kipwinger

I actually don't agree with that, but I don't think he's currently got many options. I've changed my tune on Blashill a lot. I think he's better than we give him credit for. His team is basically competing, and in each game, every night with 4 good forward and the league's worst defense. Plus all of our kids are becoming legit stud NHL players. I'll reserve my final judgement on Blashill once I see what he does with a competitive roster.

They just have no depth at all. So unless Larkin or AA take over a game completely they're probably not going to win. Wait until they've got 3 legit scoring lines, then those one games losses will turn into big wins. Think about this, and this is purely a hypothetical, but it's entirely possible that over the next two seasons this team could add a high end draft pick like Dach, Cozens, Zegras, top prospects like Hronek, Zadina, Veleno, and UFAs like Duchene and Trouba. And the only guy of any value we'll be losing is Nyquist. Everyone else we lose will be old guys at the tail end of their careers.

Anybody else get the feeling we're going to be a really fun offensive team to watch in the next couple of seasons? Really liking where this team is heading. Our forward group is good, and going to get much better. Our defense can only improve. And we haven't even touched UFAs.

That's like 5 assists in two games for Athanasiou, not sure where all this playmaking is coming from but I like it.

Pretty horrific that a defenseman with 1 goal on the season was out there twice in overtime though. Game winner or otherwise.

Hell of a game by Nyquist. Damn he's looked good this year.

I think they're similar because they're both skilled guys, but they're both pretty damn feisty as well.

Maybe it's just that we're playing Toronto, but does Larkin remind anyone else of Doug Gilmour?

Two goals tonight for Veleno.

I'm just wondering why you decided to put your cape on and fly to KRSmith's defense? Didn't think he could handle himself or what? He's done a pretty good job of dealing with me, but apparently my "drama" was just too much for you to handle eh? I'd think there are probably bigger worries in life. Again, feel free to ignore me. When I want your attention I'll jingle my zipper.

I've definitely heard that Zegras needs to improve his defensive game, but a couple of sources I've seen have been more positive on Newhook's all around game. The Athletic's Pronman said of Newhook... "He’s not the biggest forward at 5-foot-10 but has a lot of offensive tools. His skating, hands and vision all get plus grades. He can push the pace with his speed, while also being able to pull up and make a play at pace. Newhook isn’t just a skill guy; he competes well, which, combined with his great speed, allows him to always be around the puck. I don’t know if he’ll be a true defensive center in the NHL, but I like that he battles and doesn’t get pushed around without taking penalties." NHL Draft Central ranked him 5 out of 5 for speed, shooting, stickhandling. 4/5 for passing and hockey IQ, 3/5 competitiveness and physicality, and 2/5 for defense. But I agree with you on the BCHL thing for sure.

What am I right about again? And who else was I talking to? I've been battling it out with KRSmith for sure, but he's the only one. And so far he's been man enough to take it as well as he dishes it...which is why he's fun to talk to. Didn't realize you were so delicate. My bad. Feel free to ignore me though if my posts give you the vapors.

Riley Sheahan heading to Florida, where all hockey careers go to die...Florida. Good luck in retirement Riley.

I've read about as much as a person can on the top 10ish draft picks and I've seen that suggested about Hughes and Cozens, but not the rest of the pack (Dach, Zegras, Turcotte, Krebs, and Newhook). Hence why I've never been all that excited about Hughes to begin with and why I've cooled a bit on Cozens. At the end of the day I'd expect most of those guys to end up down the middle.

Not bad for a guy you said won't be more than a 3rd pairing guy just a few days ago.

Like I said, I believe in drafting for need all else being equal (or mostly equal) in terms of talent. I was fine with us drafting Zadina last year because otherwise we were going to take Evan Bouchard, and I think there was a pretty big difference in terms of talent between them. And this is despite the fact that we needed a defenseman more than we needed the winger. I also have a few issues with your roster above. It's probably too early to tell how good Zadina and Veleno are going to be. Same with Cholowski and Hronek. Also AA is pretty bad at playing center, and he's super good on the wing so I probably would not slot him in as a 2C. He's played almost exclusively on the wings this year and is on pace to score 30 goals. Mantha will probably score 20. Bertuzzi as well. Most teams, even elite ones, don't get a ton more scoring than that out of their top six wingers. Take the Caps last season, everybody knows about how awesome Ovechkin was, but most forget that Tom Wilson (14 goals last season) was the other top line winger. Their 2nd line wingers? Oshie (18 goals) and Vrana (13 goals). 3rd line wingers? Smith Pely (7 goals), Burakovsky (13 goals). Point is, you can win without insane production from your top six wingers. But there's the thing, their top two centers scored 83 and 71 points respectively. They never won s*** with just one elite center (Backstrom) and an elite winger (Ovechkin). Their top scorer in the playoffs was Kuznetsov, not Ovechkin. Keep going back, Pittsburgh won all their Cups without ANY elite wingers. Los Angeles too (unless you count old Gaborik). Boston, ditto. Only Chicago won with poor center depth and high end talent on the wings (Kane, Hossa, Sharp). As an aside, this is why I maintain that Joel Quenneville is the league's best coach. If/when Tampa wins the Cup this season it will be the same song second verse. Stamkos and Kucherov couldn't get it done alone, and their team has gone to new heights with the ascension of Brayden Point. Same with Toronto.

I'm CRAZY, didn't you know? #BellLetsTalk

I don't put a lot of stock into BPA, or tiers, or ranking, or anything like that because they're so often misleading or flat out get it wrong. The only thing I think a GM should consider with each pick is which player, or combination of players if you trade back, is best able to make you a Cup contender. Which means a few things: First, I'm interested in how good a player is going to BECOME, not how good they currently are. I'm always a little confused when people say Player X is the best prospect as if there's some prospect championship that GMs care about. Second, in general teams with a bunch of really good players are better than teams with one or two elite players. Steve Yzerman has more Cups than Mario Lemieux despite the fact that he's a worse player. Likewise, during his 20 year career more Cups were won without Nick Lidstrom than with him. Similarly, Wayne Gretzky never won again after leaving Edmonton. Why? Because having the best player doesn't mean as much as people think. Finally, the idea of "best" is a moving target anyway. Especially in 17 year olds. Elias Pettersson and Miro Hieskanen are better players than Nolan Patrick and Nico Hischier despite the fact that NOBODY said they were "better" in their draft years. Brady Tkachuk is currently out performing Filip Zadina, and NOBODY had him ranked as the better player pre-draft. Why? Because nobody has a clue what they mean by "best". Does best mean "better stats", or "most physically developed", or "most skilled", or "greatest potential". Nobody knows. So when people say Player X is "better" than Player Y, I'm always a little lost trying to figure out what criteria they're using. If I were a GM, or head of scouting, I'd probably use some type of matrix to determine which players to target. Cross analyze players over a number of variables, tally their ratings, and then target them. So, for instance, centers and defensemen are worth more than wingers, playing well in a men's league is worth more than playing well in a junior league, speed is worth more than slowness, skill is worth more than physical traits (up to a point), etc. etc. etc. Give every player a rating over every variable and then figure out who is "best". Edit: Quickly, two other things that I think are HUGE when drafting are A) How robotically committed to being a pro is this kid? Does he really have what it takes to eat right, work out, etc. etc. etc. every day for the next 10-20 years, and B) tendencies in his decision making. I'd want to scout him enough to see HOW he processes different game scenarios is real time and look for tendencies which lead to success.

Didn't you insinuate that I had mental illness with the Bell hashtag to begin with? That was pretty adult of you. Don't dish it if you can't take it. You got personal and I responded.

I only talk down to people whose opinions are absurd and are full of inconsistencies and logical fallacies. If you care about BPA, then you shouldn't want Cozens because most people don't think he's the BPA after Hughes and Kakko. And if you DO want Cozens, then you don't value BPA. Also, if you care about what "experts" think...and you've said you do many times, then you should probably reconsider your positions when the experts disagree with you, which they do in this case. Otherwise, and this seems to be increasingly likely, you're just making things up to validate your preconceived ideas about players you'd like to see us draft, and then dressing those ideas up in phony logic so that you don't seem arbitrary. #BellLetsTalk...about how nothing you say about hockey makes any sense at all. Also, and this has been driving me crazy for years, you use the word "seen" wrong. I SAW the Red Wings play in Detroit once. Not, I SEEN the Red Wings play in Detroit once.

Your leaps of logic are staggering. Nobody is saying ALL of Mantha, Zadina, Bertuzzi, and AA need to exceed expectations in order to have top line wingers. Only two of them do. And secondly, AA is on pace for 30 goals, Mantha and Bertuzzi are both on pace for 20...in the NHL. So I'd say they've pretty clearly already established that they can produce at top line levels. So really only Zadina needs to develop accordingly in order for us to have top end wingers for our top two lines. Secondly, of the list you provided only a couple of those guys are definitely the best players on their teams. Ratanen is probably not better than MacKinnon. Pastrnak is probably not better than Bergeron or Marchand. Marner is probably not better than Matthews or Tavares. I'll give you the rest. But here's the thing, only two of those guys have won a Cup. Why? Because it's probably not good if the best players on your team are wingers. Duh.

Here's the other thing, you're completely making this stuff up as you go anyway. You've already said that you want BPA right? Well Bob McKenzie and NHL central scouting have ranked Kirby Dach ahead of Cozens. So if you really believe the b.s. you spout you SHOULD prefer we draft Dach right? I mean, he's clearly the BPA between the two according to some fairly credible sources. Only Pronman (so far) has Cozens ahead of Dach in mid-season rankings. The Draft Analyst website has Zegras and Turcotte, both centers, ahead of Cozens AND Dach. So why do you want a winger so bad if you think BPA is the way to go?

Are we just naming good players now? I'll stack McDavid, Crosby, Matthews, Stamkos, Seguin, Kopitar, Malkin, McKinnon, Barkov, and Eichel up against that list any day. Nobody is saying wingers can't score. That's their whole f*cking job. I'm saying centers are more important to a team's success for the reasons I listed above. Also, suggesting that Mitch Marner is the best player on the Leafs because he's leading the team in points for half a season is the silliest, most you, thing imaginable. If Nylander has the team lead in points for half of next season will he be their best player? Or will it depend on whatever argument you're trying to make at the time.

Wait, you're taking the model as gospel as it pertains to our wingers but then conveniently ignore it when it come to Veleno? That's pretty selective. If you're willing to "believe" Veleno will become a 2C then why not "believe" Zadina will be a top line winger? Or Mantha for that matter. You've been telling us for 2 years how Mantha can be elite with the right linemates, the right opportunity, blah, blah, blah but now suddenly he doesn't have that upside because it contradicts something else you said? Lame. It's funny how you "believe" different things about different players at different times when it's convenient for your argument. I remember when you "believed" Brendan Smith was a "dynamic offensive defenseman". I remember when you "believed" Jurco was just getting a raw deal from the coaches.

Opinions can be dumb. Facts can't. You fall back on "opinion" all the time as if that's a trump card. Frequently opinions are stupid. Or misinformed. Or are the result of faulty reasoning. So the idea that subjectivity is somehow cover for concluding stupid sh*t is itself faulty thinking. Now, onto the second part. Our top six winger options going forward are Mantha, AA, Zadina, Bert, and Rasmussen. Maybe Berggren or Svech as well, but that's probably a stretch at this point. Our top six centers right now are Larkin and maybe Veleno. If Veleno turns out to be as good as Larkin, and that's a big if, we might be ok at center. But that's asking a lot out of a 30th overall pick who's had problems consistently scoring in the CHL's highest scoring league. You're obsessed with handedness. Let's just say it's SUPER important to have a right handed shooter (aside from Vanek, Glendening, Frk, Green, Jensen, Hronek, Saarijarvi) then isn't it equally possible to draft...I dunno...a right shot center? When you bemoan the lack of right-shot players, it seems like what you're really complaining about is that we don't have ELITE right shot players. And I'd agree, we need more elite players. And if you look around the league, most of your elite, game changing, forwards are centers. Which is my whole f*cking point. Why are centers so important you might ask? Here's why. They touch the puck more often than wingers. So if they're bad it's glaring, and if they're good its an advantage. They also take draws. They also play down the middle, so there are twice as many options (and therefore things to consider) during transition. Centers have to score their own goals, as well as set up their shooters (in general). This is why wingers generally have fewer assists than centers, because the center is doing all the work to create the winger's scoring chance. Wingers also have fewer things to do in the offensive zone because they work off the wall so all their effort is going in one direction as opposed to two, centers have to read the ice in two directions and pick the developing play appropriately. Centers also have more defensive responsibility than wingers in basically every single pro system. Which is why the Selke for best defensive forward typically goes to an elite center and almost never a winger. If you'd rather have an elite winger than an elite center, which is like...totally your opinion bro...then you care more about being right than thinking intelligently.