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Here's why I subscribed to the Athletic. Prior to the existence of that website you were limited (with respect to free content) to the Detroit sports media (Mlive, Freep, Detroit News) and the blogs (Malik Report, Winging It in Motown). The first three were lazy. They came out with the same stories on the same days, all of it based on whatever was said in the post game press conferences or whatever big event was taking place. Three times a day with "Larkin gets his 100th" and so on. Alternatively you could read the blogs, but Malik is captain copy and paste and Winging it in Motown were snarky, new age, analytics are everything, types. They were famous for the "Brendan Smith is That Damn Good" article I've referenced from time to time. So The Athletic was an improvement (at first). Dedicated sports writers doing in-depth coverage of the team I like. I'd pay for that. And it started pretty good too. Craig Custance was the Red Wings writer and on his worst day he's about 2000% more competent than Ansar Khan or Helene St. James. I don't even mind Max Bultman now. His coverage of Detroit's prospects is really really good. But I have a few problems with the company overall. I've already said I hate all the non-sports stories (disguised as sports stories) that they run. But I also don't like how they all act like a big fraternity. They're all pals so when one guy comes out with a model that says Gostisbehere is better than Seider (because...analytics?) the other writers don't ever call bullsh*t. Likewise, if one guy (Scott Wheeler) says the Wings had a bad draft because they didn't take a tiny, flashy, winger (Gabe Perreault) nobody calls him out on it when that winger sucks and the dude they took turns into a stud. Finally, I really, REALLY, don't like how snarky they are when interacting with their readers. I KNOW the readers are obnoxious. I KNOW they're reactionary dipsh*ts who can't think their way out of a cardboard box. But as a company driven by subscriptions, it's inexcusable that you'd go on a podcast and basically say "my model says what it says and if fans don't agree they're dumb". Certain writers do it ALL THE TIME. It's just really really bad form.

Our best prospects are all centers, defensemen, and goalies. I genuinely can’t think of a better farm system in the NHL at the moment. Scott Wheeler if the Athletic is doing his annual prospect pool rankings. He will no doubt penalize Detroit for not have ten smallish, stickhandling, wingers in the system and we will no doubt be all the better for it. Every year he mocks some loser like Cole Perfetti or Matt Savoie to Detroit and then says we had a bad draft because we didn’t take the losers he liked.

You're probably right about the bolded. They were the best line tonight (and many nights). I'm just basing my comment on the lineup the Griffins post online.

That's their 2nd line. Their first line is centered by Czarnik and usually has L'Esperance (their top goal scorer) and Mazur.

Griffins won a fun one tonight 3-2 in the shootout. Kasper looked excellent, had an assist, but most notably was on the ice first for Grand Rapids in the 3on3 overtime. But the story of this one was Sebastian Cossa who stood tall in the shootout and blanked all three Rockford shooters before GR put the nail in it. Absolutely a stud performance by a guy that keeps looking better and better. He looked great and made saves on Rockford's three top offensive guys. None of them missed, Cossa stopped em.

I do too, I was probably being overzealous making the point that I'd be looking to move superfluous players if these trade returns stay high.

You don’t think the prices are higher than usual? Monahan just got traded for nearly the same return that Chychrun did a year ago.

I would say all of the above. I think the knee injury genuinely affected his play. He had the same injury as Rasmussen had, and with both players it seemed to take them a while to get back up to speed and play as strongly as they had the year before. That's likely because they didn't have an offseason to train and get stronger and all that. But I also think that Kasper is realizing that playing an abrasive/gritty/direct style is his ticket to success in NA. At the beginning of the season (and back as far as the prospects tournament) he was trying to be very cute with his offense (e.g. trying the Michigan, toe-drags, between the legs, etc.). I think he heard the criticisms of his offensive upside and wanted to show that he was a slick, skilled, player too. But ultimately that's not what is going to make him successful in NA. He's going to be successful playing like Larkin, not playing like Elias Pettersson. Finally, I think coaching played a really big part in his output as well. Dan Watson is a new coach at the AHL level and when he took over the team he seemed to be relying on his veteran AHL players to do the heavy lifting. Trouble was, some of those guys weren't shouldering that responsibility well (Hirose, L'Esperance, Gettinger) and some were in and out of the lineup (Czarnik and Berggren). This pretty much explains why GR sucked to begin the season. Once Watson got more comfortable with the team he started plugging some of the younger guys into those bigger roles. Kasper, for instance, went from a 4C to a 2C and also started getting powerplay time with the top unit. The corresponding increases in prime ice-time and the quality of his linemates led to increased offensive output. But had he not already had the physical tools, as well as the defensive responsibility, to succeed in that role it wouldn't have worked. Watson tried Lombardi as the 2C for a time and it really didn't work because he's not reliable defensively nor is he physically strong enough to handle those types of minutes (yet). The last thing I'd mention is fan expectations. The only two 19 year olds I can remember making the Red Wings (in the current era) were Larkin and Raymond. Before that it had been forever since we'd had anyone do that. Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Kronwall, Tatar, Nyquist, Franzen - you name it. Most of our top end talent didn't even sniff the NHL at 19. But because we had two guys do it in relatively short order I think some folks began to consider that the standard, as opposed to the exception. Kasper is a very young player, playing a very difficult position, in a very difficult league. Every indication was that he'd be able to handle the assignment, and even excel. But it was always going to take longer than a year. And I'm thankful for that because I've seen too many promising players get ruined because their teams thought it was a good idea to put an 18-19 year old in the NHL and their development basically stalled as soon as it happened (Buffalo is famous for this).

Here's a fun tidbit of prospect news. Amongst U20 players in the AHL Marco Kasper is now fifth in scoring behind Shane Wright, Jiri Kulich, Joachim Kemell, and Ivan Miroshinchenko. He's within 4 points of all but Wright. All four of those player were billed as "high offense" players in their draft years (all drafted the same year as Kasper). Three of them are also wingers. Wright is the only player who is both a center AND producing more than Kasper. In addition, none of the four suffered a broken kneecap and had to rehab all summer instead of train and work on their game. If you're the Red Wings I think you have to be pretty pleased that Kasper is tracking right alongside his draft class peers offensively. Hopefully this further dispels any notion that "Kasper has a limited offensive ceiling". He reminds me of Seider in this respect; people doubted his offense because he isn't flashy but he's consistently produced higher end (but not elite) offense at every stage of his development.

Anybody else aware of (and completely annoyed by) these fashion stories - disguised as hockey stories - that keep popping up in media outlets? The Athletic is running an "All-Star Weekend Style Rankings" article right now which basically just shows pictures of NHL players looking idiotic on a red carpet. I literally JUST care about the hockey part, which is why I subscribed to (what I thought) was a sports media company. An article about the clothes that hockey players wear is still a fashion story. Similarly a story about a doctor that molests gymnasts is a sexual assault story, not a gymnastics story. Me: I love sports, I think I'll pay $9.99 per month to get the most in-depth coverage of the leagues and players I'm most entertained by. The Athletic: Thanks for the money, here's a story about breast cancer.

Prices are pretty high at the moment. 1st for Monahan is absolutely insane. If these are the going rates we should be looking to trade any non-essential parts of the team (i.e. Gostisbehere, Fabbri, Veleno).

I think a big part of it is that we've only got one pair that can really defend top players well so they end up defending all game long, and THAT kills your possession metrics. But what other choice do we have? I'm not saying we should or shouldn't trade for Hanifin or Chychrun, but if you did and put them on the 2nd pair you'd immediately see Seider and Walman's possession stats increase.

Yeah, he's a stud. Seider on defense, and Rasmussen at forward, get some of the hardest usage I've seen on a wings team in years. Those dudes are absolute horses. Seider has been looking a little more assertive in the offensive zone lately as well, which was really my only (minor) gripe with his play. He's pretty damn good. Edit: There's an article in The Athletic today detailing how Seider has the toughest usage in the league. The author argues that Seider is sinking a bit with the usage, but that it would be hard not to sink given what he's been asked to do (that's me paraphrasing the article). We need quality defensemen, bad.

G*y sex: it’s not just for prisoners and armed service members anymore.

Vancouver went HARD for Elias Lindholm. That's an absolute king's ransom.

Huh?

Either Tre Augustine is shorter than billed, or Red Savage is taller than billed.

Literally nobody thinks Larkin is better than Datsyuk or Zetterberg. The debate was whether Larkin was similarly talented to Brayden Point, not whether Larkin was similarly talented to Pavel Datsyuk.

Agreed. I do wish we had someone on the back end that wasn't afraid to keep other teams honest.

I see what you're saying but I don't agree necessarily. Ottawa isn't more talented than we are. Chabot and Sanderson are not obviously better than Seider and Walman. Tkachuk isn't obviously better Raymond (stylistically different tho). Larkin and Stutzle are basically in the same ballpark in terms of 1C as well. I'd even say both teams have similar depth (Compher is better than Norris but Chychrun is better than Chiarot sort of thing). I think the difference is that Ottawa went out and acquired the best players they could get. Detroit went out and got the right players for what they were trying to build. There's nobody on our team that A) doesn't give a sh*t, and/or B) doesn't want to be here.

He sure is playing like it right now, and has been all season. Currently playing at a 90(ish) point pace against top competition on a winning, playoff bound, team. This month alone he's gone head to head with Toronto, Tampa, Florida, Philly, and Vegas and was amongst the two or three best players on the ice each night. It's amazing what happens when you surround top players with better talent than Tyler Bertuzzi.

I can't really talk about that. I hated Jack Hughes in his draft year and thought he'd basically be what Trevor Zegras is now...a small, fragile, flashy, offensive player that basically has no value anywhere else on the ice. In fairness, he basically is that but his offense is SO good that it makes up for the fact that he's not really good at anything else. I think I said at the time that I'd still take Hughes over Kakko but that it was close. Close to my worst take ever on LGW. Anyhoo, the Rangers are losers and I don't want their castoffs.

I've read that he's diabetic and has celiac's disease. Too soft to play for our team IMO. Probably explains why he sucks and the Rangers want clear of him.

The Athletic ran a "Which team is further in their rebuild" article today about Ottawa and Detroit. They did the same thing last year around this time and the consensus was that Ottawa was a better team that was further along. It's odd then that we would find ourselves on the complete opposite end of the standings from them. What happened? I thought Tkachuk, Stutzle, and the boys were just sooooooo much better than Detroit's players?

Gonna be a big night for Klim Kostin and the Copp line. I expect lots of penalties and I expect our special teams will be the difference. Time to bury these fools.