Buppy

I wasn't saying his value didn't increase in the AHL, I said that it was never very high and didn't likely diminish last year. 14-15 was the year he was dominating in the AHL. In that same year was when he was called up a few different times, so-so performance in a limited role, faded toward the end of the year. I don't think he was ever a healthy scratch under Babs though. He was just sent back to GR. But since those things were happening in the same year, it tempered any increase in value. For the first part of last year, prior to his injury, he wasn't being scratched. He was, in fact, playing and producing quite well. That point would have been the peak of his trade value. Dominant in the AHL the previous year, plus starting to produce in the NHL. But then he got injured, struggled to get in the lineup afterward and didn't produce when he did. Lost what value he'd gained in the first part of the year. The off-season surgery maybe hurt him a little. And "injury prone" isn't very accurate. Prior to last year, his last significant injury was 09-10. No one has tried to say advanced stats are the end all. There's no question that his metrics are inflated to some degree. However, his usage was not much different than AAs, or Nyquist and Tatar for much of the year, or literally dozens of other players around the league. But his stats were better than most. Every indication is that he's a strong possession player. Maybe he wouldn't be so strong if facing the best competition on a regular basis, but he'd likely be above average. I wouldn't say he's an outlier. Be he probably is proof that people will dismiss out of hand any stat if doesn't say what they want it to say.

Entertaining bit of histrionics there. But in regards to the youth, I think there's something people are over-looking. We waived Pulk and Frk in order to keep the waiver-exempt AA. To me, that means that at least Holland thinks AA should be playing, which would almost certainly mean Ott or Miller sitting. Who knows if Blash feels the same way, but I'd assume so. Probably more of a positive than if we'd demoted AA and stuck Pulk in the pressbox. Also, you don't "build" with secondary players (or worse). We are building on the backs of Larkin, and Mrazek, and (for lack of a better option atm) Dekeyser, maybe AA. Hopefully in the near future we'll find at least a couple more to join that foundation. For secondary and depth players, it isn't that important where they come from. Old, young, drafted, UFA. Whatever. With Tatar, Nyquist, Abby, etc. we might even say our secondary players are already built as well as can be expected. The only skilled winger that's played significantly with Glendening was Jurco. And that was because they had no other place to put him. Also, Abby and Sheahan are probably better scorers right now than what Mantha could do. Maybe even Helm. I think very highly of AA (and Pulk for what it's worth now), but I'm not sure they'd be better scorers either. Yeah, it's interesting. Still too early to judge, and shouldn't be judged in hindsight anyway, but given how things have gone since that deal we might have been better off passing.

Huh, more common than I'd thought. 57 claims in the last 4 years. I guess I don't pay that much attention, and it's not usually big news, but it seems I only hear of a few each year. But my point really wasn't about whether or not we should have kept them or anything. Just saying simply that we've lost guys because we've had a lot of NHL-level players. More of a good thing than bad. Nothing wrong with our drafting. In fact, you could say that when some of our "busts" are getting picked up on waivers, it proves just the opposite.

Highly unlikely that last year decreased his value at all. Maybe dropped a bit with the off-season surgery, but probably much. Do you really believe that you know better than NHL GMs? Any negative you saw in Pulk, every scout and GM in the league recognized long before. His trade value was never much. If anything, last year prior to his injury would have increased his value. While "waste of space" was a popular opinion here, he was playing and producing decently well prior to the injury. 6g, 11p in 23 games, plus excellent advanced stats. That showed that he could in fact translate his game to the NHL (not at the same level, of course, but no one would have expected that). At worst, I'd think the injury and everything afterward just knocked his value back down to where it was after 2015. Well, losing 4 players in 3 years is probably pretty uncommon. But what that really shows is just how good we are at getting that level of player, which is all the more reason we shouldn't be that concerned. In 5 draft years from 09-13, we've lost 4 prospects to waivers, traded another 3, and may still have another 8-10 NHL players left.

You should look at those drafts again. If anything, we drafted too well and got more than we had room for. We got Sheahan and Mrazek in 2010, plus Jarnkrok and Pulk. Jurco, Ouellet, Sproul, and Marchenko in 2011, AA plus Frk in 2012, Mantha, Bertuzzi, and Janmark in 2013. It's rare to get more than 1-2 NHL players in any given draft. Sure, we can question the roster management, say we should have traded more prospects, but people got pissed when we did that too. It's a no-win situation. People have unrealistic expectations.

Kronwall isn't expected to be out long. Would've saved him a few days at best. Regardless, it's obvious the team didn't see a role for Pulk here, so there's no reason to keep him. Sure, maybe we could have gotten a low pick, but that's hardly worth getting upset over. We have never had a problem getting good players for the middle and bottom of the roster. Even last year when our offense sucked our scoring depth was well above average. I am probably the biggest Pulk supporter here, but I don't think having him in the pressbox or on the 4th-line would have made any difference. It's been said ad nauseam, but our problems are at the top of the roster. It's extremely unlikely that Pulk (or Frk) would have helped that. AA might though, so we should probably be happy that he's on the team (at least until Jurco is healthy).

The article says "up to three weeks before the expansion draft". So early June probably. Possibly after the finals end even.

Yeah, no one should be drawing conclusions based on a few games, even if they had been actual crap last year. But I don't think we can take their individual play completely out of it either. No one's voting for anyone this election. Only voting against the other guy.

Mostly produced while playing with much better players as well. Sheahan spent most of last year on the third line playing with Nyquist and Tatar. I'm not so optimistic that giving him less time with far worse linemates would improve his output. Nor for that matter do I think putting Nyquist with AA and Mantha would be any more dangerous than Sheahan/Tatar. I like your optimism, and like I've said I do hope we at least experiment with the concept at some point, but my expectations would be somewhat more conservative. Not trying to say it's definitive proof that he'd be worse than Miller and Ott, but it certainly says something. 30 NHL teams full of people who evaluate players for a living, and are among the very best at doing that in the entire world, and for two years none of them have thought there was enough of a chance that he might be better than what they already had to give him a chance. But it's kind of a stretch to include Callahan in the "better" category. There's no good reason to think he could really do anything at the NHL level. So mostly you're just saying how bad you think Ott and Miller will be. "Given a shot" in the context of your earlier post suggests to me you think he should be on the team ahead of those guys. I'm just saying he'd be pretty far down my list of replacements if I'm getting rid of someone. Even if for some reason I felt I had to have a shutdown checking line, and for some reason thought Callahan would do that better than Miller or Ott, I certainly wouldn't think he'd fit better than Helm or Sheahan. AA, Pulk, Mantha, Jurco, probably Svech and Bertuzzi, or even rolling 7 D with Sproul, maybe Jensen/Ouellet. All better options that Callahan IMO.

Sure, even-strength points were similar (or better), but goal rates and overall scoring were down. Of course there are more factors to that than just individual play, but that doesn't mean it's wrong to point out that they had a "down" year (at least relative to the prior year).

Every team in the league has passed on him twice now. He's had years worth of "shots" to make the team, and he just hasn't been good enough. For anyone. To speculate that maybe he could be better than Miller or Ott based mostly on the idea that Miller and Ott are just that terrible is a poor reason to suggest he should make the team. We have a bunch of guys that should be far ahead of him. Certainly worth experimenting with, and I don't want to see Miller and Ott both in the lineup all season (unless they prove themselves effective), but I don't think I'd expect those lower lines to "bury" anyone. Wouldn't even take it as a given that they'd outperform a "mathcup" line by enough to offset whatever our top lines lose by playing tougher minutes.

Well, scoring rates for both Tatar and Nyquist (and Kessel) were down as well. Of course, it's not unusual for rates to fluctuate to that degree year-to-year, but it's still fair to call it "a down year" for those guys.

You don't know how it works. You'd give up four! 1st round picks with that offer, for the right to hilariously overpay Trouba.

Gudbranson is an impact player? I wouldn't say your pipe dream is "not enough", but it's probably not the right kind of package. It is a gross overpayment though. Granted, that seems to be the trend for young D-men...Larsson, Gudbranson, Reinhart, even Hamilton to some extent (though he's far better than the other three). Smith + 1st + either 2nd or good prospect that wouldn't need protecting. Probably the closest we can get to what the Jets would want, short of offering Dekeyser. Not sure they'd think Smith was an adequate Trouba replacement though, plus being a pending UFA.

If you already have Fowler, why give up the high pick for Trouba?

Well, if the "+" was Marchenko and our 1st probably not. Though we are in a situation where we can probably afford to overpay without really hurting our long-term outlook. But if we can get Fowler out of Anaheim it solves our problem just as much as Trouba would. A 1-for-1 swap like you suggest would work, but I wouldn't add anything extra like krsmith would. Pretty much what I think too. I'm not sure that Trouba is, or will for sure be, any better than DD, and he'd probably cost more, but I'd do it based on the potential.

There is no "culture of mediocrity". Teams have down times. Deal with it.

Yeah, he was injured for a while. Also missed some of the early season while contemplating retirement. Also, the AHL has a veteran limit. Can only play 5 vets (who have played 320 or more pro games) per game, so vets will sometimes rotate out.

Shouldn't that be an argument in favor of having someone potentially more skilled playing net-front?

Nothing wrong with rounding out his skills, or, given our current roster, trying to use his size. I think it's just that when we fans hear "net front" we automatically think "Homer" and a guy not really doing anything other than that. But the team is probably thinking more in terms of Franzen. Something he can and will occasionally be asked to do, but not the only or even defining characteristic of his game. Have you not seen all the times (usually with Sheahan) we've done that "pass to the side of the net for the quick move out front". Actually worked quite well a couple years ago. Probably need to disguise it better and/or add a new wrinkle or two now. Teams seem to have caught on to it.

Even if not at center, Larkin should be playing over Couturier, Drouin, or Miller.

Set to expire after the 21-22 season, but either the league or the PA can opt to terminate it after the 19-20 season. Holland isn't the one that changed the rules for long-term contracts after ours were signed. Also, Datsyuk, Pronger, Savard, and Dupuis all expire this year. I think Horton will be the only other big LTIR deal left. Arizona might come asking for Franzen . The cap is an issue this year, and maybe next. But after that we should be in pretty good shape, even if we have to carry some added dead money.

That's a pretty gross overpayment. That's a star-level package, and once again, Trouba is not a star. He's the 3RD defenseman on the fricking Jets. We are not the Jets 3rd D away from being a contender. We add Trouba, chances are he doesn't make us significantly better. Why would anyone think he would? He hasn't made the Jets better. Trouba is by far the most over-rated player in the league around here. I guess people are just that desperate. You may be right. Overpaying for Trouba (or someone else) probably wouldn't hurt us too much. If we could get someone for picks/prospects, even if overpaying, I might do still do it. The big problem with that is that it doesn't work for us cap-wise. The other problem is that the teams that are offering what we want are not rebuilding. A "quantity" package, even an overpayment, isn't likely to be the most appealing offer to them.

I don't disagree that Fowler can be considered a top-pair D (low-end at least), but the argument is that he does play on a good team. Very deep defense that rolls 3 solid pairs pretty evenly. In Detroit, where he might bear the brunt of the toughest defensive assignments, he might be exposed. His advanced stats are near the bottom for the Ducks. And even though he's young, after 6 full years it's hard to imagine he'll get any better. And you keep responding to comments about AA as if it's a straight "AA for Fowler/Trouba" proposal. I'd think even the biggest AA fans would do that, if they were convinced it was the only option. But people don't want to add AA to a package that already includes Nyquist/Tatar. And they shouldn't. A prime-aged, proven top-6 winger plus a top prospect is a star-level package. Fowler and Trouba are not stars. Nyquist and Tatar are as close to star-status as Fowler and Trouba. There's no reason we should, or should have to, include any of our top-prospects. I'll say again, if Murray thinks so little of Nyquist/Tatar that we'd have to add AA (or Mantha/Svech) rather than a second-tier prospect/pick, then he probably wouldn't be interested in the trade at all. They aren't rebuilding. Quantity is not going to trump quality. And unless Winnipeg is planning a flurry of trades this year, they aren't going to want two more young forwards to try to somehow protect, much less weaken an already weak defense to do it.

I think it's pretty well established that we are not all in perfect agreement in our assessments of the players we're talking about. Yes, I think AA will be more valuable than Fowler or Trouba. Obviously you disagree. No need to wander in circles. Regardless, I think it's moot, as I explained in the previous post.