kipwinger

Here's a fun video of a dude the size of Moritz Seider taking a run at Sodorblom with predictably hilarious results...

I almost salivate thinking about Berggren skating and passing to someone like Vrana. He's that good. The only reason he's not leading the AHL in scoring right now is because Grand Rapids has zero offensively capable forwards outside of him. Niederbach is an interesting case. He's young for his draft class, and he's super underdeveloped. I think he's got another year in Sweden and then probably a year in GR (same developemental path as Berggren). I'm not as confident in Niederbach, but it's hard to say what he'll look like if he ever hits puberty. He's a high level thinker though. Check out this goal where he passes to himself off the end board and splits two d-men.

Hopefully we can get Elmer to show Rasmussen around the weight room.

He's just exactly like a bigger Franzen. I've watched a ton of their games this year and that's the player he reminds me of most. He's big, nasty shot, good hands, good skating (for his size). He's not physical in the "Tom Wilson" sense, but he's physical in the "you can't get the puck from me" sense. Just like Franzen was. This kid is going to be awesome. https://themalikreport.com/2021/10/22/roughly-translated-20-questions-with-elmer-soderblom-via-icehockeygifs/ FWIW he benches over 300 lbs. So he's not some tall skinny pud either. He's a beast.

What's not to like about a center that's as big and fast as Ryan Kesler and scores like Larkin?

They've got 3 centers who are better (McDavid, Draisaitl, RNH) and they're trying to win now. If you believe in Zadina (and Holland did enough to draft him) then it's hard not to imagine him helping you now more than a 20 year old Holloway would. In the scenario I advocated Holland would also be getting pretty significant cap relief, which is going to be huge for him because if Edmonton falls flat he's going to have to do some major retooling in the offseason.

Holloway is a center. Our center depth after Larkin blows. Conversely, our depth at left shooting, top six, scoring winger is pretty deep with Bert, Vrana, and Fabbri all ahead of Zadina. You'd be giving up your fourth best left wing for your future 2C. And you still have Berggren, Sodorblom, and (maybe) Mastrosimone as future LW options. Zadina is not an obviously better option than any of those guys (except maybe Mastro). Meanwhile, Holloway is substantially better than every center we have in our prospect pool, and better than probably half the centers on our team. He put up Larkin like numbers in his draft plus one year in the NCAA and is currently eating up the AHL despite missing a huge chunk of time with a serious injury. He's really good. So that's how he helps.

I've already proposed Zadina + Leddy + 3rd for Holloway and Kassian elsewhere. So lets not pretend like I've said we should trade Zadina for Eric Staal. Secondly, you're rewriting history to advance a false narrative. Zadina has almost never been asked to be anything other than what he is. He has been in a top six scoring role for MOST of the season (and his NHL career so far), and has been given tons of powerplay time. He's played WAY more games with Larkin/Raymond/Bert/Fabbri/Suter than he has with guys like Rasmussen. Nobody is asking him to be something he wasn't in juniors. Coincidentally, that's EXACTLY what they've asked Michael Rasmussen to do (in juniors he was a top line wing/center) and he's STILL scoring more than Zadina. But this is also circular logic. Zadina apologists all say "well sure he doesn't score, but he's good at everything else". But heaven forbid Blashill take him off a scoring line and put him on a checking line to use the skills he supposed does have. "Sure Zadina never scores, but if you take him off a scoring line he's never going to score", and round and round we go.

Fun Fact: There are 24 players in the NHL who are YOUNGER than Filip Zadina and who are outscoring him this year. Superstars like Joel Farrabee, Filip Tomasino, and Seth Jarvis. "But Kip, you can't expect Zadina to be better than Alex Ovechkin...durrrrr" I don't. But it'd be cool if he was better than Nils Hoglander.

1) You insinuate it 40 times a day. "Sure Zadina has disappointed, but you don't trade him because he's only 22". If you don't trade him when he's young and sucks, and you shouldn't trade him if he's good, then when should you trade him? 2) I'd rather have Vlad Namestnikov fill in the top six in case of injury. At least he can score. And there are about 2 million guys like Vlad Namestnikov floating around the league. How on earth could we ever hope to find such a player? P.S. we got Robby Fabbri for a dude we claimed off waivers. Zadina ain't good, or special. 3) There are two powerplay units. Berggren will start on one of them. Zadina gets powerplay time and he's not on the top unit. It's a pretty simple concept. I'll make a friendly wager with you, assuming Zadina is still on the team I'll bet Berggren scores more than him as early as next season? 4) For the millionth time, I don't expect Zadina to be Raymond. That ship has VERY OBVIOUSLY sailed. But I do expect him to be better than Sam Gagner and Vlad Namestnikov. He isn't. He's decidedly worse. He's not even better than Michael Rasmussen.

Agreed, but at no point was Larkin ever considered a top five talent, let alone a guy people were calling "generational" and the like. Ideally you don't wanna have to hide your franchise savior from good players if you're New Jersey. If Jack puts on about 20 more pounds and learns how to play a tougher brand of hockey maybe he'll prove me wrong (Crosby did it after all). But right now I see a priss that can't handle the grind of an NHL season, and it's only gonna get worse if they start making the playoffs. There's a reason Yzerman values competitiveness in his draft picks after all. Read this article about Jack. He's a kid who's had it easy his whole life and really isn't used to putting in the work. https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/32999798/how-jack-hughes-leveled-game-personality-season

Aren't our next two games against Florida and Tampa? I'm not gonna read too much into that part. Dorion in Detroit is interesting though.

I don't agree with a few of your premises 1) The whole "you can't trade him because he sucks" argument is circular logic. If you shouldn't trade him when he's bad, and there's no reason to trade him if he's good, then you'll never trade him. This, I assume, is the point for Zadina apologists. There is literally no scenario in which they think he should be traded. But it's bad business. Imagine if Yzerman had never traded Drouin because he was only 22/value was low/just scratching the surface/didn't have EIGHT (lol) better forwards/etc.? He'd be stuck with a bum and would have never gotten Sergachev. 2) Plus, you don't need EIGHT better wingers at all. Saying so means that you think Zadina and Gagner (for instance) are competing for the same jobs. They aren't. There are different roles on a hockey team, some Zadina is suited for and some he's not. Zadina is a (supposedly) a scoring foward. He's competing with Bert, Raymond, Fabbri, and Vrana for top six minutes and powerplay time. He's being BADLY outproduced in those roles by the guys I mentioned (other than Vrana who no doubt will). None of them are old and all are better in that role. He's not competing with Ras, Veleno, Rowney or Stephens because those guys are centers. So to win a bottom six winger role he'd need to kill penalties/play defense/hit/block shots/chip in a little offense/etc. better than Namestnikov, Erne, Gagner, and Smith. He doesn't kill penalties, he's bad defensively, and at least two of those guys are scoring more as well. MAYBE he's better than Smith for that role, but not by much. 3) If you think Berggren plays like Zadina you've pretty obviously never seen Berggren play much. They're nothing alike. Berggren is a WAY better skater, and the hallmark of his game is passing (which is elite). He's an absolute force as a playmaker on the powerplay. His coaches (even from his days in Sweden) had to beg him to shoot more (which he's finally doing and improving significantly). I'd say he's a better playmaker than anyone in the Red Wings organization, including Raymond. He's also a nightmare in transition because of his skating. Zadina is slower, a worse passer, and a nonfactor on the powerplay. But he's got (right now) a better shot and he's a bit bigger than Berggren. Both are good forecheckers but don't have a ton of defensive value otherwise. Berggren will easily, and I mean easily, score more than Zadina in the NHL based on his passing alone. He's got line driving upside as a playmaker, similar in style (not in ceiling) to guys like Panarin or Gaudreau. Right now Zadina is, at best, a 3rd line winger. Those guys are totally replaceable and none of them are untouchable. If the right deal comes along he should be gone. I think the Zadina/Leddy deal to Edm I proposed makes a lot of sense for both teams, but there are definitely other deals to be make I'm sure.

Meh, I'll always find time to shine light on dummies. If that makes me a creep then I'm a creep. But at least I'm a smart creep.

Hughes is a really good offensive player, but there's no way I take him 1st overall in a re-draft. His entire game is predicated on time and space and matchups. He starts 61% of his shifts in the offensive zone. If you have to hide your best player from tough opposition in order for him to be effective A) your team is f*cked in the playoffs, and B) he's not as good as you think. Larkin, for comparison's sake starts in the offensive zone 51% of the time and still outscores Hughes. Any guess what'll happen to Jack in the playoffs when he's got to face a dude like Larkin every single night and can't be sheltered as much?

I hear "gripping the stick too tight" a lot as well. Or, "confidence means everything for goal scorers". It's as if the fact that he can't hit the net is pure happenstance.

"Dom" a writer for The Athletic is currently on Twitter sh*tting all over Jonathan Huberdeau because he "ignores 100ft of the ice" but thinks Zadina is just the victim of bad puck luck. I swear. I can't make this s*** up.

"He's even really good defensively. When he's on the ice the other team can't do any shot missing of their own because Zadina's at the other end of the ice with the puck missing his own shots, or hitting the goalie in the logo, with astounding regularity. Riddle me this smart guys, if Zadina's out there missing the net how is the opposition supposed to miss the net too?"

That's because they hear the same thing from supposed "experts" all day long. They literally just repeat, verbatim, what they read on twitter from a bunch of The Athletic dorks. And I've already discussed how those guys have cleverly (and self servingly) changed the definition of a "good" player from one who scores and wins to one who gets lots of shot attempts. And why did they do that? Because they have 45 staff writers with backgrounds in statistical analysis charging $10 a month for subscriptions. "Durrr...well Dom/Pryshanth/Dimitri/Micah wrote an article all about how missing the net all the time is actually a REALLY good thing because it means you have the puck a lot...drool". You should hear the outrage when Jeff Blashill (a professional hockey coach) DARES to say that he thinks scoring chances matter more than shot totals. Heaven forbid.

All I can think is poor Nic Kronwall. The amount of dead weight that guy had to drag around the ice on defense after we lost Rafalski/Stuart/Lidstrom in one calendar year is heartbreaking. You had a very good, all situations, workhorse defender and you made him play with Daley, Ericsson, Dekeyser, Quincey, and Carlo f*cking Colaiacovo until his knees took pity on him and blew themselves up.

I'll die on the Kyle Quincey hill. Big fan of that guy. Miscast (like many other players) during the Holland/Babcock years into playing in the top four. But he was a solid defender, solid PK guy, and would have thrived in a role like we give Gustav Lindstrom now. He took a lot of penalties, which sucked, but I think a fair bit of that had to do with the coach asking him to defend against guys like Crosby each night.

Nevermind Lucas Raymond, he's getting outscored by offensive juggernauts like Pius Suter, Vlad Namestnikov, Sam Gagner, and Michael Rasmussen. If this guy is actually good I don't think it's asking too much for him to be the 5th most productive forward on a non-playoff team. But even by that INCREDIBLY modest standard he fails. Also, if you're comparing Zadina's developmental path to a 4th round pick (Nyquist) then I think you've basically already conceded that he blows.

To Edm: Zadina + Leddy (50% retained) To Det: Holloway + Kassian (cap dump) + 3rd

Jack could promote Cheetos. You see what a tub of sh*t he is these days? He looks like he's made out of three scoops of ice cream.

Kubrick was great when he made "The Shining". Jack was serviceable. Story of his career. He's been in lots of really great films, but they're almost never great BECAUSE he's in them. Batman is the exception. He genuinely made that film better. Otherwise you could replace him with Paul Newman in every single film he's ever been in and it would improve.