Buppy

If by "given an opportunity" you mean guaranteed a spot in the lineup, you're right. That is not, and should not be, a given. You act like the team is lying when the truth is that they just don't share your opinions. Preseason is not a tournament where the guy with the most points wins the roster spot. Like 9 said, it's too small a sample to be given too much weight. Training camp doesn't start with a clean slate. The team has a depth chart, based off all the evaluations and history for each player to this point. TC/preseason can modify the list, but not completely replace it. A player could have the best camp and still not move up enough to take a spot. Or a bad camp and not fall too far. For established veterans, TC/preseason is probably meaningless. If Glendening puts up 6-7 points in 4 games, we're all going to know he's still Glendening. Same is true if he puts up zero. The team seems to be high enough on Rasmussen already that he may not even need a great camp. That doesn't mean Hicketts' performance in camp wasn't rewarded though. He did earn a call-up, despite his poor AHL season and despite all the players performing better. Same with Svech. You're not complaining that he was called up ahead of Tangradi or Puempel, so I know you get what I'm talking about. If Svech has a great preseason it will increase his value; it will be rewarded. Maybe with a full-time spot, or maybe just extra consideration further down the road. Every bit of evidence we have points to that being true. Of course management isn't going to be perfect in judging when a player is "ready" or better than whatever other option was chosen, nor would I expect you (or anyone) to always agree with them. But there's a long road between disagreeing with a particular decision and imagining an organizational conspiracy against kids. I would be surprised if there isn't at least one kid moved up on defense. I think the team has seen enough of Ouellet, and one of Hicketts, Hronek, Cholo, or Sulak will take his place. Cholo and Hronek I'd think would also have to pass someone else though, as I doubt we'd want them up if they aren't going to play every day. If Green goes, I could see two of the kids making it. Basically the same at forward. I think we'll see at least one. A kid with potential like Ras or Svech will need to show they're an every day player, whereas someone like Turgeon could be used as roster filler. I think Ras will get at least the 9 game tryout, unless he just blows it in camp. Svech likely has some work to do to make up for last year.

Still a handful of games behind Pulk, and his future for next season is in doubt.

Potentially at least. I mean, the logical solution of a teammate engaged to a guy would be pretty boring, but asexual reproduction in humans would really be something. On the one hand, being a male there'd be some concern over the continued existence of my gender. On the other hand, two chicks. On the third hand, three handed mutant babies from whatever mad science made it possible...

Of course fans base opinions on simplistic and usually biased evaluations of limited data. That's why fans shouldn't make roster decisions or constantly act like they'd make better roster decisions than people who have won championships in roster-decision-making. I don't think I (or anyone here) could come up with a truly accurate list of criteria used to make a proper evaluation, but generally speaking I would say real game-situation physical abilities, puck skills, decision making, off-ice habits, and history at lower levels. The sum of all of that (plus whatever I missed) for Hicketts would be, in the opinion of management, somewhat below Jensen at least, and certainly below any of the actual vets. (Ouellet is debateable. It's plausible enough that the team would rather have Hicketts play in GR than sit in the pressbox in Detroit, even if they thought he was better. But let's not argue that this proves your point. It's conjecture, Ouellet isn't a vet, and you're not arguing for Hicketts to be a healthy scratch anyway.) You say "just the easy way out" as if it makes any sense. It doesn't, nor does it actually fit the data. Too many exceptions. Just a couple years ago we waived Frk and Pulk to give waiver-exempt AA a spot. Larkin walked on at 19. Like half the roster earned their full-time spots while still exempt. 2013 with a rookie Smith and a fairly new Kindl, Brian Lashoff still managed to push veteran Ian White out of the lineup, and later that year we brought Dekeyser straight out of college. In fairly short order we dumped Kindl and sent Lashoff back in favor of Ouellet and Marchenko, with the latter soon being jettisoned to make room for Jensen. I'd bet there will be some waiver-exempt kid on the roster next season. Maybe more than one. There is no evidence that the team is at all unwilling to move fringe players when they think they have a better option. The only logical conclusion is that the team just doesn't agree with your assessment of Hicketts relative to our other defensemen.

Are we done talking about the harassment now? Because I want to talk about how Karlsson's wife got pregnant by another teammate's fiancee.

AA or Mantha + 30 wouldn't be enough to get the #7 alone. I don't know if it would even get Horvat alone. He's better than either of them, and younger. Larkin +30 is at least worth considering. Larkin is already better, and could yet take another step towards "elite", whereas Horvat probably peaks slightly above where he's at now. So the question is would the #7 be enough of an impact over who we'd get at 30 to be worth the downgrade? If even Mantha +30 + one of the other (or maybe both) early picks would get Horvat + 7, I couldn't say "yes" hard enough. That's why it would never happen of course.

No, I'm acting like you're saying he was treated unfairly in being left off last year's roster. Though I'm not sure you and Kr are saying the same thing. Seems you're talking about next year, while the rest of us are talking about last. I'd agree that Hicketts should get a shot next year, and he will, just as he had a shot last year. You just have to remember that "a shot" is not the same thing as "guaranteed spot on the roster". Unsurprisingly, you missed the point. When you are evaluating Hicketts you are clearly considering factors besides his play in a few preseason games, but then you say that those games should have determined the roster. It's hypocritical. Why shouldn't the team also look at other factors when determining the depth chart? Or is that you just can't accept that the team could draw a different conclusion from yours? Doesn't it make a whole lot more sense to think that management just has a different opinion than yours when it comes to how good these players are? There are far too many exceptions to give any credence to the "veteran bias" narrative. While there is no doubt a hesitance to give up assets in favor of a kid who only "might" be about the same, that demonstrates nothing more than awareness of the uncertainty in judging prospects. Takes more than a handful of games for a marginal prospect like Hicketts to work himself into a "tie" with an established player. He shouldn't have sucked so bad in GR last year. He would have been called up sooner, maybe stuck around longer, and maybe we wouldn't even be debating his position for next year. Or maybe he'd be another Russo and we'd already be done with him. But he's likely done enough in his few games that another good camp could easily move him ahead of at least Ouellet. (Fair chance we've just seen enough of Ouellet regardless.) If he's not on the roster next year, it will most likely be because one of more of the other kids jump ahead of him. And everyone will ignore that kid and continue to act like Hicketts is getting screwed because he's a kid.

Played so amazing yet you still don't think he's any good. Clearly you know there's more to evaluating a player than stats in a handful of games.

On the other hand, if a kid is only "tied" with the bottom of a rebuilding roster, that kid could probably use another year or two in the minors. But there aren't any ties anyway. If Joe Hicketts was the author of his own comic book, titled "the Amazing Hicketts-man", the superhero's weakness would be the inability to lift the jockstraps of Red Wings' veteran defensemen. He was never tied with anyone. Of course, you'll say again that it isn't about Hicketts. But who is it about? Where did this whole idea of veteran bias come from? Who has ever been held back? Maybe you could argue Nyquist and Tatar for half the lockout season? Mantha for 10 games? And all three of them were also behind other young players. Does that really seem like a logical foundation for suggesting that the Wings don't give young players a fair shot? Putting in two good young guys is a positive. Two young guys that you think maybe might not be any worse than the crap we already have is not. It's nothing. It's just a way to get sick of those kids earlier. (See: Kindl, Smith, Marchenko, Ouellet, Jensen, Hicketts by February 2020) The rules shouldn't change, and I doubt all the rhetoric about the wide-open roster, "overripe is over", etc. means what people think it means. It's an acknowledgement that our current team sucks. It sucks because our players aren't very good. Since they aren't very good, it's a naturally lower bar. Lower bar + better prospects + prospects in general developing pro-style habits earlier = more open roster. But there's no philosophical change. The "rule" is, and always has been, "get over the bar". Hopefully that never changes. If it does, that's when we'll need new management.

Well... Those words were already in your mouth. I tried being general and you didn't like it, now you want to cry that I was too specific. So yeah, whatever. I said several posts back that you agreed with me, and you lol'd. Now you're agreeing that we agree? Glad you caught up. We both agree that handedness does not make a team successful. I'm sure you'll disagree. Your dichotomy is nicely illustrated in the bolded quotes above. "Isn't near" or "slightly less"; which is it? In one breath you'll agree that "skill level matters", but in the next you'll argue that handedness is what's separating the good teams from the bad. That's what's so hard to follow. I'm not saying it "has no effect", what I'm saying is we already have RH shooters. As do all the other bad teams. It's not that Frk and Jensen aren't right-enough-handed, it's that they suck. As evidenced by 2008, even the low number of RH shots isn't much of a problem. Drop the pretense. We're not talking about lineup of exclusively LH shots. Your argument is one of quality. There is no dynamic specific to handedness that our current RH players couldn't benefit from. We would not be meaningfully better with 3 more s***ty RHers, nor would 3 good RHers be meaningfully better than 3 good LHers, all else staying the same. Handedness can play a part in evaluating someone, as I said a long way back. It doesn't really need to be a priority, since even if you never even look at it you're likely to get a decent mix. But my question is if we're already drafting and signing RH players, and we shouldn't prioritize handedness over skill, what more do you expect?

Yes, as good. Didn't realize "yeah" wouldn't be specific enough for you, sorry. Would it be the exact same %? That's a stupid question, normal variance is more than 1-2% anyway. TB was 22.8% last year with Stamkos out for 80% of the year. 18.8 and 15.8 the years before that. You are saying Frk isn't good enough. Every time you say we don't have any balance, and need an elite RH shot, that's what it means. He's not good enough to produce the effect you're trying to say "balance" has. And if you want to say he is good enough, then why did you call him out as just a bottom 6 and why does our PP still suck? Frk played 68 games last year. The PP in those games was 29-187. 15.5%. 12-47 in the 14 games he missed. 25.5%. Even if you discount the one good game where we went 4-6, it's still 19.5% without him. You might want to do some rethinking. Replace RH Frk with a LH version of Stamkos it would do far more for our PP and team than replacing any of our LH with RH versions of themselves. The good teams aren't better because they're more L/R balanced. In most cases they aren't any more balanced, and there are examples where good teams are actually less so. They're better because they have better players. You're conflating the two; reasoning that the bad teams would be better with better RH players. That's true enough, but it's also true they'd be better with better LH players. It's the "better player" part that's important.

Hate to shatter your illusion of a KR-centric universe, but this started when Neo made a comment about past Wings teams. Nothing to do with you or your preferences at all. I pointed out that one of his examples (2008) was wrong, and the rest meaningless. You then jumped in with "it's not the be all...", which isn't so different from "it's not something that makes a team successful". But apparently only you are allowed to say handedness isn't everything. Yeah, TBs PP would still be good with a LH Stamkos, and you'd still list them as "balanced" because they have Point and Johnson. Wings PP would still suck with a RH Nyquist, and you'd still say they were unbalanced because he's not a good enough "triggerman". Of the last 27 draft picks (excluding goalies), 9 have been RH. Pretty much exactly what you'd expect, given that around 1/3rd of players are RH. I think we've had more RH UFA signings than LH. As you say many of the top prospects this year are RH shots. It's not something that needs priority, because it just happens naturally. Yes, we've been unlucky, but we don't need to change anything. We're already doing what you say we should. The only way we could prioritize it any more is if we did start valuing handedness more than ability.

So in short, going back to the original argument, you both agree (in not so many words) that I was right. It is the quality of the players that is important, not handedness. Past Wings teams were more successful because the players were better, not because more of them were RH (particularly 2008, which didn't even have any more RH shots). That is what I was saying. Making the leap from that to "You don't think it matters whatsoever" is a strawman. I wouldn't say it's a "huge role", but not because it's wholly insignificant. But rather because even the woefully unbalanced Wings still had 4 RHers in the lineup pretty much every game. It isn't something that needs to be prioritized because it's mostly likely going to be something you end up with regardless. It can be a factor worth considering, just doesn't trump any significant difference in ability. Not altogether different than what you're saying.

You're being awfully selective. It is a coincidnece, because literally every team does have both L and R shooters. All of those bad teams have RH shooters, some of them just didn't perform very well. But that's a catch-22; if the players had performed well then the PP on the whole would have been better, regardless of handedness. Case in point: Chicago had better L/R balance than the NYI. Last year Edm had one of the better PPs in the league last season and the only difference is swapping Eberle for Strome (both RH). 2014-15 the Wings had the #2 PP with only Pulk for 30 games and Zidlicky for 20. 2008 we were 3rd with just Sammy and Rafalski. It is the quality of the performance, not the handedness of the shooters, that will have a real impact. We had a similar argument last year, where I said Frk wouldn't fix our PP because he wasn't good enough. Now you want to argue that he doesn't count as a RH shot because he isn't good enough. But you're kind of saying two different things here: We need to add RH shots, but also that we shouldn't go out of our way to prioritize handedness over other qualities. As Kip said earlier, "all else" is seldom equal. You have to evaluate players irrespective of handedness if you really want to pick the best players. That would normally result in a decent mix of R/L shooters anyway. I'm not saying we need to stay so unbalanced, nor even that handedness shouldn't be considered when choosing between similar players. Just that it isn't why we were successful in the past, nor would having better balance fix what's wrong now.

If you look over almost anything it will of course have a more well-balanced group than the current "almost nothing". 2008 could hardly be called well-balanced, even relative to the current Wings, and proves rather conclusively that you can in fact succeed with unbalanced handedness. Just like Buffalo proves the opposite. The only reason you don't see it more often is simply because it's just weird to see a roster so unbalanced. Like Dabura jokes, it's almost something you'd have to try to do. With the current numbers, you'd expect 35-40% of your roster to shoot right. 10-ish players, counting reserves/call-ups, which would likely mean at least a couple decent ones. In short, it's not something that makes a team successful; it's just something that almost every team, good and bad, has.

They don't have a years-long history of demonstrable anti-Euro bias. Nor were they making up idiotic "page 2" nonsense suggesting that Hughes/Boqvist are inferior players who would only be picked because of where they're from. Best part of this is that now if they do pick one of the small guys, you're really going to explode.

I'm not so sure that unconscionable bigotry is the spice we want to zest up the board. Complete reversal of the original argument. There's a certain charm to the tactic, I'll give you that.

Apparently I'm not a good enough captain of obviousness if you missed the fact that Abdelkader was ranked much higher than Stastny. You can ***** about Abby now if it makes you feel better, but saying it was a bad pick is just plain stupid. If I thought you were trolling I'd applaud the effort, but you genuinely believe the fantasies you dream up. Frightening. And we'll see if "injury history" is still a thing once it applies to someone you like. How typically internet. "Trust the insiders" when they say what you want. Bunch of idiots when they don't.

You forgot Letang and Yandle, and probably a handful of others. Hindsight sure is easy. So easy that I find it funny that you still came up with the self-contradictory argument that we shouldn't have drafted Kindl because we had too many defensemen, but name two different, lower-ranked defensemen that we should have taken instead. No! Bad fan! Bad! That is literally the opposite of reality. Again, Kindl was ranked 18th. Niskanen was ranked 31st. Vlasic was 70th. Abdelkader was 25th while Stastny was 74th. Letang was 44th and Yandle 55th. It is those guys that would have been "trying to score a sleeper". Now go chain yourself up in the backyard for the rest of the day as punishment. Also, is "injury history" going to be your new slang for "European style"?

Kindl was drafted from Kitchener in the OHL, and was the 18th ranked NA skater. There were a few players ranked higher who were still available, but all of them ended up being even worse. I don't doubt that you never liked him (though if his name was Jacob Kendall...), but they were not "bypassing the better player" in drafting him. That's just hindsight talking. In Button's latest mock draft, he ranks them: Hughes 5th, Bouchard 6th, Dobson 7th, Boqvist 10th. You a Hughes guy now? If you look around enough, I'm sure you could find an expert ranking them in any order you want. All four of them have elite potential, and there is no consensus on which is the best choice, though people will act like there was when their favorite isn't picked. Hughes and Boqvist are probably better defensively than most would give them credit for, and Bouchard probably not as good. Hughes is the best skater, and probably best playmaker. Bouchard the most NHL-ready, probably the best shooter. Dobson the best all-around game, best defense, but maybe lowest offensive potential. Boqvist probably the best overall offensive skill, least developed, but 7-10 months younger than the others. Might have been next year's Dahlin if he'd been born a month later. We should all be happy with any one of them.

I wouldn't call Dobson a sleeper. For months he's been right with Bouchard/Hughes/Boqvist in the 2nd tier of defensemen. He's the most complete package of the four right now: size, speed, best defensively, solid offense. There's some question about his offensive potential in the NHL though. Translation: The fuse is lit. Prepare for the inevitable explosion.

Yep

Actually, that was 2008, before his problem was really bad. The thing that made the punch so dirty is it was his first game back after a concussion.

Can't have it both ways. You said taking Hughes over Bouchard/Dobson would be the same old Holland. So either you're so obsessively anti-Holland that you're going to criticize him even for moves you don't think are bad, or you think it would be a bad move. Pick one and stick with it.