kipwinger

These are so f*cking dumb.

Seider is such a monster. People are selling his offense way short. I don’t think he’s going to be a 50-60 point guy. But he will score 40 and be a top defender a la Seth Jones. And I think Jones is the best defenseman in the league right now.

So this forum is unofficially dead huh? Bummer, it was a good run.

I'm very "meh" on Hanafin. He's a good enough player, but given that he's cost controlled for the next 4 years the ask will probably be pretty high. And I don't think he's good enough to justify that.

You're changing your story. An hour ago you were arguing that Fabbri, and not Larkin should be our 1C. Which means more minutes and more (lost) faceoffs against top players. And your magical cure for this is to have another terrible player do it for him, instead of just having Larkin do it?

Nope. I suggested that there's no top line (which is where you'd like to see Fabbri) winger who can take faceoffs for him. It never occured to me that any sane person would consider Filppula a top line player at this point in his career. But I'll bite. Filppula only won 44% of his faceoffs last season. So if you want to let him take the faceoffs then you'd be letting top line opposition players start with the puck about 55% of the time. Certainly that's better than Fabbri's 39% faceoff win percentage, but it's still a f*cking nightmare. So good thinking. Namestnikov, before you try, is a career 44% faceoff guy. So he can't do it (effectively) either.

I saw her lines. I'm suggesting that's a terrible idea for a multitude of reasons. If you think having Fabbri AND Filppula on your top line is a good idea then I don't really know what else to say. You win.

Which top line winger on our team do you think would take the faceoffs then?

I just don't think she knows anything at all about how hockey is actually played on the ice. People who have never played only understand the game from a fan's perspective, and that can be misleading. If you're a below 50% faceoff guy you'll never, ever, ever, ever be a top center in the league. No coach on earth is going to play a guy 20+ minutes a night knowing full well that the other team's best guys are going to start with the puck more than half the time. Same with defense. It's all well and good that Fabbri is a decent playmaker, but if you're giving up more chances (to another team's top guys) than you're generating then you're never going to get top line minutes, regardless of your production. With our current lineup I'd probably do something like this: Ryan-Larkin-Mantha (decent enough two-way, big minutes, top line) Bert-Namestnikov-Filppula (responsible line defensively, with a little offense for matchups) Gagner-Fabbri-Zadina (offensive line to feast on mismatches/bottom pair defenders) Helm-Glendening-Erne/Nielsen (defensive and special teams line) Or Maybe.... Ryan-Larkin-Mantha Bert-Namestnikov-Fabbri Gagner-Filppula-Zadina

HSJ is a dingbat. My biggest concerns would be whether Fabbri can consistently win faceoffs against top centers (he probably can't) and whether he can defend against top centers (he probably can't). We don't have other options, so I don't mind them trying him at center, but assuming that guy can out compete legit top centers is absurd.

Nice try. I said the Fabbri deal could affect one or both of Mantha or Bertuzzi's negotiations by encouraging them to ask for more than they're worth. Mantha didn't. Bert did. He was the first Red Wing to go all the way through the arbitration process in many years, and the award he received was closer to the team's ask than his.

I like it. Does a very good job of bridging the gap between Mantha's potential and very mediocre production to this point.

If Hoffman was a center he’d have a contract by now.

I'd give him a 1 year, 6 million contract with bonuses for signing and bonuses for hitting a certain number of goals before the deadline.

I'm sure he wanted price and term, but he probably always wanted a bunch of different suitors bidding over him and driving up his price. That's just not gonna happen this offseason with the flat cap and lost revenue. Better to keep his options open like Hall did. Every day he doesn't sign is one day closer to that outcome IMO.

I suppose you could do the same thing with Duclair, though I wonder how much the blush is off his rose considering he's 25 and has been with like 5 different organizations already. I picked Hoffman because I assume he'd be in higher demand. That and he's just been consistently better, longer, so I feel like he's a safer bet to pump up that trade value before the deadline. Duclair is fine, just a slightly bigger gamble. Hoffman seems like a pretty much guaranteed 2nd round pick and prospect to me.

I'd like to see us get Mike Hoffman signed on a one year deal. I think it makes a lot of sense, provided it's not north of 6 million. I also think it makes sense for him considering he'd get dealt to a contender at the deadline for a shot at the Cup, and he can try again to get a longer term deal at the end of next year when there's more financial flexibility around the league. Plus you could fill out three respectable lines: Hoffman-Larkin-Mantha Ryan-Fabbri/Namestnikov-Bert Filppula-Fabbri/Namestnikov-Zadina

I said Lafreniere WOULDN'T play center in the NHL, as some (including Wayne Gretzky) insinuated. I stand beside that. He will never, ever, play center consistently in the NHL. I don't see why this is so hard for you to admit. Most wingers don't switch to center in the NHL. It almost never happens. But centers switch to the wing all the f*cking time. This is hardly controversial. Congratulations on the 2nd part. You literally answered the question I asked in my very first post (i.e. was the Hockey New article wrong when they listed him at center). If you'd led with that instead of being a snarky douchebag we wouldn't having this conversation. It was a legitimate question because they watch more international hockey than I do and as a result may have been aware of a positional change that I wasn't.

I said players don't typically switch from wing to center at the NHL level. So your "gotcha" attempt is just as inaccurate as the last one. Nice try though. Find one instance in which I said junior age players never switch positions. I'll wait. This post is peak KRsmith though. You watched ONE game of the NINE he's played in which he played on the wing, and you concluded that you "don't think he's played much, if any, center". If it happened one out of nine times it's good enough for you eh buddy?

Huge if true. The Hockey News penned an article about the top players in Europe and highlighted Jonatan Berggren. They have him listed at center. Not sure if he's currently torching the SHL down the middle, but if so I'm overjoyed. "Jonatan Berggren, C, Skelleftea (SHL): Speed, smarts and great hands are Berggren's trademarks and the Detroit Red Wings prospect has really been putting all three together with 13 points in nine games for Skelleftea, making him the third-highest scorer in the league right now. The 2017 second-rounder has already eclipsed the 12 points in 24 games he had in the SHL last season."

He is awesome at everything else. But he's not an elite scorer. Both can be true. Seems a lot easier to win with centers who can score than with a Brayden Schenn as your 2C, despite how good O'Reilly is. Clearly it can happen, because it did, but I wouldn't use that team as some model. If saying so is some "gotcha" moment then okay, but I don't think I'm contradicting myself.

If Veleno turns into another Larkin I'll be thrilled. But I don't think a center group anchored by two guys like that would stand much of a chance against the top offensive centers in the league. I don't think they'd score enough, in enough different ways, to compete for a Cup. But it's nothing to turn your nose up at. I'd rather have two guys like that than just one. I mean, there ARE examples of teams that have won the Cup without elite offensive centers. Boston in 2011, St. Louis a couple years ago. But it's not like those were dominant teams that had staying power. Hardly the teams I'd be trying to emulate as a GM. The ONLY team that was both dominant, and weak at center, was Chicago and they happened to have HoF level talent at defense (Keith) and on the wings (Kane and Hossa). So I suppose if we want to be weak down the middle we might wanna find some Hall of Fame level talent everywhere else, and pronto.

Veleno didn't "jump to the AHL early". He was drafted at 18, played his draft +1 year in the QMJHL at 19, and debuted in the AHL at 20. For comparison's sake, Zadina debuted in the AHL as a 19 year old, and Seider did so at 18. THEY jumped to the AHL early. Veleno was only "early" compared to other CHL players because of their agreement with the NHL. Europeans do it all the time. And by way of a comparison, Zadina was a MUCH more productive AHL player at 19 than Veleno was at 20. Probably because Veleno's offense needs some work. Questions about Veleno's offensive upside didn't originate with me, and they were the reason he fell all the way down the draft board. If you wanna pretend like they don't exist that's on you.

That's a nice goal, and the sort of offense I'd want to see from him in this league. Good to see his skill game coming along. When you watch his highlights from last season in the AHL there were a lot of junk goals and secondary assists, which makes me skeptical of his offensive upside. If he can consistently score in ways like today I'll feel a lot better about his scoring game.

Some speculation on twitter that they may look to trade Dermott. I’d give him a long look if I’m Yzerman. Always liked his potential, and he’s only 23. Fits our timeline.