kipwinger

I'd look to any of the 35 year old guys. Crawford, Greiss, Elliott, or Halak. If you're shopping in the UFA market you're always going to be overpaying, so at least do it on a short term deal. All of those are having decent seasons, which is all we'd really need them to have for us. The under 35 crowd is all going to want more term than we should be giving out. Best of the bunch are Holtby and Markstrom and I wouldn't want to pay either of them what they're going to want (and on the term that they'll want) either.

I don't think he's injury prone. I think he's dumb. Three times he fought, on other players behalf, and three times he had season altering injuries. Now he's already talking about fighting again. Dummy. If he doesn't realize his true value is playing, not sitting in the penalty box or press box, then he dumber even than I thought. We all remember the story of Lou Lamoriello telling a young Brendan Shanahan to stop fighting because they didn't draft him for that. Brendan got it. Mantha still hasn't.

This isn't my hill to die on or anything, but he's a 31 year old career backup who is (at least statistically) having a slightly worse season than his career averages. Seems risky to assume he'd keep up his current play. More likely he's going to fall off. Matter of fact I don't think he's really having that great of a season, just a luckier one than last year where he got hosed despite good play. If you can get something reasonable for him, do so. I feel very comfortable going into next season what whatever we can find on the UFA market considering goalie is probably the last piece of the puzzle we need to find. There are always Jonathan Berniers out there.

Counterpoint: Bernier has never been this good before, and the law of averages suggests he'll never be this good again. So why not sell high on him? Go with Howard and Pickard. Sure we'll lose, but we're losing most nights anyway. What's the difference?

Didn't seem like he was prompted at all. Could have just said, "I think it was a dirty play", with respect to the slewfoot and moved on. But he's a knucklehead, so I'm sure he'll bust his hand getting his "revenge".

Speaking of, anybody else see the interview with Mantha were he implies that he's planning on fighting Muzzin for the injury? Said something like, "we're both young, we'll bump into each other again". This moron can't stop getting hurt, and ruining his season, because of fights and yet he's already thinking about his next one. First rate thinking, dumbsh*t.

I forget he's a Wing even when he's playing. It's like, I know SOMEONE is playing 20 minutes a night for us on defense but it's hard to imagine who's good enough to get minutes like that on this team.

Not if you ask Helene St. James, who still insists on saying that's Dekeyser despite him A) not being better than Hronek and B) not playing in 1 billion years.

How the hell does AA have SIX shots on goal and no points. Unreal how unlucky he's been. Career 12+% shooting percentage and he's sitting at 5% for the season. Ugh. At least Fabbri's pumping that trade value though.

I sometimes forget that those expiring UFAs are even on the team. Normally I think of UFAs because they're going to be useful at the deadline, but not this year. This year I'm more excited about the possibility of trading AA, Fabbri, Bernier, Bowey, or Helm. They're the "have value" guys. The other losers are just treading water until they A) retire, or B) die. Either way, I don't care about them.

Not really sure I understand bringing up Lindstrom and scratching Bowey. No knock on Lindstrom at all. By all accounts Wings' management is very happy with him. But I'd be pumping that Bowey trade value as much as I can. Hell, he'd be on my 2nd powerplay. If you really wanna give Lindstrom a look let Ericsson sit for a few games. Not going to hurt you at all.

Jacob Trouba is a p*ssy. All those LGW members who wanted that guy totally blow.

Abdelkader is such a loser. Why start a scrum there? Apparently because you don't contribute in any other meaningful way.

Exactly, look at Toronto during the first half of the season. A WAY better roster was sitting outside of the playoff picture because the team quit on the coach. That's not the case with Blash. We suck because we don't have enough talent, not because the coaching is bad. That said, I like Laviolette and Gallant as replacements. I think it's important for management to indicate to the fans, and more importantly the players, that they're aware that the season was a MASSIVE struggle and they're doing everything they can to find a remedy. I probably wouldn't be saying this if there were no talented coaches on the market, but there are at least two (including one top coach in Laviolette) who have already proven they are as effective as one would hope Blashill becomes.

I don't think anyone would disagree that it's better to have a more effective powerplay than a less effective one. But that's basically a truism. 10 more goals across 51 games, given that our goals against average is 3.88, would not materially affect our record or the outcome of almost any of our games. And that's if all those goals came in loses. There's every chance a few would have come during wins, thus diminishing any added value they might have had. The truth is that this team gets BADLY outplayed at in every single aspect of the game, and added a few more powerplay goals wouldn't change that.

It's not really that he improved. Basically everyone in the league is scoring more than they did a few years ago. Largely as a result of the changes with the goalies. Did people NOT notice that all of a sudden half the league had career years all at once?

For what it's worth, most modern analytic models don't use powerplay shot totals for precisely this reason. It inflates a players value, relative to their actual overall contribution. So if you're a fan of Corsi, WAR, WOWY, GF/60, GA/60 or any other modern method of assessing player value you're implicitly agreeing with @ChristopherReevesLegs.

Check it, fighting is so scary and intimidating that NHL players will do almost anything to avoid getting in one. Including straightening up their acts and behaving on the ice. Just kidding. NHLers are so unconcerned about getting punched that they do it for fun in meaningless alumni games and chuckle about it afterward. Puts into stark relief how insignificant Mantha's actions have been the last three years.

This case I'm making is dumb and boring? But you agree with it in principle and it's fun to think about?

Oh I've already acknowledged at the beginning of the discussion that it would be a HIGHLY unpopular move. You'd have to have Yzerman level goodwill and really be able to sell it. Though in the case of the Eichel vs. McDavid scenario I played out earlier I think it would pay off in short order. Also I tend to think that NHL fanbases will bend over backward to see the silver lining in things after it's been done.

As I've said before, fans (and teams) constantly overestimate the value of the best player. I'd pretty much always rather have 3 guys who are 75% as good as one guy. Especially if you're talking about really high end guys to begin with. Even more so when you consider how often teams with the best individual players DON'T win. Also, you're picking the best and worst cases and ignoring the middle. The difference between McKinnon and Drouin is pretty significant, the difference between McKinnon and Barkov or Jones is minimal. Same with all the other examples I mentioned. So while you'd have to be prepared for that risk, you're just as likely (or perhaps even more likely in some years) to give up an Ekblad and land a Draisaitl.

Again, you have to really trust in your scouting. Like, taking a 20th ranked defenseman at 6th overall type of trust. Again, nobody's saying that there's no risk. I'm saying the risk is minimal. So much so that the worst case scenario (a Strome or Drouin) is still a highly productive NHL player. Strome has 30 points in 40 games and is 22 years old. Drouin had 15 in 19 before getting hurt and he's 24. If that's the worst possible outcome, and if you look back at past drafts it basically is, then sign me up every single day. Again, nobody is doubting who the better players are in these scenarios. It's about how to build the better team.

Look, if you can get more then get more. But I don't think the gap between Lafreniere and the other two (and I'd include Rossi here too) will be big enough (if at all) to make the trade lopsided. Again, when you're talking about top five picks there's almost no risk anymore. So you're getting a star player in the making at 2 or 3, a stud goalie with a pedigree (top goalie in NCAA) who's already torn up the AHL, and a top defense prospect who (if Yzerman is to be believed) will definitely come over because all the top Russians do.

Go back and look at how Murray acted w/respect to McDavid/Eichel. I'm not suggesting EVERY GM could be fleeced, just some. And he was clearly not so hot on Eichel compared to McDavid. I've already addressed Byfield elsewhere. The kids' like two weeks too old or he'd be getting drafted next year. He's like 11 months younger than Lafreniere. Clearly a mitigating factor. Likewise I've also addressed the quality of the DEL, which I admitted I was wrong about. I'm fine with that, just means that Stutzle eating that league alive at 17 years old likely means he's not a very risky pick at 2 or 3. Not necessarily Montreal, though they'd fit the bill this year. I'm talking about it on a bigger scale. I wouldn't just do it this year, I'd do it almost every year there was a perceived gap between the 1 and 2 picks that could be exploited. But in the case of Montreal, if I had the 1st and assuming they had the 2nd or 3rd, my ask is Cayden Primeau, their 1st this year (and draft Byfield/Stutzle), and prospect Alexander Romanov.

Mantha's the "best player" because he scored pretty well for a few DAYS of the season lol. Nevermind that for the next 11 games he was outscored by Darren Helm. Nevermind that he plays an easier position than Larkin. Nevermind that he's never tasked with shutting down top opposition players. Nevermind that his career ppg average is lower than Larkin's. Just pay attention to that first few days of the season and you'll see he's the "best player" on the team.