kipwinger

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.

Am I the only one who likes the guy? He's entertaining. Things have slowed WAY down around here the last couple years. He keeps sh*t stirred up. Love it.

Oops, didn't mean to derail this thread too. I just don't like to miss an opportunity to mention how s***ty the Ilitch family is. For all our sake, let's just let this one go.

This is the part that absolutely gets me. For YEARS people have reflexively said "The Ilitch family has done so much for Detroit". If I rolled my eyes any harder theyd fall out of my head. Almost all of the redevelopment downtown in Detroit is the product of Dan Gilbert, NOT the Ilitches. Rather than do anything at all for Detroit they've routinely fleeced the city/State to make themselves rich while doing almost nothing for downtown Detroit. Oh, and they don't bother paying their taxes either, which apparently, is par for the course amongst rich folks in America these days. F*ck them.

Good point. I definitely do sleep a little easier knowing that the arena I helped pay for, am being overcharged to enter, is both the product of public corruption AND is nice. I'm totally not bitter about that it at all lol.

Could be why the Ilitch's only finished about 1/3 (the taxpayer funded portion) of their promised arena development project. Well, that or they're lying crooks who never intended on finishing anything but the arena to begin with.

As opposed to ether players element players actually have a physical body that can be observed in space time. Or, in other words, element players are not poltergeists. Solid management decision here by Poile.

Larkin isn't a top 1C. Sure he fills that position, decently well, but we're not winning s*** with Dylan Larkin matching up against guys like McDavid and Point and Eichel and Aho and Barzal. He's simply not good enough. He would, however, be an exceptionally good 2C and give us all sorts of matchup flexibility. Assuming you won't believe Rossi or Perfetti were never going to grow another inch or gain another pound (which is absurd) then package Mantha or Hronek or all your 2nds or whatever with the 4th overall and move up and target Byfield or Stutzle. It's not that hard. And if you can't do that. Draft a guys with 1D upside. And if you can't do that, draft Askarov. Any of which would have more meaningfully improved this team that drafting a top winger. And there's not any reason to think that Raymond will even be a top winger. He's not an Ovechkin or a Kane or some other surefire type prospect. He's not even a Laine. He wasn't even considered for a top three pick, and that's for a reason. So while I think he'll be pretty good, I doubt he'll be a franchise changer for us.

No it's not. Even if Raymond were Alex Ovechkin we still wouldn't win s*** without good centers, defensemen, and a goalie. We have no 1C, 1D, or quality goaltender and we're patting ourselves on the back because we got a guy like Mitch Marner? Sweet. Marner players with world class centers (something we don't have) but doesn't have decent defenseman or goaltending. Wanna know how that's working out for him? Not too good. Raymond's a good player. On a team with quality centers he'd be a fantastic pick. But our team has bigger needs than a Mitch Marner.

Exactly, by the time Raymond (who everyone says needs a few years to develop) is even on the team Mantha will be almost 30 and/or on another team. If we tank again this year (which we clearly are) and miss out on the top pick again (which we will) then how long before we draft a center that can push Larkin down to 2C like he should be? And how long before that draft pick even hits the team? We have 3 glaring weaknesses, we didn't address any of them, and everyone (including Yzerman) says you can't get those players unless you draft them. And yet we draft a high end winger, and a bunch of depth players. Sweet.

I'm sure they'll be fine. But we've got about 40 prospects that will be "fine" players. We need top of the lineup guys. And you're only finding them A) in the 1st round, or B) with high risk/high reward type picks. We consistently do neither of those things. We don't have a top of the lineup offensive center. We don't have 1A defenseman who can score consistently and run a powerplay. We don't have a goalie who can win us games. We have some pretty good wingers, and a ton of good depth players. The three most important positions in hockey 1C, 1D, Goalie and we don't even bother trying to address those issues in a year where we have our highest pick in 30 years and all the draft capital you need to move up. Just another blah draft for a blah organization.

And I'm talking about managing a team 365 days a year. I realize no 1sts were trading in the days leading up to the draft. But if your GM is waiting until then to improve your team then he's a dumbf*ck.

Or, instead of trading guys like AA for two 2nds (that you're then going to trade back on). Maybe trade him and your extra-2nd rounder for a first. Or trade Nyquist and a prospect for a better pick? I mean, teams do this stuff all the time. Instead, we take the most conservative approach possible. Never trade anyone good, stock up on mid-round picks, and then cross our fingers. Yzerman himself acknowledged that's not going to cut it. And then he went out and did EXACTLY that.

I'm using decent player term loosely. I think they're both really good players. I don't like that Raymond is a winger, but that's splitting hairs. They're going to be very good. The point isn't that they're good or bad, it's that they're not enough. You can't just draft once in the first and hope to get ahead. Yzerman said so himself. But instead of getting more top picks, he's adopted this "let's hope a 2nd or 3rd rounder becomes a player" approach. Problem is, A) he keeps trading back, reducing the likihood that will work, and B) he keeps picking non-skill guys with limited upside with those picks.