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I had reese's for breakfast, and I don't mean the nutritious breakfast cereal...

HYPE! LGRW!

He'll probably get some shifts there. The lineup card is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules. Notes: Megan excited to join Wings against Devils [DetroitRedWings.com]

That's quite the line up there

Ha Ha no we'll be fineeeeeeeee

FIXED

Also, don't forget how he always tries to put words in your mouth and spin the conversation to fit his argument...

Nice to see some more diversity on this team now that we've added a woman to the roster. ?

Now that we're good again, time to discuss the playoffs. Tampa and Toronto are the obvious favorites to come out of the Atlantic, so we're probably gonna have to play one of them eventually.

Same here. I regret nothing!

Look at you with the gif action!

I'd be shocked if the Wings didnt re-sign Howard. They may trade him at the TDL, but I think he'll be back July 1st.

Nothing you have said here disproves my point, in fact IF those stats are correct and we drafted below the league average and had that level of success, I would argue that you are strengthening it. My original point, and my exact words that you took exception to were the following: "Its not that our scouting has gotten bad, the issue is that the rest of the league caught up. We used to have such a advantage when it came to scouting oversees, now we are just 1/31 teams doing the same thing." I never said anything about other teams not being there, this is where I will call you out for a straw-man argument. I said we had an advantage which we clearly did given our results in drafting talent oversees. Clearly other teams were not at our level in the 80's/90's which is a result of what the Wings put into that department. It didn't "just happen cause". I think what you did here was you jumped the gun and assumed I was saying something that I was not (which is reflected in your "exploring untapped markets" to "our scouts were good" comment) I don't know why I even going back and forth with you, it doesn't matter what I say because once you are on a quest to prove someone wrong, nothing the other person says matters regardless of the strength of their argument.

That's not accurate. Count again. Do I bother checking the rest of your numbers or should I just assume their false now...? "Nor is there anything to suggest the Wings prioritized Europe in any meaningful way" literally the next sentence: "Euro scouts were good, and that probably led to giving more weight to their opinions" lulz So you've gone from "What exactly is this advantage scouting oversees?" to: I'm arguing our scouts were better (an advantage oversees) Wild

Not sure why I'm going to bother since I see this is already moving from "exploring untapped markets" to "our scouts were good", but since you're both still kind of clinging to the idea that we were doing something other teams weren't, what the hell... Throughout the 90's, the Wings drafted 27 Europeans in 98 picks. A little below the league average of about 31%. 21 out of 115 in the 80s. A little above average (though ironically we had little success prior to 89). I don't think there's enough difference there to say we ahead or behind any curve. Likely just the way the drafts happened to play out, which would explain why we only took 3 out of 33 from 90-92. More importantly is the fact that there were more than 1100 Europeans drafted in those two decades, less than 50 by the Wings. There was nothing "untapped" about that market even by the mid-90s, much less late-90/early-00s as originally stated. Nor is there anything to suggest the Wings prioritized Europe in any meaningful way. No doubt Hakan and our other Euro scouts were good, and that probably led to giving more weight to their opinions, particularly after the emergence of Datsyuk and Zetterberg, but that's not doing anything different. It's doing the same thing everyone else is doing, but better. That's basically what I'm arguing. To say we were looking to Europe in a way other teams weren't is to discredit to quality of our scouting.

Ken Kal sings falsetto. He SCOOO-OOOORES! I bet he can hit that high note in "Take On Me". (I would post a video of the song, but it irritates some people.)

No kidding I think we certainly had an advantage in Europe for a while. Detroit and New Jersey stick out in my mind as being at the forefront of trying to get players to defect from the USSR back when. We landed Fedorov and probably should have landed Bure too (arguably the two biggest fish), NJ got Fetisov, we put together the Russian 5. Hakan Anderson also came online for us in 1990 and all of the sudden we were getting very good European players outside of the 1st round. Other teams were of course also scouting/drafting Euro's and trying to defect Russians, I just think we did it a whole lot better than most. Zetterberg went unnoticed by pretty much everyone until Jim Nill scouted him. All drafting is luck to some extent, but that's good scouting on Jim Nill's part and therefore ours. Datsyuk went un-scouted by everyone in the league except us. Again, no one knows how any draft pick will truly turn out, but that's good scouting on our part. European scouting x 1000 I think it's almost your dinner time

I'm sure they have their reasons. And I'm sure those reasons are dumb.

We just got free curlys in BACK TO BACK games. I think it's safe to say we're trending upwards.

It’s Halloween, not April Fools

We are incapable of beating Tampa. Babcock has presided over many a postseason choke job. Bring on Toronto.

Love or hate Howard, it would be a smart move to trade him this season and acquire assets. Assuming he puts together another decent season, and a team is in need of a goalie at or before the deadline... Bernier is a capable starter for a non-playoff team. Much like Howard, he's not going to win or lose many games on his own, but he'll keep his team in most games, which is all you want as a bottom third of the league team. I think Sateri could be a viable backup options as well. If we can trade Jimmy for a 2nd, or even 3rd round pick by mid-season, I think you'd be foolish not to...