kipwinger

I think he'll be on the big club. No doubt about it. But I think Blashill will (stupidly) use him as a wing.

You're right. I don't remember exactly what year it was, but within recent memory Minnesota's prospect pool was ranked really high. I'll try to find a link. Edit: Another thing, a lot of this has to do with the Canadian hockey media protecting Canada's hockey relevance. If your team has a bunch of Canadian kids they know, then you must be good, because they know them. Surely no foreign kid that they've never heard of could be as talented as your cousin's neighbor's son. He's a known quantity.

Fans and commentators are increasingly mesmerized by draft rank and physical characteristics. Time and time again those things have been misleading. If you've got a bunch of first rounders you've got a "good prospect pool" and if you don't, or they were drafted later in the round, then you don't. But it's wholly misleading. Most of the "can't miss" first rounders go straight to the NHL and aren't considered "prospects" anyway. Anybody who remains in lower leagues are only marginally different than one another. You can't tell me that a guy ranked 8th in the draft is fundamentally better than a guy ranked 28th. Maybe they're at different points on their developmental trajectory, but their ceilings aren't much different. With respect to the 1st round of the draft, you're talking about the 30 best players in the world. What separates them is fairly minimal in all but the most extreme cases (McDavid, Matthews, etc.).

I'd be thrilled if Mantha turned out exactly like Franzen. Though I hope he'd learn to keep his head out of the way of traffic a little better than Johan.

Agreed. But I think our offense under performed last year anyway. Any improvement on the powerplay, rebound seasons from Nyquist and Tatar and Green and Kronwall, increased contributions from the guys you mentioned, and the additions of Vanek and Neilsen give me some optimism with regards to our offensive potential. I'm expecting a better offense this year. I agree that a better defense would likely improve the offense. No doubt about it. But I don't think either of Fowler or Trouba will contribute much. Shattenkirk likely would, but it would probably be a wash (at best) with what we'd lose in Nyquist (and potentially others). And there's always the likelihood that a guy like Shattenkirk scores a good deal less with us than he did with a much better offensive team in St. Louis. I'm not against a trade for a defenseman. I'm just against one right now. Why not go into the season with what we have, see how things look, and then look to deal (if needed) closer to the deadline if need be? I'm just a bit reluctant to part with one of our better offensive contributors for any of those three guys. While they're all good players, none of them are game changers, and it might just be that we need the goals scoring more.

I may be in the minority, but I don't see Mantha as (or want him to be) a "net front" guy. I think that would ruin him. He's got the skill, shot, and speed to be a power sniper type guy in the vein of Rick Nash, James Neal, or Blake Wheeler. Let guys like Abby bang and crash in front of the net. That takes almost no skill. I want Mantha to have more freedom than that. Similarly, I think that's one of the problems with Jurco. He's big, so everybody wants him to play a power game. But that's not his forte. He's more comparable to Nyquist or Tatar than he is to Abby. But they keep trying to make him be that guy and it's awkward for him because he's never played that way. Reminds me a little of how they used to want Filppula to "shoot more" so they put him on the wing. It was always going to be a bad fit for him. Imagine if someone had repeatedly beat into Marian Hossa, or Nash, or any number of other guys, that they needed to play "heavy" and crash the net, and look for shot tips and rebounds. They'd have been wasted.

Disregarding the incredibly unlikely scenario where we get two good defensemen, I'd still argue that even getting one is a bad idea right now. Adding any one of Shattenkirk, Trouba, or Fowler doesn't make our defense good. Better? Yes. But still middle of the road. But any trade to do so would require one of our better offensive pieces. That would likely make an offense which could well be "good" a lot more mediocre. And personally I'd rather have a good offense and a mediocre defense than be mediocre at both. We've got to figure out a way to be good at something lest we fall into the trap of being good at nothing. All in the name of "balance" which is a fairly overrated concept to begin with.

I've posted elsewhere that the usage for the pairings I've proposed would make all the difference in the world. I'd start the Smith-Marchenko pair in the defensive zone most often, for a few reasons. 1) They're the least capable offensive pair so there's no reason to waste offensive zone time on them. 2) Both have the ability to gain possession of the puck because both are big, strong, and aggressive. 3) Smith especially has shown he's good at advancing the puck after gaining possession and Marchenko also makes good outlet passes. They should be able to get possession and get the puck up ice. As an aside, I'd start Green and Dekeyser in the neutral zone and Kronwall-Sproul in the offensive zone. Green-Dekeyser are offensively competent AND can get back on defense while Kronwall-Sproul would be bad defensively but dangerous if started in the O-zone.

Agreed. Besides, it's not really that uncommon for a young guy to tail off at the end of the season. From January to March Larkin had 8 goals and 4 assists. For comparison's sake, Jack Eichel had 8 goals and 14 assists. Yet nobody would think it ludicrous to suggest Eichel be a top center. But again, whichever line you designate as 1st or 2nd doesn't really matter. Their usage will determine which line is the "top line" and in most cases the 1st and 2nd lines are interchangeable as far as ice time.

Yep. Who else do we have? I expect he'll be better in his second year than his first. But if it makes you feel better you could switch the top two lines considering it doesn't make a difference which order I list them in but only how much ice time they get. It's worth noting that Datsyuk was on our "2nd line" last year and still had top line minutes. You're getting WAY too caught up with designations. Z-Neilsen-Vanek Tatar-Larkin-Abby Nyquist-AA-Mantha/Sheahan Helm-Glendening-Mantha/Sheahan Better?

I'm really not so sure we need a "top defenseman". Would it be nice, sure. But I don't think that's a make or break factor heading into this season. I've said already that we've got to sort out the usage with the guys we've got, but if Blashill pulls his head out of his ass and gears his usage toward possession and offense then we could be dangerous. The other big question mark is whether or not Holland is willing to cut bait with veterans who can't hack it. In some ways I seriously doubt that part. I realize I keep posting lines. But humor me. There's a lot of offensive potential in something like this provided Blashill doesn't get too caught up in this "shot suppression" type game. This lineup would be adequate defensively, but they could score A LOT if things go right. Tatar-Larkin-Abby Z-Neilsen-Vanek Nyquist-AA-Mantha/Sheahan Helm-Glendening-Mantha/Sheahan Dekeyser-Green Smith-Marchenko Kronwall-Sproul Ericsson

Guys have a tendency to produce more offense under Laviolette than they would otherwise. His system is pretty wide open offensively. I wouldn't expect the same players to perform at the same level under a more defense oriented system.

Personally, I don't think that Holland should trade anything for a defenseman right now. MAYBE at the deadline. We have a ton of question marks surrounding our offense. We just lost our best offensive player, Zetterberg is diminishing, Tatar and Nyquist are good but not (so far) capable of carrying the offensive load, who knows how the young guys will look in their second season, Neilsen has never been an offensive force, and Vanek has serious question marks. I'd be really loathe to part with one of our better offensive players (Nyquist or Tatar) before we even see what we have. You trade one of them before the season starts and your offense sputters out the gate then you haven't done yourself any favors. I was all in favor of trading Nyquist PROVIDED we landed someone in FA who was pretty much guaranteed to replace or eclipse his offense (e.g. Okposo) but in lieu of that I'm not ready to send that offense out the door for a defenseman. I say wait and see. If our offense rebounds this season then maybe we have an extra asset to move. But that begs the question, if you have a really good offense then what reason do you have to trade anything for an "offensive defenseman"? I think, for the time being we should be looking at usage and how to get more out of what we have. I like this. Dekeyser-Green Smith-Markenko Kronwall-Sproul Ericsson Just make sure that you're using them appropriately. As in, start the pairs listed above in the neutral, defensive, and offensive zones respectively.

Soooo...Evander Kane anyone lol?

What are the parameters here? No Ott and Miller. That's easy. Tatar-Larkin-Abby Z-Neilsen-Vanek Nyquist-AA-Mantha Glendening-Helm-Sheahan Frk Jurco Dekeyser-Green Smith-Markenko Kronwall-Sproul Ericsson With this lineup we'd only have scrubs like Helm, Glendening, Abby, Sheahan, and Neilsen to kill penalties instead of Miller and Ott so we might be in real trouble lol.

Well you did read it wrong, but you're right that it is badly annotated. Glendening and Tatar and everybody else's icetime is being compared to NHL line averages to determine whether their TOI is similar to the average 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th liner. The 300+ and 500+ designations are only indicating that for the one graph they were showing all forwards who played 300+ minutes at 5 on 5, while the other shows all forward who played 500+ minutes in all situations. In this particular graph they adjust for zone starts as well (labeled there as "sheltered" vs "buried") to further contextualize the data. So for example, the graph shows that Luke Glendening gets more minutes than the average fourth liner, but many of those minutes are in the defensive zone. In any case his production (measured by shot generation for Detroit) is pretty bad. Conversely, Tatar gets sheltered third line minutes, but has the best shot generation on the team because of it. Tatar's numbers are impressive because while his icetime indicates that he's roughly in line with a third line player, he's generating more shots than our first and second line guys. His production per TOI is the best on the team. Glendening's is the opposite. He gets the ice time of a 3-4th line tweener, but he struggles.

More evidence that Tomas Tatar should NOT be traded. Dude's a stud.

D Datsyuk will get in because he's flashy. And people go ga ga for flashy players.

Yep, you're right. I read that wrong. I got that wrong in another thread as well. Well I stand corrected.

I don't know about that. He scored 90+ points twice. Exactly what Datsyuk did. Neither ever topped 100 pts. in a season. He won a Conn Smythe AND a Selke, so it's not like he was a non playoff performer or a one dimensional scorer. Datyuk was definitely flashier, but in terms of his on ice contributions I'm not sure he ever did anything substantially greater than Richards did.

Just to play devil's advocate, didn't you just say in another thread that Helm isn't the best 3rd line center in the league just because Babcock said so? Why are announcers' opinions of Datsyuk any different than Babcock's opinion of Helm?

You're splitting hairs. 1 Selke vs. 3. They were both great defenders during their hey day. You don't win even one Selke if you're not an elite defender.

If Datsyuk gets in so should Richards. Personally I'd say neither are HHOF worthy.

While I don't necessarily disagree with you regarding Jurco, I think you have to be careful with this argument. The counterfactual makes the argument less plausible. People only ever insinuate "stats don't matter that much" when they're talking about guys who aren't producing. I've never, ever, seen someone argue that stats don't matter that much when I guy is scoring a ton (which is after all the point of the game). Except maybe when it came to Franzen lol. If stats aren't the only, or even the predominant, way of evaluating a player's worth, then that argument would be just as true for players who produce a lot as those those who don't produce much at all. But nobody ever argues it that way. I think the jury is still out on Jurco. I think he has all the tools to be a good player. But it's very possible that his first 30 odd games were the exception and not the rule. Truth is, we don't know what kind of a player he is at this point.

You're right, I was wrong. I was reading about it last night and got it all wrong. Obviously it makes a lot more sense as you've laid it out.