kipwinger

The Four Nations tourney was a disaster for teams, despite how obviously successful it was for the league. The NHL asked these guys to play in playoff caliber games in the middle of the season. Guys get absolutely f*cked up in the playoffs every year, specifically because the games are so intense and the league thought it was a good idea to do that IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEASON! Charlie McAvoy was injured for the rest of the year. Matthew Tkachuk was injured for the remainder of the regular season. Larkin and Raymond experienced obvious drop-offs afterward; maybe due to the intensity of the games, maybe due to injuries sustained, maybe due to the fact that they were asked to play in extremely high profile games right before making a playoff push. In any case, they weren't the same players after the tourney as they were during or before it. But what killed our season was the back-to-back against Columbus. We were sitting in a Wild Card spot with points in hand against Ottawa. If we'd won those games (or even one of them) we'd have been like six points up with a game in hand. Instead we walked away with nothing AND got absolutely spanked. It was deflating and we never recovered. I also think the lack of moves at the trade deadline killed us again. I seriously don't think SY pays enough attention to the mental/emotional state of his players. You can't ask guys like Seider and Larkin (or the goalies) to get absolutely mauled all season long and then do nothing to help them down the stretch. It kills them, year after year. Imagine busting your ass every night (and getting the hell beat out of you too!), all while laboring under the hope that maybe your GM will get you some help at the deadline. And then nothing happens...again...year after year. You absolutely CANNOT compete in the modern NHL with the defense we just iced for a whole season. SY says the team HAS to be better defensively and then moves on from Walman, Maatta, and Gostisbehere while icing a roster with Holl, Peter, and Gustafsson. HOW??? Like, HOW was that going to make us better defensively? There were many critical moments during the season when a variety of Red Wings, from management to the coach to the players, had opportunities to step up and make something happen. Instead we got a HUGE dropoff from our best players after the 4 Nations, back to back losses to Columbus, a humiliating final game against Montreal, Craig Smith at the trade deadline, and Holl/Petry/Motte playing big roles on a historically bad PK.

Here's where I'm at with the season: I understand that for good or ill, SY is putting all his chips behind the kids he drafted. We shouldn't expect outside help until THOSE kids put this team into the playoffs. THEN he'll make the kinds of deals we all wish he'd make. Until then he's not buying and he's not selling. So what does that mean? It means that Larkin should continue to see hard defensive matchups AND the best defensive forwards the opposition can throw at him. There may come a time when Kasper or Danielson will eat some of those tougher minutes and Larkin gets freed up to play offense...but we aren't there yet. Until then he HAS to perform better than he did in the second half of this season. I get that he's worn completely out (because he's the only quality center we have) but he can't disappear like this anymore. He's got at least one more year of getting worked night in and night out before he gets those easier minutes. He better text Mark Scheiffle and see what the secret is. Speaking of Kasper, it should be obvious to guys like him, Edvinsson, and Berggren that there are spots available for the taking on this team. Kane is probably gone, so we're going to need playmaking off the wing. Berggren better have the best offseason of his life because the ice time is there. Likewise, it should be obvious to Marco that neither Compher nor Copp are obviously higher in the depth chart than he is. That 2C spot is his if he can take it. Same for Edvinsson on the 2nd powerplay unit. His even strength scoring and defense are already good, here's a chance for him to go from a 40ish point defenseman to a 60ish point defenseman. Better step up. Speaking of stepping up: Seider and Raymond need to take over at their positions. They're still riding high of their rookie seasons and that is ancient history. If Lucas wants to be a top young winger in the NHL he needs to start taking games over with regularity AND he can't disappear when games matter (down the stretch this season AND last). Same with Seider. You wanna be talked about in the same breath as the Dahlins, Heiskanens, Hughes, and Makars? Make a difference every single night. Right now is when he determines whether he's a good defenseman or a great one, but he was pretty absent lately too. I get that he gets tough matchups. I get that he defends well. But to be elite he needs to be on the score sheet most nights, and he needs a good portion of those points to come at even strength. Let's see what kind of a player he is. Outside of that I won't waste too much breathe. We all know who's disposable, we all know who's coming, we all know what we're getting from the mid level guys. We also all know that we need help on defense from outside the organization (SY???). But none of that really matters if Lucas and Seider don't take another step and become elite. Or if Marco doesn't take over as a hard minutes 2C (think Kesler or O'Reilly). Or if Edvinsson doesn't become a two-way force in his own right. Or if Larkin doesn't embrace the suck for a while longer because he believes in the payoff. Thankfully I don't think those things are especially unrealistic given what we've seen from each of those players up to this point.

I didnt see his original post so take this with all appropriate caveats… I dont think there is any bias. The Red Wings were one of the leagues best and most profitable businesses for 25 years. The league also has profit sharing (in the form of “hockey related revenue”). Why would the league actively collude to undermine a profitable team with the full understanding that it would take money away from every other team too? Which owner or GM would hatch that plot? Instead they’ve undergone expansion (Vegas, Seattle) lately with the expressed goal of increasing hockey related revenue. The league wants a bigger pie to split up between the owners. Why would they then turn around and decrease the size of it by deliberately ruining a top earning team on purpose? It doesn’t make any sense. None of which is to say that the Wings haven’t had things to gripe about. They do. But there’s no conspiracy here because conspirators don’t typically hatch plots that ultimately only cost themselves millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Apparently he’s been really good in the playoffs in a limited role. I think he’s going to be a really solid power forward for us. A lot of fans don’t realize that underage players, even really great ones, don’t play a lot of minutes in the SHL. Sandin Pellikka gets 2nd pair minutes. MBN is on the fourth line. Neither Kasper nor Raymond were ever top line players in the SHL. Neither was Edvinsson. Euro leagues heavily favor veteran players because of the club system.

Id second this. Seems like Walman 2.0 in terms of the on-ice product. I love depth defensemen with really good even strength scoring. Those are guys who are winning the puck.

Keep an eye on Max Plante. He’s been awesome in the NCAA. Scoring in the same company as some pretty highly respected (and older) prospects from recent drafts. He and Finnie are both studs and our center depth outside of Larkin is going to be insane for the next few years. Danielson, Kasper, Plante, Finnie. This should get you hard now that we’ve all seen how good Marco has been in a big NHL role.

Young guys are stepping up for the Wings here. Maybe this is their moment to take over the team. Marco in particular has been excellent. Reminds me of Kesler or O’Reilly. Super heads up player with tons of hustle. He’s been a godsend this season (after the coaching change). I don’t know if SY did it for this reason or not, but by not drastically changing this team he’s placed a lot of faith in HIS draft picks and they’re delivering at a pretty young age.

“Hey Steve, in light of the fact that you gave Walman and Maatta away for nothing, how should fans make sense of the team’s defensive struggles and was this what you envisioned when you gave away useful players”.

You mean 2nd line center Joe Veleno? lol

This is a winnable game. Good to see the kids rising to the occasion.

I was at Sunday’s Griffins game. Here are my thoughts. Wallinder is blah and Buium was better every time he touched the puck. Buium’s skating looked like an asset to me. Danielson needs to shoot more. That’s it. Once he learns to be “the man” he’s going to be a stud. Lombardi is the best offensive player on the team and is dangerous every time he has the puck. He looks taller too. But he needs to hit the weights or he’ll never make it in the NHL.

I don’t know how that aspect of it works.

Kasper hasn’t really been sent down. It’s just a paper transaction. They happen behind the scenes all season long.

He’d be a nice upgrade for Tarasenko on the 2nd line.

I see that the Kraken have made Jared McCann available. He’s under contract for another year at 5 million. I’d be all over this if I was SY.

Since McClellan took over we have beaten a bunch of the top teams in the league. I doubt we keep ripping off 7 game win streaks but I think staying well above .500 the rest of the way isn’t unrealistic for this team. We are a good squad.

You could see they were ready for vacation after that road trip. We outplayed Tampa but we were lackadaisical with the puck and the turnovers killed us.

I don’t really know. With the cap set to go WAY up and all our good players locked in a low cost deals we could basically spend as much as we wanted so long as it didn’t hamstring us long term. I’d imagine he’ll be looking in the 12-13 million range. Steep price to pay but we could afford it and he’s an elite talent that would still be good for most of the deal. Him, Larkin, Ray, Mo, Simon, and Cossa/Augustine is a really good core group to contend with going forward. tl;dr I think he’ll sign somewhere for 7 years x 12-13 million…

Watch

I’m calling it now. We will more or less stand pat at the deadline (maybe some minor moves) and then sign Rantanen in the offseason.

What do you like about him and his game?

This is the very definition of a trap game. Second half of a back to back, third game of the Western swing. We NEED these points. Gut check time for the boys! Also, let’s see how the Canucks look now that they traded the only player on their team who isn’t a big puss.

That kid is about to be so pumped to learn about nitrous oxide lol

Yep, that was a gutsy win. I love that this team is figuring out ways to get points. We are rolling right now.

Well hopefully the site will get a little busier now that we are good again. That was a huge win for the boys.