kipwinger

You'd have to think we're a darkhorse. -We have cap space -We have tradeable assets -We have a need at 1C -Eichel is buddies with Larkin -He's lived and played in Michigan -There's no chance we're getting a 1C any other way.

We need to trade for Jack Eichel right now. We literally have everything else we need to win. Trade our next 4 first round picks for all I care. We genuinely don't need anything else really.

Wasn't there a guy on here that totally lost his s*** when Petruzzelli took off? Whatever happened to that guy?

I guess a better way of putting it would be that I don't think it's obvious that any of those guys will have better careers. I think Hughes is more developed than Zegras, further along in his development, but I think they'll end up having very similar careers. They're both going to be offensive top six centers, and I almost guarantee they'll end up with very similar ppg when all is said and done. Seider wasn't even on my radar. With Edvinsson I specifically said "Don't take Edvinsson". I never dreamed Yzerman would take Seider so I never even commented on it. Afterward I did say that I would rather have had Zegras, and I still might rather have had Zegras. But I'm obviously happy with Seider.

This tickles my pickle. Edvinsson was the one guy I wanted Yzerman to stay away from on draft day. Said so many times. I was very wrong about Simon Edvinsson.

It shouldn't. Year after year there's more and more evidence that hype is just hype. These days the top guys don't consistently out perform the next four or five guys taken. Think about this, Trevor Zegras was taken 9th overall. The centers taken before him were Hughes, Turcotte, and Dach. Does anybody really think those three guys are obviously better than Zegras?

I heard Ken Daniels say as much on a podcast. Would have been a ballsy move but that's par for the course with Yzerman. Also just another reminder that tanking for "top talent" is a bad strategy.

Veleno? Have you seen how beautiful that guy is? No way.

What other center prospects do they have? Someone's gotta play there in Grand Rapids. I know Berggren played center a little as a junior in Sweden. I wonder if they'll try him there again? After those two you've got Niederbach, Sodorblom, Ethan Phillips, and Red Savage. I think the organization really WANTS Veleno to be a center because they've got nothing else.

Agreed. Been saying it for awhile. I actually think he'd be good in a Tyler Bertuzzi type role opposite a skilled winger like Vrana or Raymond. It's not that I don't think he's a good player, I just don't think he's a good CENTER. He doesn't seem to be able to process the game quickly enough offensively to be a good playmaker and he's totally incompetent defensively. If they move him to wing he'll have less defensively responsibility, which should open up his game a bit.

Kinda, yeah. I don't think Veleno is a very good center and I think he should probably be switched to the wing. Getting torched in the AHL in a top line role (as a 3rd year pro) sorta adds support for that. But it's nothing revolutionary. He wasn't able to deal with the defensive responsibilities of the center position in his first AHL stint, and he wasn't able to deal with it in the SHL last year either.

I’d agree if he wasn’t quite good when literally every other line was on the ice.

And he apparently only sucks when Veleno is on the ice?

In other prospect news, Joe Veleno's line got scored on FOUR times at even strength yesterday. So despite the fact that he had two goals (one on the powerplay) he was a net negative as a top line center. Probably a good thing he's not in the NHL right now.

Let's talk about the fact that Simon Edvinsson has scored 6 pts in 11 games in the SHL, as an 18 year old, and has had ZERO powerplay time. It is entirely possible that Raymond and Edvinsson turn out to be better player than Lafreniere and Power.

My thoughts: 1. We outplayed the defending Stanley Cup champs for the whole game. Two stupid penalties completely undermined a really solid effort by our boys. 2. Dekeyser is a millstone around the neck of Hronek, who is asked (again) to do everything whenever he's on the ice. Liked the 3rd pair though. 3. We are one Larkin injury away from an abysmal season. Turns out that not developing a decent center since 2015 is maybe a problem. 4. Loved the 2nd and 3rd lines. But that 4th line? Woof.

You're right, I wasn't paying attention. 13 forwards, 8 defensemen, 2 goalies.

I think Yzerman said at the beginning of camp that they were going to start the season with 12 forwards, 8 defensemen, and 2 goalies.

When Vrana is back Zadina needs to be moved off the right flank on the powerplay. He telegraphs that one timer and then misses constantly. Put him in the middle, or on the opposite flank to make plays. Something. At the very least Blashill should absolutely forbid him from using anything other than a wrist shot, he has ZERO accuracy with him onetime/slapshot. To his credit I think he's genuinely good defensively. He's a puck hound and his ability to strip pucks led to a lot of extra Red Wings zone time last night. There were a number of sequences when he and Raymond basically made it impossible for Chicago to break out. But offensively he's just not as good as billed.

Here's a thing I noticed about Zadina last night that boggles the mind. He almost never hits the net with his shots. Even on the powerplay. He's supposed to be some sniper and his shot sucks. The best part of his game is his forechecking and stick lifting. He's a defensive forward at best right now. Totally agree, put him with Ras and Erne and see what he does down there because he's swimming in deep waters in the top six. Let Bobby be on line two until Vrana gets back.

Feed that Newpower kid to the wolves. What a boneheaded turnover.

I’m also pretty impressed by Tutyayev. Very shifty and thinks one step ahead. Got a little Danny Briere in his game. Zadina sucks. Veleno sucks. Trade them for Jack Eichel now. Agreed, he’s pretty obviously the best forward we have on the team right now. Also, do we have a good power play now? Kinda seems like it.

Okay, Raymond is f*cking awesome. Dude is suuuuuuper slick.

I'm on record multiple times saying that he was "fersure toast" when he took the team to arbitration a year ago. So whatever narrative you're pushing is a bit misplaced. Truth is Bertuzzi has been on the block for quite a while. Not surprising that it would come up again when fans found out he's essentially opting out of 8-10 games this year. And for the record, fans have speculated about ALL of Larkin, Vrana, and Fabbri getting traded too.

Fans have been told Bertuzzi has been on the trade block for the better part of a year. They just found out his position on vaccines a few weeks ago.