Leaderboard

5 Detroit Red Wings Bold Predictions by The Hockey Writers

Forwards are more role specific. If we're talking about scoring lines, then yes, I consider offense a more desirable attribute. If we're talking checking line or a shutdown line, than I consider defense more important. I don't think I need to explain to a Canadian how much more important it is for defenseman to be more defensively aware/responsible than forwards. Lindstrom isn't going to be an offensive defenseman. He was never expected to be. 3rd pair defensive dman is probably where he'll end up. And as long as he's actually good at defense, I'm okay with that. Cholowski was supposed to be an offensive dman. So far, we haven't seen that. To make matters worse, he's not been very good defensively either. If you can't be good at both, at least be good at one or the other. Not mediocre to poor at both, which Cholowski has been. The reason why people prefer Lindstrom is because he's actually proving to be what he was supposed to be. He's actually developing into a dman who's good at at least one side of play. Cholowski hasn't been good at either. I prefer the guy who's good at something to the guy who is good at nothing.

If Cholowski ever scores 75 points in an NHL season, I'll eat a Little Caesar's pizza.

Assuming that the rule isn't changed because of the shortened season: Nielsen only has to play in 10 games this season to meet the 70 games qualifier over the last 2 seasons. Erne only has to play in 14 games. Exactly the reason why I was advocating for NOT buying him out this past summer. Buy him out NEXT summer. Keeping him one more year takes 2 years of his cap penalty and gives SY another eligible forward to expose in the expansion draft.

1. Gary Bettman announces he's going to have gender reassignment surgery. 2. The Chicago Blackhawks publicly admit that the Marian Hossa LTIR was BS and it was all done to circumvent the cap. 3. CRL and krsmith become best friends.

Didn't Athanasiou teach us that irrespective of how many goals you score, if you give up more then it's a net negative for the team? To the extent that Cholo has offensive ability it is overshadowed by how often he gets scored on. Blashill has stated as much. No team (that's trying to be good) is going to throw a defensive liability on the ice game after game just because he scores a point every 3 or 4 games. Sure you can mitigate his shortcomings and accentuate his strengths by sheltering him at even strength and gifting him powerplay time, but he's still got to take a regular shift and he's shown that when he does he gets scored on disproportionate to how often he generates offense. When Cholo learns how to limit the chances against him he'll earn a spot, and get an opportunity to score, and that's how it should be. Otherwise he's just a defenseman version of AA, and those guys suck.

Not at all why Ras was drafted. He was ranked 5th by NHLCS. Right behind Vilardi. He got a bad reputation because one guy picked out one advanced metric from one year and made a big deal about it. Maybe Vilardi would have been a better pick, but he was the only player available consistently ranked ahead of Ras, and he had many of the same question marks about his potential. Considering Ras's strengths also addressed notable team weaknesses, no one should be complaining about that pick. Furthermore, Ras has put up numbers similar to what Mantha did at the same age, with the exception of at 19, Ras had an underwhelming season in the NHL while Mantha had a dominate year in juniors. Mantha 17yo - QMJHL - 63gp - 22g - 51p .81ppg 18 - QMJHL - 67 - 50 - 89 - 1.33 19 - QMJHL - 57 - 57 - 120 - 2.11 20 - AHL - 62 - 15 - 33 - .53 Ras: 17 - WHL - 50 - 32 - 55 - 1.1 18 - WHL - 47 - 31 - 59 - 1.26 19 - NHL - 62 - 8 - 18 - .29 20 - AHL - 35 - 7 - 22 - .63 Ras is 5 months older, in relative terms, and so was able to start in the CHL a year earlier, which would explain the disparity in the first year. Shouldn't have much impact in the later years though. Of course, none of that means Ras will develop in the same way Mantha has since then though. It will be disappointing if he doesn't, doubly so if Vilardi turns out significantly better, But this does illustrate how profoundly expectations can be effected by players being in different situations.

Gone for so long and the conversations have hardly changed at all. Cholowski's demotion last year, much like the year before, was likely to allow him to develop against a more appropriate level of competition. He wasn't effective in the NHL; playing in the AHL was better for him. Considering he really didn't improve at all from his first year to his second, and now hasn't played in 10 months, I wouldn't expect much this year. Maybe he'll surprise, but I won't hold my breath. He has not been good offensively. 24 points in 88 games. Not even that good in the AHL. 25 points in 55 games. Dekeyser level offense .69 P/60 last year with 2:40/g PP time. For comparison, Daley (who you call one of the worst in the league) with less than a minute PP time per game scored .63 P/60. Staal and Stecher both produced better without any PP time worth mentioning. At even strength, Nemeth, Biega and Merrill all produced more. You made the same arguments about Smith and Sproul. Like once you label a player an offensive defenseman you'll say he's "good offensively" no matter how he performs. If he was actually good, he wouldn't have any problem beating out the likes of Daley or Biega or Merrill. That's why Hronek has stuck despite his own somewhat weak defense. You like to say "be given every opportunity", but what you really mean is that he should be given a spot no matter what. You know there's nothing Staal, Merrill, Biega, or Lindstrom (or likely even Nemeth, Stecher, or Dekeyser) could do that would make you believe they deserve a spot over Cholowski. And you're against adding anyone you think could beat him out, like Vatanen. We can gift him a spot next year, no need to do so now when he's still waiver exempt. Granted, Vatanen isn't good enough to make a big deal about, but I do think we should make every reasonable effort to improve as much as we can. I personally think a major factor in last year being such an embarrassment was Yzerman writing-off the season before it started, and he's done essentially the same thing this year. Getting too used to losing, or even worse wanting to lose for a higher pick like most fans seem to want, is terrible for a franchise.