kipwinger

Since I'm the only one "complaining" I'll respond to this. Nobody was saying the contract is a risk to the team. I'm simply implying it's an overpayment. Both can be true. If the threshold for "bad contract" is that it materially hurts the team then nobody should be complaining about Ericsson, Abby, Helm, or Nielsen either. None of those contracts have hurt the club, but ALL of them were over paid. Although now that I think about it, this contact sorta DOES hurt the team. Because when you sign mediocre guys to a premium while you've still got other RFAs (Mantha, Bertuzzi) to sign, you've just sent a message to their agents that they should demand A LOT of money. If you're giving out MASSIVE raises to Robby Fabbri for a partial season's worth of decent work then why would Mantha or Bertuzzi expect anything less than a massive raise and overpayment? You gonna play hardball with Mantha and Bert but not Fabbri? That doesn't send a good message to young talent. Plus, Toronto has recently shown that overpaying young talent (Marner and Nylander), as opposed to using the leverage of restricted free agency, does have significant drawbacks when it comes to cap flexibility down the road.

Oh, well in that case it's a really good contract. I stand corrected. Lemme try again... Hey guys you see that new Fabbri contract? Big win for Yzerman here. I know it probably seems like Fabbri's injury history, combined with the fact that he's never scored 40 pts in a season, means he should have earned less on a one year "show me" contract, but as my grandmother always says, "you didn't overpay as long as you've got more money to throw away".

I mean, I could be wrong. Clearly Yzerman would never throw large bad contracts at mediocre talent. Of course, excluding Matt Carle, and Valtteri Filppula (the first time), and Ryan Callahan, and Jason Garrison, and Andrej Sustr, and Braydon Coburn. Obviously the guy who signed those contracts understands the true value of a hockey player.

Wow, a 350% raise after one, half way decent, season. If that's the going rate then Mantha will be making about $15 million AAV and Bertuzzi about $9 million AAV before the summer is over. Atta boy Stevie.

I don't know if the Wings have in the past or not, but I'd highly doubt they do now. Too many Americans. The Europeans, and even moreso the Canadians, seem to be a lot more progressive and open about their sexuality. I read somewhere the a staggering amount of Canadian men, something crazy like 8 out of 10, admit to having had homosexual experiences. My mind was blown. Americans just aren't that open or progressive about our sexuality so I doubt the Wings have any now that all the leaders in the locker room are Michigan guys.

Totally agree. Top of the list are Mantha and Veleno. Idiots. If not for their physical tools both of these maroons would be working in a factory in some s***hole suburb of Montreal right now.

My Offseason Plan: TRADES: To CBJ: Zadina, Fabbri, To Detroit: Elvis Merzlikins, Josh Anderson To: Montreal: Mantha To Detroit: Domi, Romanov Free Agents: Taylor Hall: 7 years x 9 million AAV (Heavy Bonuses) Evgenii Dadonov: 5 years x 6 million Draft: Marco Rossi Lineup: Anderson-Larkin-Hall Bert-Rossi-Dadonov Domi-Rasmussen-Svech Helm-Glendening-Nielsen Abby-Veleno Dekeyser-Hronek Romanov-Seider Nemeth-Bowey Cholo Merzlikins Bernier

I don't like Robby Fabbri. There, I said it. I'm not mad that Yzerman acquired him or anything, obviously he's a pretty good player. But he's a huge puss, isn't fast, and doesn't shoot much. I would have looked to move him at the deadline when his value was high.

Hey, what up CatBoy? Glad to see some new blood coming into LGW. This place has been a dump for quite a while. I also agree with a bunch of your points, almost all of them in fact. Great minds think alike! Anyway, welcome!

Next year's draft class is heavy on defensemen. I'm sure Ottawa knows this. If Stutzle is really as good as every seems to think there's no way they pass on him for the RHD that everyone seems to agree is a tier below Stutzle. And if Stutzle ISN'T a tier above Drysdale, then he's not worth worrying about when we'll have our choice of Rossi or Perfetti. Yep, I'd rather have a goal scoring winger than a playmaking winger all things being equal. I would have thought that was clear by my original post. As for the rest of this drivel, if Ottawa is set on coming away from this draft with a forward and a defensemen I presume they'd rather take the best player available to them at 3, which is Stutzle, and then Sanderson (who is generally considered in the same tier as Drysdale). That way they'd be getting best overall player available to them and still fill their needs. Now, if you could stop replying to my posts that would be great. I ignored you a long time ago and I would generally be thrilled if I could just pretend you don't exist. I don't engage you for a reason.

Yep, I'm sure Raymond will turn out to be as good as those guys. Give me the guy everyone says is the best pure goal scorer in the draft class (Holtz) over the "if we're really really really really really really lucky he might be as good as Patrick Kane or Mitch Marner one day" guy (Raymond). As for your second point, you're literally saying the same thing I am. You're just too belligerent to know it. If Stutzle is generally as talented as the other guys you mentioned, enough so that other teams are willing to pass on him for them, then you don't really need to make any extra effort to incentivize them to do so.

I don't understand this line of thinking. If Stutzle is so "meh" that a team would rather have Drysdale then why would we want him any more than anyone else available to us? If a team would rather NOT have Tim Stutzle, as opposed to Rossi, Raymond, or Perfetti then he's probably not much (or at all) better than them. And therefore he's probably not worth any additional effort. This is the same thing that happened with Zadina. Everyone assumed he was way better than other guys we could have taken because he had been more highly ranked all year. But he fell for a reason. We were all jumping for joy because we thought we got a top three talent. The reality is, he was never a top three talent and we would have been MUCH better off with Quinn Hughes, someone that NOBODY thought was a top three talent.

I think Raymond's gonna fall on draft day. I think Lafreniere and Holtz are the first two wingers off the board. I really don't understand the allure of the playmaking winger. If you're drafting a winger, get a guy who can find the back of the net. I don't know if Lafreniere will be the kind of elite two-way guy you're discussing here or not. In recent memory there are only really two wingers, Hossa and Mark Stone, that have that kind of impact both ways. I expect Lafreniere to basically be a Jonathan Huberdeau or Mikko Ratanen. A big, physical, power forward with tons of offensive skill. But I wouldn't count on him being a stud two way player, penalty killer, or (obviously) face off guy. If I were the Rangers I'd trade back with Ottawa at 3 and take a center. Their center depth is as bad or worse than ours and they've already got Panarin, Kakko, Kravtsov, Kreider, Gauthier, and Buchnevich on the wings.

I didn't say anything was a "guarantee". I implied that it was likely Detroit picks a forward given our depth at right defense.

There's a good chance Ottawa wants Drysdale considering they have no decent right shot defensemen on their team or in their system. But I'm not sure they'll take him at three considering it's pretty obvious that Detroit is going to take a forward. We're already all set on right side defensemen. I suspect Ottawa nabs Stutzle at 3 and Drysdale at 5.

Exactly. I've been saying for years that good centers (and to a slightly lesser extent d-men) impact the game in so many more ways than good wingers that given this choice I'll take a slightly less offensive center over a high scoring winger. Need proof? Ryan O'Reilly. If you asked every fan on LGW to name the top 5 players in the league NONE of them would have picked Ryan O'Reilly. Mostly because he's not an elite scorer. But check out how he's currently DOMINATING the Vancouver Canucks right now.

Nobody suggested it would be off the board. It would, however, be a mistake. You're just making sh*t up and then arguing against it.

Nope, I get picks wrong all the time. I just think it's dumb to argue for BPA when nobody has any good means of determining who that is AND the best players on draft day frequently are NOT the best players 5 or 10 years later. I'm not really saying anything revolutionary either. If you just wanted BPA you'd simply look at a guys stats, draft the "best" one and call it a day. There's a reason GMs spend so much time looking at things like work ethic, growth potential, quality of competition, roles, etc. Also, a HUGE part of who turns out "better" has to do with your player development system and is completely independent of the player anyway. BPA is just a dumb mantra that dumb fans repeat without really thinking about it. Don't be that guy and there's nothing to worry about. We practically are already. Next thing you know Marty Lapointe will be the goaltending coach and Boyd Devereaux will be heading our analytics department.

The BPA argument always seems so dumb to me. For one, there's typically no obvious difference in the quality the 4th, 5th, or 6th (or for that matter the 29th, 30th, and 31st) players drafted. Second, teams are chronically unable to DETERMINE who's the best player on draft day. Hence why guys like Petterson or Heiskanen or Makar, or Hughes fall in favor of guys who aren't "better". It's a flawed way of drafting because there aren't obvious differences in quality between these guys on draft day AND if there were, GMs haven't been largely unable to discern those differences. Again, the "nepotism" comment was me being silly. However, because it bothers you I'm going to bring it up all the time from now on. We're basically the Kevin Lowe/Craig McTavish Oilers now. Nepotism run amock.

If you took him because you know him, and not because he's the best fit for your team, then wouldn't it be nepotism though? Edit: Also, the "nepotism" comment was basically a tongue-in-cheek dig at the fact that our team is now being run by Yzerman, Verbeek, Draper, Howe, Maltby, Fischer, Cleary. Who knew that the most qualified guy for almost every position available in the Red Wings organization just happened to be a guy who formerly played for the team? That's a serious coincidence.

Woof. Aren't Stepan, Gagner, Filppula, and Neilsen all basically the same guy at different stages of decline? Screw that, I'm all set on signing anyone from the "guys that were sorta good 8 years ago" crowd.

Same here. I think anybody who gets him is getting a playmaking winger. Not something I'd be targeting if I'm the at the Red Wings stage of the rebuild. But apparently he's family friends with Kris Draper, and apparently the Wings are all about nepotism these days, so I'm sure he'll be our guy.

I guess it's that time of year again, when I have to take time out of my day to remind everyone that the "League is trying to screw the Red Wings" narrative is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO stupid. Here's a couple big reasons why: The Red Wings are one of the most popular teams in the NHL, a key source of league marketing, and one of the teams that helps keep hockey alive and thriving in non-traditional markets. Ever notice how there are more Wings fans that Coyotes fans in attendance when we play in Phoenix? Me too. So does the league, and they REALLY like that. Notice how two highly successful documentaries came out (using league copyrighted footage) in the last few years which focus heavily on the Wings? Me too. That's not an accident. Ever notice how the Red Wings feature into every promotional package the NHL puts together or how they're involved in about 10,000 "Wednesday Night Rivalry" games despite being horrible? Me too. It's because they're one of the strongest markets in the U.S.. The NHL absolutely DOES NOT want them to be bad. Let's just say I was a complete dumbsh*t and I actually believed that there was a conspiracy to screw the Red Wings, I still shouldn't worry about it. Why? Because the Wings are the most successful team of the last 30 years, and one of the most successful teams in the history of the league. If there's a conspiracy, it's the LEAST successful conspiracy in history. It would be such an utter failure, conducted by the least capable conspirators, that it would be nothing to worry about. At all. It would be suuuuuuuuch a massive failure that the cabal of people organizing this fiasco would have fired Gary Bettman (or whomever) and found newer, more successful, conspirators. And yet, they haven't. Why? Because conspiracies are stupid, and so is anyone who believes in them. Finally, "the league" that everyone refers to is just the NHL owners, the commissioner, and the general managers. They make and agree upon all the rules. Are we to believe that people like the Ilitches, Holland, Yzerman, Nill, Rutherford, etc. etc. etc. are all conspiring to screw themselves or a team they have deep ties to? Obviously not. I realize for some of you this "conspiracy" is just a fun thing to play at. I genuinely hope that's true for every one of you. But there are at least a few idiots who genuinely think we're getting "screwed" by the league. And you people are dumb as f*ck.

He didn't start on the 3rd line. Ended there because, as I mentioned, he wasn't good when surrounded by better players. But for what it's worth, Ryan Nugent Hopkins is their 3rd line center, so even that line isn't lacking of talent.

How many people do you know who are done growing at 18 years old? But even if he doesn't grow another millimeter, you know who else was 5'9 when he was drafted?