kipwinger

Craig Coxe to be exact.

I give Holland a "B" for the deadline. In my opinion he should have been trying to do three things. In no particular order those things were: 1) Move UFAs 2) Get rid of bad contracts 3) Acquire high draft picks for the rebuild He did one of those things. As usual I thought he was fairly conservative, but that's par for the course. Hopefully he can use these extra third rounders to "sweeten the deal" in the offseason and get people to trade for some of our worse contracts. He's got a little currency now, I'm interested to see what he can do with it. And do something with it he must, because he (and everybody else) knows you can't win with a core of mediocre, overpriced, role players, and a bunch of 3rd round picks.

Well as overrated as I think Babcock is, and he is pretty overrated, I didn't vote for Babs. I voted for hockey fights. Obviously. Only in hockey would fans, organizations, scouts, and the media fetishize a PENALTY. Could you imagine if football players developed a "code" and backslapped each other for pass interference, spearing, or horsecollaring because it "kept guys honest"? It's completely idiotic. I did like your list though, except Eichel really isn't too overrated. Nobody talks about him anymore and he's still pretty good. I would add "grit", "veteran presence", and "crease-clearing defensemen" to the list though.

Like I said, Panik was waived by one of the league's worst teams and he IS playing up there. Chicago has a good core and a great coach, if Jurco can't make it there he can't make it anywhere. But I don't think, in his case, that past performance means much. It's not like the Red Wings have been great at asset management the last few years. We'll see how he performs, but I won't be a bit surprised if he's much better in Chicago than he was here. We currently seem to have no idea how to maximize guys' abilities in Detroit anymore.

It wasn't too long ago that Panik was a waiver pick up. Now he's on the top line of one of the league's premier teams. I wouldn't guarantee that Jurco is restricted to only 4th line duties.

I'd consider it for Fowler or Hamilton, not Trouba. He's not especially good offensively for a "top pair" guy and he already thinks he's a superstar so you know you're going to have to pay him more than he's worth later. He reminds me of another "top pair" guy named Jay Bouwmeester, who was mediocre offensively, got paid like a elite defenseman, and then never improved. Except that Trouba has never topped 30 points in any NHL season. I'd pass and keep my pick. Try to move Nyquist and/or Dekeyser for defensive help.

Nope, March 1st.

My trade deadline strategy is pretty simple. 1. Trade Dekeyser (for no less than a 1st or part of a package). 2. Trade Nyquist (for no less thana 1st or part of a package). 2. Trade Vanek if you get a 1st, otherwise don't and let him continue to mentor Mantha. 3. Trade Ott, Miller, Ericsson, if anybody wants them. If not, waive the forwards. 4. Play remainder of the season with the expressed intent of giving kids developmental opportunities AT THE POSITIONS WE NEED THEM TO PLAY IN. 5. Reassess in the offseason. Z-Neilsen-Mantha Tatar-AA-Vanek Jurco/Frk-Larkin-Abby Glen-Helm-Callahan Jurco/Frk Smith-Green Ouellet-Jensen Kronwall/Ericsson-Sproul

If we aren't going to take a center in the draft (which we should), then keep your pick and look at Tomothy Liljegren. He's an offensive dynamo, and Trouba is overrated.

I guess Koivu and Granlund are theirs, but otherwise it seems like they've largely bought their team. Which flies in the face of the "must build from within" narrative.

The Wild are an interesting team. They signed Parise, Suter, Pominville, Stewart, and Spurgeon. They traded for Staal, Coyle, Dubnyk, and Neiderreiter. So they have any homegrown talent?

He's only -1, so I'm guessing you're exaggerating.

Didn't see the AA goal, what it a beauty?

Sure would be nice to have a defenseman with an awesome slapshot for these late game offensive zone faceoffs. But where would we find a guy like that?

This is weird. I'm not proud to say this, but a couple of games ago I watched Ericsson throw the puck up the sideboards, blind, and turn it over for about the 3,000,000th time and I thought to myself, "why doesn't HE ever get hurt?". And then he did. It was purely out of frustration at having to watch him needlessly throw the puck away over and over and over. Now, I'm not saying I am or am not happy about this. But I am saying that I've probably got superpowers.

I legitimately thought that without Roy these guys would be really good this season, predicted they'd make the conference finals (yikes!) in the bold predictions thread. That one is smarting right about now.

The point is that we had a better powerplay with the same, or worse, personnel. Which implies that it's the system/coaching that's the issue. It's not like we're mentioning it for kicks. It seems to suggest that our PP COULD be good with who we have now. You know, critical thinking, drawing reasonable conclusions from the evidence available, etc.

Literally every player has gotten worse under Blashill. Sheahan is just an easy target. When your powerplay goes from 2nd in the league to the bottom, and all your players offensive numbers decrease dramatically, it's probably a systemic issue. Sheahan's definitely not playing well, but the level of scapegoating around here is pretty intense.

It always makes me laugh when I see how much grown adults hate Justin Bieber. Like people genuinely loathe a 22 year old kid for basically no reason at all. Sure he's douchey, but so is basically every celebrity. Fair play to Bieber for getting out there and trying. Kid's a hockey fan, clearly. It's maybe the only thing that all of us have in common with someone like him and people DESPISE him for it. I genuinely hope I don't end up being some miserable, 50 year old cynic, sitting around hating on kids one day. It's also reassuring to see that Chris Pronger hasn't changed as a result of his injuries. Despite all adversity he's still willing to run much smaller players into the boards from behind. Kudos Pronger, still a class act.

"Never wants to leave" is a stretch, but he just said this weekend that he and his family love being in Long Island. Then again, everyone says that so we'll see.

What's the measure for "leadership"? Lol.

I did. Don't mind admitting that Blashill wasn't the answer, and that I was wrong about that. But I don't think Babs was right for the team any longer either. All of the s*** people get pissed at Blashill for (constant line juggling, over reliance on mediocre veterans, conservative systems, etc.) Babcock did too. He just got more out of the players while doing it. The problem wasn't getting rid of Babcock, the problem (admittedly in hindsight) was that they got a less good version of Babcock to replace him with. Both guys are completely mismatched for the personnel this team has. Also, the notion that Babcock is the "most dominant coach in the league" is absurd. Joel Quenneville is second all time in wins and has 3 Stanley Cups. When it comes to winning NHL hockey games, and Championships, no active coach is as successful as Quenneville. Period.

Time to address this baffling son of a *****. Our zone entries are awful, we don't shoot nearly enough, and it takes us forever to get guys set up in position so the defense is never forced into the box. Whatever happened to the 1-3-1 powerplay that Jim Hiller ran a couple years ago in Detroit with such success? Whatever happened to using Nyquist and Tatar in the middle where they had so much PP success? It's like our coaches haven't ever thought "didn't we used to do this well? Maybe we should try that again". Let's talk all things powerplay. Here are my ideal powerplay setups. Go. Abby Vanek-Nyquist-Zetterberg/AA Green Mantha Sproul-Tatar-Neilsen/Larkin Jensen/Smith

How long do I think it would take to get used to a 3-1-3 powerplay? I dunno. A long time lol. I mean, you don't really play with 7 guys on the ice too often.

That's not what I'm saying at all. Sheahan HAS been practicing all season long. As an alternate to the net front guys on both units. Teams don't only teach PP and PK systems to the guys on the units. They teach alternates as well. And it's no problem plugging them in if there's an injury because all the guys have been practicing the EXACT SAME system. Let's say AA is the net front on 1-3-1 PP (as you indicated above), and Abby and Vanek are the net fronts on the 2-1-2 unit (as you indicated), and Sheahan is the alternate (which is feasible). And now there's an injury to AA. Neither of Abby or Helm can take his spot because they've been playing in a totally different system with totally different responsibilities, passing and shooting lanes, screening areas, rebound areas, etc. So Sheahan has to take AA's spot. But since it's just as likely that Abby or Vanek get injured as AA does, Sheahan has to learn how to plug into their pp system as well. Whereas if both units run the same system ALL your possible net front guys (AA, Abby, Vanek, Sheahan in your examples) learn the EXACT same system. So there's no issue if there's an injury. Now, apply that example to every other position on the ice. A point man on a 1-3-1 has very different responsibilities than on a 2-1-2. Same for the winger on the halfboards. Different shooting lanes, different passing options, different open areas on the ice, different strategies for moving the puck. Your idea requires (at least) some guys to learn both sytems, and ensures that any work you put into getting good at one system won't translate to the other because you wouldn't be doing the same things.