dat's sick

Reality is that I'm disappointed with Veleno's production BUT, having watched the games I know it's insanely dumb to talk about how he's being "outperformed" by players who have 1 or 2 more points.

God forbid anyone watch the games and make informed judgements. Oh well. Reminds me why I haven't posted here for years..

SHL is arguably better than AHL, it's definitely a different challenge and lower scoring. I think you are jumping through hoops to make Veleno's performance seem worse than it is. A lot of those guys are actually in their 3rd pro season, and even those who are only in their 2nd pro season are better adapted to big ice and the SHL style of hockey. Whatever.. I guess if Veleno has a few lucky bounces and gets some secondary assists, he's suddenly "dominating" lol..

You said undrafted. Definitely don't think it's realistic to assume Veleno should dominate high-end draft picks that project as potential all-stars. Even if he's a little older. In terms of pro experience, Veleno isn't really more experienced than most of those names, and he's on by far the worst team of any of them. As someone who has actually watched all those guys play this year I wouldn't say Veleno is being outperformed by most. It's not as easy as "1 point more"= much better performance overall. edit: keep in mind the only player who is really "dominating" on the scoresheet (among forwards) is Berggren. And if Berggren keeps his production up it'll be one of the best U21 seasons in SHL history. If that's your baseline expectation for a prospect we're hoping to get a 2nd line center from, I'm not sure what to say. Pretty much all the other guys are close enough that 3-4 games of going cold/hot can completely change how their production looks.

Eklund? He's gonna be a top 10 pick.

More clips of Wings prospects in europe on that twitter account. Berggren, Raymond, Seider mostly.

There are forced nicknames that I'm not a fan of at all (or things like Goose that come from a bad pronounciation of Nyquist's name). Then there are the vast majority of nicknames that just make sense to use. Z. Pav/Dats. Gordie. Danny. Mike/Babs. Nicknames are very much part of real life and not something that only happens in sports. And I gotta say that I never imagined us being 9 games into the season with one of the biggest issues about the team being whether to say Nestrasil or Nesty. I thought for sure we'd talk about why Daniel Cleary is still in the lineup or why we re-signed Kyle Quincey.

Nesty comes from Babcock himself... But I guess nicknames = serious business.

I wasn't really talking about Nestrasil being compared to Franzen, or Nyquist. Just the casual "why is Nestrasil in the lineup" comments that pop up pretty often. Or saying we should waive him, when Jurco is not impressing at all and we can send him down. Nestrasil is very new to the NHL. If he is starting out on this level and can add a bit of confidence when it comes to his offensive game, he will be a very solid player. He's not a defensive liability at all and he seems to be just quietly doing a good job regardless of situation. I can understand why he's not impressive to a lot of people, but he's been solid and he has earned the icetime he's getting. Trotz gave a lot of credit to the Wings and most of all Dats and Z. He knows them well from his time in Nashville.

I guess when there's nothing much to complain about people will pick on a guy like Nestrasil for no reason. The guy is hardly making any mistakes on the ice. He's hard on the puck, good on the forecheck, makes great decisions defensively, stays calm under pressure.. reminds me a little bit of Sheahan who also isn't as flashy as Tatar and Nyquist but just does a lot of good things. Easy to see why Babcock has kept Nesty in the lineup. He just needs confidence. He's had chances, I could see him really benefit from getting a goal.

Not good for them. Their defence already looked downgraded. Long season though, I'm sure they'll be fine in the long run.

Nah, they would have Cleary or Weiss go on IR. Franzen is needed, we can't have him out for no reason when we struggle to score goals as it is.

Nestrasil is doing a lot of things right. He's heavy on the puck, making nice plays defensively, and he's had some good looks offensively but hasn't gotten anything to go in. If I'm the coach I'm icing the team that has the best chance of getting me wins, not playing a guy to "get him going".

Maybe if Helm was the kind of piece that would land us a top pairing d-man I would consider it. But I think he is more valuable to us than he is in a trade. We always seem to be a much better team when he's playing than when he isn't. I guess if Buffalo for example would give us Myers ONLY if they get Helm I wouldn't say no, but we know everyone wants guys like Nyquist/Mantha/Jurco.

The 4th line may not be the most physical, but it's really, really tough to play against so far this season. Babcock is giving them plenty of icetime and tough assignments and they are shining. They are creating all kinds of offensive zone pressure and Glendening is doing an amazing job at getting under the skin of guys and drawing penalties. The only thing one can complain about is that they have had enough chances to score at least a handful of goals but none of these guys really have much of a scoring touch.

I do think Weiss looks better than last year. He's skating well. Just looked really rusty in this game. I hope he can get back to actually being an effective player but so far with the Wings it's like nothing really happens when he's on the ice. His attitude also isn't really looking good. Has anyone seen him smiling yet?

I like it. Get some of these tough opponents out of the way while we're at full strength. The divisional games are huge, one more against Boston, two against Toronto and one against Montreal. Those are really the key games and will offer an early indication at how the division could play out.

Yeah, at least we don't have that Kindl-Lashoff pairing that pretty much ruined our chances against them in the playoffs.

I don't see what's so bad about the lines. Kid line together, Z and Franzen together, Nestrasil-Helm-Nyquist as a 3rd line compared to Bertuzzi-Andersson-Cleary as a 3rd line last opening night, and a solid 4th line. I'm pretty excited to get things started.

Cleary appears to be outside the lineup, Jurco and Nestrasil made the team, looking good. Hopefully XO will make the team very shortly.

Remember that things can still happen before thursday. And even if it doesn't, it won't be long before Ouellet is on the team one way or another. Babcock has clearly stated his wish by practicing XO with Quincey and having Kindl/Lashoff as extras.

If the lines remain like this, I see us not really having clear cut 1st, 2nd and 3rd lines. Also we all know things will change when Pavel returns. Abby has been a better fit playing with Z than he has with Pavel at least.

Franzen has looked really good this pre-season and he always had good chemistry with Z. Abby and Z also played well together last season, with Nyquist on the other wing. I don't think it's a bad line. Ideally I'd have Nyquist and Z together but it's not the end of the world to try something different.

We saw some good things from the PP in the 2nd half of the year. Tatar, Nyquist and Sheahan should be a good 2nd PP unit, with Z-Dats-Franzen as #1. But it's still on the blueline we need improvement for our PP to become really dangerous. Need to see what Smith can do, and Sproul should get some looks during the year.