kipwinger

I saw on Twitter that Glendening and Rasmussen work on faceoffs after every practice lately. Absolutely love the thought of Rasmussen with Glendening-esque faceoff ability.

Eklund is a natural center, he's just playing on the wing in the SHL because he's an underager in that league and they're easing him in.

Totally agree. This team looks an awful lot like how Tampa's team was built. Very good wingers, two way centers, big defensemen. Just missing the stud goalie and its pretty much the Tampa blueprint. I made fun of some dude on The Athletic the other day for suggesting that Zadina and Vrana should be on the same line. Boy was I wrong. I'd love to see those two with a center like Chaz Lucius that can win draws at a high percentage and shoot the lights out. They'd be a terror in the offensive zone. And then leave Larkin, Bert, and Raymond to eat teams alive as a matchup line.

Absolutely. I'm really liking our top wingers right now. Add those two to a pool of Bert, Raymond, Fabbri, and (possibly) Veleno and you've got some serious skill on the wings. Plus they're all pretty quick (aside from Fabbri) and gritty. We have the makings of one of the best forechecking teams in the league given that in Blashill's system the center is the third forward back.

My main takeaway from Vrana's night was that he scored four goals in four different ways, which is what you have to be able to do if you're going to reach those 35+ goal totals. He sniped the first one, tipped the second, breakaway on the third, and jumped on a loose puck for the backhand on the 4th. This guy is not a one dimensional scorer, and that kind of offensively skill has been sore missed around here.

Viro and McIsaac remind me a lot of one another, though it's possible Viro has more offensive upside. His shot (as seen in that clip) seems to be a little better than McIsaacs though I expect both to score more at even strength than on the PP

Lol, so in your version of reality Buffalo is going to get better (despite playing better teams) but Florida will get worse (despite playing easier teams) next season? Similarly, ONLY Florida will be hurt by the return to the old divisions but not Tampa or Boston or Toronto or Carolina? You HAVE to know how silly your reasoning is no?

Viro's more physical than that. Seems like more of a Kronwall type to me but what do I know?

@Gniwder

Apparently YOU don't get it. If you play the same teams over and over, but those teams are really good, then it actually suggests you'll have a better record next year. You seem to think the addition of Boston and Toronto make some big difference but you're ignoring the fact that they'll play Buffalo and Ottawa just as often. So even if Florida lost every one of the games they'll play against Toronto and Boston (they won't), they'll have about 12-15 games against the Red Wings, Ottawa, and Buffalo to pad their stats. Plus, they'll only play Carolina (2nd in the league and conference finalist last year) twice (instead of 8 times). Will play Dallas (defending Stanley Cup finalist) twice (instead of 8 times). Will play Chicago or Nashville (both currently playoff teams) a combined 4 times (instead of 16). They'll also play Tampa 2-3 fewer times. It's almost like you start with your conclusion and then work backward to try and figure out the logic.

If anything Florida is BETTER than advertised because of that. Three of the top five teams in the league are in our division. Six of the teams in our division would currently be in the playoffs based on points. Florida is the top team in the top division in the NHL right now. No other teams in the NHL play as many good teams, as often, as the teams in our division do and Florida is the top of that division. Svechnikov and Hanas are top six wingers now? Lol. Maybe...if you're talking about Andrei Svechnikov and you're considering Hanas a top six winger in the USHL.

Lol, Florida is top 10 in both team offense and team defense and they're tied for second in the NHL in total points with Carolina. Both teams are in our division. Do you even bother verifying the things you say?

Draisaitl IS better than McDavid. It takes about 10 seconds of critical thinking to figure that out. He's a point per game center who's one of the top defensive centers in the league, one of the top faceoff centers in the league (and WAY better than McDavid), and doesn't get sheltered minutes (unlike McDavid). McDavid starts in the offensive zone 63% of the time (Draisaitl 53%), that's Jakub Kindl levels of sheltering. McDavid scores marginally more, Draisaitl does EVERYTHING else better and still has elite offense. I'm glad you focused in on this though because it's a perfect example of everything I'm saying. You're already so convinced that McDavid is better that you don't even bother to figure out whether or not it's true.

Lemme guess, you have faith in Laine because he was "highly touted"? Something tells me that if Laine had the EXACT same career, but was drafted 35th overall you wouldn't have so much faith in him.

They say this EVERY year. Rasmus Dahlin was supposedly the "Connor McDavid of Defensemen". Jack Hughes was "generational". So was Alexis Lafreniere. "Highly touted" doesn't mean anything at all. It's just a marketing strategy used to get dummies to watch the draft. Literally EVERY SINGLE YEAR we find out that a guy who was "highly touted" isn't as good as a guy taken 4 or 5 picks later. How "highly touted" was Elias Petersson? Or David Pastrnak? Or Nikita Kucherov? Hell, Connor McDavid was the most "highly touted" prospect since Crosby and he's not even the best center on his own team.

Some of those guys will be traded, but some won't. Either way, you're falling into the same logic trap as the other guy, which is that Yzerman's only way to make the team competitive is to keep cycling through guys year after year looking for upgrades via the draft. I don't see that as the case. At a certain point we'll have enough picks and good prospects to make impact trades. Similarly as we continue to improve our chances of landing free agents improves as well. My guess is that Yzerman didn't give Larkin the "C" just to trade him. I just don't see it. I think he plans to build around Larkin, Seider, Raymond and probably whomever else he takes this year. I doubt he's looking to the draft 2 or 3 seasons from now as building blocks considering by the time those players hit the NHL guys like Seider will be as much older to them as Larkin is to him. The rest of the guys on your list will be trade bait or depth. If we land a top talent later in the first round (a la Kopitar or Necas or Pasternak or Kuznetsov etc. etc. etc.) great, if one becomes available for trade (a la Seguin or PLD) we'll go that route. Either way I just don't see him pursuing a strategy of losing as much as possible each year with his fingers crossed hoping to land the next Auston Mathews.

Getting a Kopitar at 11 happens just as often as getting a McDavid at 1. Your logic makes no sense. But I've been talking about this for years now. You (and others like you) get soooo caught up in the hype of the draft that you're completely blind to the fact that those consensus #1 picks are RARELY that much better (or better at all) than guys you could get later in the draft. When all is said and done Alexis Lafreniere isn't going to be any better than Tim Stutzle. Jack Hughes won't be any better than Trevor Zegras. Rasmus Dahlin won't be any better than Quinn Hughes. You've bought into this idea that we need to tank to get these guys that are SOOOO much more "elite" and the reality is that they aren't really better at all.

I don't disagree that we need impact players, I just disagree that we have to bottom out over and over again to get them. And I'd add that doing so would have long term negative effects for the franchise, even IF we get a top pick. It's just as likely that you get a Kopitar at 11th and trade for a Carter as it is that you tank year after year and get a Malkin and Crosby.

I'm not eager to move Hronek or anything. But with Seider coming Hronek is essentially a second pair RHD, which I consider good value for an offensively capable 2C. If Calgary wanted to structure something around Vrana or Zadina I'd be all about that too.

You realize that we could literally lose for the next 10-15 years and never get a chance to draft someone as good as Crosby or Malkin or Kane or Ovechkin or McDavid or Matthews or whomever else you think we're going to get right? If your plan for winning is to hold out for one (or two) all time great players then you're going to fail FAR more often than you're going to win. The Pens didn't win because they tanked. They won because their high draft picks just so happened to coincide with the greatest player of his generation. Same with Ovie, Kane, McDavid, Matthews. These guys don't grow on trees. You're just as likely (or more likely) to be terrible for a prolonged stretch and end up with Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier than you are with Malkin/Crosby, Kane/Toews, McDavid/Draisaitl.

Do they? I dunno. Don't really know much about their defense. I was just trying to find someone with equivalent value that's expendable.

He's a career .75 ppg center, Larkin's a .67 ppg center. Larkin's much better defensively, but IMO Monahan's quite a lot better offensively. As I've stated elsewhere I think we need a 2C who is offensive. For me the question isn't whether or not I'd take Monahan (I would) but what the price would be? To Det: Monahan, 3rd To Cal: Hronek, Washington's 1st

1. The winning culture in Detroit was built on Yzerman's back after the Red Wings were mismanaged into oblivion in the 80s and early 90s. If you think that guy is okay with tanking year after year waiting for a top pick you're nuts. 2. Patrick is hurt often and sucks. Why would anybody pay more for him via a "flip"? 3. Prior to the Pens drafting Malkin (and then Crosby the next draft) they missed the playoffs for three straight seasons. They went to the playoffs for 11 straight seasons before that. They tore down and rebuilt VERY quickly. That absolutely DID NOT pursue a strategy of prolonged losing. Of the teams we've discussed Chi, Edm, and Buffalo all had prolonged losing periods followed by high picks, and it only worked out well for Chicago. It's not like being terrible forever waiting for an Auston Matthews is some recipe for success. It fails just as often (or more often) than it's successful.

That too. But mostly because we're good on the wing.