kipwinger

It's completely irrelevant who's better now, what matters is who will be better in 3 years and beyond. The better question, this year, would be is Power going to be better than Clarke, Edvinsson, or Hughes, and will Beniers be better than Eklund, Guenther, Johnson, or Lucuis. Edit: I'd add that Power and Beniers are probably both surer bets than the others, even if they don't have the ceiling.

At least Chris Pronger, at worst Shea Weber. I'm calling it.

Edit: We are drafting no worse than 8th. Forgot Seattle.

I think you're right, but I don't think it's Blashill's "brand" as much as it's the only way you can win with a talentless roster. I'm sure he'd prefer to gain the zone with possession, all coaches would, but he's probably got one line that's skilled enough to do that consistently. And one defenseman capable of jumping into the play and helping. I'll continue to beat the drum that it's hard to judge Blash off what this roster can/can't do. He's got loads of talent coming the next two years, extend him and let's see what he can do for those two seasons before cutting bait.

Mantha, on playing for Detroit, and why it's absolutely necessary to get back to winning as soon as humanly possible: "It sucks," Mantha said. "You're playing hockey because you want to play in the playoffs. And when you don't have the chance, and you just pack every summer to go back home, and you're like, 'I'll just take two weeks off and start training again.' I mean, there's no motivation in that."

Apparently Craig Button felt like muddying the waters with his latest draft rankings. https://www.tsn.ca/craig-s-list-defencemen-dominate-top-of-nhl-draft-prospect-rankings-1.1638404

Like, I bet 80 years ago Buffalo and Toledo Ohio were basically the exact same place. Don't tell that to anyone from Buffalo though. Also, there's nobody more Italian, Irish, Frence, etc. than an American of European decent. Like, man alive are Americans really Italian ya know?

Can confirm. My lady is from Buffalo, been there many times, and have always loved how Buffalo residents are ALL ABOUT Buffalo stuff. I love that town though. It reminds me of mini Detroit. However, I was once in a brewery in Buffalo and was making conversation with some gals and made an offhand remark to one of them about how Buffalo is culturally mid-western (they are) and she WAS NOT having it. Must have been from Rochester or Ithaca.

So here's some good new, Washington's playing Boston (the hottest team since the TDL) in the first round. Boston is peaking at the right time and Washington seems to be in disarray. For the first time ever I want Boston to win something.

The number of top six centers supposedly on the market, and the number of teams expecting something similar back might make a lot of these trades a wash. Eichel, Reinhart, Kuznetsov, Monahan, Duchene, Johansen, Domi may just all sorta get traded for one another. I can see a world where Monahan plus could get an Eichel deal done. That type of thing. This is why I like the idea of Johansen, because he IS the bad contract. But one we can easily stomach considering his age and our team's needs. I think the ask for him is quite a lot lower than someone who doesn't have the baggage.

Agreed, they're working on an extension. If he was gone they'd say he's gone, but if he's staying they're not going to announce it until there's a deal. Otherwise management would essentially be handing over some of their leverage in the contract negotiation.

Yes. I’m making fun of Red Wings folklore because it’s stupid. Yours just happened to be the post I chose to do so with lol.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but when Steve Yzerman was 30 years old, slow, and broken, he started played defense because Scotty Bowman is magic. Ipso facto, Steve Yzerman now hates offense and finds goal scoring entirely incidental. Lane Lambert will be the hire. Defense now, defense forever.

This is going to be so bittersweet for you. Yzerman is going to let Blashill go, and then hire Lane Lambert (Blashill 2.0). We'll lose every game 1-0. The defense will be glorious.

Ras is going to be the "number one center" in the same way that Messier was with the Oilers. He's going to do all the hard work while Larkin racks up the points. Everyone will gush over 70 point Larkin and behind closed doors Larkin will be buying Ras fancy dinners and cases of beer (by that time Ras should have legendary beer drinking abilities to rival Andre the Giant) for his immense efforts. We'll win 5 or 6 Cups, Larkin will go down as one of Detroit's greatest Captains, and on the day his number is hung from the rafters of the brand new, state of the art, Jeff Blashill Memorial Arena, his speech will begin thusly: "This night really belongs to one man, another man, a real man. He was my champion, my protector, my hero. He's a man I shall never be, but can truly never forget". At the time of the speech Michael Rasmussen will be bedding all of his six or seven big boned wives in a log cabin he built in Montana.

C'mon, I know that Larkin and Mantha have a beautiful budding bromance but it's not even close to this level...

I'd honestly be thrilled with both at center if they could be good enough defensively to lighten some of the load for Larkin. With more favorable usage I don't think it's unrealistic that Larkin could get back to a 60-70 point center. That's not amazing or anything, but if you add in offense from Raymond, Zadina, Vrana, Bert, (maybe) Berggren it might be more than enough assuming we keep playing really tight team defense. I'm not in love with the idea of not having a genuinely gifted offensive center, but I look at St. Louis and Tampa the last two years as models for how it "could" work if we decided to go that route.

I've long been on record with the position that I'd never draft a goalie in the top two rounds. As for the bold, in Detroit's forechecking scheme the wingers do more skating than the centers, who play like a 3rd defenseman. Given that Veleno is a quicker skater I'd prefer him over Ras on the wing because of his potential to be more disruptive on the forecheck. Ultimately I'm not too concerned if either/both of them play center, but I'm my fantasyland where we have Johansen as a 2C Veleno seems like the natural choice to move to the wing.

Exactly. Only way I see them staying is if they're the "I only wanna play for one team" type of players that us Michiganders grew up with. Of course, all of Yzerman, Lids, Dats, Zetterberg, Kronwall, etc. won Cups early enough in their careers to have that luxury. DK and Glenny not so much.

Gotta figure that at least some of these older guys are going to want an opportunity to maybe go play for a Cup. Guys like DK and Glenny have never even whiffed playoff success and that might be tempting to chase in FA if they can latch on with a better team somewhere.

Not sure why you'd respond to a post about my proposed offseason changes and then disregard my proposed offseason changes, but okay lol.

Exactly, the talent will be there. The Wings just have to make sure they're not tempted into taking high floor/low ceiling players in those spots. Do that with your 2nd rounders if you have to. You want a star player in the 6-12 range you have to bet on skill and take your time developing their bodies. But in the last few years there has been TONS of talent in that range. I'm also not sure this is a "weak draft" as much as there's not an obvious pick at the top. There seems to be quite a lot of talent here, it's just hard to tell how good these guys are because they're playing in leagues they wouldn't otherwise have played in. In a normal year non of Power, Beniers, Johnson, Eklund, or Lambos would have played in the leagues they did. Instead they would have been feasting on 17 year olds in the CHL, or USDP and their numbers would have been insane. Instead they all just look sorta good because they're playing against 20+ year olds in the NCAA or in men's leagues in Europe.

Leaving a pair of Tony DeAngelo and Hronek? You'd have to shelter the hell out of that pair, they'd get lit up. I do get what you're saying though. I've mostly liked Cholo with Hronek these last few weeks, so maybe go with that and put DK with Seider. Either way, I mostly view our defense as the weakest part of my overall picture here. But just like the offense, I'd expect it to rapidly improve over the next two years or so.

Guys I’m really not sure who won the Mantha trade. I mean, it’s just really really close ya know?