Buppy

Blash loved Jeff Hoggan, don't think it means anything. Besides, there's no reason to think he won't like Andersson. I think Andy was even centering the top line in the half year he spent under Blash in GR. Dime a dozen or not, I don't think you give up a center who's proven to be at least an adequate NHL 4th-liner for a winger with like 5 minutes of NHL time. Callahan's best chance is injuries. With both Pav and Franzen out there would be a spot for him. If he could get a few games it might boost his chances of getting claimed when he does get waived. Regardless, I would be shocked if he has any kind of future here.

Silly debate. Stats are information. A tool. Scouts would use them as much or more than anyone. They've been around for decades. Over the years, more have been added/tracked. Even analytics aren't entirely new. Just a natural progression. More information is always better, provided you can understand the information. The advanced metrics still need a lot of work before we really understand them enough to make good use of them, but once teams start understanding them they will be a valuable resource, and that's why teams are hiring "stat guys". Stats aren't a replacement for scouting, they are a part of it.

Actually, USA Hockey is headquartered in Colorado. It's the USNTDP that has its HQ here.

No worries. Hotlby has three good years, two being workhorse type years, and three solid playoff runs. Mrazek would have to be phenomenally good to get in that category.

The two sides of this debate probably aren't as far apart as the arguing might look. It's just easier to argue against an exaggerated version of the opposing opinion. Like you're doing here. Histrionics are fun. I don't think anyone is making excuses, just disagreeing with your assessment of him and/or what is required to be a successful player.Even those saying 'who cares if he's one dimensional" I'm sure only mean that it'd be fine if all he's ever good at is scoring goals. Not that lacking a complete two-way game is not a weakness nor that he shouldn't work to be as good as he can in other areas. There are plenty of effective players in the NHL who aren't that good defensively. The Wings are fortunate in that almost all of our forwards are pretty solid (or better) defensively, but that just means that we can afford a few who are less so. Would he be a star, team-leader, next-Datsyuk? Not very likely, but he could be a valuable and effective secondary scorer. And some of us disagree with how one-dimensional he is anyway. He'd probably be a liability against top competition right now, but given a bit of time I don't think so. No more so that Tatar or Nyquist are now at any rate. And his offensive game is much more well-rounded than those saying he is just a slapshot contend. In the AHL he is a dynamic offensive producer. He creates his own opportunuties, not wholly unlike Tatar, Nyquist, Zetterberg, etc. He's not just a product of defensive ineptitude, weak goaltending, and teammates feeding him one-timers. If that was true, every decent player would light up the AHL. Can he figure out how to do it in the NHL? Let's see. Let's see, before we conclude that he can't. And for all this talk that he can't create space or get open or get his shot off...and it's true he does need to improve in that respect, and should as he gets used to the competition level...but even now he shoots at a higher rate than anyone on our team, higher than most of the league in fact.

Hilarious. He absolutely should have been expected to be a top line player in GR. Even considering the injury he should have at least reached that level by the end of the year. The people critical of him now are not for the most part the same people who had such unreasonable expectations. Those people are mostly the people defending him. Like LW. Last summer Mantha was better than Franzen and should be on the top line in Detroit, now it was too much to expect top line in GR. BS. 20th overall pick, 20-yo, great size, excellent skating, exceptional offensive skills, goal-per-game in the Q...we absolutely had a right to expect something better than 60th overall pick, undersized, 18-yo, first year in NA, Tomas-Tatar-level production. He was disappointing. Not just relative to the more ridiculous expectations, but even to the reasonable ones. I didn't even expect him to be dominant in the AHL. But top-liner? 25-ish goals? 50-ish points? Maybe some consideration for AHL ROTY? Without a doubt. The injury was a setback, but he should have been coming around late in the year at least. Instead he got even worse. He was disappointing. He knows, the coaches know it, management knows it, fans know it. Some just want to deny it because they think saying anything critical about a player they like is the end of the world or something. It isn't. He was disappointing. And that's OK. Doesn't make him a bust. Doesn't even mean he won't eventually be as good as thought prior to last season. It's just one season.

I could see the price being something like that at the trade deadline, and depending on how Pulk was doing at that time I'd consider it (though I don't think it would work cap-wise). But right now that doesn't seem realistic to me, even if WPG doesn't believe they can bring him back. That article is valuing Pulkkinen basically the same as Simmonds, Eberle, Eriksson, and Marchand. Probably just a fan of his.

I don't think tearing up the AHL carries the kind of trade clout that the people who want to trade him seem to think. Every negative and every question mark you see in his game, NHL GMs also see. He really isn't any more one-dimensional than Nyquist or Tatar, or dozens of other NHL players, but regardless he is an undersized skill winger, not a great skater, not great defensively, not very physical, excellent offensive upside but not guaranteed, won't stick in the NHL if he can't be at least a decent scorer, and he needs to be on an NHL roster next year, regardless of whether he's capable or not (since pretty much any team would take a chance on him if they could get him for free off waivers). None of that spells high trade value. Modest value. Considerably below Mantha, even given his lackluster year. We're not going to get a Buffy-level player for him, despite what some people think. (And before anyone says "package", which is just LGW slang for "s*** we don't want anyway"; if Pulkkinen is the biggest piece we still wouldn't get anything all that great.) Sure, if he completely sucks he could lose what value he does have, but if he's even modestly successful (like 12-15g) his value will go up. He is one of the haters. He was welcoming you, not mocking.

Typical vague nonsense that people like to resort to when the stats are against them. How am I supposed to debate that? Yes he does? As riveting as a good "can to/can not" exchange would be, I think I'll pass. I suspect "drive the play" just means whatever you think you can describe that Pulkkinen doesn't do well, but Nyquist and Tatar do. The thing with un-quantifiable metrics is that they don't mean anything until they're translated to something you can quantify. Tatar and Nyquist can drive the s*** out of a play like no one ever has, does, or ever will again, and if it doesn't result in anything measurable than it's worthless. But even that didn't happen. We weren't all sitting around watching Nyquist score 3g and 6p in 22 games, saying, "Damn, did you see him drive that play? That was some play driving right there! That play got it's ass drove off!". They didn't step into the NHL and play like 30g scorers from day one, but get really unlucky with the puck just not going in. They played, looked good at times, poor at times, but mostly unnoticeable except in that people who were excited to see them payed them special attention. Not at all unlike Pulkkinen. Then with more time and experience they improved. Made better decisions, quicker decisions, adjusted to the competition...the way most young players do. Will Pulkkinen be able to adjust and improve? That's always the question. Could ask the same of any our prospects. But is it possible he could? Absolutely.

You can make that "in the AHL" argument about the vast majority of players. Doesn't really mean a whole lot. I don't share your opinion on how he looked, or that Tatar or Nyquist looked any better. But regardless of eye test opinions, neither was any more effective. Maybe they did get open more, I don't know, and neither do you. The NHL doesn't track getting open as a stat. But if they did, it didn't translate to getting shots on net or scoring any significant amount more. But both have improved significantly since then. It remains to be seen if Pulkkinen will follow suit. But I see no reason to think he can't or isn't likely to. Sure, they have speed that he lacks, but he has a shot that they lack. He'll probably have to play a little differently in the NHL, but not so dramatically different that it should be a problem.

And neither Nyquist nor Tatar looked very good, nor produced more, in their initial call-up seasons. Neither were as good in the AHL. Yet neither had the same kind of doubt that people seem to have for Pulk. I think speed is a part of it. Speed is a very noticeable trait, and tends to make players look better than they really are. But there are a lot of good players in the NHL who don't have great speed. I also think his slapshot works against him, oddly enough. Like it's so good and so effective in the AHL, people don't see anything else. But there is a lot more to his game. He plays well with and without the puck, he's persistent, drives the net, excellent wrister, half-slap, anticipates well, skates hard (even though not blazingly fast), decent stickhandling. He even backchecks and forechecks hard. Will it all translate to success in the NHL? You hardly ever know with any prospect. But I can't remember any prospect who's been this good at this stage with this much negativity.

I believe what he was saying is that 11:68 is 12:08, as there are only 60 seconds in a minute.

Good example of post-hoc analysis, and largely inaccurate. Nyquist being buried had more to do with signing Weiss and Alfie than Cleary. Plus being unable to dump Sammy. But regardless, we didn't "waste prime years". We wasted 22 games of a player who had 4 goals and 13 points in 40 games (plus 2-5 in 18 playoff games) at that point. And it's debatable if it hurt or not. Doesn't look like Nyquist has suffered at all for it. At the time he was called up, we were 9-6-7 (though we started off 9-4-2 before hitting a stretch where we couldn't finish anyone), pretty much identical point% we finished the season with. Sure, maybe we'd have earned a few more points in those games, then not had to play Boston, and made it to the 2nd round or farther... Or maybe that little extra time in GR was the motivation he needed to do so well that year.

No, this is his last year of exemption. His first contract was for the 13-14 season. He was 23 or 22, depending on which date it's based off, but it doesn't matter since either way he got 3 years of exemption. This will be his third and final year. Could go either way. He could have a Jurco-ish season, and not have any leverage to ask for much of a raise, and probably push for another one-year "show me" deal, or he could have a 20g/40p year like Tatar in his first, and ask for $2.5-3M. Considering we're likely to be in cap trouble next year regardless, I would have rather seen a 2-year deal even at a little higher hit. Best case scenario we get an extra cheap year out of him if he doesn't do well this year, but that's not worth the risk of the extra trouble next summer. Plus I don't really like the idea of "best case" meaning a player doesn't do well.

Anderson, Ferraro, and Callahan (and Meile and Aubry), plus Jurco said he expects a 1 year deal.

Keep in mind that sites like generalfanager aren't official. We don't get to see the actual end of year accounting for last year. Until some site shows us with a bonus carryover from last year there's no reason to assume that we'll have one.

Those stats aren't accurate, they're from just a 19 game stretch.Looking at war-on-ice data - With: GF/60 - 2.8 GA/60 - 2.4 CF/60 - 54.6 CA/60 - 46.1 CF% - 54.2% Without: GF/60 - 2.72 GA/60 - 2.6 CF/60 - 53.2 CA/60 - 49.9 CF% - 51.6% Some of the numbers may be slightly off due to rounding and war-on-ice not giving total minutes. Not enough to change the results significantly though. Offense is pretty close, but we were better defensively and in terms of possession with Franzen.

Yes, you have had an irrational dislike for Franzen for some time. At least you're consistent.But we will not lose "some good prospects". Franzen is one person, taking one roster spot. We will lose, at most, one prospect. Not anyone I would call good either, but whatever.

Frk is garbage and can't even stick with GR. I'll bet he never plays an NHL game. We won't lose him because of Franzen, he'll lose us because of his lack of ability.

Yes. I would guess both Jurco and Pulkkinen will get around $900k. That would put us $200-400k under the cap, depending on which of Ferraro and Andersson goes to GR. Aubry is irrelevant since he'll be in GR. Next season will be tricky though. Wouldn't be shocked to see a move or two this year in anticipation of that.

True, there is only one. But that one is so powerful, there are 10 of it. And each one is more powerful than the other nine combined.

Mantha may have an extra year. It's confusing determining the official age of a player. Sometimes they use age as of Sept. 15th, sometimes they go by calendar year. I know he counted as an 18-year-old in regards to the slide rule, and I think also for his waiver exemption. If so, it would give him 5 years, which would be the 18-19 season.

He's wearing that life vest to keep it from drowning.

Backman