kipwinger

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.

I listen to the Winged Wheel Podcast (for some reason) and those guys fall all over themselves making excuses for Zadina. But they seem to have settled in on, "it's Blashill's fault". Despite Blash moving him up and down the lineup, giving him powerplay time, and constantly defending Zadina's lack of production to the media. But the thing is, this is all a misconception caused by an over reliance on certain types of analytics. We've seen it before (B. Smith, T. Pulkkinen). The analysis bros would have you believe that points don't matter, and even shots on goal don't matter. What matters is...wait for it...shot attempts. And THAT'S what Zadina is good at (supposedly). When he's on the ice the Wings have the puck in the offensive zone more. Does that lead to shots on goal? Nope. Goes it lead to scoring changes? Nada. Does it lead to blocked shots and misses? Bingo. This is why Zadina can be heralded as having good "fancy stats" despite having fewer goals, points, primary assists, goals/60, points/60, and primaryassists/60 than a dude like Rasmussen (someone analytics folks hate). Because they're counting missed shots too, and BOY can Zadina miss shots. And they're just certain that if he keeps getting premium minutes, and keeps missing shots, that his numbers will soon go up through the magical process of "reverting to the mean".

Gotta agree with Neo here. Jack's characters in "One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest", "Five Easy Pieces", "Easy Rider", and "Witches of Eastwick", "As Good as it Gets" and "Departed" are all exactly the same character despite being in vastly different types of films. It's just him sneering and rolling his eyes for two hours. "This time he's a sneering, smartassy, gangster". "This time he's a sneering, smartassy, writer". He mostly blows. But I do love his Joker. It's the only time he was cast correctly. No disrespect to other good Joker portrayals, but at least Jack joked around and laughed a bit in his.

Durrrr…He doesn’t suck, he’s young…durrr Some things never change around here.

Sure, and I presume that’s SY strategy unless a package comes along that knocks his socks off (like the Mantha deal). Bert is a heart and soul guy, but he’s also a valuable commodity. Steve is gonna do his best to sign Bert long term and if he can’t he’s not gonna let him walk for free.

Pretty unlikely Bert is traded at the deadline this year (or at all really). Next year would be more likely when he's expiring, and IF it seems like he doesn't wanna sign in Detroit again. Only way I see it happening this year is IF a contender wanted to overpay in young talent to win now. If Colorado wanted to throw us Newhook and a decent pick for Bert I'd strongly consider it if I was SY. But it would have to be something like that. Even then it comes with risks. I've said before, GMs have to take into account personalities as well. Not a great way to maintain team cohesion if SY trades away all of Larkin's buddies right as it's looking like we'll be good again.

All the better if we pick earlier, but we're closer in points to the teams above us than the teams below us. We have a pretty tough schedule for the next little bit, but it evens out over the rest of the season. Down the stretch we play: Bad/Mediocre teams: Ottawa (three times), New Jersey (twice), Vancouver, Seattle, Philly, Columbus, Arizona, Winnipeg, NYI, and Edmonton. Lower End Playoff Teams: Pittsburgh (twice), Boston, Calgary, Rangers (twice) Lots of winnable games coming up against bad/mediocre teams. And we maybe will go .500 against the lower end playoff tems. Quite a lot of those bad teams are going to be in tank mode at that point too (whereas we'll only really be losing Leddy and Namestnikov). I think it's more likely that we gain a few more points in the standings than lose ground to the teams that are worse than we are, but that's just a guess.

I'm completely finished watching bad hockey. With Larkin playing the way he is, and with the emergence of our other top end young players, I don't think a Bedard is necessary. Besides, with the new rule changes you can only move up 10 spots max. We're going to finish around 12-15th this season. Next season we should be the same or better. So even if we won the lottery we couldn't move up high enough to take Bedard. As far as our center pipeline, we should be able to completely turn it around with the picks we currently have. There are lots of good centers coming along this year in the draft. A few guys I'd target by round: Round 1: Nazar, Kasper Round 2: Ostlund, Bystedt Round 3: Kaskimaki, Ronni Round 4: Sjodin

Larkin Nazar Eichel (My mistake, I didn't look closely enough and assumed that was his draft year) Hughes Other notable Development program centers: Zegras: USHL: 1.48 ppg USDP: 1.45 ppg Keller: USHL: 1.6 ppg USDP: 1.7 ppg The point of all this? Nazar is a very good center whose offense is in line with some of the better centers in the world (at the same age). If you can get this guy at 10-15 in the draft you don't overthink it.

Fun thought: When Lucas Raymond is 24 he’ll basically be Kirill Kaprizov.

Guess these players USNTDP players in their draft years: Player 1: USHL: .93 ppg USDP: 1 ppg Player 2: USHL: 1.5 ppg USDP: 1.2 ppg Player 3: USHL: 1.8 ppg USDP: 1.6 ppg Player 4: USHL: 2 ppg USDP: 2.24 ppg

#FrankNazar

Geekie is slow and Lambert plays like a p*ssy. Give me Nazar or Kasper.