Buppy

I agree that the kids have filled in admirably, but I'll still take Datsyuk, Franzen, Helm, and Smith over Tatar, Nyquist, Andersson, and Lashoff. Far, far better chance to overcome our mistakes with the first group. And I'll take depth in the minors over whatever marginal difference those kids might make over whomever else they might replace. I'm thinking if we had Sheahan, Ferraro, Pare, and Almqvist as call-ups right now, we might not be so happy.

That's a pretty big stretch. Green and Fleischmann went on to become good players, but not until 3 years after the trade. They wouldn't have helped us at all the years Lang was here. They couldn't have helped in 08, since we won the Cup anyway. Not possible to do better than that. 09 is debatable, since we did as well as possible without winning a Cup. After that came the cap crunch, and we most likely lose both or lose other good players instead. That trade was a good example of trading expendable future assets for help in the present.

Not true, in fact. Middle of the pack over last three years actually. Near the top 09-10, around the middle in 10-11, and near the bottom last year. http://springingmalik.blogspot.com/2012/04/pain-game-201112-end-of-season-wrap.html

By "hang them up" you mean "take the Ian Laperriere, spend two years on LTIR so we don't get screwed by the 35+ clause, retirement plan". Yes, I agree. That said, I hope he gets better. Always better if you can retire on your own terms, and few enough get to do it. Plus, chronic back pain sucks.

Glowing reviews on Ritola: Seriously though, I get what you're saying. Still not sure why you're saying it, except from a desire to be negative. I think you're underselling Hudler quite a bit. (He has 9 points in 8 games for Calgary, in case anyone's interested.) He's only played 5 years and had 50 points twice. Calling him a 40 point player is like saying Datsyuk was just a 70 point player in 2007. Flip's career PPG is virtually identical to Hudler's. Is Flip a 40 point guy too? So why's he lumped in with Pav and Hank? Maybe you just mean what Nyquist or Tatar might produce in the near future, in which case I'd agree. I'd expect it'd take a few full seasons before either would start to hit their potential. But long-term, everything from their performance thus far to comments from scouts and coaches suggests they should be similar to Filppula and Hudler. Maybe not the raw skill of Hudler, but both are noted for hard work, good skating, and fine defensive play. Probably closer to Flip all things considered. 55-65 points seems a very reasonable expectation of their peak. I guess if you want to consider "Hudler 2.0" a bad thing I probably couldn't talk you out of it. But it's not.

It was the 5th time we've given up a two goal lead, which is scary. 3rd time we've fallen behind 3-2 after being up 2-0. However, this is the first time we've lost in those 5 games. Makes it a bit more palatable, but yeah.

You realize that currently, the Rangers, Pens, and Philly are all in the same division, as are the Leafs, Habs, and Bruins. And I'd think having every team visit every other team at least once a year offsets any losses. We probably won't move to a division with any of them, but only because of geography. We're always going to be on the western edge of the east teams, so as long as there are more eastern teams (and it seems there always will be), we have to stay in the west.

I agree. My thought is to swap Bert and Franzen. Same principle though. Even though they have 11 goals, they haven't been scoring much as a unit. Both Bert and Flip have a 2g game, and last night was the first time Pav scored on that line (He has 4 on the PP, 1 early while playing with Hank and Cleary). So they've only scored in 4 of 10 games together. We need better from our 2nd (or 1B) line. (Franzen-Hank-Brunner have scored in 8 of 10.) I thnk Bert's good enough with the puck that he won't hurt Hank and Brunner. Plus the way that line is now there aren't enough pucks to go around. It's probably why Franzen's shots per game are down.

Why would you think that?

The only "problem" is the NW division still spans 3 time zones, which is something realignment is trying to correct. However, you can swap Vancouver and Colorado to fix that, though that means longer travel for the Avs.

We might have saved some pointless discussion if you had just said you don't like Nyquist and Tatar instead of generalizing about our prospects as a group. We already know that most of the group in GR aren't going to amount to much in the NHL. The same true for pretty much all teams. I would guess that many, even most, teams have only a few of their best prospects in the AHL. Junior players still eligible for the CHL aren't allowed to play in the AHL. European players usually stay in Europe a year or two. However, they could still be ready for the NHL within a couple years. Guys like Sproul, Ouellet, Frk, Tvrdon, Athanasiou, or even Quine could conceivably jump straight from juniors, or spend just a year in GR. Jarnkrok, Pulkkinen, Marchenko, and Backman could all do the same from Europe. Of course, not all of them will. Maybe none of them will. Some will likely wash out altogether. But some could make it, some could even become stars. Point being, not all prospects have to spend years in the AHL.

They're not making the same proposal. The article just gave the details of the previous one because it's believed the new one will be similar with a few tweaks.

IF Pav and Hank walk in the next few years, we are not done. We will, in all likelihood, be a bad team. We would then get a high draft pick. Probably a few. Assuming we make good picks, we'll have our next generation stars. Trade Pav now, you're not likely to get more than one high pick or top prospect. We will, in all likelihood, still be a bad team. The only difference is it happens a little sooner and we get one extra top pick/prospect, and probably an extra 2nd-tier player, to help the rebuild. At most it's one or two extra bad seasons. You act like losing Datsyuk for nothing would be the end of the world. It's just not that big a difference.

That's a false dilema. Datsyuk may or may not return after next season, but whether he retires as a Wing or we trade him beforehand isn't really that big a difference. You're not going to trade him (or anyone else) for a younger version of himself. Someone who's already proven to be a star team-leader. No one will trade someone they know could lead their team for a decade for someone who could lead their team for a year and a half. All you'll get is someone, either pick or prospect, that you hope will develop into that leader. Basically you get one, maybe two if you're lucky, extra chances to pick a winner over what we'll get if he retires before we land a replacement. So all other things being equal, it's one or two extra down years. Even trading all our top players doesn't improve our future prospects all that much. It's not a choice between "do this and we'll have another generation of success" or "don't do it and we'll have a generation of failure". It's "tank now to improve our chances of a successful rebuild" or "enjoy what success we have now, since we'll still have a chance for a successful rebuild later". Right now, I'll take the latter. If it looks like we're out of the playoffs come deadline day maybe I'll change my mind.

We did pretty much exactly that in '08. We lost Fedorov, Shanny, Yzerman, Hull, Robitaille... Then we won a Cup. We were fortunate that our next generation of leaders were already on the team, already learning and growing, before the last generation left. It allowed for a seamless transition. We weren't so lucky with our defense. White is a poor replacement for Rafalski. Kronwall a poor Lidstrom. Quincey a poor Kronwall. E maybe an ok Stuart. Pretty far from seamless. We'll have to wait and see how we do replacing Pav and Hank. Their replacements aren't on the team yet, obviously. Fortunately, Pav and Hank still are. Seems like you think they're already gone. We do have prospects with star potential. Maybe not currently in GR, but we do have them. More importantly, we have time. There will be another draft this summer. Could be we find a Giroux or Eberle in there. Or maybe we can move up in the draft. There will be UFAs this summer, might buy us some time. Or maybe one of our current prospects will emerge. You never know. Still not really sure what this has to do with whether or not Tatar will be as good as or better than Hudler though.

Not actually happening, but whatever.

Watching them. When Pav and Hank were first coming up, they stood out from the start, as most future stars do. So far, neither of those two have. Neither is big or fast enough to dominate anyone physically, and the skill they've shown so far isn't particularly great. They're old enough that a big leap in development is unlikely. Of course, either could still surprise me, but I expect they'll turn out to be 2nd-tier players like Flip or Hudler.

That's what he gets for signing a 36-yo remote. Should have promoted one of our young remotes from GR.

Not sure how this turned in to a debate on whether we have any stars in the pipeline or not. I'd agree that Nyquist and Tatar won't be stars (meaning Pav/Hank level), and most likely our other prospects won't either. Jarnkrok, Athanasiou, and Tvrdon look like they might have a shot, albeit a long one. However, there's a fairly large gap between star and 35-point at best filler. Nyquist and Tatar are similar in age to Filppula when he was in GR, and produce at a similar rate. Both are a bit smaller, but they're not all that small. They skate well, play well defensively, and always seem to work hard. Seems to me they can be just as good as Flip in a few years. Stars we'll probably have to get the way most teams do: Be bad enough to get a top five pick. The good news is those guys don't usually take ~5 years to jump to the NHL. All goes well and we could have a next generation star or two coming in at the same time our next generation 2nd-tier players are coming in or hitting their peak. Add a good UFA or three and we could be primed for another decade of contention after just a couple year gap. I don't understand why people think it's such a tragedy. It's how the game is supposed to work. It's not like the prospects we have now are the only ones we're ever going to get, and we have to replace our whole team with them. The worse we get, the better the future prospects get (provided we draft well). There's always the chance that we won't draft well, even if we fall to the basement. Or that we won't fall quite far enough to get the star prospects and we end up in a mediocrity trap. But making huge commitments to 28-yo UFAs, or packaging up prospects and players for trades is no guarantee either. Even tanking deliberately by selling off our top players now only improves our odds of picking some winners.

Even more interesting if Grand Rapids did it.

That Nightmare on Helm Street article is saying the same thing as the article you're arguing against. Thigh risers are too big, and make it too easy to close the 5-hole. Even the other article admits that equipment has lowered scoring. If bigger equipment was only offsetting better sticks, it shouldn't have an effect at all.

A better question is when does just making the playoffs become good enough in the first place. It's not like we've been mediocre for years. In 14 years under Kenny we haven't finished lower than tied for 7th overall. Last year was the first time in 6 years we failed to make it past the first round. In each of the last three years, while we haven't been as dominant as some of our past teams, we have played like an elite team over long stretches. If one year of mediocrity in 15 seasons gets people calling for blood, how could anyone ever be successful. Rebuilding, which I agree we do need, takes time. It takes top draft picks that aren't available to teams putting up 100+ points every year. Unless we get very lucky again, we'll have to actually get bad before we again become a top contender. That's just the way it works. I can live with a season or three of mediocrity before the bad times start.

Replace 2/3rds of any team with their AHL players and few teams would do any better. Most rankings say we have a good group of prospects. I'll trust that over you.

It's impossible to stop some shots even with the velocity from old sticks. So what? It should be impossible to stop some shots. I don't think anyone is suggesting we go back to 50s-era goalie equipment, but the equipment now is getting out of hand. Needs to be reigned in a bit, like armpit webs were.

And goalie pads are lighter, allow more flexibility/maneuverability, better protection, better visibility in the masks, massive chest protectors, shoulder and elbow pads, big baggy jerseys, bulkier pants... something needs to be cut back.