kipwinger

Help us do what? Hit people? It would be a help if he could score. Or defend. Or kill penalties. He doesn't do any of those things better than Miller does.

Only if they can skate. Otherwise it does hinder us. Slow hockey is losing hockey. There are plenty of big, physical, wingers who are fast. I'm all on board for those guys. But Lucic and Martin aren't them. That's all I'm saying.

Better at what? Hitting? Nobody. We've got nobody who hits as good as Martin. But pretty much all of our bottom end guys are better players than Martin. Did you know that Martin doesn't kill penalties? Really, he's supposed to be the "ideal" bottom end winger and he doesn't even kill penalties for his own team. .02 short handed minutes per game for Martin this year. You know who does? Clutterbuck. And he scores WAY more than Martin too. If everybody were going nuts for a guy like Clutterbuck I'd agree with them. But not Martin. He's not even the best fourth line winger on his own team. Say what you want about Miller (and I don't even want the guy on the team) but at least he does one thing reasonably well that helps teams win games. He kills penalties reliably. Martin does nothing but chase the puck around and hit guys. Whoopdie do! You know who else used to do that? Jordin Tootoo, and what a stud he was for the Red Wings.

I don't have a problem with big wingers who can skate. But that excludes guys like Lucic and to a lesser extent Backes and Ladd (who are only going to get slower as they age). None of them play with the tempo that we should be playing with to maximize our potential. Okposos can. And he's bigger and tougher than any of our current wingers (aside from Abby), so I'd be fine with him. Otherwise we're just negating our biggest asset. Team speed. The the only big winger on Pittsburgh's team (who actually played) was Fehr, and he's a fourth liner. The only big winger for Tampa (who actually plays) is Killorn, and he's 6'1, 200 lbs. Hardly a brute. Chicago? Ladd (after the trade) and Weise (after the trade). Before that? Hossa. Hardly a brute. Point is, people thinking that you need these giants to "add another dimension" are dramatically overvaluing that "added dimension". Big brutes are struggling in today's game. They can't keep up. As unpopular as it may be, I'd be thrilled with a couple of Franzen's. Guys who are big enough to hold the puck in the offensive zone, but who can skate and score.

Did anyone else notice that a smaller, more skilled, speedier team just demolished a bigger, tougher, grittier team in the Cup Finals? Like, embarrassed them. We already have a fast team. We need a little more skill in key positions and we are built to win. Going to the other extreme is silly. We finally have the personnel in place to play a type of game that we know can be successful (Pittsburgh, Tampa, Chicago) and we have people clamboring to get biggest and slower. Why? Cuz big is good apparently? Tell that to San Jose, and Anaheim, and Winnipeg, and Boston. Those giants are hearing it up eh?

2 year contract huh? So he will probably play one year, retire, and go play in Sweden then?

I think Miller is overrated. But I don't mind the signing. If a kid outplays him in camp, waive miller and nearly all of his contract can be stashed in the minors. If not, he's serviceable. No harm no foul on this one for me.

Agree with the above. Moving the contract is enough for me.

There are a few lower tier guys I like but whom I don't think have a place on our team. Dale Weise, Jason Demers, Radim Vrbata, and Kris Versteeg to name a few.

Anybody who thinks Buffalo is some desire able landing place for Stamkos has obviously never spent much time in Buffalo. Yikes.

Smith's usage doesn't diminish Fowler's talent one way or another. Also, over the course of his career Smith's best points per game averages have come when he's played less minutes, not more. So if you think he's going to bud into some offensive force with more minutes you're probably off base. He seems to do better offensively when he's playing more sheltered minutes not vice versa. I'm genuinely fine with Smith. I like where he's at and what he's doing. But there's a reason why the guy has consistently earned less ice time, and more sheltered minutes, from two different coaches. And it's not because he's more dangerous when he plays more. At his best I see Smith as an Oduya or a Stralman. A guy who's good in transition, physical, and reasonably good on special teams. But he's probably never going to be an offensive threat at the NHL level. He's 250 games into his NHL career and has never shown an offensive inclination thus far, regardless of how much or little he plays. And in today's NHL a guy who can do all that AND score 30-40 points will ALWAYS be more valuable.

No difference between Smith and Fowler? Lol. Talk to me when Smith averages more than 20 minutes a night or scores more than 20 points in a season. Until then, there's a pretty big difference between the two. Fowler, while not a superstar, has (to this point in their respective careers) out performed Smith pretty much across the board. No knock on Smith, he is what he is, but the only two defensemen on our team who have ever performed better than Fowler in any pro season are Green and Kronwall.

Teams draft best available. If that's a goalie then it's a goalie. You really only draft position of need if there's really no difference in quality between two or three players when you're drafting. Likely the reason they took the goalie is because he was obviously their highest rated player available at that particular point in the draft. I'd rather have too many good goalies, than a more evenly balanced prospect pool with worse players. Too many good players is an asset. While our trades didn't necessarily pan out, it's because we had too many good forwards and defense prospects that we were able to deal Jarnkrok, Janmark, and Backman without "mortgaging our future".

Agreed. I love Backes (and Ladd too). Always have. And I would have loved to have either about 3 years ago. But at this point, there are cheaper options for what they bring to the table. Both those guys are looking for long term deals, and will get far more money than they'll be worth toward the end of it. As I've said all along, the only guys I'd sign long term are Stamkos and Okposo given their ages.

I'm a big fan of our picks going the college hockey route. One thing that's true of college athletes across the board is the amount of time they have to dedicate to fitness. They have required gym times that are typically overseen by accomplished trainers and nutritionists. For a guy that's undersized, I think it's the best bet. Not that Canadian junior teams don't emphasize fitness, but I think all things being equal a player comes out of college hockey more physically mature than they do out of Canadian Juniors. Also, anybody else impressed with Tyler Wright's drafting? He's put together some very solid draft classes the last 3 years and you really don't hear too much about him otherwise. He's sort of below the radar within the organization, but I like what he's doing.

I know right. People around here ***** and moan for YEARS about how we never draft any tough, gritty, abrasive forwards. So we draft an 18 year old who's 6'2, 200+ lbs., leads his league in penalty minutes, and is big and tough. What do people do? ***** and moan.

I'm not sweating any of these picks. Over the last couple of years I've found myself saying "Who's Tyler Bertuzzi", "Who's Axel Holmstrom", "Who's Ville Saarijarvi"? Fast forward one year. They're all studs in their respective leagues. If nothing else, we draft really well.

Don't want Subban, I heard he was a turnover machine.

1. You measure possession using corsi and Fenwick, not giveaways and takeaways. And here's why... 2. Most really good possession players have lots of giveaways. Why? Because they have the puck a lot. Hard to turn the puck over when you're chasing it all over your own zone. Subban, Burns, Thornton, Karlsson, and Doughty led the league in giveaways this year. Are they bad possession players too? Obviously not.

A slow piece of s***. But who cares, speed doesn't matter in hockey anyway.

Brendan Smith IS one of the best possession defensemen in the NHL. He's just not particularly great at other things, like scoring or maintaining his zone coverage. I'm not sure what's so tough about this? You could be an overall bad player but still excel with regards to possession. Conversely, someone like Tyson Barrie is good at scoring, but bad at driving possession. You're conflating two things that aren't the same. Possession metrics don't indicate that you're a good offensive (or defensive) defenseman. They simply indicate that you're a good possession defenseman. Whether or not you value that trait is another story, but the numbers don't lie.

Also, you're completely misprepresenting my position. Which is as follows: My untrained eye misses lots of things throughout a hockey season. So I use empirical data to either validate or invalidate what I think I saw. Because data collection (unlike my drunken viewing of hockey games) is routine, standardized, non biased, and is performed by trained professionals I have a high degree of confidence in the results. In the case of Tatar, and possession stats, I'm especially confident in the data because possession metrics are based on shots. And shots are one of the easiest to collect and most universally accepted stats in hockey. Hope that clears it up for you.

The example you just gave isn't a tautology.

Your argument is tautological. You think the data is "inaccurate" because it doesn't comport with what you see, and you trust what you see because the data is supposedly inaccurate. Or, in other words, Tatar isn't a good possession player because I don't see it. And I dont see it because i dont believe possession stats. And round and round we go

All it means is that when he's on the ice the team directs more shots at the opposing net than they do if someone else is on the ice. In this respect the stats are quantifiably true. Maybe your perception is skewed. Either way I tend to put more faith in math than I do your eyeball test. But that's just me. What's more, when you break down his WOWY stats you see that every individual he plays with directs more shots on net than if he weren't playing with them. Its pretty iron clad.