kipwinger

In overseas news, Dmitry Buchelnikov's start has been slow in the KHL. Seems like he's getting plenty of shots each game, so it seems like he's just been kinda unlucky to some extent. It's a bit concerning though because this is the first season where he's not being gifted prime offensive opportunities as a result of being on a bad team. He's on a top team, is playing in a depth role, and seems to have no adjusted yet.

I agree and I'd add Sodorblom to the list with Berggren and Ras. He really needs to show something this year in a more solidified role. If he ends the season like he did a year ago (on pace for like 10 goals or something) then he'll be cut loose as well. Just like Berggren has Lombardi right behind him, Sodorblom has MBN breathing down his neck. Ras is the safest of the three given that there's nobody in GR that profiles as a matchup forward with really solid defensive chops.

There's really no reason to keep Lombardi down instead of trading Berggren. You'd have to think Lombardi would occupy that same 3rd line winger role, but play a more Yzerman-style game. He's obviously way too good to be in GR for much longer. If Berggren comes out of the gate on fire then it just pumps up his trade value, and if he doesn't then dumping him for peanuts really isn't any big deal. As for Finnie, I'd be really surprised if he gets a call up. He's looked good but barring injuries there's really no place on the team for him. And if a forward gets injured then either Danielson or Mazur are probably the first players to get that call. Finnie will get the Edvinsson/Kasper treatment and play a full season in GR to round out his game this year. He'll play in all situations, he'll work on all the little pro-level details, he'll get a year to grow and get stronger, and then he'll make the squad next season when we inevitably let JVR walk. Am I the only person who thinks the Wings are about to take off in a big way? There's so much I like about where we're at right now. We have a genuinely good coach with a track record of success. We have emerging talent at every position group. We have our best players locked up to team friendly contracts and tons of cap space. We have NHL ready prospects ready to take over for the weakest parts of our team. We have a genuine goalie tandem that can compete with the best in the league. Our depth lines finally have an identity and talent enough to play their roles effectively. I think by the end of this season we're about to see a really good team in the making.

Agreed, I’m assuming that JVR will play in that top line left wing spot and Johansson/JBD will battle it out for the spot next to Edvinsson.

My biggest concern with the 2nd line was Kane. At his age you just never know how he’s going to look year to year. But I thought he looked quick and strong yesterday. If he’s the same player as a year ago then Kasper will probably hit 60 pts. I’ve also really liked the bottom six for the first time in forever. Sodorblom-Compher-Berggren Ras-Copp-Appleton

Gotta love our organizational depth here. If we start the season slow, SY can move out some losers like Gustafsson and Berggren and replace them with young dudes who are probably better at this point. If we start strong then you feather in the young guys as injuries happen. You have to be excited about Lombardi, Danielson, MBN, etc. at this point.

Who? Montreal acquired players with more name recognition and that's pretty much all. Player for player they're not really any better than we are. Dobson is good but he's not obviously better than Seider or Edvinsson. Laine isn't better than Debrincat. Dach isn't better than Kasper. Suzuki isn't better than Larkin. I'd rather have Raymond than Caufield. ASP may not score quite as much as Hutson but he'll be a better player at even strength and won't need to be sheltered because he can actually defend. We're also WAY deeper in goal and have the better center depth too. They're deeper on the wing, with Slafkovsky, Caufield, Laine and Demidov but we're not far behind. We've got talent there too with Raymond, Dcat, Bear, and MBN. They made a bunch of moves to make up for the fact that they draft like sh*t. Good idea on their part, it beats the alternative. But they didn't really "lap" us. Yzerman has just played the "slow and steady" game when it comes to bringing his talent onto the big club, and he hasn't really pulled the trigger on his blockbuster moves YET. But aside from a player here or there, I wouldn't rather be in their position than ours.

It seems pretty clear to me that the idea has always been to build a playoff team through the draft AND THEN make the bold move or two that puts the team over the top. I'm not sure whether that's the right thing to do or not, I guess we'll see. I agree that he's conservative, but I'm not sure whether he's bad or good overall as a GM. Our drafting is really really good, and I think the organization is moving in the right direction. I also think he's had a few missteps also the way that have delayed things a bit. For instance, it's not really hard to imagine a defense corps last season with Walman, Maatta, and Gostisbehere instead of Petry, Holl, and Gustafsson might very well have put us in the playoff picture. He's been really great at finding the building blocks, but not so great at rounding out the roster, and that has delayed playoff hockey by a year or two IMO.

In light of the news reports that Detroit management only ever wanted Klim Kostin to be "an enforcer" and nothing else, I can't help but re-iterate how badly I think SY and Lalonde handled that situation. According to Kostin the Detroit brass made it very clear that they only wanted him to fight and not play actual hockey and that he wasn't interested in playing that kind of game. I'm not sure why we'd trade for a guy AND buy out another player's contract if we weren't sure he would actually fill the role we intended for him. I'm also not sure how/why we didn't have room for him to play actual physical hockey on the 3rd line considering all our bottom six wingers were either A) redundant, or B) milktoast af. Like, isn't Kostin the exact player that management hopes Sodorblom will be? It's not some organization altering failure or anything, but it's pretty hard to see what the plan was with that one.

I'd agree with this more or less. I expect all of Edvinsson, Kasper, Johansson, and Sodorblom to be better this year than last. For Edvinsson that means continuing to be a defensive rock against top players, taking on (and excelling) a bigger role of the penalty kill, and (hopefully) becoming more of a difference maker with his even strength offense (which was already quite good). For Kasper it means spending a full season in the top six at center and anchoring his own line. His line will get easier usage than Larkin's (because Dcat and Kane are likely to be his wingers) but he'll still need to take his defensive assignments seriously and make sure the line isn't getting caved defensively. I'd also consider it "growth" if he continued his offensive output from last year because he'd be doing it against better players. Given how young they are, if both those guys reach those benchmarks I think you can comfortably say they're fully on track to be difference making NHLers throughout the remainder of their careers. Edvinsson as an all situations workhorse who can shutdown the league's best, and Kasper as a 200-ft, two-way, matchup center with plenty of offense to be a top-of-the-league 2C. For Sodorblom I'm looking for complimentary scoring. I think he understands that he's going to have to use his body more in the NHL than he did at lower levels and I saw movement in that direction last year. I don't expect him to blow guys up, but if he can use his size to increase his offensive output (kinda like Franzen) by protection pucks down low and learning to score around the net, I think that's growth. But what I really want to see is growth in his confidence/mindset. He's got the ability to be a difference maker as a 3rd line wing if he grows out of the young player "deferential" mindset and starts being assertive with the puck. If he begins to impose himself a little more with the puck on his stick I think he'll score 20 goals and be a real down lineup asset. For Johanson I think growth means that he takes over a spot on the 3rd pair and embraces a role centered on eliminating depth scoring against Detroit. I think he was above his head on the 2nd pair last year and did the best he could. But ideally I think he's a guy that can be a difference maker on the 3rd pair by erasing easy goals against from depth players. Nothing is more back breaking than giving up a goal to some 3rd/4th line pud because you just killed off a penalty or ended a powerplay and all your good players are on the bench getting a breather. I think Aljo would excel in a role like this and have plenty of room for growth as a matchup guy. Trouble is, even if all this happens it may not be enough to propel us into a playoff spot. We badly need to solve the 1st line LW and 2nd pair RHD questions adequately. So far my money is on Copp/Ras for the 1st line winger spot, and Bernard Docker for the 2nd pair RHD spot. I'm not sure Copp or Ras would excel offensively in that role, but at least they wouldn't get caved defensively against the league's best. That's my worry with Van Reimsdyk. I'm actually reasonably optimistic that Bernard Docker will be an improvement over either of Johansson or Petry on the 2nd pair tho. I think he's primed to take a bigger role than he's had elsewhere and run with it. I'm expecting him to be a more physical Olli Maatta.

I'm not a football fan and don't plan to be. But everybody I know is a Lions fan and I'd never adopt a non-Detroit team. Given that the holidays are coming up and I'm almost certainly going to have to talk about the Lions, anybody willing to give me a brief overview? I know about Dan Campbell's coaching philosophy, I know about their near misses in the post season, I know about how they lost their big brain offensive coordinator. What else should I know to have an informed discussion heading into the season?

To me, to be a top player you need to be able to play against the best players in the world at even strength and give as good as you get. Obviously the elite players give more than they get, but that's a different conversation. And by that definition we've got two wingers (Raymond and Debrincat), one center (Larkin), two defensemen (Seider and Edvinsson), and one goalie (Gibson) who are credibly amongst the world's 20-30 best players at their positions. We'd basically need another player at each position before we can call ourselves a consistent playoff team.

I ate so many Hot-N-Ready pizzas in college. It would be egregious of me to say that I payed someone like Datsyuk or Lidstrom's salary with my pizza purchases. But Aaron "One Punch and He's" Downey can thank me for the Toyota Corolla he's almost certainly driving these days.

This is why it’s so important to scoop players up via trade when they’re available. Many of them aren’t hitting the market otherwise and the ones who do get overplayed. Look at Columbus, they traded for Ivan Provorov and Dante Fabbro for peanuts a few years ago. This year those guys were two of the top free agent defensemen and Columbus re-signed them before they ever hit the market.

That's what I'm saying. It's not clear to me that he'll ever go "all in". I don't think he cares about winning as long as his team is making money.