kipwinger

LOL!!! Howard's the ebug tonight and he's the kind of guy that always comes to the rink prepared to play haha.

You wouldn't need to eat each other. Howard looks like the kind of guy that can smell his way to food.

Take a look at the size of Howard's fingers. He looks like his gall bladder or kidneys or something doesn't work. Like, this dude looks like he's got some weird s*** like Hashimodo's disease or something.

Jimmy Howard looks like his transformation into Santa Claus is about 11% complete. Holy smokes.

My point is that with the same usage and same minutes Berggren will score more than Kane right now. Why do I think so? Because he just outscored Kane during his call up and his linemates were Zach Aston Reese and Austin Czarnik. Right now it's pretty clear Kane needs sheltered. He's not competitive off the puck and he isn't scoring. I'd argue that in the short term Berggren would do more with the same deployment because...well...he's already done more with less. It's not like Kane is Veleno and if he's not scoring he's doing 20 other things to help the team win. He's not and he doesn't. Shelter him, get him up to speed, and then use him in bigger minutes if he can handle them. I'm not 100% sure we're out of the woods yet with respect to Kane not ending up like Backstrom. He's looked decent at times, and you hope he keeps improving, but right now he's doing nothing on the ice to help the team win games. You know who else hits a lot of posts? Kostin. You don't see anyone arguing that he should be in the top six. I'm at a loss with lines but here are a few things I do know. 1. Debrincat can't score without Larkin. 2. Kane isn't contributing in top six minutes. 3. Raymond deserves top line deployment but is effective elsewhere, unlike the other two. 4. Ras can handle top six minutes on the wing. Doesn't really leave us with many options but those were the premises I built the previously posted lines on. Lalonde (with the blessing of SY) needs to communicate to Kane that he's going to the 3rd line to get ramped up. Follow through with a promotion if he picks up his play. If he doesn't? Who cares if a non-effective player is unhappy. Cya.

I'm not ready to call the Kane experiment "failed" but I'm 100% sure we'd be a better team right now with Berggren in that roster spot, all else being equal. Assuming he's not struggling in the same way that Backstrom was after his return, it's still going to take Kane a while to get up to speed. I don't mind giving him that time when we're winning. But he's not a better player than Berggren right now and when we're losing, down four regular fowards, and can't score we're not in a position to rely on him at the moment. I see that too, and I've got my fingers crossed as much as then next guy. But there's also a universe in which his skill and brain allow him to get chances that his body just can't finish anymore. In the meantime we're losing games and have a better (similarly styled) winger in GR doing jack s***. Personally I'd get Kane out of the top six and off the top powerplay until he's up to speed. I can see him working well with a center that hustles and a winger with some skill. Let him feast on 3rd pair dmen until he's ready for a bigger work load. Dcat-Larkin-Raymond Ras-Compher-Berggren Kane-Veleno-Sprong Fabbri-Fischer-Perron Kostin

I posted this elsewhere, but before his injury last year Rasmussen was scoring as well as Ivan Barbashev (top line power forward on a Cup winning team) did last season and Tom Wilson (top line power forward on a Cup winning team) did in 2018 when Washington won the Cup. And then his kneecap shattered and he was on crutches all offseason long. He's absolutely as good as those guys but it was always gonna take a second to get up to speed. He's doing that now and has been an absolute beast the last 10 games or so. Barring any additional injuries he's going to finish the season strong. Watch. I think Ras, Veleno, Raymond, and Fabbri have been our best forwards since Compher and Larkin went down. Copp and Fischer get an honorable mention for having to play really really hard minutes as well (they just didn't produce as much). Debrincat has ONE goal in his last ten games. Kane is currently a waste of space. The only reason I'm not losing my mind is because I'm hoping that he's just got a lot of ramping up to do. Before we signed Kane I asked LGW "Is he really better than Berggren at this point". I got scoffed at but right now the answer is "no". Berggren is a much more dangerous offensively player at the moment and he's MILES ahead in terms of effort and defense. Wanna point fingers at forwards not doing their jobs? I'd start with those two considering they play a ton of minutes, aren't producing, and don't bring anything else to the ice when they're cold.

At the time of his draft, Tyler Bertuzzi was considered a reach. A guy with a name around Detroit and not much more than that going for him. But that this point in his (admittedly short) career he's a point every other game kinda guy. Beyond just producing, he provides a different offensive dynamic, compliments skill players well, and draws penalties. So, what lessons can we learn from the case of Tyler Bertuzzi? Will he maintain his offensive pace or will he regress? Will he turn out better than Detroit's first rounder that season (Mantha)?

It's hard to tell whether you're being serious or doing that thing where people on LGW say intentionally obnoxious stuff because they need attention (and dopamine). But in the interest of good faith I'll assume the former and not the latter. Michael Rasmussen has 8 pts in his last 8 games and 9 pts (5 goals) in his last 10 games. He's done it while playing up and down the lineup, center and wing, as well as killing penalties and has even been on the powerplay with Larkin, Compher, and Perron out. He and Veleno have logged the hardest minutes on the team since Larkin was injured and IMO have performed as well as humanly possible. Where's Debrincat? Where's Kane? Where's Seider and Walman (defensively)? Rasmussen a floater? Lol. He's stepped up more than anyone. Now seeing that Lalonde says Larkin will be in the lineup tonight. I'm pumped.

Helene St. James reporting that the Wings are expecting to have Larkin tonight. Thank god. The appeal is mostly about getting him some salary back. There's almost no chance that the appeal will be complete before his suspension is over but he's sacrificing nearly 150K in salary. If the appeal reduces the number of games he'll get money back, but obviously won't sit out fewer games after the fact (from what I understand).

Got goalied. Yuck.

Nah, I go there all the time. For groceries it's either that or Kroger on John R. Of the two that's a no-brainer.

We're all over them, I feel good about the 3rd.

As usual, Wings badly outplaying their opponent and then get scored on first. Ugh

Lombardi looked fantastic last night. Probably his best game. When he gets serious about his training and puts on that Berggren weight he's going to be a menace.

Thank god Compher is back. But I've said it before and I'll say it again, shoutout to Veleno, Ras, Copp, and Fischer. Those dudes just worked their asses off since the Ottawa game. Playing against teams' top lines, then killing penalties, then taking defensive zone draws, then being asked to score (and doing so better than some of our scorers). I'm happy to see they're getting some much needed reinforcements tonight.

We'll have Compher and Kostin back tonight. Still a stiff test. If Husso looks like he did last game we've got a shot here. Word on the street is that the Flyers "got balls". So that's going to need to be addressed unfortunately.

Brad Marchand is an absolute disgrace. He's the funniest guy in the league.

I realize this is anecdotal, but Bob Kaser (the Griffins play by play guy) said during tonight's broadcast that "everyone he talks to around the NHL thinks Edvinsson is going to be a perennial All-Star". Obviously take this with all the appropriate caveats but the last time I heard him say anything like that was in reference to Mo Seider.

Strong night for Cossa against the top offense in the AHL in the Texas Stars.

At the risk of turning this into a Sprong thread I'll just say that he's much more physical than I anticipated. His defensive game is better too. He works hard on the boards and forechecks/backchecks well. I've followed his career for a while and could never figure out why he couldn't catch on somewhere. I'm still not sure why he didn't, he's a heck of a depth scorer and I wouldn't hesitate to play him higher in the lineup if injuries required it.

ESPN ran an article today discussing how the Wings have become a "contender" again. While I think the "contender" part is a little much, I do think it's a fun thing to discuss. For the sake of fun, let's not say "We got Debrincat and Kane" or things like that. Let's keep it broader in scope. I'll start. The Wings are good again because: 1. Yzerman has a clear preference for drafting out of European men's leagues. 2. Yzerman recognizes that all things being equal it's better to have more competitive guys with less skill than more skilled guys who don't compete hard. ESPN Article: https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/39105878/nhl-red-wings-playoffs-standings-contender-rebuild-yzerman

Husso was exceptional last night. I agree he's been crap for a while now, but he earned another start last night. Right now I'd be looking to trade Reimer, pencil in Lyon as my full time backup, and continue to evaluate Husso. If Husso keeps looking like he did last night, then crisis averted. If he falls apart again, trade him and whatever else is needed for John Gibson.

After seeing him dominate the SHL in his D+1 year my only real questions about Edvinsson were A) how will his game translate to North American physicality, and B) can his shot improve enough to be a threat. He already had everything else. Both questions have been answered at this point. In the pre-season Edvinsson admitted that last season he wasn't ready to compete physically in training camp and that he wasn't asserting himself. By the end of this season, during his call up, he was bodying guys like Tkachuk, Malkin, and MacKinnon and closing out plays. While I don't think he's done in this area, I think he's plenty physical enough for the NHL game. I also think he's come a long way toward answering questions about his shot. I don't know where he found time to do it but he's worked on this 1T and he's picking corners with his wrister. His passing was already exceptional. I'm not ready to say he'll never make a mistake again, we're seeing now that even for world class young defenders like Seider mistakes will still happen. The NHL is a really good league. But I think that all things considered he brings more to the team right now than Holl, Petry, Maata and that's he roughly even (and remarkably similar) with Chiarot in terms of his positives and negatives. The difference, of course, is that Edvinsson is 20 years old and this "Chiarot level of play" is his starting point. He's going to be really really good.

You can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I still maintain the Vrana trade was a good trade that we won. We gave up an overpaid, underperforming, winger at the apex of his value and got another total waste of space back...plus a first and second round pick. We traded Hronek for a first and second and it was pretty universally agreed that was a great trade. So even if you take Vrana out of the trade it was a win for SY. No GM makes zero mistakes. So being perfect can't be the standard. I think you have to ensure that you don't make big mistakes that have long term effects...like whiffing on first round draft picks or not managing your cap space and losing a player (or something like that). By that standard SY has done incredibly well. It's not that he doesn't take risks (like Holland), it's that he never gambles more than he can stomach losing.