kipwinger

That the Red Wings are deliberately tanking again, and that all this talk about guys being "good for the culture" or "filling a hole in our defense" or how we're trying to "ice a competitive team" is window dressing. Staal and Gagner suck, and they are being gifted roster spots specifically because they suck. Their locker room presence or veteran leadership qualities or whatever is just massive spin.

You can dismiss it all you want, that's fine. But I do think there's merit to it. I don't think Zadina sucks (though it's pretty fun to get everybody all riled up), but he's not as good as he was constantly made out to be and that might be why people are disappointed in his development thus far.

I don't hate the trade or anything, but I always love these stories about how good a person some player is, but they deliberately downplay how bad they suck as a player. Regardless of how good this dude is supposed to be in the locker room, he sucks. He's WAY past his usefulness. I'm happy with the 2nd rounder, but let's not kid ourselves, he's not any better than an Ericsson or a Daley. Filppula/Nemeth = Gagner/Staal. It's the same thing. Just plugging holes while obviously tanking. Pretty sure the "culture" of the team was not worse off in the hands of Filppula, Helm, Abby, Ericsson, and Daley (who have all won Cups) and Green, Nemeth, Dekeyer (who are all quality veterans) than it will be in the hands of Staal and Gagner, guys who have collectively won jack s*** in the NHL.

Look, I can't speak for Mackel but I do think that he's not entirely wrong. Imagine if, as is the case, Byfield and Stutzle were hyped all year long getting comparisons to guys like Kopitar and Kane. And then imagine one of those guys falling to you and him not being anything close to a Kopitar or Kane. That's the story with Zadina. There were times in his draft year when people were genuinely debating whether he was a better player than Svechnikov. It seems absured now, but it actually happened. And then he fell, we got him thinking he was a Svechnikov level talent, and he simply isn't. So it's not unreasonable to think that the system that built this kid up (and into a "star" in the making) has failed fans of teams like the Red Wings. And I don't think it's unreasonable for guys like Mackel to think, "this isn't what we were told we were getting. This guy sucks.".

Is this the same Brian Burke that tried to build a team around Dion Phaneuf, Phil Kessel, Tyler Bozak, and Joffrey Lupul?

I hoped, rather than expected. Getting a little sick of watching trash. I usually don't get too wrapped up in the record. I find rebuilding a lot more fun than those 2011-2015 teams that were gradually declining with the same s***ting lineups. But it's hard to get excited about a season when you know, before the season even starts, that they already intend to tank. Especially this season because it feels like FOREVER since I've seen the team play, and now on top of it when I finally do see them I know in advance that 2/3 of the roster will be old, mediocre, puds. "Hey Red Wings fans, you excited about a new season?". Well let us throw cold water on that by reminding you that any given night you're going to see Helm, Abby, Nielsen, Filppula, Gagner, Glendening, Dekeyser, and Nemeth. Boy howdy! It's miserable that the most exciting thing to happen to his team in two years is finding out that Robby Fabbri doesn't absolutely suck. Yippy. Edit: On top of that we're about to draft Cole Perfetti, who is about 4 years away from hitting puberty, so god only knows when/if he'll be an exciting new part of the Red Wings roster.

Sweet. Another year of rock bottom. Can't wait.

I was simply saying that he's not a two-way player. That, like Mantha, he's exclusively there for his offense. I was suggesting that drafting Poirier, a guy who is also known for his defensive shortcomings, may give us a player with "game breaking" talent.

I doubt it. He took a pretty team friendly deal to stay. I think he only goes if he wants to.

Which is exactly what I was saying. They can always move someone. And TBH they're going to overhaul their roster anyway this offseason. If the lose the Cup they can't very well keep the same lineup again next year after two disappointing seasons. If they win, then they can move a veteran or two without anyone complaining too much.

I'm never a fan of offersheets. In order to actually get the player you have to massively overpay. Anything less than that and you're just negotiating a contract for the other team. Any reasonable offer for Sergachev is matched by Tampa, and they'd just clear the cap space by trading a down lineup guy. Any offer they won't match would have to be so high that the player wouldn't be worth it.

If we were in a different stage of our rebuild, or if we already had different pieces in place, then I'd be advocating for different guys. But one commonality between fans, hockey pundits, and the team management alike seems to be that we need more game breaking talent. People keep saying that we have really good, but not spectacular, pieces in guys like Veleno, Ras, Berggren, Mastrosimone, McIsaac, etc. But according to most we don't have gamebreakers. Poirier has that kind of upside. High risk, high reward. I wouldn't use a top 20 pick on him. But if he falls to the 2nd round I think we'd be crazy not to give him a long look. I love two-way workhorses. Guys like Larkin, Bert, Veleno, Ras, Seider, Hronek, are the guys you lean on heavily when games matter. But you've also got to have a few of those guys that just generate offense on a different level. Mantha is that. So is Zadina. Hopefully whomever we take a 4th will be that too. But I'd like to see one or two guys like that on the back end.

I guess I wasn't being clear. I know why Markstrom is currently a topic of discussion. I guess I'm saying that I don't understand why everyone hasn't already concluded that he doesn't make any sense for the Red Wings because of his age, expected salary demands, and the marginal (maybe) improvement he'd be over Bernier.

People are sleeping on Jeremie Poirier. He's probably the defenseman most like a Makar or Hughes in the draft. Those guys are putting up gaudy numbers so everyone conveniently forgets they're abysmal defensively. That's basically what Poirier projects as. A modern day Mike Green. I'd love that guy at 32.

Why are we debating Markstrom vs. Howard? We already have a better goalie than Jimmy Howard. Jonathan Bernier. Is Markstrom better than Bernier? Maybe, maybe not. But why dump big(ish) money into a guy that's not noticeably better than your current starter? Why not just sign a Halak or a Griess to backup Bernier for shorter term and less money?

Am I missing something? Markstrom is pretty old, and just lost his starting spot to Demko. Why do some people want him signed? Goalies are like quarterbacks. They are one of the last pieces I add to my team because there are always good ones available.

My hope is that we get a center at #4, and then swing a bit for the fences with our 2nd rounders in terms of skill. There's a good chance that either of Poirier or Lapierre fall that far, and both are high risk high reward types. Then I'd target Khusnutdinov, Weisblatt, Smilanci, or Mysak with my remaining second rounders. If we walk away with any 3 of these guys I'm extremely happy with the draft. Any more than 3 and I'm probably Yzerman's newest fanboy.

I don't really think Rossi had an "explosion" at all. He didn't perform as well as his talent would have suggested in his first year in North American hockey because it's a really big transition. After he had a year to acclimatize he dominated as much as he should have. This is part of the reason I am very interested in Jan Mysak with our 32nd pick. His numbers are good, but not great, but he came over from Europe half way through the season and was playing the first NA hockey of his life. I think he's probably better than his stats would suggest.

It was Ville Leino actually.

I agree he's a big deal around Montreal, and they're excited about him. But I think any excitement about him would be immediately eclipsed by how bananas they'd go to have a French Canadian power forward of Mantha's caliber. I don't really care about Domi one way or the other. The reason I keep throwing him into these trade scenarios is because he's a good player and he's probably the odd man out in Montreal. He's a guy they're going to probably deal anyway and his production is similar to Mantha's so it makes sense.

Whole lot of Marco Rossi on that list. This kid is a beast. Not often you’re a top offensive, defensive, special teams, AND face off guy in your respective league. Unless you’re Ryan O’Reilly.

Domi + Romanov gets the deal done for me.

So you're telling me we're getting Anderson?!?!?! But in all seriousness, I wouldnt trade a first rounder for him either. I love how he plays, but the injury concerns are valid. I'd do a 2nd and maybe add a mid level prospect. Anything more and I'd just wait a year and look at him in free agency.

Paragraph 1: Which people? Paragraph 2: Okay Paragraph 3: Because I don't want the team to be terrible for 3 or 4 more years before they start to improve. Paragraph 4: You're talking about outliers. I acknowledge outliers exist but most players don't grow 6 inches or zero inches. Most grow a few. Same with weight. Paragraph 5: Because everyone else has just as much potential to improve their skating as he does. He won't be developing in a vacuum. Paragraph 6: I'm skeptical that his understanding of the game is any better than Crosby, Bergeron, Eichel, Matthews, Backstrom, Girioux, Barkov, Malkin, Tavares, Point, Aho, etc. etc. etc. And those are just the top guys in the Eastern Conference. I don't see some sort of Gretzky-esque IQ out of him that those others lack.

I mean sure, each player is going to have strengths and weaknesses. But if I were a betting man I'd say Rossi, Holtz, and Sanderson hit the NHL sooner than Perfetti, Raymond, and Drysdale. Of the bunch I like Rossi the most, obviously, because I think he does more things at a high level than the rest, but he's not without flaws too. The other thing I'd say is that all of these guys are going to physically change, a lot, over the next few years. Even really big kids, like Mantha, grow much bigger after they're drafted. But they don't change much relative to their peers. So a short, slight, player can bulk up, but he'll still be shorter and slighter than the rest of the draft class because they're all gonna grow too. Perfetti is always going to be shorter and slighter than the average. His skating will probably always be behind his peers too. The question becomes, does additional size, strength, development give him enough of each that they are no longer a significant disadvantage and he'll be able to execute his game at the highest level? I don't know with Perfetti, but I do have doubts because it seems to me that his game is almost entirely dependent on being smarter and more skilled than his opponents. There doesn't seem to be much more to his game. In the NHL he's going to play against guys who are as smart of skilled as him every single night.