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Berggren with a measly three points already today.

Its bad enough that your weighing Zadinas value to his draft position even worse that your weighing his value to where the likes of Cory Wrongman had him ranked predraft. Zadina is a 3rd line winger with still room to grow into 2nd line winger. Hes 22yo ffs.

IMO, Top 6: Larkin, Vrana, Raymond, Bertuzzi Middle 6: Fabbri 3rd line: Sundqvist, Suter 4th line: Everyone else Rasmussen and Veleno will probably at least get to middle 6 one day. The most we can hope for from Zadina is being a 3rd line scorer one day maybe.

I think there's a big drop off from Raymond to Fabbri. But then also from Fabbri to Sundqvist. 1-4 are legit top 6 forwards. Fabbri is an acceptable 2nd line forward, but would be a good 3rd liner on a deep team. 6-14 are bottom 6ers right now. I'd like to trade Zadina in the off-season for a defender.

I'm not really sure that having 12 better forwards is the correct way to evaluate Zadina (or anyone else for that matter). He's not competing with Dylan Larkin for the 1C spot, nor with Mitchell Stephens for the 4C spot. In fact, most people don't even want him competing with guys for a 4th line winger spot (considering ppl lost their minds when Blash had him on the 4th line). So basically, are there six better wingers on the team? Bert, Vrana, Raymond, and Fabbri are all notably better. That leaves two. So he needs to be better than all but one of Gagner, Sundqvist, Erne, Smith and whichever of Veleno, Stephens, or Rasmussen gets moved to the wing when everyone is healthy. Safe to say he can probably do that. But with guys like Berggren and Sodorblom knocking on the door it gets really tricky. Doubly so if they add people via FA (think Namestnikov-type guys here). At that point it's not so clear cut. It's not obvious that he'd be better than all but one of Rasmussen, Berggren, Sodorblom, and Namestnikov for instance. AND he has basically ZERO special teams value, which genuinely kills his value to the team. Reminds me a lot of Owen Tippett in that way, and look how tradeable that guy very quickly became. I'd say Zadina's days in Detroit have come to an end.

Not really. Temmu Pulkkinen and Tomas Jurco scored at about the same rate as Luke Glendening during their time here, and they obviously both never came anywhere near approaching disney.com's value to the team. Cause it's not all about scoring stats, ya know? Ras actually has a role on this team. He actually contributes to the game away from the puck. If he continues playing the game the right way, like he has been, and continues adding weight to his frame, he'll at the very least have a role here as shutdown 3C or checking line wing. I agree that I'd rather see him play more wing, that's the way he's going to end up generating the most offense for us. I just think the Wings have been hard-pressed for centers and would desperately like that peg to fit into that center hole. Hopefully Veleno or another center will permanently move him to wing soon. Zadina on the other hand is like Yakupov. Not good enough to contribute in a top6 role, and doesn't have any value in a bottom 6 role. If Zadina played like Ras or Veleno does, I'd have a lot less negativity about him. But he doesn't. He's consistently does frustrating things and refuses to correct them, learn from them, grow from them. He not only doesn't win board battles, he has no strategy to approaching a scrum. He'll consistently choose the wrong side of the scrum to attack from. Offensive side when he should be taking the defensive side. Defensive side when he should be taking the deep attacking side. He'll take the long route to chase a puck... like skating behind the net to get to the far corner instead of crossing the slot in the O-zone. He's afraid of the dirty areas. He'll hustle back on D... but that isn't much good when he has defensive IQ and anticipation of Givani Smith. This player has been up and down the lineup but has gotten consistent time in the top6 and on the power play. Yet Gagner, Erne, and Ras each have double the amount of primary assists than he has. He's a turnover machine in the O-zone just from his shooting. Constantly right into the defender, right into the goalies chest, or missing the net completely. He has the lowest shooting percentage on the team outside of Adam Erne. His shot choice is alarmingly bad. Mikael Samuelsson level bad. I'd like to see Veleno get some scoring confidence going, but other than that I have no real complaints about his game. I'd like to see Rasmussen get a lot stronger and add some more scoring to his game, but other than that I have no real complaints. With Zadina I have long list of problems, with or without the puck, in every zone. Veleno and Ras are like Tatar and Nyquist to me. They're playing the right way and should develop in time. Zadina is like Cholowski... there's just so much wrong there I don't know that he can ever fix it all. And so far he's made very little progress in fixing them over the past 3 season.

I love that Rasmussen is producing, its got to be great for his confidence. As you'll all recall, I predicted big things for him this year and that really hasn't happened so it's good to feel like I wasn't 100% in the weeds. But I'd like to see a few things vis-a-vis the big fella. First, the team (i.e. coach) needs to figure out a role for him that makes sense. They've previously said they want him to be a Jordan Staal-esque 3C, which he's never ever been, and he's put in some serious work trying to make that happen...to mixed results. His defense is actually pretty good, but his offense hasn't really shone through in that role the way a Staal's does. That's probably because Ras needs to be near the net to score, and in Blash's system the center plays the F3 position high (almost like a 3rd defenseman) so something's gotta give (and it's his scoring). If they intend to keep him in that role, then it's got to be as a 4C because he's just never going to score enough as a center (in that system) to be a 3C. The other option, obviously, is to make him a winger where he'll score more but you'll lose him as matchup center. Essentially, he can be Tom Wilson or he can be Martin Hanzal but not both. The 2nd thing the team needs regarding Ras is for him to squat about 600lbs. His lower body is crazy weak for his size and it limits his ability to really wear down the opposition (an obvious appeal for a 6'6 player). Anybody remember when he absolutely buried Hampus Lindholm on the forecheck the other day in Boston and then Lindholm left the game later with a lower body injury? Anybody think those things are unrelated? Me neither. Ras needs to do this every single game.

When Z learns to take a face off, play the PK, win a board battle, grow 6 inches, get off the perimeter, and not turnover the puck over with r-slurred shot choices every play be sure to let us know.

Business idea: To DET: Pavel Zacha To NJD: Filip Zadina + 4th + 7th NJ was shopping Zacha at the TDL. He just turned 25 and is stuck behind Hughes and Hischier on the 3rd line. Kinda hard to peg him. 2 years ago he was on pace for 40 pts, last year he was on pace for 57 pts, but now only 35 pts. NJ gets a younger high drafted project winger to pair with Hughes and Hischier and some throw in picks. We get our center. I do think Zacha might play a lot better here. In recent years he's been stuck on the 3rd and his best winger has been Tatar when Hughes is injured. He could be playing with Bertuzzi and Vrana here. He'd also bring needed size and physicality to our lineup. Fabbri - Larkin - Raymond Vrana - Zacha - Bertuzzi Rasmussen - Suter - Sundqvist