Leaderboard

This guy gets it.

This idea is simply wrong. The vets are not guaranteed anything nor preventing any kids from making the team. We could bring them all back, plus resign Green, plus sign Beauchemin, strap Vladdy to a sled and sign him to a 3 year deal, and if we go to TC and find 6 copies of prime Bobby Orr our defense next year would be 6 copies of prime Bobby Orr. In the whole of the cap era, the best young defenseman to lose out to a vet would be a toss-up between Ericsson and Quincey. How many Quincey-Ericsson-Kindl-Smith-Lashoff-Dekeyser-Almqvist-Marchenko-Ouellet-Sproul-Jensens will we go through before you start to consider the possibility that the next in line is not necessarily the next big thing, and that the reason they're getting passed over isn't because of vets or contracts or UFA signings, but rather because they just aren't that good? It's already been said that the Wings defense is a pretty low bar. If a Hicketts/Hronek/Cholowski/potential 2018 pick can't make it over that bar, we should probably temper our excitement for them.

First try. Keeping the dream alive!

I don't recall ever hearing that other than on this forum, but I assume it's just another "we like our team" piece of nonsense. And as usual, when you judge things based on media soundbites, it gives a ridiculously inaccurate depiction of reality. In the last 6 seasons, we have had 15 different defensemen play at least 20 games for a total of 45 player-seasons. 16 of those 45 were players 25 or under. 855 of 2615 total games. Roughly one third of our defense roster over the last six years has been devoted to bringing in young players. 8 of the 15 played at least one year at 25 or younger. 6 at 23 or younger. Suggesting that kids aren't given legit opportunities is laughably false. The kids we've had just haven't been very good. Whine all you want about "tie goes to the vet", but the fact is neither Hicketts nor Sproul were anywhere close to a "tie" with any of our s***ty vets. One, that's not a middle ground. That's just saying the same thing while acknowledging that the kids have sucked. Two, your second question is demonstrably false (see above). The "veteran thing" is a fan thing, because the most popular player on a struggling team is the one who isn't playing. Funny you'd mention Ouellet. Several years later he still isn't as good as the several years older and worse version of Ericsson everyone wanted him to replace, and is now himself included as a "vet" that's holding back the kids.

For sure. Maybe Rasmussen was a bad comparable. But you get where I'm coming from, yeah? Worth noting: I've liked Geekie for a while now, so I'm probably a little biased. Maybe the Hurricanes see him as just another prospect, nothing special.

I think there's a middle ground here. Have the Wings failed miserably to find D prospects who are actually worth a damn? Yes. Have the Wings been obsessed with stocking the depth chart with as much veteran depth as humanly possible and "overripening" prospects? Yes. Does the latter follow from the former? I would say that it does, but only to an extent. I would say the veteran roadblock thing has indeed been a real thing and that even prospects who are better than the Marchenkos and Jensens and Sprouls would have been held back for somewhat artifically created reasons as opposed to it being purely meritocratic. ("A young Lidstrom would make the team out of camp" isn't really an argument.) Hicketts probably should've made the team out of camp this season. Indeed, Cleary said he was damn close to making the cut. If a player is damn close to making the cut and all of the players who make the cut are veterans, it's fair to cry "ROADBLOCK!" and "DEJA VU!" Several years ago, Babcock wanted Ouellet on the opening night roster and Holland overrode him on it. This veteran thing is a thing. It is known. It has been known for a long time. Draper recently suggested there's been another component to all of this, which I guess you could characterize as "failings of the Wings' development program": We need to expedite this process. We need to get these kids bigger and faster and stronger, quicker, to come in and start challenging for spots. That’s how you get better. https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nhl/red-wings/2018/02/10/detroit-red-wings-kris-draper/323124002/ All I know for sure is I'm ready for 1) an influx of high-end prospects and 2) the already-underway youth movement. No more "We feel Libor Sulak has the potential to be a real good player for us in 20 years." Please, God, no more.

This is a huge reason I'd have interest in him... We need to inject (draft / trade for) some right-handed forwards into this lineup...

Yeah, I really doubt Carolina would go for that. Between Skinner and Lindholm and Rask and Aho and Teravainen, they have plenty of young AA/Mantha-caliber forwards already. What they need is a true gamebreaker, which Geekie could end up being. It would sort of be like us trading Rasmussen for Kasperi Kapanen. Besides, Geekie shoots right-handed, so the Wings wouldn't have any interest in him anyway.

I'd do it without hesitation. Doubt Carolina would though...

AA for Geekie

Tkachuk. Not a bad piece at 8 eh?

The way I see it, we need everything. Or, put another way: there isn't anything we don't need. All positions are open. We are hiring. Larkin and Mantha are looking like they could be real stars, but we don't know that they're going to be the elite 1C and elite scoring winger that we would ideally like to have in our quest for the Cup. I'm all about the huge step Larkin took this season, but at this point in time there's no guarantee that he doesn't ultimately top out as sort of a Matt Duchene/Kyle Turris, i.e. a serviceable 1C who you'd ideally like to have slotted behind a powerhouse 1C. And if you can't find the powerhouse 1C, you'd like to at least have a couple of those Duchene-Turrises, e.g. Nashville's current two top-six centermen (Johansen and Turris, neither of whom put up especially great numbers this season). But I digress... We're rebuilding. The more picks we have in the next few drafts, the more likely we are to get some really high-end prospects. The more high-end prospects we have, the more likely we are to end up with some elite NHLers. The more elite NHLers we have, the more capable we are of winning the Cup, at least in theory. So, I wouldn't worry about Veleno being overqualified for a 2C role. That would be a good problem to have. The bigger, more immediate concern right now is that we only have one young high-end centerman on the roster (Larkin) and one high-end centerman in the pipeline (Rasmussen). The Wings would be foolish to assume that having Larkin and Rasmussen means they're set at center. IMO, my hypothetical trade-up proposal only gets accepted if our trade partner isn't wild about the available names and believes AA + Vegas's 1st + early 2nd is collectively more valuable than the player he could get with his 9th/10th/11th/12th overall pick. If Hughes or Bouchard or Boqvist is available, we're not getting that pick. But if those guys are gone and Veleno is looking like the best name left on the board? Then we might have a shot. But we don't know what any organization's preference chart looks like. So I dunno. Yep!

Never forget

And that's why tanking guarantees nothing

Statistically, it's the most likely scenario... There's a 65.5% chance we move back to 6 (34.5%), 7 (26.7%), or 8 (4.3%)... There's only a 26.1% chance we move up to 3 (8.9%), 2 (8.7%), or 1 (8.5%), and an 8.4% chance we stay at 5... F*** the stats though! We're moving up into the top 3!

At this point, I don't care who wins the Cup, just someone please knock off the Penguins!

Basically what we are all trying to say is this top 10 is so good, we really can't go wrong! The only way Holland can screw this up is if he gets #1 and doesn't draft Dahlin!

Thing is, Larkin is our future #1 Center (if not already) Sure Veleno would be a great pick up, but would we be squandering one of them on the 2nd line? They both cannot be #1 C's... Personally, If I am not getting Dahlin, then if we trade AA, VEG's pick and a 2nd to get another top 10-12 pick, I am taking another D. Lets say I get Hughes with our pick, then trade up to #9 and Bouchard or Boqvist is still there, I am taking one of them. I know we need a lot of things, but man if we could score BOTH Hughes Bouchard, my goodness! Hell even if we got Dahlin, making a deal for another top10-12 is not a bad idea either. Could you imagine Dahlin AND Hughes for example? Nice! Honestly though, I think just trading AA and VEG's pick can get us somewhere around 10-12. I might offer up one of those 3rds, but I like our 2nds, we could really score big with two picks in the top 12 and two more in the top 5 of the 2nd.

I’m going to guess because Daley played big/tough minutes allowing the others to play within their roles.