kipwinger

I'm not down on him. He's been perfectly "meh" so far regarding trades. Say most of them were pretty bad is just a reasonable assessment of what he's done w/respect to the trade market. I actually like his drafting, though I didn't on draft day. I was very wrong about Seider, Steve exceeded my expectations there.

Disagree. Peter Chiarelli has amply demonstrated that no amount of bad trades can end your career. This is a guy who traded all of Phil Kessel, Blake Wheeler, Tyler Seguin, and Taylor Hall for a handful of magic beans. Shero and Rutherford are guilty of this too, to a lesser extent. Dumb fans (i.e. most fans) want durrrr HYPE! more than they want their team to be good. They want trades more than they want good trades even. The "goodness" of the trade being an ancillary benefit. The trade you're suggesting here would be a homerun for both teams' executives, just on different timeslines. Vancouver would love it on draft day, and Philly would love it for the rest of their careers. Fans, either way, would be on to the next thing. Look how excited Detroit fans were for the "big moves" Yzerman made this year, most of which were pretty bad. Why were they excited? Because Holland basically never did dumb sh*t like that.

You keep me up. I can't sleep. I see a shrink. Also, you don't know s*** about hockey.

Make jokes all you want. You did everything but scoff the last two years when I suggested trading the 1st overall. Now you've "always been open to it". The only person more critical than you was KRsmith, and I'm sure he's still holding out hope that Lafreniere is "borderline generational". Lol. Anyway, the point is that you're a flip flopper and your takes are as boring and uncreative as you (presumably) are.

I don't feel persecuted. I feel like I've been right, and now all you dummies are catching up to the fact that Lafreniere isn't as good as you thought, and other players are better than you thought. Glad you're finally joining the club of big brained thinkers. It'll take you another 18 months to finally catch up to the stuff I'm saying now.

That's odd, all year long you've mocked me for suggesting that one should trade down from first overall. What changed?

Only way I want Lafreniere in that scenario is if I'm Los Angeles and I'm STACKED at center already. Otherwise this is a no brainer.

I work remotely, even before all this stuff. Go to DC about once a month for a couple days. I didn't like living in the city, it sucked. Bought a farm in Appalachia and have a zillion animals now. Way more fun.

I live not far from there now. I love Appalachia. Your sister is probably just weak.

Who are you telling?

I mean, it would be in keeping with Yzerman's tendency to f*** up asset management for sure. If you like Stutzle more than Lafreniere and you have the 1st pick you'd better trade back to #3 and land some additional assets.

The plot thickens.

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.