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I am done caring about this latest screw job. He is gonna go to a "playoff" team with very little cap room, spend 3 years on an ELC then get a $17M per year contract that I really don't feel like handing out. Depending on where he goes, he'll probably also get a "C" to wear. Larkin is our Captain, I like having Cap space, I like building a team with players who aren't the superstar. I don't care about next years #1 or the next or the next, because through development and UFA signings and trades, Yzerman WILL build a playoff team and then we'll get back to being contenders every year. Montreal can have Laffy, when he doesn't take them to the Cup in the first year, they'll turn on him. Toronto already cannot afford to ice a team, so they would be waiving or trading good players in a few years just to fit him under the cap. Give me Stutzle, Perfetti, Rossi, Sanderson or Drysdale at #4, Yzerman will knock the 2nd round out of the park with our three picks, #32, #54 and #58. We'll get a top 10 pick (most likely next season as well.) I am ready to watch Yzerman, the fans and the City of Detroit to rub their noses in the stink pile of "fix" they have created! Suck it uncle gary! Time to move to the 2020 off season thread because with Z's LTIR, we have $42M to spend, then add the compliance buyout (or two) we'll be nearing $48M or more in cap! Bring in a 27 year old big name difference maker, it won't be long!

I generally try to be at least somewhat level-headed about the Wings. Lately I find it to be draining, exhausting, the exact opposite of fun. Just a whole lot of coping, trying to talk myself into being HYPE!'d about stuff that probably doesn't warrant it. Yzerman has repeatedly stressed that fans are going to have to be patient, which is GM speak for "Unless we absolutely murder a couple of drafts, it's going to be at least another three years." We've dropped in every lotto draw we've been in and now we're hit with a lotto outcome that's so unbelievably stupid it's got non-conspiracy people thinking the 15-team lotto format is at best totally broken and at worst rigged. Mystery team wins the lotto and that will drive interest in a gimmick postseason and a gimmick second lotto, all while we get ready to use our first pick on someone who won't be in the NHL full-time until 2023 and prepare for another year of being the worst team in the league. Awesome. And you know what's going to happen in next season's lotto draw? We're going to drop. Or maybe we surprise everyone and finish 14th from the bottom. Given how these past few lotto draws have turned out, you'd think we'd have a good chance of winning one of the top three spots, right? Wrong. The worst three teams would get the top three picks. Because the Wings are consistently on the wrong side of everything. > "No, you can't spend all that money. Stop trying to win. We need Parity™." > "No, you can't have backdiving contracts, so we're going to retroactively punish you for something you did that wasn't officially considered wrong at the time. We need Parity™." > "No, your insistence on maintaining a winning culture and extending your playoff streak will get you no sympathy from our lotto system machinations. You should tank. It's the smart thing to do. Finishing in no man's land is stupid af. We need Parity™." > "No, stop tanking. Why are you tanking? My God, stop tanking. All you Red Wings do is tank. Look at all these model franchises who aren't tanking. My God, have some self-respect and show some semblance of tact. We need Parity™." > "Look, if you think New Jersey and Buffalo are proof that the 15-team lotto hasn't actually fixed The Edmonton Problem...how dare you. We need Parity™." > "Look, if you think this whole play-in thing is a cynical, calculated, underhanded gimmick designed to drive ratings...how dare you. We need Parity™." > "Look, the odds were against you placing in the top three, so I don't know why you're complaining. It's the odds. Who dictates the odds? Well, surely not us. The odds come down from a higher authority. God himself, in fact. We need Parity™." > "Colorado has dropped from 1st to 4th twice and they seem to be doing alright. I know they got MacKinnon before the 15-team lotto became a thing, but that's beside the point. If it's such a big deal to you, maybe you should've sucked as hard as the Avs did that season. Maybe then you'd have MacKinnon. We need Parity™." I'm tired of it. Hockey's supposed to be an escape from bulls***.

The "but that is what it is" attitude and those 'classy' comments from Yzerman are part of the problem... we need more Brian Burke's calling out this 2nd rate league and their made for TV rigged draft.

I know I'm done... I will not watch or consume anything NHL "league" related atleast until the Wings play again and maybe not for some time... if Lafreniere ends up on a team in our division, a team that is, by default already far better that we are... well never say never but it'll be EFFING close if I engage with the league outside of this board again.

Could happen. Not likely, IMO, but definitely not out of the realm of possibility. I think the league is virtually incapable of losing huge numbers of fans. Hockey is baked into Canadian life. If you're a huge hockey fan living in the States, you're following the sport because you genuinely love it; there's no other reason why you'd invest your time and money and energy and heart in a niche sport that eight out of ten Americans truly could not care less about. So, the league -- and when I say "the league," I mean the owners -- has a loyal, captive support base. And I think the Wings' base sort of exemplifies that. Wings fans are legion, and we're loyal, and we're resilient. We've been through a lot with our team and we've stuck with our team. The owners know they can count on us to be a big economic engine for them. But they may have pushed too hard this time. Even Wings fans have their limits. Sliding to 4th + no playoff revenue + Lafreniere going to a playoff team is too bold, even by this league's standards. Consider this. Our terrible 2019-20 team was determined to avenge our string of embarrassing blowout losses to the Habs. Maybe we finish the season with the worst record in modern history -- but if we can keep the Habs from making the playoffs, at least we will have restored some of our honor. And, indeed, we swept the season series and those games were basically the difference between the Habs making the playoffs and not making the playoffs. So what does the league do? The league says, "Y'know what, let's undo that one little moral victory of theirs, that one little point of pride. Let's get the Habs into the playoffs and let's give them a shot at Lafreniere. It's only fair." It's too much. Too bold. Too cruel. I think we may see a lot of Wings fans tune out. It'll only change if a large enough number of owners raise hell about it. I dunno that that's going to happen.

Great rant, @Dabura! Sums it up pretty much how I feel too. Always something new stupid thing around the corner trying to kill your passion for the team and the league. It’s almost as if the league doesnt care for the fans that actually do care about the league. Theyre constantly looking for attracting new fans with some new gimmick or new rule to make things more ”exciting”. ******* over the hardcore fans in the process.

Next year is shaping up to be a pretty weak draft (as of now), but 2022 is supposed to another strong one, headlined by another absolute stud, Shane Wright. We're talking Connor McDavid level stud (again, as of now). So yeah, we'll win the lottery next year, and draft outside of the elite tier again in 2022...

I see Perfetti the same way. Question: If Perfettis and Rossis points total from this season were inversed, would you still perfer Rossi? I think its important to point out that there was three other Ottawa 67's players in the top ten meaning that Rossi probably got alot of help. Or maybe he made all of them better... No other Saginaw player is to be seen until place 17. HIs production this year hurt his ranking. To be in that top 3 conversation he would have to have close to the same numbers as Stützle who also played in a men's league, albeit a not as good one.

Gonna continue shilling for Perfetti. New slogan: Bring Out the Confetti for Perfetti This is a quote from his coach in Saginaw: "He's just scratching the surface, specifically with his body. If his body was more advanced, he'd be challenging for the first spot. When you look at this draft class 10 years from now, he'll be one of the top two or three guys."

Cole’s are universally hated world wide come on

wtf is wrong with Perfetti?

Believe me, if I thought my attitude, or posts on LGW would have any impact on the way the draft lottery is run, you'd hear a much different tune... But yeah, I completely agree with Burke on this one as well. I too wish Yzerman would voice his opinion on the matter. Sure, he's disappointed, but he should be pissed about the way the whole thing went down. It is absolutely asinine that the "play-in" teams together had better odds of winning the lottery, than the worst team in the league...

Yea this is pretty much how I feel. Even when the Wings do come back though, I'm not sure how much more I feel like watching the rebuild be artificially dragged out by a s***ty system. I have other hobbies I actually enjoy, turns out I can live without hockey.

This is basically where I am at. I'm fully on board seeing these playoffs not only not happen, but I am all for another lockout or strike. f*** these owners.

I highly doubt any of the top 8 teams love it. I'm sure a top team like Tampa would rather see an elite prospect like Lafreniere go to a bottom feeder like Detroit, than a team that is close, like Toronto. Tampa knows that Detroit won't likely be threatening their Cup window (with or without Lafreniere). Toronto, on the other hand, could definitely threaten their Cup window, with another elite piece added. I think it expands beyond that as well. Top teams, or even middling teams should never have an opportunity at the number one pick. The whole system is broken. It pisses me off that we once again, dropped three spots, but that is what it is. A team like Toronto should never have an outside chance at an elite talent at the top of the draft.

People will call you crazy BUT you're 100% correct! Who'd watch the 2nd lottery if the 2nd or 3rd pick were at stake? Answer: Far fewer than having the the 1st overall pick and a borderline generational player hanging in the balance. In hindsight the 1st pick was NEVER actually available to the bottom 7, I'd not be surprised if we didn't even have any balls in the machine... LA won the bottom 7 lottery once the 1st overall pick was set aside. I can't prove this... but I'll never believe otherwise, it fits the gimmick they setup "too perfectly" to not be a setup.

Yep. Let's improve and finish 2 points out of the playoffs and then ZING... win the draft lottery. I know that would never happen for us, but, the karma would be kind of sweet if it did.

Thanks for this post. It literally REEKS with conspiracy. It's so blatant and obvious. That's the upsetting part. The league treats us like dumb cattle who can't see what's going on. WE KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING GARY. Bettman learned under Stern in the NBA. If you follow the shady drafting during that time its not hard to see what he's doing here. It's all fixed. It's always been fixed. Crosby saves Pittsburgh. Edmonton wins year after year after year... We are not going to win anything until this fanbase completely bottoms out and Gary sees the need to rebuild it again. But Wings fans are loyal and hardcore and the league knows it will be awhile before they need to award us something. The league has lost millions in revenue due to Covid-19. Effectively what they've done is try to build anticipation and create artificial hype. Where will Lafreniere go now!?!? Stay tuned dumb cattle! Watch him go to Montreal in a few months lmao it's all so tiresome.

There is a better way to do this...re-do it and do it the most fair way. Take the bottom 7 and do the draft lottery over. Make it so teams can only drop no more than two spots. There is ZERO doubt this is the result that Bettman wanted, he wants Lafreniere in a big NHL market with tons of media coverage. Toronto, Edmonton, Montreal, New York, Chicago. Each play-in team has a 12.5% change of getting #1, just how is that fair to teams that finished lower than them, like LA or Anaheim, who only had a 9.5% and 8.5% chance respectively? Not that I wanted NJ or Buffalo to have it, but they had even lower odds. So now, whether the play-in happens or not, teams 8-15 get better odds at #1 than teams 4-7 did to begin with! I agree with Burke, Detroit or Ottawa is where he should be going, I'd even make an exception for LA or Anaheim, but this stinks of a fix and it's not just sour Detroit fans calling them out. I don't doubt that Montreal will probably be the place he goes. Price is already talking crap about not sure what he is going to do because he isn't comfortable with how things are going safety-wise. He'll sit out the play-in and Montreal will lose. https://www.hockeyinsiders.net/articles/carey-price-not-sure-hes-ready-to-play-brings-up-s/. To me this just stinks of conspiracy and fix. I mean, at least Montreal the 8th worst team and they had a 6% chance (in a normal(?) lottery) but now the're chances have more than doubled at 12.5%, whether they play another game or not, if I were the mentioned teams above that had WORSE odd's than 12.5%, I'd be filing complaints and petitioning a re-do. The NHL can do it, and they should, not just because we, as Detroit fans are sour, but because the whole process was unfair to teams that had less than a 12.5% chance at #1. If they re-did the entire thing, with only the 7 non-playing teams, and we still dropped to 4th, at least then I could feel comfortable that ONLY one of the most deserving teams (teams not playing for a chance at the playoffs) got the #1. This needs to be fixed NOW, and re-done. Not change it for next draft, or the next, etc... It's been how many drafts now that teams have been getting screwed? This needs to be scraped and re-done with the 7 non-playing teams.

.0 Interesting that a few of these rankings don't have Askarov even in the 1st round. VERY interesting that NHL Central Scouting (last list) doesn't even have him in the top 31 European players. Maybe he'll be there at #32...

Exactly. It's been more of a team problem than a goalie problem. It usually is. Improve the offense and defense at the top of the draft, and maybe take a flyer on a goalie in the later rounds. Or not. I'd personally never spend much time and resources scouting / drafting / developing goalies. There are always capable goaltenders every year in free agency, or on the trade market for relatively cheap.

Grant mckagg is saying his scouts contacts are telling him they all love jake sanderson and are really high on him and not to be surprised to see him in the top 5 and predicts the redwings to draft him .... f*** this draft lol Redwings pretty much sure to get one of 3 stud forwards to talks of sanderson and perfetti now , can 2020 just end