kipwinger

Well I've got a little intrigue for you then. In this weeks "31 Thoughts", Elliotte Friedman was relaying a story about Cole Perfetti, who is a family friend of Kris Draper. "Another form of motivation came from an old family friend, Kris Draper. Perfetti played with Draper’s son, Kienan, in minor hockey and billeted in Saginaw with a family that is close to the 1,157-game NHL veteran. “It seems like no one’s doing anything, but (Kris) said there’s someone across the world working harder than me right now — someone who wants to be the best.” Now, this could mean something generic like "someone out there somewhere is working harder than you, so you have to bust your ass", or it could mean "the Red Wings love Tim Stutzle". Just sayin'.

TSN did a mock draft today and had the Red Wings with the 1st overall, taking Lafreniere. Ottawa pick 4th and 5th taking Stutzle and Rossi. Who would you rather be if you're a rebuilding team?

Counterpoint: There are many examples of teams holding on to their "core" for too long and A) not winning, and B) not getting anything valuable for these players before they star falling off. Look at: Anaheim: Getzlaf, Perry, Kesler San Jose: Pavelski, Thornton, Marleau, Couture They never won anything, year after year trotting out the same inferior "core" and just tinkering around the edges. Compare those teams to Ottawa, who traded their "core" (Karlsson, Stone, Hoffman, Duchene) and have a f*ck load of 1st to show for it AND are still a lottery team. I think I'd rather be in Ottawa's position than those other two teams right about now.

Not only to I not want to keep tanking, I want to speed things up. That's why I've I want Stutzle or Rossi this year. They're both going to be top line centers, and they're both going to fast track to the NHL. I liked that Seider could jump straight to the AHL last year. I want more of that.

I agree with everything you're saying, but I don't agree with the prognosis. We're drafting a legit #1 center this year. That's the outlook for Stutzle, Byfield, Rossi. We're getting one of them for sure. We're a lottery team next year (or close to it) and we take an offensive LD. We're a lottery team the following year and take a power winger with hands (a Brady Tkachuk type). In a few years you've got something like this at the top of your team: Power Winger-Stutzle/Byfield/Rossi-Mantha Bert-Larkin-Zadina Veleno/Ras-Veleno/Ras-Fabbri/Berggren/Mastrosimone New LD - Seider McIsaac-Hronek I think this looks pretty good. Obviously a lot of this will depend on how these guys develop, but given what we need and given where we're drafting I'm expecting to fill our major holes in the next two drafts.

Saw Elliotte Friedman is saying Chicago is looking to trade Dylan Strome, and that the asking price is "nothing prohibitive". Might be a 2C option. https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/2242851/per-elliotte-friedman-stan-bowman-will-be-trying-to-give-away-dylan-strome-for-nothing-this-offseason

I'm a big McIsaac guy. He's a good skating, hard hitting, puck mover. I don't expect too much offense from him in the NHL but think he'll thrive as a partner for a Hronek type guy. He'll be a stud. That said, on to Cholowski: I don't understand Detroit's obsession with sacrificing offense for defense. Pretty much every team in the NHL has one defenseman what scores but hasn't learned to keep the puck out of his own net. Most give their guys space to make mistakes, learn, and grow or else get surpassed on the depth chart by an up-and-comer later on. Most team do not send that guy to the AHL in favor of Ericsson, Daley, Golbeauf, or Biega. All that said, Cholo makes the team full time next year and performs respectably. McIsaac is a workhorse in the AHL but doesn't get a call up and really makes his name as more of an all situations type guy.

You'd have to shelter him a bit, but could see him being a real asset in the offensive zone with a Zadina or Fabbri.

I'd maybe take a flier on Mikhail Grigorenko out of the KHL. First stint in the NHL was "meh" but he's since really found his game playing for the KHL champion CSKA Moscow club as a 1st line center. He's a big boy with silky mitts who is only 25 years old. Didn't play with enough pace in his first NHL stint, but maybe he's coming around a bit.

Yeah, he's a weird player. I don't even necessarily dislike the guy's style of play or anything. I followed him a bit a few years ago with Columbus when they had a fourth line of him, Scott Hartnell, and Matt Calvert and they scored a TON for the minutes they were getting. I suppose if we had a roster deep enough to do that I'd be fine with keeping him around too. But here's what I think will most likely happen. One line will be centered by Larkin, one Filppula, one Glendening, and one Ramussen/Veleno. And the Larkin and Glendening lines will eat most of the minutes, and the other two will be heavily sheltered.

I mean, he's played for Edmonton, Arizona, Columbus, and Vancouver in recent years. So not exactly a who's who of quality hockey clubs. Plenty of opportunity for him to excel. I just think he's basically a Nothing Player who teams can plug into a bottom six role at little cost. He's like a modern Scottie Upshall or Curtis Lazar or something. AA will probably drop 20 goals next year and his coach and teammates will still hate him. That's sorta his thing.

Considering Sam Gagner has never played as high as 2C for any team, at any point, in his career I'm doubtful. I think Glendening will be the 2C on this team before Gagner will. Though I'm also doubtful Gagner will even be on this team next season.

AA will clearly score more, if only because of the opportunity he'll get. Gagner will be buried in the depth chart and will likely end up on some line with Abby and Ehn or something. None of them will score and things will be much the same as they are now. Meanwhile AA is bound to end up on a line with one of McDavid, Draisaitl, or RNH.

If you don't like 'Murica you can geeeeet out! Do you realize the tagline next to your avatar says, "Stevie the one and only Captian". And your post says "your" instead of "you're" and "waist" instead of "waste". Maybe if you should go do something else too. Like read a book or find an elementary school teacher to date or something.

The Athletic's Max Bultman dropped an article today asking a number of talent evaluators (Scott Wheeler, Craig Button, and two scouts) to give stylistic comparables for current Red Wings prospects. They are as follows: 1. Seider: Alex Pietrangelo, Brandon Carlo, Jeff Petry, Aaron Ekblad 2. Veleno: Philip Danault, Mikhail Backlund, Adrian Kempe 3. Rasmussen: Handzus, Tomas Holmstom, Brock Nelson 4. Berggren: Nikita Gusev, Andrew Mangiapane, Jaden Schwartz 5. McIsaac: Alec Martinez, Ryan Lindgren, Ryan Pulock 6. Tuomisto: Colton Paryako, Tyler Myers, Ryan Pulock 7. Mastrosimone: Jason Zucker, Anthony Beauvillier, Tomas Tatar 8. Johansson: Andy Greene, Matt Grzelcyk, Jonas Siegenthaler, Nate Schmidt 9. Givani Smith: Chris Wagner, Brendan Lemieux, Lawson Crouse, Jordan Nolan 10. Soderblom: Nick Bjugstad, Brian Boyle, Jordan Greenway

Nothing more Canadian has ever been spoken. Well, except maybe this guy...

I wasn't being rhetorical with my original post. I genuinely hadn't seen anyone suggest either of these guys wouldn't be centers. In fact, most I've read said the exact opposite. I appreciate the link to the article, though I don't know much about the author.

I haven't seen a single credible source say that either Stutzle or Rossi won't be centers in the NHL. What are you reading?

Just in case anyone wanted to know Marco Rossi now has an outstanding 120 points in 56 games. He scored all those points on 193 shots, giving him the highest shooting percentage of any draft eligible. He's also a top defensive forward and leads all OHL draft eligibles in FO%. Kid reminds me of Datsyuk in so many ways.

Christopher Ehn now has 100% more goals than Brendan Perlini and is 10000% better in every other facet of the game.

And how has that worked out for the teams who "liked what they saw"? I'm sure they're all wringing their hands because they lost such a bona fide talent, what with all of his physical tools and all.

The point is that he doesn't score any more than a bunch of non-scoring losers on the same team, with the same coach. He f*cking sucks. Which is why he's about to play his way off of his third team in his "young career".

Yeah, it must be Detroit. Which is why he's been outscored by Red Wing superstars like Luke Glendening, Darren Helm, Adam Erne, Jacob De La Rose, Taro Hirose, Franz Nielsen, Patrick Nemeth, and Trevor Daly this season.