kipwinger

Agreed. He's done basically everything Holland would do though. Reached on two top draft picks with low offensive upside (rumor has it Holland even wanted Seider at 8th), signed a washed up 35 year old former Red Wing, signed a stay-at-home depth defenseman, and signed a minor leaguer. And since Yzerman was supposed to be a better option than Holland, I'm not sure how someone could give him a passing grade here if they were anti-Holland.

Of the three AA is the only one who has actually played center, so it's better than your first attempt. I I still think the line sucks though, but that's a different discussion.

They were centers playing the wing. Not wingers playing center, as you're advocating. Natural wingers moving to center is extremely rare. Natural centers moving to wing is extremely common. Look, if you want Lafreniere cool, but don't hold your breath for him to play center is all I'm saying. And if you're that desperate for a center then you should probably hope the Wings draft someone else. And defensemen join the rush more than they used to. So what? They're still f*cking defensemen. There's a lot more to playing center than "sticking to the center of the ice" BTW. You don't see Hall or Kane or Tarasenko or Ovechkin doing it for a reason.

Um...I guess? You had him listed as playing center in your line combos above. I'm just saying he doesn't play that position. For what it's worth he also doesn't play defense or goalie in case you envisioned him doing that as well.

Lafreniere isn't a center.

Except Val Filppula, Yzerman loves him some Val Filppula.

Given that the Rangers now need to dump someone to be cap compliant if I were Yzerman I'd consider taking a look at Chris Kreider. If he can be had at a reasonable price he'd be a good asset to move at the deadline next year. He'd also slot in well opposite AA on the 2nd line for the season given he's fast and a good puck retrieval guy. Would likely have to dump one of our lesser forwards in a trade/waive one/keep a kid down until the deadline but the return would be worth it.

Of the top tier prospect I'd prefer to lose Zadina, then Seider, then lastly Veleno. If a throw in is necessary I'd prefer it not be the same position as the main trade chip. So if you trade Seider, don't throw in a defenseman, if you trade Zadina don't throw in a winger, don't have to worry about it if you trade Veleno because we don't have any other decent centers. So while I'd still do the trade you listed above, I'd prefer it be Zadina + McIsaac/Lindstrom + 1st (conditional) OR Seider + Berggren + 1st (conditional). At the end of the day this is all just an intellectual exercise anyway. Tampa is in "win now" mode, they're not letting Point walk. I think they'd trade half their team rather than lose a core guy like him.

He's an RFA, he's not getting 9 or 10 million dollars. And while that team was an offensive juggernaut, it's just as likely that good players playing with other good players is a net positive for all involved. Kinda like how ALL of Mantha, Larkin, and Bertuzzi's numbers increased when they started playing together. It's just as likely that a fair portion of Kucherov's points can be attributed to playing with Point as well. I'd trade ANY of Zadina, Veleno, or Seider plus our 2020 1st (conditional to protect if it's a top 3-5 pick) for Point, and basically any of our mid-tier prospects or roster players as well.

I said a TOP prospect. You're not getting a 23 year old, cost controlled, 90+ point center for cast aways. You're going to pay a premium, which means a 1st (which I hope Yzerman is smart enough to make conditional) and a top prospect (Zadina, Veleno, Seider).

I think you'd have to give up a top prospect and a 1st at least. Probably Zadina or Veleno and a 2020 1st to get the conversation started, maybe a depth prospect on defense as well.

For RFAs there is every reason to wait. Mantha and Bertuzzi will want to wait because both will get more money if they perform as good or better than they did a year ago. Wings' management will want to wait on AA because even though he had a breakout year last season it's hard to tell whether he's going to consistently perform at that level. Wait, see if he does it again, before giving him "30 goal scorer per year" money rather than "20 goal scorer per year" money.

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.