kipwinger

I sure hope he'd still have taken Edvinsson considering he's a much better player than Hughes. He's a FAR better defender - against top competition - and his offense is roughly as good as Hughes' despite Edvinsson not getting any powerplay time. Anybody who would rather have Hughes is smoking crack.

Is there a single Red Wings fan who would rather have Luke Hughes than Simon Edvinsson?

Just in case anyone forgot why the Florida Panthers beat Edmonton in the finals last year, I present to you Exhibit A:

That's what I was going to say as well. I'm okay trading a 1st for younger guys, but it's got to be lotto protected if we're especially bad (and we are definitely that).

Rumor has it that Buffalo is taking calls on Dylan Cozens. I'm not sure why they'd trade him, or what the asking price is, but THAT'S the kind of player you need to bring in to the organization NOT a 56 year old has been with bad knees or whatever else Yzerman seems infatuated with.

See, I think it's the SAME problem. Whether it's Gustafsson at 2 million, Tarasenko at 4 million, or Stamkos at 8 million, the problem is that SY doesn't seem to be convinced that none of these guys are worth a roster spot. In most cases we've got better options internally and even when we don't the contracts are prohibitive. I'd rather have Johansson play every single game one an entry level deal than pay Gustafsson 2 million to suck for another season. I'd rather have Fabbri for the rest of this year at 3 million than Tarasenko at 4 million for another year. And I'd MUCH rather have Danielson or Kasper or Mazur on entry level deals than Stamkos for 4 years at 8+ million. Are you willing to bet the future of your team (15 million on a long term deal) that a big part of Rantanen's success isn't because he's the winger to a Hall of Fame level superstar center like MacKinnon? I'm not. It's bad business.

I'd imagine so. Our development strategy has been working so far, don't see any reason why SY would change course. We have not drafted in the top three at all during our rebuild and we've got two stud defenders, a point per game winger, a couple of stud goalie prospects, and about a zillion other higher end prospects dominating their respective leagues. I see no reason to change things up. As far as Cossa, I thought he did well for his first NHL game. My feeling on him are well known. He's a stud and you really couldn't ask for a better goalie prospect. Leave him in the AHL this year (barring injury call ups) and let him be "the man" during GR's playoff run, and then let Cam Talbot teach him how to be an NHL goalie next season.

Lefty, I'm saying this with a smile on my face so know that I mean it in good humor but...how long is it going to take you to realize that "throwing the checkbook" at 30 year old players is not a good or sustainable way of building a team. Players fall off a cliff at this age in most cases. You're paying them a premium in UFA and all their best years are behind them. Literally watch Nashville play this season and tell me that "throwing the checkbook" at older players in UFA seems like a good idea to you. Edit: If there's an obvious trade to be made for top talent then I'm all for it. For instance, we should have traded for Eichel when he was available. But short of that, I'm not paying a premium for guys who are 28+ years old. Their contracts are almost never worth it and you end up hamstringing your team for years with dead cap space.

I don't agree. Imagine if Colorado had started trading away first round draft picks because they'd already drafted Ryan O'Reilly, Matt Duchene, Tyson Barrie, Paul Stastny, Keven Shattenkirk, and Gabriel Landeskog? They'd have missed on MacKinnon, Rantanen, or Makar. Yzerman should absolutely NOT do anything different regarding drafting and developing. It's the one area where our team has most obviously improved. Under Yzerman we've hit on draft picks over and over in all rounds. Look at the success we've had finding talent OUTSIDE the 1st round: Mazur, Wallinder, Buchelnikov, Augustine, Lombardi, Finnie, etc. We need to make our picks until we're obviously a contender and THEN start trading draft picks away. We need a new coach and we need SY to make better choices regarding the pro-scouting aspect of the game. But even THAT'S an overblown problem because people seem to want to throw the baby out with the bathwater on pro-scouting too. Everyone says our pro-scouting is bad, but I don't really agree. Is there anyone who WOULDN'T have traded Fabbri for De La Rose? Leddy for Walman and picks? Signed Gostisbehere, Sprong, or Perron? Even Compher and Copp? Those guys have bad contracts (which is on SY and not the pro-scouting staff), but they're both useful players. Chiarot too. Even the two trades for Husso and Ned were decent at the time. The real problem is that SY has made a series of terrible decisions regarding this player pool. He's generally kept crappier players than he's let go. We'd all rather have Perron, Fabbri, Sprong, Walman, or Ghost than Kane, Tarasenko, Motte, Petry, Holl, etc. He's also (at times) given roster spots to veterans when prospects were ready to fill those roles (Berggren, Edvinsson, Kasper). Those are my big complains aside from coaching. There was a rumor that Jacob Trouba refused to come to Detroit via trade. So what? Can't believe everything you read. Here's a thing I know for sure: It's clear now that giving Stamkos 8+ million would have been a profoundly stupid idea and it was just as stupid a few months ago. I don't care if whether it was YOUR bad idea or Yzerman's, it's still a really, really, really, really, REALLY stupid idea. So own that one if you want.

Pretty much. It's clearly Yzerman is just treading water until the majority of the team is made up of HIS draft picks. He let the team fall apart last year and did not bolster the team via the trade deadline, then didn't retain much of the talent he was set to lose in FA, and then finally gutted the defense through trades. It really seems like he's planning to "contend" with a team whose oldest player is Larkin. All the rest (Copp, Compher, Chiarot, Petry, Kane, Tarasenko) will be gone and replaced by Yzerman draft picks over the coming years and it seems like that's when he's looking to compete.

Can the Wings fly higher than Flyers? Or will Philly put a (cheese?) stake through the heart of Paul McCartney’s pals? We’ll find out right after what’s shaping up to be a Tortorella’ova good game.

Also, where's all the "give Steven Stamkos" 8+ million (or more lol) crowd now? It's awfully quite these days but I vaguely remember a few of you really beating the drum for that guy? Whatever happened to him? Them?

I genuinely don't think that's an issue. We have a historically relevant team in a hockey friendly American market. We've got a respected GM and an owner who spends to the cap most years. All of our best players are under 30 AND our prospect pool is one of the best (if not THE best) in the league. All the worst players on the team are only on short term deals as well.

What more does he need to see to fire Lalonde?

Aren’t we all.

It’s like he’s just trying to run out the clock on contracts he never needed to sign in the first place.

We need to get rid of all these old dudes. Remember when Bowman came in and replaced all the lazy old vets with hungry young dudes from the 89' draft? We need to do that.

A team built around MacKinnon, Barkov, Tkachuk, and Draisaitl would absolutely f*ck up a team built around McDavid, Matthews, Bedard, and Jack Hughes and everybody knows it? Wanna know why? Because size and speed and toughness matter in hockey. No team who's best player is a pansy is going to win squat when the league is full of guys just as skilled as you are but who are 6'5 and 220bls. McDavid had two secondary assists in the four games Edmonton lost to Florida in the finals. A better team with better players shut the supposed "best player in the world" down for four games and took the Cup. There's absolutely no universe where I'll ever think one of those players in the latter group is the "best player in the world". I don't care if they score 200 points, they'll never win without Messier...because he's the best player in the world.

Both Hughes and Bouchard suck. Lefty, like a lot of fans you're absolutely mesmerized by offense. But individual scoring means very little in terms of team success. Hughes pads his stats against bad teams all season long and gets worked over in the playoffs. Don't believe me? In the Edmonton series (which Vancouver lost), Hughes had 4 secondary assists, 1 primary assist, no goals, and was held scoreless in three other games. Bouchard is even worse. They're just easy offense guys. Remember when Bert and AA had 30 goals for the Wings? Is that because they're good, or because they were gifted prime offensive opportunities which padded their stats, but also meant that the team overall was destined to fail because we had limited players in important roles. Fans always get this wrong about hockey. They think offense is indicative of quality play as opposed to quality minutes. Take any loser and give him top six minutes and powerplay time and you'll see their numbers thrive while the team fails. Remember Abby on the top line? Remember Ian White on the top pair? Career numbers for both those individuals but the team was worse off for it. Quinn Hughes and Evan Bouchard suffer from the same problem as Erik Karlsson does. They're only good at scoring, and so to maximize their value you have to play them a lot (so they score a lot) but that also means that they'll be on the ice for a bunch of things they're not good at, like keeping opponents from the crease, protecting leads, winning board battles, defending against top players. And because they don't do those things well, but are still on the ice, you get cycled and scored on a bunch. This is exactly the reason Patrick Kane blows too.

Go look at my pre-season predictions the last two years. I think Edvinsson's already better (despite thinking Seider is very good) and the only reason he's not outscoring Seider is because he's not getting top powerplay opportunities...yet. I was thinking about it the other day and they really remind me a lot of Pronger and Niedermayer. Both are good at pretty much every aspect of the game, but Seider (like Neidermayer) excels more than his partner in the offensive zone, and Edvinsson (like Pronger) is better a stopping plays and shutting down the opposition. As a pair they're unstoppable.

Last season Detroit was a winning team that lost games they shouldn't have because they lacked depth and they were bad defensively. This year they're a losing team that cares more about trying to shut opponents out defensively than actually winning hockey games.

Maybe, but nobody is talking about Ray or Larkin for the Hart Trophy like they are for Hughes.

I mean, they’ve taken high offensive upside picks a lot in the 2nd and 3rd round under SY. Lombardi, Mazur, Beecher, Plante, Buchelnikov, Noah Dower Nilsson are all high offense guys.

Looks like we got a real one in Max Plante too. Kids scoring at a really good rate for a D+1 player in the NCAA. He’s producing about like Larkin did in the same league at the same age. Apparently he’s grown too. Heard on a podcast in the fall that he’s 6ft or 6’1 now, according to Max Bultman.

I don’t disagree that they score a lot. I don’t think they’re tough enough to make the kinds of winning plays it takes to lift the Cup. I feel the same way about the Leafs stars, the other Hughes brothers, etc. they all score a zillion points and get beat in the playoffs. Whoopdie doo!