kipwinger

Man I wanted James Wisniewski on this team there for a bit. Babcock would have hated him of course (he scored too many points or something) but he was tough and could score. Loved seeing that guy on the ice.

Look how big Michael Rasmussen is in this video. And then just remember that he's basically never had a full offseason to train...until now. Dude's going to wreck shop this upcoming season.

Not to mention an absolute ton of quality talent rumored to be available via trade.

First, checking the puck carrier (Evans) is a perfectly legal way of separating the man from the puck. In every facet of the game you're allowed to legally hit a player to get the puck from him. Second, Evans put the puck in the net less than a second before the hit. Watch it at full speed. It's not like he got rid of the puck and then Scheifele took a few more strides and blew him up. It was literally a fraction of a second between Evans putting the puck in the net and Scheifele delivering the hit. You're allowed to skate the entire length of the ice and hit another player as long as that player has the puck. That's literally what backchecking is. To me the only questions worth asking are, A) did he target the head?, and B) even if the hit isn't "illegal" should he ease up anyway as a courtesy to another player. I don't know about the first one, the hit seems high but hard to say if he "targeted" the head. To the second question I'd say he absolutely should lay off that hit, despite it not being illegal. Reminds me of the hit Matthew Tkachuk threw on Kassian a few years back behind the net. Not illegal, but pretty much every player agreed (in the wake of the hit) that he shouldn't have done it and Kassian beat his ass for it.

I almost pointed this out last night too.

If that was charging then every player who's ever made contact on a backcheck is "charging". He was backchecking, trying to save a game clinching goal, and very nearly got there. The puck didn't go into the net until a fraction of a second before the hit. They were both trying to make a play on the puck at a critical time. Evans was (I assume) entirely focused on getting the empty netter, and as a result put himself (probably unwittingly) into a vulnerable position. Scheifele was backchecking his ass off trying to prevent that goal (and losing a critically important game). It was a bang-bang play. I'd agree it was a charge if the puck was already in the net for a second or two and then Scheifele hit Evans unnecessarily, but that's not what happened.

Montreal's success is a product of how bad the Canadian Division really is. I'll always be indebted to them for beating Toronto (the takes alone were worth it), but I'd never confuse them with an actually good team. They'll get smashed by Colorado/Vegas.

I don't agree. I don't think we need an elite center. I think we could get by with a guy who's really good offensively, but isn't that great defensively. I'm thinking of someone like Elias Pettersson here. He's not a top 5-10 center in the league, but he can generate offense when you need it. And I don't think it's unrealistic to think that Kent Johnson, William Eklund, or Chaz Lucius could be a player like that for us.

Yup. I think that Larkin can be an extremely useful player on a Cup winning team. I just think you need someone offensive to run out there in cases were you HAVE to generate offense, because that's not Dylan's game (as evidenced by the fact that he scores all his points in transition). Here's Kipwinger's guide to making the Red Wings great again: 1: Draft Kent Johnson or William Eklund at 6th overall with the intent that they're going to be your "offensive" center. Take your time developing them, especially Johnson (who needs to grow). 2: Trade Nashville for Ryan Johansen. For the time being he'll be a good 2C and help pull this team out of the dumpster. As Johnson/Eklund come online move Johansen down to 3C, or maybe even trade him if Niederbach turns out better (and quicker) than expected. 3: Acquire Zach Werenski. Surely he wants out of Columbus and he's set to be an RFA next year. So maybe look to trade for him then. If Columbus refuses to trade him then surely he'll take them to arbitration and he'll be a UFA three seasons from now. 4: Trade Robby Fabbri and the worse of Berggren/Zadina no sooner than the offseason after next year. They'll be redundant. Perhaps for a quality goalie. Year 1 Lineup: Bert-Larkin-Vrana Veleno-Johansen-Zadina Fabbri-Ras-Nemestnikov Smith-Glendening-Svech (or whomever). DK-Hronek Staal (or whomever) - Seider Cholo-Stecher Year 3-4 Lineup: Bert-Larkin-Raymond Veleno-Johnson/Eklund-Vrana Ras-Johansen-Zadina/Berggren Pearson-Glendening-Smith Werenski-Seider Johansson-Hronek Viro - McIsaac

My two cents. Judging a guy's correct role on a team by the points he scores can be misleading. Especially when you're talking about the linemate/ice time effect. Remember when Ian White came to Detroit and immediately had a career best year because he was paired with Lidstrom? Sure looked like the expanded role and better partner upped his game. But did it really? Probably not. He was never a top pair defenseman, despite Lidstrom dragging him around the ice. His improved stats only obscured the fact that we now had a bum on our top pair and the team was worse off for it. Same with Abdelkader riding shotgun with Datsyuk. Sure his stats improved, anybody's would have. But was the team better for having a 3-4th line tweener on the top line? Nope. Whether or not Larkin scores 50, 60, or 70 pts., he's not the kind of player that drives play at both ends of the ice if his offense is reliant on his linemates. And that's the type of guy you probably don't call a 1C. Or rather, if it takes Bertuzzi and Mantha/Vrana to get Larkin to 70(ish) points then imagine how much a real playmaking center would score with them? In an ideal situation you'd have a line with an offensively capable center, and offensively capable wingers, and that line would score a lot. And then a Bertuzzi-Larkin-??? line that scores at a solid, but unspectacular, rate and can match up with top lines. That creates a competitive advantage. Giving really great offensive opportunities to a line centered by Larkin is a bad idea if you've got better alternatives.

I don't see it. He's in the last year of his contract, those picks are still pretty valuable, and anybody Seattle would otherwise take (Svech, Smith, Lindstrom) is totally replaceable. This will be exactly like the last expansion draft. Take your Tomas Nosek, WGAF.

I'm not suggesting anybody should care about McDavid's defense. I'm suggesting than unless he can play in all situations against top players he's probably not the "best player in the world". Because other top players can while still scoring at elite rates. Draisaitl does, Matthews does as well. If anything I think you're overrating McDavid's offensive play. Over the course of their careers McDavid outscores Draisaitl at a rate of about .36 ppg. That equates to 29 points over a full season. That's about as much as Crosby outscored Datsyuk in 2008. However no thinking person would argue that Datsyuk wasn't the better player. I'd rather have the guy who can drop 95-100 pts head-to-head against the league's best players than the guy who will score 120 pts but you have to hide from everyone.

WHAT?! I'm blown away. You mean a bunch of dipsh*ts who use confirmation bias to believe what they already want to believe disagree with me? Oh no! Draisaitl one of the top faceoff men in the league, and plays selke caliber defense against other teams' top lines. But other than that I guess nothing much. You can downplay it if you like, but McDavid isn't getting Selke votes against other team's top lines. He's getting sheltered from them. Likewise, when the Oilers need the puck they send out Draisaitl (or Nugent Hopkins even) rather than McDavid to go win the faceoff. These things matter and make you a more complete player. McDavid is the best scorer in the league, bar none. He's like Pavel Bure. Bure was the best scorer in the league for a period. But he was NEVER the best player in the league. FWIW Draisaitl also has a better goals per game average than McDavid over the last four years as well, so it's not like he's not contributing comparable levels of offense. He just doesn't have as many assists during that same period.

He's not the "world's best player", he just scores the most. That's what I'm saying. There's a reason the NHL has an award for the scoring title, and for the league MVP. McDavid deserves the latter, not the former. Draisaitl is a better player, probably the best in the world.

I've been saying this. He's the Gretzky to Draisaitl's Messier. Draisaitl does all the hard work. For instance, in a triple OT game last night you know how many faceoffs McDavid took? Eight. Draisaitl? 35. Nugent-Hopkins? 21. Draisaitl WON more faceoffs than McDavid even took, and Connor is supposedly the superstar 1C. Lol. I've also mentioned McDavid's zone starts before. He's starts in the offensive zone 62% of the time. Draisaitl, 54%. It drives me absolutely crazy how overrated McDavid is, and how underrated Draisaitl is. I've said before that McDavid isn't even the best center on his team, let alone in the league and I stand by that. I'd honestly move him to Nugent-Hopkin's wing, let Draisaitl center the top line, and hope that as Broberg, Bouchard, Yammamoto, Lavoie, and McLeod come online they'll flesh out the top six and first two defense pairs (along with Nurse). I genuinely wouldn't bother with McDavid at center. He's just way too limited at that position. Put him with a responsible center and he'll score just as much and you could probably get him on the ice MORE often without getting scored on.

Hardly a consolation. He lost to the Cup finalist three times. 2006, 2007, and 2009, and in each case he had the superior roster. Edit: Maybe not in 2007, though it was close.

Certainly, couldn't close the door on a 3-2 series lead in 2009. Also, we only scored 6 total goals in the 4 games we lost in that series. I'd also add that 2005-06 was probably the best roster Babcock ever had in Detroit and he got embarrassed in the first round.

This is pretty close but you're forgetting Seattle. Of the teams with better records than Washington it seems like only Florida, Pittsburgh, and maybe one of Vegas or Toronto could lose. That's means Washington (ranked 26th in the league when you figure in Seattle) might only pick up two or three spots total.

I know. You can't imagine the amount of flack I took from LGW when I said so back then though. Joel Quenneville would have won 2 or 3 Cups with that roster. From the time he took over the team until probably 2010-2011, nobody had a more talented roster than Mike Babcock. That we only have one Cup to show for it is a real bummer.

Weber certainly has a cannon, but Pronger didn't have a shot like THAT. Just a good hard, accurate slapper that he could get through. From what I've seen Seider's point shot is more similar to Pronger than Weber for sure. But I think the archetype still fits.

For sure. Barring something crazy happening with the draft lottery in the next two years I think the likelihood that we're going to land some surefire offensive dynamo (Wright or Bedard) is pretty slim. So he's really only got two options. Take some swings on high offensive ceiling guys while he can (Kent Johnson/Chaz Lucius) or try to build along the lines of Boston in 2011 or St. Louis two years ago and hope a hard working, blue collar, team can find a way to win it. To me the second option isn't a good one. Both those teams relied on a ton of luck and INSANE goaltending performances to win. And neither seemed likely to sustain that level of success. MAYBE, if we're SUPER lucky we've got a Kucherov in Rayond and a Hedman in Seider but that's asking a lot. I think he's gotta swing on skill this year and next and hope someone exceeds expectations. That, along with a lot of depth guys outperforming their draft slots (as you've mentioned).

Prior to the Zadina/Veleno/Berggren/McIsaac draft a scout said something like 'whichever team gets Jonatan Berggren is getting the steal of the draft". There are always guys who everyone knows are going to be really good, but for some reason they're just not at the top of any team's draft board. I think Viro is like that. Not many called it, but a few did. I know Craig Button was really high on him. I think every team had one or two guys they'd rather take, so he fell, but it's clear he's a very very good player.

Much as I hate to admit it, he looks fine. So far that has been the best series of the playoffs IMO. It's unbelievably tight and both teams are playing their asses off. Oddly, I'd argue that Boston is playing a little bit more offensively and Washington is playing a little tighter defense. But all in all it's a good series. Mantha hasn't stood out, but he's not been bad either. Oshie and Hall have been the only marquee players that have been especially noticeable through two games. As with most really close series, the depth players are really the ones that are making and breaking this one.

I was watching the Caps/Bruins last night and Viro reminds me a ton of Dmitri Orlov (whom I'm a huge fan of). Great skater, sneaky physicality, solid (but not exceptional) offense. If we have an Orlov-Carlson pair already in our system (Viro-Seider) we're in REALLY good shape.

He hasn't scored in what, 13 games or something? Must be his bum linemates...wait (checks notes)...his linemates are Backstrom and Tom Wilson. Right. Mantha sucks.