kipwinger

Yeah, I don’t like Fabbri at center. I actually liked Rasmussen at center when he was up, but he should never have been on the 2nd line.

I don’t think he’s a 1st line talent, but I think he’s been really good otherwise. He’s a really good forechecker and creates tons of chances for Larkin and Zadina off his ability to get to loose pucks. I don’t hate him there until Bert gets back. Guys like him are so frustrating because if he worked as hard as Namestnikov (for instance) he’d be a 40 goal guy. Instead he’s a 20 goal guy who pisses away his talent about 40% of the time.

Mantha is sooooo lazy. Imagine how good he’d be if he hustled, like, at all.

Theodor Niederbach with another goal today. For those keeping track of him in Sweden, he started the year torching the J20 league before earning a call up to the SHL where he looked pretty overwhelmed. He's since been loaned to the Allsvenskan (2nd tier men's league) where he's got 8 pts in 14 games. He was on the younger side of his draft class so its good to see him playing well in a men's league, albeit a 3rd tier men's league. Gotta figure this bodes well for him considering he's still an embryo.

Woof. Our bottom two lines are despicable. We REALLY need Bertuzzi to get back.

So he’s not a victim of political persecution, he’s just an assh*le?

He WOULD help their power play. But then again so would I.

I don't know what Yzerman is thinking. Wouldn't pretend to. But there's no harm in checking in on the guy. Like I said, maybe NYR is motivated to move him. Maybe the controversy around him is overblown. Maybe he's worth taking at a reduced cap hit and flipping at next year's trade deadline. Maybe he takes this as a wakeup call and changes his behavior. You don't know unless you inquire.

He's being thorough. If you were a GM with cap space, and you thought MAYBE another team was desperate to get rid of a player, wouldn't you at least call and see what else NYR would be willing to part with to sweeten the pot?

Whew! Dodged a bullet on this one. I was advocating trading for DeAngelo a year ago. Now we don't even bother taking him for free. Definitely got that one wrong. It's easy to look as his points and like what you see. I certainly did. But it's pretty clear he's a problem. You don't typically see a team draft a 1st rounder and trade him two years later (after completely dominating) for a 2nd. Also, he's basically the Andreas Athanasiou of D-men. He was on the ice for FOUR goals against in one of his last NYR games. Teams target him because he's f*cking terrible at everything aside from the powerplay. Buyer beware.

I was talking about Wayne.

Mantha = Primeau 2.0

I was soooo hoping he was going to be a center piece in a Dubois trade, but alas.

As has become tradition, let's see some bold predictions for the 2021 season. I'd stick with 3 each, and try not to make easy choices. Saying "McDavid will lead the league in points" isn't really that interesting or fun. Here goes: 1. Bertuzzi will score more goals than Mantha. 2. Detroit finishes 5th in their division (ahead of Nashville, Florida, and Chicago) but still misses the playoffs. 3. Troy Stecher produces career highs in goals and assists and finishes the season with 23-27 points.

I've been pleasantly surprised by Jon Merrill and Matthias Brome. Both of those guys are better than I thought they'd be. Namestnikov is as expected (Filppula 2.0), and Stecher has been worse. And Marc Staal blows but we already knew that. Also, anybody seen Anthony Mantha? For some reason I thought he was on this team.

Ahahahahaha he’s so good at center that he can’t play there on a s***ty team in a 3rd rate league, and he does better when he’s NOT playing there, and you think the Wings management is going to ignore that? Especially considering they were the ones that sent him to that s***ty team in that 3rd rate league in the first place? As I’ve said before, you are the Larry Nassar of mental gymnastics.

So Veleno not scoring until he got moved to the wing is proof that he will be a better center than a winger? First rate thinking bud.

Lol. Nice try. I've NEVER said he couldn't play center in the NHL. I said he won't be a top six center. And you know that because we've debated this many times. You're being deliberately obtuse now because you're trying to win an argument. You know perfectly well what my point is and yet you lie and obfuscate and deflect because you can't just admit that Veleno isn't a very good center, which is what pretty much all the evidence up to this point suggests. Lol. You didn't change your opinion on Hronek over time. You projected him as a bust AND a top four defenseman in the same thread.

I'm not being negative. I was correcting you about your misconception over Veleno being the 2C for Malmo. The team says otherwise. I've said many times that Veleno could be a 3C in the mold of Jordan Staal, or could play in the top six as a winger. Only fanboys think those projections are negative. Veleno isn't even good enough to play center on his current (bad) team. Justin Abdelkader played center his whole career until he got to the NHL too. So did Helm. So did Franzen. So did a whole bunch of guys. Only difference is that they didn't get exposed until they got to the NHL. For Veleno it's happening a little earlier. You argue both sides of points all the time. That's nothing new. And then when you called out for being wrong about one side, you embrace the other. For instance, you've literally said that Filip Hronek would both be be a "bust" and a "top four" defenseman in the past.

LTDR. Yawn. Let me paraphrase: Something, something, Veleno not being good enough to play center in the SHL is actually really good for him. Also, fans know the lineups better than the teams who make them. Now Larkin is a legit 1C huh? On multiple different occasions you've said he better suited to be a 2C on a contender. Which is it?

Cool bro. The team said he was the 3C, I don't really care about some website.

As a 19 year old rookie, Dylan Larkin wasn't good enough at center to crack a playoff caliber NHL roster over top three centers Pavel Daysuk, Henrik Zetterberg, and Brad Richards. As a result he played one season on the wing. As a 21 year old 2nd year pro, Joe Veleno isn't good enough a center to crack the top six of the worse team in the SHL despite being behind several other centers who have never played a single NHL game. And so he was moved to the wing. Only @KRsmith would act like these two things are similar.

Larkin didn't score more on the wing. His career high NHL season was at center. Larkin didn't evolve into a center lol. He was always a center, played wing one season to ease his transition to the NHL as a 19 year old and never played there again. Veleno, on the other hand, is a 21 year old (in a few days) second year pro who needs to be moved to the wing in order to crack the top six of the worse team in the SHL. And only then did he start scoring at anything close to a reasonable rate. Those are the facts. Your argument about Cholowski IS based solely on his production. You're just saying differently now because it's convenient. How do I know? Because NOTHING about his underlying usage, possession metrics, or anything else suggests that he's "offensive" and yet you keep saying it. I'd love to hear you argue that Cholowski is an "offensive defenseman" without using his mediocre stats, if you really believe that your whole point of view doesn't depend on them. Not according to Malmo's lineups that are posted publicly on twitter before every single game. I went through them all yesterday after KRsmith corrected me when I called him the 2nd line center. There is not a single instance in which he was listed as the 2nd line center. He was the 3rd line center. You're wrong (as I was). After being moved to the wing he did indeed play on the top line for a while, but as of yesterday's game he was listed as the 2nd line RW.

Why would the coach pick Veleno to play on the wing if he's so good at center? And why, if he's so good at center, does he score more on the wing? And why, if he has all the attributes of a good center, wasn't he higher than a 3rd line center? And knock if off with the "try watching the player and not the stats" crap. Literally your ENTIRE argument for Cholowski is based on his stats. You only don't care about stats when they paint a different picture of Veleno than the one you're trying to sell. Veleno isn't even a top six center on a terrible team in the 3rd or 4th best league professional league in the world. He's a 21 year old, 2nd year pro, and he can't crack the top six as a center on a really bad team. It's probably about time you just faced facts, he's probably going to play on the wing in the NHL if he wants to be in the top six.

I’ll take your word for it. So Veleno hasn’t played higher than 3rd line at center on a terrible team that’s missing its number 1 center (Handemark)? And almost all of his points came after he was moved to wing. And you think that means he’s “better suited” at center? Okay man.