kipwinger

When it comes to any discussion of Franson, I feel like it's important to remember that most analysis of him is in comparison to other defensemen in his salary range. He's definitely not a bad defender. He's probably better than 60% of all other defensemen out there. He's clearly a top four defender, and among those he's shown that he can score better than most. But he's also worse defensively, and his skating isn't great. But again, that's in comparison to other top four guys looking for 5+ million. I think sometimes we focus so much on these guys' positive and negative attributes that we end up getting tunnel vision and fail to think about them in context. Cody Franson is a pretty good defenseman. He's not Brendan Smith or Jacub Kindl. He's like the inverse of Kyle Quincey. A top four guy who's a little worse than average defensively, and a little better than average offensively. His problem is that he thinks 30+ points per season puts him into Matt Niskanen salary range. Which it doesn't, given his limitations.

Somewhere Jeff Carter is either A) weeping quietly to himself, or B) going through hell and high water to bust his pal out of the clink. Get it? They're best buds.

Not wanting to play for Detroit isn't, by itself, a reason for me to dislike a player. Obviously I'd like all the players I really like to play for my favorite team, but that's not realistic. I didn't like Kesler when he was a Canuck because that entire team was pretty despicable with their whiney, divey, cheap brand of play. But that really was the culture they promoted up there. Since that time though, I've had the opportunity to watch a lot of Kesler and the guy is a committed, two way, workhorse. Very few guys bust their ass on the ice like he does. He was the Ducks best player in the playoffs this year, playing very solidly against Toews, and generally being the on ice leader that neither Getzlaf or Perry ever will be. He was also a beast in the 2010 Olympics for team USA. By all accounts he's a complete dickhead, and almost every other player hates his guts. But I've never minded guys like that. They usually rise to the occasion. Bob Kaser of the Griffins has compared AA to Kesler on a number of occasions based on his skillset and mentality. I truly hope he's accurate.

Kesler.

Slava Fetisov, former Red Wing defenseman and star of the wildly popular documentary "Red Army", wants Russian law to ban Russian hockey players from coming to the U.S. before their 28th birthday. You'll recall Fetisov's story. He bucked Soviet law preventing him from coming to the U.S. to play hockey, by refusing to play for their national team. In the documentary he explained how he wanted to be free to make his own decisions, make his own money, and determine his own future, without being coerced by federal authorities. And now he's a federal authority. And he's trying to restrict young players from having those very same liberties. Here's a thought Slava. Rather than using a draconian legal system to force people to stay against their will, how's about you work toward reforming said legal system, and equally restrictive and authoritarian economic policies, so that people will WANT to stay in your s***ty country. You are, after all, a Senator. What a dick. http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/12931779/slava-fetisov-wants-ban-young-russians-going-nhl

The odds of beating goalies clean, for ALL players, is higher on the powerplay than it is at even strength. Because there are fewer defenders and better shooting lanes. You stated that it's harder for other people to beat a goalie clean than Nyquist because he has more PP goals. Which is faulty evidence. All that proves is that he's a better powerplay scorer. But all players, including Nyquist, have a higher probably of scoring a clean goal on the PP than they do at even strength.

I said it's not AS hard to beat a goalie clean on a powerplay, which is empirically true. Nice try.

Datsyuk wasn't even in the lineup for much of November. He missed games on November 7th, 9th, 18th, 20th, 22nd, and 24th. Tatar had 7 goals and 4 assists in November alone. 4 goals and 2 assists came in games Datsyuk didn't play in. In the entire month of November Datsyuk only assisted on 1 of Tatar's goals. So your attempts to make it seem like Datsyuk was "gifting" him points is a bit overstated, regardless of when they started playing together.

Gifted? He started the season on the third line. Roughly half his goals were set up by Sheahan. The rhyme and reason was that he was leading our team in goals despite being given significantly less icetime. So they gave him more.

Lol. You're arguing that its harder to score on the power play? Cute. Its cool though, think what you want. I like the guy who played his way on to the top line and led the team in goals and was among the league leaders in puck possession. You like the guy who is a whiz on the power play and lost his spot in the top six to Erik Cole (until his injury).

Its not as hard to beat the goalie clean on a power play.

Michael Del Zotto harasses entire Las Vegas fan base on twitter.

What do you mean "TOO MANY HOOKERS"?

Hey look, a pony!

Discourse shmishcourse. I ain't come here to join a debate team. I came here to talk hockey. Don't need a Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Carnegie Mellon to do that. Just need a coupla cold Labatt Blues, the ol' eyeball test, and some homespun cliches. Just as Don Cherry intended.

So, if you could only draft one (Goose vs. Mexican Water Bug), which would you choose? I'd go outside the box and pick a Mule. Better than bugs and/or water fowl.

For me it depends on the writer. J.J. is good. Kyle, on the other hand, is snarky and cynical. I can't stand his pieces. He's a archetype of those obnoxious Red Wings fans who are simultaneously elitists, homers, and victims, all at the same time.

Because what's true in the case of any two players must be true in the case of EVERY two players? Realgud thinking.

I genuinely thought this already happened. Why didn't this happen already Ryane?

I disagree. A LOT of folks (fans, media, management, etc.) were all but penciling Mantha into a full time spot on the Wings last year. A spot on Pav's wing was almost his to lose in the minds of many. NOBODY is talking about Larkin making the team out of training camp. Nobody is kicking around the idea of giving him Nyquist and Abby and seeing how things go. Hopefully because most folks learned their lesson from a year ago. People should be excited about Larkin, he's a good prospect. But I'd wait until he's played more than a handful of games in the AHL before I go too crazy. As we saw last year, what you did after 50 games in the AHL is far more telling that what you did after 150 in lower leagues. I followed him back then, but didn't really think he would be that great. Back then he was fast and small and doing reasonably well in Juniors (something I don't really put much stock in). I attributed his success to being really quick in a noncompetitive league. Only after he grew a few inches, gained some weight, and tore up the AHL as a rookie did I start thinking he had some real potential on our hands. I absolutely did not see it coming.

True. And I would encourage those who don't have an opinion on the matter to refrain from opining. Which is a heck of a lot more honest than endlessly repeating how great Mantha is, until he isn't, and then going on a on about how great Larkin will be. If, heaven forbid, he's not that great in the AHL you can bet your ass this same poll will come up a year from now and Svechnikov will be the most common pick. But that doesn't really say much does it?

I picked him, even when we were including first rounders. So it's clear where I stand. But if we exclude him then there are some really interesting names out there. Bertuzzi, Pulkkinen, Turgeon, Sproul, Mrazek, Holmstrom, Saarijarvi, etc.

I think that a lot of the success attributed to Howard AND Mrazek really belongs to Babcock's shot suppression system. I'm not saying that either guy wouldn't be good otherwise, but it's pretty clear that they didn't get challenged nearly as much as most goalies do. I think I'd wait to see how things pan out under Blashill before I start penciling in starting goalies. Might be that Howard stink worse than we thought, and Petr easily takes the job. Then again, maybe Mrazek falters under more shots every single night and the veteran is our saving grace. Who knows?

I'd venture to guess that most of the folks reflexively choosing Larkin this year are the same folks who would have reflexively chosen Mantha last year. A better question would be, "which non first rounder will have the best NHL career?". I think it requires a little more critical thinking.

AA