Buppy

I'm offended that you think "The Hockey News" is written by the American public. I'm also offended by the term Coney dog. The term "Coney Island" was originally used instead of "hot dog" because the people selling them were afraid immigrants would think they were made out of dog meat. Putting the "dog" back in there is an insult to that etymology.

You can't even spell meme without two of me.

Beyond that, we have 7 (or more) viable top 6 options. There is no line combo that doesn't have its flaws or doesn't potentially under-utilize someone. I would guess that even if lines aren't juggled mid-game, Mantha will be given some extra shifts and/or Zetterberg and Larkin will spend a few shifts with him and/or Frk. Hardly something to get upset about.

I hope you're just talking about Chaps, because as far as I've seen Mrazek has been the target of far more fan vitriol than was ever directed at Jimmy. In general the worst ever said about Jimmy is that he's average, overpaid, and couldn't win us a Cup. All that was also said about Mrazek even starting early last year, with much worse coming by the end, to now you and a few others basically saying that anyone who thinks Mrazek can still be a good player must be stupid. Mrazek has ability. Even in the last two years he's had good stretches. He is now basically the same age as Jimmy when he was a rookie. Whether or not he can identify and correct whatever issues he's been having is certainly a valid concern, as is the question of what, if any, length we should go to to keep him. But this whole anti-Mrazek movement seems mostly predicated on the desire to exact revenge for perceived slights against Howard. It's distracting.

But we traded a 5th overall pick to get him. Terrible.

If you'd spend less time trying to build a useless forum reputation and more time learning valuable real world skills like COBOL and how to market your stocks, you could afford cheese and maybe your wife wouldn't have to go looking for a better sandwich provider. I have a 7 slice retirement fund already, loser. Also, worth noting: A qualifying offer for Mrazek would have to be $4.15M. I don't know if QOs are ever accepted, but if they ever are, this could be one of those rare few times. Even if not, the minimum he could get through arbitration is ~$3.5M. Barring a significant turn-around, or an abundance of cap space, I don't see Mrazek coming back.

They could easily go 3-8 in any 11 games, regardless of opponent. Or 8-3. Such is parity.

He's actively trying to sell. Had an agreement with someone this summer, but apparently the guy couldn't raise the money. I think someone's going to buy them, move them west, then shortly after we'll get a QC expansion.

I think he meant he's worried we won't trade Green (or whoever) if we're close.

Well gee whiz. Hope you didn't get any splinters climbing up that cross. Here's the thing; some viewpoints/opinions ARE without merit. That's just reality. I have no problem accepting contrary opinions, only with the ones I think are baseless. If that's not readily apparent it's only because I'm not going to spend that much time arguing against something I think is reasonable. You made some points, I made some counter-points. If you want to address those points, I'm more than happy to discuss them further. But I'm afraid it will take more than hurt feelings to convince me of anything. So if you want to get mopey and call me a dick for saying you're wrong, don't expect a sympathy card. You can't fax glitter anyway.

Yeah, that was kind of the point...I was suggesting that the idea of our prospects being mishandled is unrealistic. Though I guess that depends on how you want to define it. Larkin 51.78 Nielsen 50.17 Helm 48.87 Mantha 40.43 Wilson 29.68 Glendening 25.66 Athanasiou 20.6 Tatar 16.31 Zetterberg 11.12 Abdelkader 7.97 Nyquist 5.66 Witkowski 3.96 Sheahan 3.91 Those are Frk's linemates this year 5v5. If you think he's being mismanaged, I'd suggest your standards are unrealistic. I'd say if you applied that same standard consistently throughout the league you'd find that "mismanagement" would be by far the most common treatment of prospects. Personally I think that would be ridiculous, so I would look for a standard that makes some more sense. You're acting like it's a reasonable fear to think a good prospect is going to get stuck exclusively with s*** partners. It is not reasonable. Look at Smith...2nd most common partner was our best defenseman. Most common was another top 4, arguably 2nd best at times. Frk: good amount of time with good players, even some of our best. Any other player you want to look at is going to show similar results. So the answer to "why not pair the better ones with the kids?" is that they will be, just not likely all the time. It won't always be possible or in the best interest of the team. Furthermore, a prospect isn't only learning/developing from their partner while on the ice. The whole team, and the coaches, and the trainers are all teachers, and class is still in session off the ice. So I would argue that it is completely logical to suggest that a prospect will develop the same even if they have to spend some of their icetime with weak linemates. At the risk of making this too much about the analogy, what you're arguing is more like trying to blame your kids D average throughout high school on having a s***ty substitute history teacher for a month in 10th grade, ignoring all the good teachers he had and all the A students who took the same class. Sorry if you find it insulting, but I have to say I think your opinion/concern is without merit.

Yeah. So let's say I say I hope our prospects are never kidnapped, dressed up like leprechauns, and taken to the LCA basement for our management group to shoot baby snapping turtles at them with slingshots. Can I get an Amen? Or is your first response going to be something normal, like "That's a weird thing to say.", then question whether or not it's a valid concern. Replying the way you did implicitly lends some bit of credence to the original complaint, even if that isn't what you intended. You should take my reply as something along the lines of, "That's not something we should even be worried about. Here's why:...". Regarding your comments on partners, while a fair enough statement on it's own, it is inherently ideological. You have to allow for reality. The reality is we may not have a great situation to offer a prospect, but that doesn't mean that prospect is being mismanaged. Like Forrest Gump said, "Life is like a box of chocolates; sometimes one of them is Brian Lashoff." Sure, you hope for a cherry, and you'd settle for nougat, but sometimes you bite into a Lashoff. It's gross, but you rinse your mouth out and move on. You don't go to the confectioner and complain about him making Lashoff truffles, do you? OK, bad analogy, but I think you get the point. If we have bad players, someone has to play with them. I don't think you can call it mishandling if that were to be a good prospect at times, nor would I expect that to have any impact on the prospect. Maybe it's just a matter of how we want to define "mismanagement/mishandling". For any prospect or player, mistakes will be made. Teams are going to try things that don't work out or there will be situations where you just have to bite the Lashoff for lack of any good options. I think before you can label something as mismanagement, it has to fall some degree below whatever baseline you define as normal, rather than just below whatever you want to imagine would have been optimal. And hindsight is hindsight, whether the complaints come immediately after whatever event or 5 years later. Of course it didn't start out as being about Smith not developing as well as was hoped, it just evolved into that. Started out more as excuses for why he wasn't producing. I do find it a bit amusing that the fact that Smith was disappointing pretty much from the start is being used as evidence that he should have turned out better. But that's kind of beside the point. Main point is that the complaints are being driven by the negative result, and the specific examples are just a conscious effort to interpret reality in a way that fits his hypothesis. While I can't say with absolute certainty that, if Smith had been handled in the exact manner he would now suggest and still failed to reach his potential, he would now be nitpicking that manner as "mishandling", but...

The Amen was based on a false premise, so I debunked that premise. That's what you're not getting. It's not about your opinion that things might have been better if things had been done differently. I think that's a ridiculous thing to say, because you can literally say that about anything, but whatever. My main objection though is that the things you are saying were done wrong either didn't happen in the way you present or are perfectly normal. You complained that he shouldn't have started 12-13 in GR, because you forgot about the lockout. You were digging for something to complain about, so you didn't do your due diligence. You say "played with AHL quality defensemen", when that is not an accurate depiction of what really happened. He played ~70% with Quincey or Kronwall his first couple full years. Had some sheltered time with worse partners, but mostly did well in that role. You're greatly exaggerating. You say "deployed on the penalty kill and not the power-play". From 11-12 through 13-14 he played ~102 minutes on the PK, and ~76 on the PP. take out 13-14 and it's 44 PK, 64 PP. The only regular to play less on the PK was Kindl, with White around the same. Didn't get much PP opportunity, but he had his chance. Again you are greatly exaggerating. There was never any attempt to mold him into something he wasn't. You say "constantly in and out of the lineup due to "rookie mistakes"". That's so exaggerated as to basically be outright false. His first year he was scratched three times late in the year. 2nd year had four consecutive games early, then one late. 3rd year was only scratched the last game of season (and first couple playoff games). That's why I suggest you're just making excuses. You're not looking at anything even close to objectively. And some people thought he'd be a Calder candidate in 12-13, then he had 1 assist in his first 19 games. So the excuses started immediately. Could things have been better if done differently? Maybe. Or maybe even worse. But second guessing in hindsight is not a valid foundation for saying the organization mishandled him.

Hold your Hogans. The whole "mishandled" thing is just a pile of excuses being made because certain people just can't admit they were wrong in they're predictions about some players, or ever admit anything negative about players they like. Have to have someone to blame for making them wrong. Saying Smith was mishandled is the exact same baseless conjecture that fuels most criticism: Imagine some hypothetical world where something was done differently, then assume the end result would have been better. Doesn't actually matter what was done, and people often don't even understand what the reality was anyway. Had a player been handled in the exact way they suggest, and still failed, that way would then be "mishandling". Can't really argue against it, as these people will just hide behind "opinion", and say you can't prove it wrong. If you debunk their version of reality, they'll just ignore it or maybe think up some new excuse. Some stats: TOI CF/60 CA/60 CF% Rel CF% GF/60 GA/60 GF% Rel GF% xGF/60 xGA/60 xGF% Rel xGF% ZSR KYLE.QUINCEY 718.43 54.87 46.6 54.07 1.52 2.17 1.84 54.17 2.79 2.11 1.8 54.06 3.65 55.11 NIKLAS.KRONWALL 469.88 57.72 45.84 55.73 2.7 2.17 2.17 50 -1.85 2.22 2.16 50.68 -1.19 51.62 BRIAN.LASHOFF 286.52 49.21 45.23 52.11 -0.08 1.68 2.51 40 -9.57 1.78 1.82 49.48 -1.59 64.24 JAKUB.KINDL 166.51 54.05 42.52 55.97 3.8 3.24 1.8 64.29 5.89 2.06 1.6 56.3 4.34 63.29 DOUG.JANIK 95.43 57.84 37.72 60.53 7.46 2.51 1.89 57.14 1.59 2.68 1.97 57.65 9.46 60.47 That's Smith's most frequent defense partners 5v5 from 2011-12 through 2013-14. Aside from Lashoff, he actually did better the more sheltered he was. His individual numbers were good with Kronwall, but the team was worse. Wasn't good with Lashoff overall, but much of that time was due to other players being injured, then one stretch when we were using Q-Deke as a shutdown pair. There's no foundation to complain about the partners he was given. Yeah, sucks for him (and everyone else) that we didn't have infinite Lidstroms to give everyone, but considering our reality he fared well enough. GP TOI G/60 P/60 P1/60 iCF/60 iSF/60 CF/60 SF/60 GF/60 xGF/60 BRENDAN.SMITH 119 75.46 0.8 3.18 1.59 23.06 7.95 85.87 36.58 3.98 5.14 DANNY.DEKEYSER 76 108.29 0.55 2.77 1.66 14.41 8.87 84.77 49.31 5.54 4.65 IAN.WHITE 102 289.92 0 2.07 0.83 29.39 12.42 103.89 49.46 4.35 6.42 JAKUB.KINDL 162 274.14 0.22 2.63 0.88 24.95 12.04 93.67 49.46 4.16 5.82 KYLE.QUINCEY 190 237.11 1.01 2.53 1.27 27.33 12.91 86.04 46.31 5.82 6.31 NIKLAS.KRONWALL 209 660.11 1.18 4.64 2.45 26 11.45 104.26 55.26 7.82 7.55 That's some individual and on-ice PP stats over the same period. The time for White was mostly in 11-12. Dekeyser mostly in 13-14. About half of Quincey's was with Colorado. After Lidstrom left (and took the good part of White with him), finding someone for the 2nd PP unit was a struggle. Smith had his chance, he just wasn't that good. Kindl and Dekeyser weren't much better, and worse in some ways, but no good cause for complaint about Smith's lack of PP time, other than to shake your fist at the fact that the universe doesn't revolve around Brendan Smith. Didn't dig up any PK stats, aside from Smith being 5th or lower in the PK order. He wasn't a regular. He was only used when the regulars weren't available, and the other options were worse. Unless it's "mishandling" to allow your regular Pkers to take penalties, get injured, or be tired from just taking their shift this isn't a legitimate complaint either. Bottom line is there was no mishandling, other than the world being imperfect and the Wings not existing for the sole purpose of making Brendan Smith look good. It's just certain someones being upset that a player they liked didn't turn out that good, and it makes them feel better to blame it on someone else.

Fact correction: In his career, Smith played fewer than 4 minutes with Lidstrom. Logic correction: Teams need more than 4 defensemen playing pk. Smith was only ever a tertiary option, which is fine. Also, he was sheltered early (and most of his time here), which is better than the alternative. Playing him in a higher role, with a better partner, would have been more defensive responsibility and far more likely to damage a young player's confidence as well as hurt the team.

Why are you so racist against children? Can you imagine a world without kids? Old men in ghost costumes running around everywhere, just getting away with it because of the lack of meddling. Is that the kind of world you want to live in?

+1

Investigate the stands, son. Ain't no joke, s***s as real as it gets. The Con-man needs a Dahlly.

Overthinkering. We dun ruined JoEasy when we switchered him from F to D. That's -2 in alphabet math. You think anyone could survive that?

Been a couple years now since Edmonton has gotten the 1st overall pick. They need our help.

Not conjecture at all. Can't conjecturize a reality you define. Creatism 101, buddy.

My mom's dead.

Silver lining on the cloud of not having a real 4th line. But is it a true cease fire, or are we just out of ammo? Can't wait for Frko to get back so we can resume hostilities.