Buppy

Seems that way because that's what you want to believe. Fact is we have the fewest shots in the league right now. We have not done well at all at getting up ice and generating offense. We have done well in capitalizing on a a relatively small number of chances, but the team has literally been worse in every single aspect you mention than was the norm under Babcock. I expect we will get better, maybe even better than we were in the last few years, But to suggest that we have been better in these first few games is delusional. Seeing what you want now and remembering only the worst from Babcock.

I hardly know where to start. All players need to develop. ALL. Some are good enough to contribute in the NHL while developing. But other than the very elite few that are capable of being true impact players or those on teams with little talent, most will be better off developing in the minors. It pays to have good, NHL-ready, talent in the minors. At some point you're probably going to need them. Beside that, it's not a matter of directly comparing a kid to the worst player on the team. You have to consider how the team as a whole is impacted. Larkin pushes Nyquist down, the guy below him down, the guy below that... He has an opportunity to show that he's worth it. If he does, he'll stay up. Roles matter as well. It isn't Miller, Ferraro, and Andersson that would be replaced by kids. If we stay relatively healthy, Andersson may not play a game for us this year. Ferraro may not get many more. Our kids are far better off playing in GR than sitting in Detroit. If anyone is going to bump Miller it will be Larkin. After that if you want even more kids you're bumping Jurco or Pulkkinen. Miller may take a spot from one of them anyway. It's nice to have guys to eat up the hard defensive minutes so guys like Larkin don't have to. There's a reason every team has guys to do that. Miller and Glendening are currently 4th and 5th in TOI (which will probably surprise the anti-Babcock crowd), pretty much all of it being tough minutes. Would Larkin be as effective if he had to play those minutes? Maybe, and maybe we'll find out before long. But again, Miller is one guy. Only one guy can replace him. None of the three kids you mentioned were all that impressive in GR last year. Sure they all looked decent in the meaningless preseason, so what. Franzen and Richards (I assume that's what you mean by trash) were both better in the NHL last year than any of the kids were in GR. Odds are they'll be better this year than any of the kids could be, even though they aren't young or fast or energetic. Odds are Jurco and Pulkkinen will be better this year than any of the kids could be. If we're not healthy, the kids will get a shot. And if that happens, we'll be glad we can call up AA, Mantha, and Nosek instead of Meile, Aubry, and Tvrdon.

Miller is a far cry from Richards and Franzen. It's possible Miller won't even be in the lineup once Helm is back. Richards and Franzen may not have shown much in the first two games, but from what they did last year I would expect them to produce more than any of the kids you listed.

Seems pretty straight forward. Fantasy sport is gambling. You're just betting on a collection of individuals rather than an entire team. Currently legal, but who knows for how long.

I got what you were saying, I was just trying to point out that Miller could be considered redundant with all the other capable PKers we have in the lineup. So in a sense he is taking Jurco's spot. I would take Ferraro out first, but I'd still have Jurco in ahead of Miller once Helm comes back. Now, if Larkin goes to GR when Datsyuk gets back I'd put Miller back in, with Jurco and Pulkkinen fighting for a spot. Pretty sure they both sit in the pressbox at exactly the same speed.

Reposting this here to add Jurco's TOI... I don't think we should be looking to trade him either, since as you say, his value would be pretty low right now. But he's had plenty of opportunities. I'll post the numbers later, but he spent quite a bit of time with skilled players. Even on the 4th line, if he really is so skilled, he should be able to produce more than what we've seen from Miller, Eaves, Helm, Glendening, etc. in the past. There simply isn't room for everyone to play in the top 6 or even top 9. The only two really even debatable in the top 9 right now are Pulks and Sheahan, who are in the same situation as Jurco. Have to "misuse" someone. May even have to get rid of someone before we're really sure what they are. It's just reality. I think a 4th line of Jurco-Glen-Helm would have a lot of potential. The 4th line may not be the best situation for Jurco's stat line, but it's better than not playing at all. edit to add: Jurco's linemates last season (playoffs included), 5v5: Sheahan - 224:35 Miller - 208:13 Glendening - 189:07 Tatar - 158:48 Helm - 115:09 Andersson - 90:09 Zetterberg - 78:40 Datsyuk - 65:30 Nyquist - 62:07 Weiss - 50:22 Cleary - 44:09 Nestrasil - 41:52 Franzen - 31:51 Abdelkader - 21:28 Pulkkinen - 18:39 Ferraro - 0:38 He also had ~71ish minutes on the PP, which I think we can assume was almost all with skilled players.

You have an odd definition of "scraps". Yandle (plus a 4th rounder) went for a Mantha-level prospect plus a 1st and 2nd rounder. More than he was worth, but Arizona retained half the salary. Hamilton went for a 1st (4 spots higher than ours, which would be worth a 3rd rounder at least) plus two 2nds. Maybe a bit less than he should have gone for, but still significant. Plus the whole division rival thing. Even at full price he wasn't overpaid. As it is the Rangers are paying him less than we're paying for Smith. Still not worth the package he went for though.

I don't think we should be looking to trade him either, since as you say, his value would be pretty low right now. But he's had plenty of opportunities. I'll post the numbers later, but he spent quite a bit of time with skilled players. Even on the 4th line, if he really is so skilled, he should be able to produce more than what we've seen from Miller, Eaves, Helm, Glendening, etc. in the past. There simply isn't room for everyone to play in the top 6 or even top 9. The only two really even debatable in the top 9 right now are Pulks and Sheahan, who are in the same situation as Jurco. Have to "misuse" someone. May even have to get rid of someone before we're really sure what they are. It's just reality. I think a 4th line of Jurco-Glen-Helm would have a lot of potential. The 4th line may not be the best situation for Jurco's stat line, but it's better than not playing at all. With Glendening, Sheahan, Abdelkader, and Larkin we don't need more than one of Miller/Andy/Ferraro/Helm in the lineup.

Wrong trade. Eaves was in the Legwand deal. Have to wait for Jarnkrok to score for that joke.

His switch is off. Guess that's why he didn't get the first start.

1. Again, he'd been mostly healthy for 4 1/2 seasons. Where is this "one bad hit" notion coming from? Also, a 2nd round pick would have been worth more than Janmark + Backman. Hell, still would be. 2. I don't think anyone is pretending he's s***. He just made an NHL roster, that would be silly. Not sure I would call the 4th or 5th forward a top prospect, but whatever. Sure, hypothetically he could have been used for something better. That's the problem with hypotheticals. No matter what anyone does, hypothetically something else could have been done that was better. And lastly, Cole was not garbage. You even said yourself you wanted him.

So you acknowledge that is didn't hurt us, and you acknowledge that Cole was a good option... That trade was pretty much the blueprint for what you want in a deadline deal. We gave up two prospects who were running out of options and were never going to get a shot here for a guy who filled a need plus a conditional pick (which I think you may have forgotten about). Saarijarvi alone is probably worth more to the Wings than Janmark and Backman together, just because of the extra time we have before we need a spot for him. Also, not sure how Cole was a risk. He'd missed 7 games the previous year, but prior to that hadn't missed any time since 2010. No good defensemen were traded at the deadline. Wisniewski maybe, or Franson, probably the best. But that likely would have meant no Green this year. We still have more parts than we have room so that mythical trade for a top-4 defenseman is still possible without hurting our future. Sucked that Cole got hurt and couldn't help us more, but that also meant we got the pick. But that was a good trade.

He can't lose his waiver exemption, 160 games for that. But if he plays 11 or more, his exemptions would lower from 5 years to 3. Though I think if he's good enough for 11+ games this year, the odds of him spending more than 3 years in GR is pretty slim. The slide rule would be more likely to keep Larkin under 11 games, but I don't know that the Wings would be too concerned about that either.

6-6 plus one tie actually. So tonight is the rubber match.

Didn't exactly do anything. I meant normalize in the general sense, meaning try to adjust the numbers to account for whatever you think is skewing them rather than just throwing them out altogether. For example, you say the attention paid to him last year was lax, (though you don't have any evidence of that, other than that it sorta seems like it would be a thing...) but I'm sure you're not suggesting that no one played any kind of defense at all against him. So how much do you think his numbers were inflated that year? 20%, 40%, 50%? It's already a small data set, no need to make it smaller by ignoring a big part of it. What you're doing is confirmation bias. Trying to interpret the data in a way that supports your conclusion. The actual data is this: Year 1: 57gp, 22evg, 6ppg, 78% at ES Year 2: 82gp, 13evg, 14ppg, 48% at ES First year was far more effective at ES than the second, but also much less effective on the PP. The most likely explanation is simple year to year variance that we see all the time, with the truth somewhere around the middle. That middle suggests that he's pretty normal in terms of scoring distribution. Likely to stay close to normal even if you adjust the 1st year numbers.

Statistically, it's still one season. Didn't really struggle all that much either. He had 13 EVG. The 56 players in the league who scored between 23-31 goals averaged right around 18 EVG. If you take his first year into account, and try to normalize the numbers instead of just ignoring them because they don't support your theory, he'd be pretty close to those numbers. That he had a couple super hot streaks that year is balanced in large part by the fact that he only played 2/3rds of the season. Normalize his numbers and it puts him around 17-24 EVG that year. At worst you might conclude that he's a little below average at ES for a scorer of his level. Seems more likely that he's pretty normal, with his first year a little better than you'd expect and last year a little worse. If anything I would say his success on the PP last year is further from the norm than his struggles at ES.

Kindl is not better than Smith offensively, much less "significantly" so. First off, Kindl was injured for pretty much all of January last year. Prior to the injury, Kindl had played 28 games to 31 for Smith. Each had 2 goals, and Kindl had 7 assists to Smith's 5. Including the two previous seasons (playoffs included), Kindl's stats were 153 games, 9g, 37a .vs Smith with 155 games, 9g, 30a. Career numbers at the time were Kindl 259 games, 12g, 51a and Smith 169 games, 10g, 36a. Fairly similar p/g numbers, even with Kindl getting 3 times as much time on the PP. Looking at just 5v5 numbers, Smith's were better in every way, including possession metrics. Kindl had the good luck to have a couple good games among the handful he played after his injury last year, but he has not shown himself to be good offensive player, or even any better than Smith. Which is saying a lot considering Smith sucks. And there is no "Babcock mentality". Babcock had the luxury of having most of our best offensive players also be good defensively, but there were still plenty that were average or worse who played prominent roles: Hudler, Homer, Bert, Sammy, Brunner, and Nyquist/Tatar recently. Rafi and White were hardly defensive stalwarts for that matter, even Kronwall is much better on the offensive side than defensively. Regardless, even the best possession players are lucky to hit 60% CF%, which still means a lot of time spent defending. The better you are at it, the quicker you'll get the puck back and get back on offense, not to mention giving up fewer goals against. Being good defensively doesn't make you worse offensively. Cheating too much one way or the other (I.e. Being too conservative and too quick to move back when on offense, or lurking out high on defense.) can make a difference, and maybe that's what you're getting at, but I don't think that's what Kickazz meant by "increase his 200 ft. game".

Hmm...two posts in the lines thread that include a roster, and both include Jensen. The one roster that didn't (which was included in the second post) was clearly stated what he thought it would be, barring trades, and not what he would want it to be. Plus several other posts over the summer including Jensen... And you guys are making fun of him? Shameful.

Will be funny to see Kane's internet supporters switch lines from "It was consensual!" to "It never happened!".

It's '15-16, not '85-86 Nyquist - 33 Tatar - 26 Sheahan - 21 Franzen - 21 Teemu - 76

Yeah, maybe they can buy some integrity.

Bergeron's deal is for 8 years, exactly the same length as Toews'.

It is a mock up, says so right in the article. Based off a limited description.

Real hockey was played on icebergs by Vikings with axe blades strapped to their feet who just skated around trying to kill each other with the axe handles. Real radio was a wandering minstrel who sang stirring anthems and ribald ballads for a leg of roast mutton.

You kids and your fancy information and your gender equality and your hi-fi radios.