kipwinger

If ALMOST beating the Red Wings points record and then getting MAULED in the playoffs makes Yzeramn a superb GM then actually having the points record and losing in the Conference Finals makes Jim Devellano a god. Yzerman's Lightening team also missed the playoffs 3 out of his 9 years as GM and got bounced in the first round two other years despite having superstar talent in their primes. So yeah, sorry if I think his list of accomplishments is pretty thin.

That would imply Babcock got fired by Toronto for failing to advance in the playoffs despite an absurdly good roster (yet again). And THAT would finally, demonstrably, prove that Babcock sucks as much as I always say he does. So yeah, I'd be pretty annoyed.

You should care about the hole at 2C. We currently have nobody on our NHL team who can do it, we have ONE decent center prospect, and we didn't draft any higher end centers this year. So basically one, not very good, option for filling a massive hole on our team going forward. I also disagree with the bolded. The Rangers were on almost the exact same rebuild timeline as we are and have drafted in the first round 6 times in three years, traded for a 25 year old top pair defenseman they're about to re-sign, and landed a premier free agent. That's obviously a pretty aggressive improvement in a short period of time. Meanwhile we're reluctant to trade Luke Glendening, despite obvious interest in him, because how else would we ever find a 4th line center? Suggesting that our current hyper-conservative approach to rebuilding is inevitable, and unavoidable, seems like apologism to the absolute max. Agreed. Agreed.

You heard it here first, Moritz Seider went from being a prospect ranked no higher than 10th, and most frequently between 20-30th to a "can't miss" prospect in a few short weeks. And none of that has anything to do with Yzerman inspired rose colored glasses. He really is that damn good. Speaking of confirmation bias, a few years ago the dorks over at Winging it in Motown wrote an article titled "Why Brendan Smith Really is That Damn Good". They had long been Smith fanboys and not matter how often I pointed out that Smith's advanced stats were no better than Kindl's (and often worse), they weren't having it. I throw that in their face a few times a year whenever Smith is mentioned in any capacity. There's a lot for fans to learn from the Brendan Smith fiasco.

I mean, that's pretty obvious based on everything he's done since taking over the team. Is sucking for another year a good thing? There are definitely some drawbacks.

Maybe so. But one page ago you pointed out that we have a hole at 2C, acknowledged that Yzerman didn't fill that hole, but then gave him credit for improving "depth" by signing a center who is worse than the s***ty 3C we already have (who is obviously not good enough to be a 2C). Saying that moved sucked DEFINITELY makes me a contrarian around here. But acting like he did something good by NOT fixing a problem, and unnecessarily signing some pud who's worse than some of the other puds we have on the team, is probably a bit overly optimistic on your part as well.

I'm not judging his tenure as Red Wings GM, because that's still ongoing. I'm judging how he handled the draft and free agency. And since those are both things he's already done I see no reason why we can't judge them on their merits.

Iconoclastic in what way? I've always been against bringing in Yzerman as the GM. Primarily because he had exactly 1 finals appearance on his list of accomplishments despite being gifted a superstar center/goal scorer and Norris caliber defenseman before he even moved his "World's Best GM" coffee cup into his new office. The magnum opus of his GMing came this year when his version of "best team ever assembled" got SMASHED by a clearly inferior team because...wait for it...the big, slow, unskilled, defensemen he seems to love so much couldn't (shocker) withstand an aggressive forecheck. ALL of which I've pointed out over and over while all you dorks were gushing over "The Captain is coming home...durrrr". There were plenty of reason NOT to like Steve Yzerman as the GM but you'd have to actually be open to the idea that he might not be a good idea, and doing so apparently makes you an iconoclast.

Patience is fine, nobody is expecting him to fix the team over night. But doing nothing at all just kicks the "few seasons" can further down the road. There are always things you can do it improve your team. Some are big, some are incremental. Yzerman hasn't done anything of note this season. Unless you consider selected a draft pick something of note. But considering pretty much every team drafts in the first round I'd say it's about the least you can do.

I dunno man. I expected more than this. If Ken Holland had reached on a draft pick, signed a 35 year old former Wing who isn't very good, a depth defenseman, and an AHL goalie people would be losing their minds. In fact, it was exactly those kinds of moves that made people sour on Ken Holland in the first place. But now that Yzerman is doing it everyone seems to have years worth of patience. Just saying it seems like a pretty lackluster offseason for a team that's supposedly trying to get out of the basement soon.

I understand you completely. I wasn't suggesting that those signings stopped us from taking on a bad contract. I was rebutting the notion that Dabura was putting forward, which was "why not sign a few puds to short term contracts they don't deserve if you're not a contender?". I guess I was suggesting that if you're desperate to pay some loser to actively hurt (or at least not help) your team then maybe try to get something out of it. And that failing to do so is not especially good asset management (cap space being an asset). Maybe just take on the bad contract without signing the useless depth players. Or take on a bad contract AND sign useless depth players (as you're suggesting we can), or make them one and the same by making sure your useless depth acquisition IS a bad contract (Callahan). The only option that does nothing whatsoever to help you in the long term is to sign some useless depth guys and then be done for the summer. This, of course, is exactly what the Wings did. So we aren't any better, we're arguably worse, and we didn't even get a pick or two for the trouble. And since taking on bad contracts is something teams do just about every offseason I find it hard to believe that we couldn't have managed it if we aren't planning on being any good any time soon.

You know what might help us land some blockbuster talent? Taking on some dead weight AND the 1st round picks that come with them (which happens to be where most of the bluckbuster talent is). NOT signing a 3rd line center, a stay at home defenseman, and an AHL goalie for a team LOADED with those things. And I thought all the Yzerman slappies were thrilled because he was going to shake everything up. Not keep on with the "Red Wings Don't Do That" stuff.

That's my point. Why not do that? Seems like a better use of cap space than signing Filppula and Nemeth because Yzerman "dgaf" as Dabura said. At least those s*** contract would have contributed something meaningful down the road. And aren't you the guy who said a few weeks ago that you were tired of tanking and ready for the team to be competitive again? If that's how you feel I can't imagine you're thrilled with Yzerman's offseason so far. And for the record, I don't think bad contracts ruined our dynasty. But I do think that utilizing our cap flexibility like the Canes' did is one way to build the team back up. I advocated doing the same thing elsewhere with Ryan Callahan and you seemed to think that was a bad idea. Surely that would have been better than signing Filppula (for some reason) when we already have about 35 guys on the team that could be a mediocre third line center.

The counter-argument would be that even if you're not a contender if your team isn't full of terrible contracts you can take on (short term) dead weight from contending teams for things that will help you later a la the Canes with Patrick Marleau. The Canes got a 1st for that BTW. Certainly something a rebuilding team shouldn't be turning their noses up at because their new GM "dgaf". But what do I know?

From an Athletic article detailing how effectively each team has used its cap space. Detroit was dead last. Last, and certainly least, it’s Detroit. How could it be any other team? With four contracts in the D-range on the books, the Red Wings are in a four-way tie for the most bad deals in the league. Where Detroit differs is that the other teams have a few more above average deals to offset the pain. Not Detroit who have as many toxic deals as above-average ones. Those belong to Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha, Tyler Bertuzzi and Andreas Athanasiou – four forwards that provide the bulk of the team’s on-ice value. Without them, this team would be cooked. The biggest issue for Detroit is how much the team is spending for a marginal win over the remainder of their contracts. It’s not just the alarming number of poor deals, or the certainty in how bad those deals are, but the fact that those deals are mostly for players that bring huge negative value. The team is spending $14.5 million per win, the league’s second-highest mark. That contributes to the team’s 35 percent average for positive value probability which is the league’s lowest mark, stemming from seven deals sitting at an under 20 percent success rate. The team signed a replacement level forward to a two-year deal worth $3 million per, and it’s somehow not even close to being the worst deal on the books. That honour could go to Trevor Daley or Danny DeKeyser or Jonathan Ericsson or Darren Helm or Frans Nielsen or Justin Abdelkader and the fact the team has this many options is why they’re ranked so low. (Abdelkader made the honourable mentions list on last week’s worst contracts, but through my own personal error should’ve actually been … second. I wrote down that he only had three years left, but he actually has four somehow. My sincerest apologies). None of them are that expensive, but those deals add up into death by a thousand cuts. Those seven deals are collectively worth $69 million in financial commitment over the next several seasons, $29 million of which is tied up in next year’s cap. The Red Wings stand to lose just over five wins of value combined from those players over the entirety of their contract, with 40 percent of that coming in 2019-20. That’s as bad as it gets. Well, actually, it gets worse. The next five deals are worth $17 million and are worth negative 0.1 wins on top of that. I just can’t fathom that a professional hockey team is spending over $80 million on players that are actively hurting the team’s chances of winning. New GM Steve Yzerman has his work cut out for him.

Well you're not going to go to jail for thinking so, but it's basically fan logic. Unless you're replacing someone with someone else who's better then it's usually a bad idea. I wouldn't be upset if Yzerman replaced Wright with Al Murray, because Murray has been awesome at the draft. But replacing him with someone who's never even scouted, let alone ran a full, global, scouting program or draft should probably be viewed as a negative.

I don't know what to think about you. Every year after the draft you gush about how good we did, but now you're not really sure if the guy doing the drafting is a big loss. He drafted Larkin, Svech, Cholo, Hronek, Rasmussen, Zadina, Berggren, Veleno, McIsaac, Lindstrom, and Seider. They seem a bit better than "a lot of Christopher Ehns" to me. Maybe some of them don't turn out, but conservatively we probably have a top line 1C (franchise cornerstone and future Captain), two or three top six forwards, and two or three top four defensemen in 5 drafts. No too shabby.

Mkay

1. Given that he was the "Director of Amateur Scouting" my guess is that other than the GM he was the one "directly responsible" for ALL the selections since 2014. IMO they haven't been too bad, and in some cases they were superb. 2. I don't want Draper to replace Tyler Wright as Director of Amateur Scouting because Kris Draper has never been a full time scout at any level. When Wright was hired he came with a track record, he had a long history of working with prospects in Columbus. And considering the Jackets drafted and developed well during that time, you could reasonably infer that he knows what he's doing when it comes to prospects. None of that is possible with Draper because, as previously mentioned, he's never been involved with prospects at all. He was the Assistant to the GM. I'd be less worried if they'd promoted Jiri Fischer (for example) to Wright's old position because he's been working with prospects for years.

Bummed to see Tyler Wright leave, thought he did a pretty good job with our drafting over the years. REALLY bummed to see Kris Draper taking over for Wright.

England has a "pro league". The ECHL is a pro league. Doesn't mean it's a good pro league. My only point is that there's not enough of a history of producing quality hockey players that I think it's worth reaching to take a guy from there unless he's obviously dominating, which Seider wasn't. Also, saying he "could" be our Hedman is no different than saying he "could" be another Dekeyser. This was a deep enough draft that we didn't have to take those types of risks with the 6th pick. I'm not sure whether Seider will be any good in the NHL or not. There's always a risk that a guy will bust. I'm just saying I feel a LOT more confident that Dylan Cozens or Trevor Zegras will hit their ceilings than Mortiz Seider will hit his given the information that I have available to me, the average fan.

All valid points. Well done. You've convinced me that Seider was the right choice.

I was being sarcastic. Germany is a country of 80 million people and produces almost no NHLers. For comparison's sake, Finland is a country of 5 million people and produces a ton of NHLers. I conclude, therefore, that the quality of hockey in German is not very high and the quality of hockey in Finland (again, for argument's sake) is quite high. I've explained in a post above why developing in a country where the hockey isn't very good could be detrimental to long term success, but it goes something like this: PK Subban played against (and with) Steven Stamkos since he was a kid, Trevor Zegras has been shooting on Spencer Knight every day at practice for years, Mortiz Seider has played against puds his entire life (including the four of five AHL washouts and NHL journeymen you mentioned above). Why does this all matter? Because when you combine this information with a few other things it suggests that this pick has a lower probability of success for the organization than other picks that were still available. And this is a pivotal draft for the organization, so lower probability of success isn't good. What other things? First, Seider doesn't seem to have a ton of offensive upside based on his history of production in a 2nd tier league. Second, Steve Yzerman has NEVER drafted and developed a defenseman who was any good. Third, while Steve Yzerman knows more about hockey than I do, so does every other talent evaluator in the hockey industry and most of them weren't as high on Seider as Steve was. Fourth, guys who play defense well but don't score a ton are NOT that hard to come by. If you REALLY need a guy with Danny Dekeyser's floor and Ryan McDonagh's ceiling you can get one pretty easily. How do I know? Because we got Dekeyser for nothing and McDonagh was traded to Tampa. Don't get me wrong, I REALLY hope Moritz Seider turns out to be a John Carlson. I really really really do. But for all the reasons above I just think the odds of that aren't as good as Zegras turning into a Claude Giroux, or a Cozens turning into a Seguin. And that either of those options would have helped us more than having a Ryan McDonagh or a Colton Paryako or a Brent Seabrook.

No s***, I'm giving my opinion on the draft. One that differs considerably from Steve Yzerman's. That's the whole point of the post. Also, I didn't say the German league CAN'T produce elite talent. I'm saying it never has. And when you're considering reaching for a player, while other high end prospects are still on the table, you might want to consider where that player came from. Why does it matter? Because even if you have all the physical tools, if you've been playing with or against a bunch of puds you haven't been developing your skill in the same way that guys in Canadian leagues are. Essentially, it's easier to score on bad goalies so your shot doesn't have to be as good. It's easier to defend bad fowards so your positioning doesn't have to be as good. And so when you finally get to the AHL it might be the first time you've had to do things right, and you're trying to do it against better players than you've ever seen in your life. So the margin of error for Seider to gain the kind of skills he may not have developed in Germany (because of the aforementioned puds) is going to be narrower than for a UNDTP kid like Zegras who's been playing with other NHL caliber talent for years.

Yeah, that's a logical fallacy though. Reductio ad absurdum. Nobody is saying you should scout American high school hockey more than German men's leagues. I'm saying that when there are still VERY talented hockey players on the board, and you're trying to decide who's going to be better than who, one thing to look at is whether or not this player comes from a place that actually develops good hockey players. Particularly if you're planning on reaching as much as Yzerman seemed to reach here. I genuinely don't mind Seider as a player. As best I can tell he's a decent enough prospect. But there are enough question marks about him to make me question whether reaching on him was a smart choice when Cozens and Zegras were still available. And one of those question marks is that he played his entire hockey career in a country that produces less NHL players than Slovenia.