knew Blashill was an idiot. If I were Green, I'd rather go somewhere I might win the Cup.

I chose B. Wings won 4 cups in just over ten years and have been going downhill for almpst another 10. I wouldnt even mind another 10 years of suck if it meant another 4 cups in 10 years thereafter.

just a few thoughts: 1. Shattenkirks contract is an outlier. he took less money and term to play for the team he wanted. he would have gotten a lot more if he chose to chas the money. using his contract to predict Carlsons is pointless. 2. Why would we consider adding more 2nd pairing dmen? Would you say that we have a "plethora of pinatas", I mean 2nd pair guys? Dekeyser, Daley, Ericsson even if u trade Green. This team needs top pair guys. 3. Why would u buyout Ericsson to replace him with more expensive 2nd pair guys. A guy like Cole will cost like 6+ mil to keep. Add Ericssons 2+ mil buyout penalty to that and ur essentially paying 8+ mil for a guy like Cole. Is he worth twice what Ericsson is already making? No. 4. The reason you dont take less than a 3rd for Green is because you basically lose any chance of re-signing him if you ship out of town for a few weeks for little return. That would be a dick move by Holland, plus every other GM would smell blood in the water. 5. Why wouldn't Green want to re-sign here? We weren't a good team when he signed before. I would like to have him back. 6. No top name dman in UFA has lived p to his contract since Suter. If you can get Carlson for fair value, I am down with that but someone is going to overpay. I would rather it not be Holland.

Last year he was average. That's fair. By the end of last season, I was pretty down on him. This year? He's been a revelation. I'm not at all concerned about the measly five goals, because he's clearly focusing on being a better playmaker and a reliable two-way centerman. And because he's hit about 4,000 posts. He could very easily have 12 goals, puck just hasn't gone in for him. Some of that's probably him needing to make some slight adjustments, as opposed to it being pure bad luck -- but, point is, he's nearly a point-per-game player this season, and that's with about ten fewer goals than he really ought to have. And he's playing on a scoring-challenged basement team. And he's only 21.

Tough but fair. Mantha shall henceforth be refered to as Mr. Cockyman.

Was just about to say the same. I'd feel a lot better about the idea of signing him to a 7 x 7 deal if we had much more cap flexibility than we currently have. That, and I want to see who our first pick in the draft is. If it's one of the absolute best players in the draft class and it looks like the player is good enough to step right into the NHL and be an impact player, I might start to think along the lines of "OK, let's maybe try to run with this and see if we can't put together a legitimately good playoff team right now." Like, if we get Dahlin or Boqvist and it's a straight-to-the-NHL situation, I'd probably want a proven top-pairing defenseman on our blue line to pair the player with and/or provide some insulation so the player can, in theory, play a role he's totally comfortable with.

Green, Booth, Jensen, Nyquist, Ouellet, Mrazek, Witkowski. I think that's the realistic list of trade bait candidates. And I'm ok with that. I don't think blowing it up is feasible, because I don't think any one of our bigger contracts can be moved without us retaining salary or throwing in a sweetener or taking back someone else's problematic contract. Might as well just keep those players and let them guide us to a couple more seasons like the one we're currently having. It'd be one thing if we had a number of stud prospects knocking on the door and we had to make room for them on the roster, but that isn't the case. As for the draft...we do need to get lucky, yes. We do need to hit a home run or two or three over the next few drafts, yes. But I feel like a lot of Wings fans are a little too hung up on picking 1st/2nd/3rd overall. Getting lucky in the draft doesn't only mean picking in the top three. Consider: Erik Karlsson was drafted 15th overall Mark Stone -- 178th Mike Hoffman -- 130th Nikita Kucherov -- 58th Brayden Point -- 19th Mikhail Sergachev -- 9th P.K. Subban -- 43rd Roman Josi -- 38th Filip Forsberg -- 11th Vladimir Tarasenko -- 16th Colton Parayko -- 86th Mark Scheifele -- 7th Nikolaj Ehlers -- 9th Jacob Trouba -- 9th Zach Werenski -- 8th Alex DeBrincat -- 39th Duncan Keith -- 54th Mathew Barzal -- 16th David Pastrnak -- 25th Brad Marchand -- 71st Patrice Bergeron -- 45th David Krejci -- 63rd Sean Monahan -- 6th Johnny Gaudreau -- 104th Dougie Hamilton -- 9th T.J. Brodie -- 114th Ivan Provorov -- 7th Shayne Gostisbehere -- 78th Sean Couturier -- 8th Claude Giroux -- 22nd Rasmus Ristolainen -- 8th Anze Kopitar -- 11th Vincent Trocheck -- 64th James Neal -- 33rd Shea Theodore -- 26th Evgeny Kuznetsov -- 26th John Carlson -- 27th Oliver Ekman-Larsson -- 6th Clayton Keller -- 7th Derek Stepan -- 51st Brock Boeser -- 23rd Hampus Lindholm -- 6th Rickard Rakell -- 30th Brent Burns -- 20th Logan Couture -- 9th Joe Pavelski -- 205th Kris Letang -- 62nd Jamie Benn -- 129th John Klingberg -- 111th Justin Faulk -- 37th Max Pacioretty -- 22nd Brendan Gallagher -- 147th Shea Weber -- 49th Ryan McDonagh -- 12th Dylan Larkin -- 15th Anthony Mantha -- 20th Andreas Athanasiou -- 110th Not a single one of those players was a top-five selection. Food for thought.

I wasn't a huge fan of the Daley signing, I wanted some of the kids to get a look before we signed a player outside the organization. That and the Athanasiou situation. I knew Daley would be a solid addition, just didn't think it was the right move at the time. I do think most other options could have done as well as his 5 points in 32 games, and -13, but I don't think anyone would have been given his tough assignments. Not only is he out there against the leagues best every night, but I believe he's the main reason for Ericsson's resurgence this season. Ericsson has been great thus far, arguably our most steady defender. It's odd though that Ericsson and Daley have been a staple for most of this season and Ericsson is a team best +3 and Daley is a team worst -13...

Mantha is #2 in points, ahead of zberg at #3. Kid needs to learn some respek. U don't just show up Zberg at 22 years old. When this kid learns to fall in line hell get promoted again. Till then enjoy ur time on the 4th mr cockyman

Since silly advice is being given, how about "Children Must Trust Strangers With Candy" and "Children Must Experience Thrill of Sticking Forks Into Outlets".

30 seconds in, Bertuzzi hurt blocking a shot. Larkin hit in the face with a puck. Mantha intercepts pass, all alone in the slot, bobbles puck, doesn't get shot off. Inauspicious start. Bertuzzi back out on the ice. Phew!