kipwinger

You’re trying pretty hard to make the case that Rossi has more limited offensive upside than it appears, while making the opposite case for Lundell when the reality is that based on everything we know up to this point the opposite is true. Whether Rossi becomes a Star remains to be seen, but comparing him to O’Reilly is absurd. OReilly scores 60ish points in 60ish games his draft year. Rossi dropped 120 pts in 56 games. Rossi is routinely praised for his offensive game, especially his passing, stickhandling, and power play effectiveness. O’Reilly has never been a top point producer at any level. These guys are worlds apart offensively. Also, I don’t recall anyone holding Lafrenieres age against him. Nor do I recall you, specifically, questioning Jack Hughes offense because he played on a good team. You think playing with Turcotte, Zegras, Boldy, York, Knight (all 1st rounders a year ago) might have padded his stats a bit? Yet you seem inclined to do so with Rossi now for some reason. Perhaps the 67s are really good because they have one of the top 2 or 3 best players in the CHL on their team? You don’t have to prefer the guy, but it seems odd to me that you’re so intent on shoehorning him into this “limited offense but stud two-way” narrative when that doesn’t seem to be the case here, and you’ve shied away from similarly applicable comparisons in the past.

Wow, you took my posts waaaaay personally. It’s okay, just breathe. You’re allowed to prefer any player you like big guy.

edit: duplicate post.

If I were going to take a winger, and that's a huge IF, it would be Holtz and not Raymond anyway. He's much more physically developed and has the high end goal scoring you want out of the wing position. A righty with a cannon of a shot would look good on our powerplay half wall a la Ovechkin or Stamkos or Laine. Raymond is showy, which is cool on youtube and all but I kinda don't care about dekes and s***.

AA was already demoted to Edmonton's 3rd line before the break. He had one goal in 10 games with all the firepower around him that a guy could ever want. But again, he's abysmal in every other aspect of the game so coaches don't trust him out there in top six roles against better competition. Especially defensive minded coaches like Tippett. AA scored 30 in Detroit because we suck and so he was gifted a bunch of minutes we wouldn't get on a deeper team. He may or may not hit 30 again but that's kinda irrelevant. A sub 50% possession player with no heart isn't going to be a difference maker even if he scores 40 goals because he'll always be giving up more than that. In short, he blows.

AA was already demoted to Edmonton's 3rd line before the break. He had one goal in 10 games with all the firepower around him that a guy could ever want. But again, he's abysmal in every other aspect of the game so coaches don't trust him out there in top six roles against better competition. Especially defensive minded coaches like Tippett. AA scored 30 in Detroit because we suck and so he was gifted a bunch of minutes we wouldn't get on a deeper team. He may or may not hit 30 again but that's kinda irrelevant. A sub 50% possession player with no heart isn't going to be a difference maker even if he scores 40 goals because he'll always be giving up more than that. In short, he blows.

Honestly, the thing I like about Rossi the most though is how dedicated he seems to be. Everybody who profiles him talks about how he's constantly working on aspects of his game. Those are always the kinds of guys who push through and find new levels to their game. That's what Datsyuk did. That's what Zetterberg did. Those weren't guys with amazing physical attributes. They were guys that played the game correctly and never quit looking for an improvement or an edge or a way to impact the game. I'm trying to find the quote now, but in an interview earlier this year Rossi's coach said something to the effect of "If you told Marco that eating raisins every day for a year would improve his game he'd go out and do it". That's awesome as hell.

Well there's really only one center expected to be available at 4th overall that has that kind of upside (Rossi). Maybe two others if you include Perfetti (who doesn't even play center consistently in the CHL) and Lapierre (who's had about a zillion injuries). Here's the thing with Rossi though. People say he's "two way" as some kind of slight when in reality he's elite in both areas of the game. He led the CHL in points, more points than Lafreniere, more points than Byfield, more points than Perfetti. He's a dominant offensive player. AND his defense is just as good. So are his face offs. So is his special teams play. If he were literally two inches taller he'd be in the running for first overall. He has MUCH greater offensive upside than any center on our team AND he's excellent defensively. Which is why he gets compared to Backstrom a lot. 80+ point playmaker with world class defense is not an unrealistic ceiling for him.

There's a lot here so I'll streamline. 1. Dobberprospects is not "credible". It's just some guy on the internet. 2. Lundell doesn't have dynamic offense, at any level, which is why I don't want him. Sure he'll can "get pucks on the right sticks". So could Filppula, back in the day, but if I want someone to provide timely offense I'm probably not looking at Flip either. 3. I'm not down on Larkin. I'm just pointing out that he's not the kind of guy who's going to eat teams alive off the half wall on the PP. AND he's not an especially creative passer. I'm really looking for a Backstrom, Giroux, type of guy here. That ain't Larkin. 4. Again, if the scouts don't think Rossi, or Perfetti, or anyone else is going to be an offensive dynamo at center, then pass on them. "Loading up on Larkins" isn't a good strategy because you have to be able to score in different ways. Even strength vs. powerplay, transition vs. cycle, skill vs. crashing the net. All create offense, but all require different skill sets.

It's a good thing you don't care, but I DEFINITELY don't believe you.

We need a center with offense. If Yzerman and the scouts don't think any of those guys are going to be centers, then take the defenseman or goalie and draft your 2C next year. However I really haven't seen any credible sources say that Rossi A) isn't going to be a center, and B) isn't going to be a 70+ point guy (or better). We definitely don't need a guy like Lundell, as that's basically what we have in Veleno. You've got to have guys that can generate offense in different ways. Specifically we need guys who can run the powerplay off the half wall like Dats and Z used to do. We've got shooters in Mantha and Zadina but nobody on the other side who is really good at getting pucks through to them. Larkin is a good 5 on 5 scorer, and especially good in transition, but his playmaking from the blueline in isn't that good.

You should have probably linked this article if you're going to suggest literally every single thing they advocate in it. Otherwise it looks like you're trying to pass off their ideas as your own. Clearly you'd never do that. https://thehockeywriters.com/red-wings-boeser-trade-target/

Also, I really like Jeremie Poirier with the 32nd overall pick. He's the best offensive defenseman in the draft by a pretty wide margin, but he's a liability defensively. Seems like that will drop him into the 2nd round. But he's a late birthday so he's got a little more immaturity in his game that you'd expect to round out as he matures. Rossi and Poirier and I'm a happy guy on draft day.

Word on the street is Vancouver is looking to trade Brock Boeser for cap relief. Go. Get. Him. The guy's a stud, he's 23, he's a righty and he rounds out our top six really well. Bert-Larkin-Mantha Boeser-Rossi-Zadina Rasmussen-Veleno-Mastrosimone/Berggren I'm drooling over that top 9.

Admittedly I don't know s*** about goalies, but I'd have to give a long hard look at Askarov at 4. If your scouts genuinely believe that he's going to be another Price/Lundqvist/Luongo then he absolutely makes sense at 4th. But I have no idea what the likelihood of that is. Otherwise, there's no reason to overthink this. We need to take a center. We've been searching for a 2nd line center since Stephen Weiss. We have all the goal scoring on the wing we'd ever want. Mantha (if his dumbass would stop fighting) scores at the same rate as other top power forwards (like Ratanen) without half the talent around him. Zadina's goal scoring skills are obvious despite playing with total puds all year. Even our complimentary guy (Bert) scored over 20 goals. But we HAVE to get a center with dynamic offense. A guy that can kill teams on the half boards on the powerplay. A guy that can generate offense in all situations when you need it. I don't see Perfetti as a center. So it's either Rossi, Stutzle (if someone REALLY likes Drysdale) or (maybe) Hendrix Lapiere in a trade back scenario. The last one is risky because of his injury a year ago, but he was easily on his way to being a top 5-10 player before it.

I don't mind AA's on ice contributions one way or another. He's one dimensional, he's a possession black hole, he barely tries, and will never, ever, ever, win a puck battle, he's not especially useful on the powerplay, and he's the ultimate passenger. He hurts your team in a million ways, but he does score. All of which would be fine if he was like Michael Grabner and was content to sign 3-4 million dollar contracts and play on a team's 3rd line permanently. But I'm afraid he values himself a little more than that. So good riddance. Plus, he went to the Oilers and was almost immediately relegated to the 3rd line because he blows there too.

Given that I'm an outrageously punctual person I've always been amazed by people that show up THIS late to a party.

Would you want Taylor Hall for a max contract? Assuming the Wings would have to MASSIVELY overpay to attract him, would you still want him? I'm thinking something like 10 million for 7 years. Is it worth it regardless?

Your take, as usual, is absurd. He was clearly insinuating something. The word "insinuate" exists because it's a real thing. A way of saying something without saying it. For example... Person: Don't you think Neo goes to idiotic lengths to defend right-wing dips***s who don't need defending? Me: My mother always said "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all". See, I didn't ACTUALLY say you act like a dummy sometimes in your defense of the indefensible but I sure did INSINUATE it. Not altogether different than how Datsyuk insinuated he was against homosexuality with his statement about the church. It's odd how people get SUPER literal suddenly whenever political or social obfuscation aligns with their personal views.

Like I said, I haven't seen enough of Kotkaniemi to weigh in on the debate. But there are a few things I would say about your post. First, there isn't a single team in the NHL whose centers don't have more defensive responsibilities than their wingers do. Hence why guys who played center their whole careers but can't hack it in the NHL (Abby, Helm, Franzen) get moved to the wing and not vice versa. So while Zadina may have improved, he's still asked to do MUCH less than a center. Especially a top six center. Secondly, this year IS Zadina's first year. He played 9 games last season and looked totally lost. Then he looked totally lost in training camp and as a result didn't make the team. He then got called up because of his offense (to replace Mantha) and showed improvement as the season progressed. But he still only played 28 games. Your post makes it seem like there was some marked difference in his play from one year to the next. That's basically an exaggeration considering he still hasn't even played a half season's worth of NHL hockey. Again, it's pretty clear Zadina is the better scorer. That should come as no surprise considering we all knew that on draft day. But a better player is still very much in debate I'd think.

Ugh, this debate is dull and has been done in various iterations before. Nobody is saying Kotkaniemi is a better scorer. The numbers don't back that up. Mackel is saying he's a better player. We're all fully aware that a player who scores fewer points can still be a better/more valuable player. Otherwise we'd all have to conclude Datsyuk was not better than Crosby or Malkin in 2008. Otherwise Steve Yzerman was a better player in 1987 than he was in 1997. Zadina has been criticized by quite a lot of folks, including our own coaching staff, for his play away from the puck. It's not like Mackel is making this up. I don't know enough about Jesperi Kotkaniemi to weigh in on the debate, but I do know that conflating "scoring" with "better" is a pretty slippery slope. You start playing that game and you have to conclude absurd s*** like that Brad Marchand is a "better" player than Alexander Barkov, or that Patrice Bergeron has never been a top 5 center in the NHL. Doesn't work that way.

Ummm....yeah, they do impact the game more. You being snarky about it doesn't make it untrue. Also, it's not just faceoffs. Literally every coach's system from the minor leagues to the professional level requires more defensive responsibility out of centers than wingers. So Kotkaniemi and Rossi score as much (or more) than Zadina and Lafreniere despite having to do so much more every single game. It's actually a pretty straightforward argument, though I wouldn't expect a Canadian to understand it. While you dingbats are getting moist over the one-dimensional guys who score pretty goals everyone else is content winning Stanley Cups. It'll be 20 years before you realize that Draisaitl is better than McDavid too. That's why you losers can't win anything important.

See what I mean, he's a big stat guy until he isn't. Funny how that works.

Exactly. Let's take this Zadina v. Kotkaniemi debate going on right now as an example. @krsmith17 is claiming that Zadina "caught up an surpassed" Kotkaniemi this year because he prefers Zadina and the Z had better stats this season. But a few months ago when I said the same thing about Rossi catching up and surprassing Lafreniere our buddy KRsmith said that Lafreniere has the "track record" and that this season is only an aberration.

It usually goes the other way. The "headcase" goalie is totally a thing. "Yeah Luongo/Lundqvist are good regular season goalies, but they fall apart when the game's on the line. Total headcases". Or "Osgood is solid, but he let's in the occasional floater when his head's not in it'. But I learned from the Detroit Lions that if someone is in close proximity to greatness they basically are great. Matt Patricia and Bob Quinn MUST be winners. I mean...Bill Belichick...amirite? I guess what's I'm saying is Matt Murray is the kind of guy who will turn this franchise around. You don't spend that much time around Crosby, Malkin, Letang, and Fleury without learning something about winning (presumably by osmosis). Throw the bank at this guy.