kipwinger

Not worried about the shoulder at all. Start him in GR and leave him there until he's dominating. He'll be ready for NHL duty after about 25 games. He's a horse, there's nothing stopping this dude from being an absolute beast. 25 games of additional AHL games isn't going to change that.

Chris Chelios is the f*cking man.

What's a "breakout year" in your view?

Who? Zadina, Ras, Svech, Cholo? Mantha? Veleno?

These are the right ballpark, though I'd probably quibble with Raymond and Ras' AAV a bit. I think both those contracts have some variability depending on how their seasons go. If they both have seasons like last year I think Raymond gets closer to 5.5 and Ras gets 4 million. The terms make sense though.

Sure, whatever you say. I don’t care, at all, about Svechnikov and his development.

Agreed, and I think that's what the Wings thought they were getting with Raymond. A star winger in the Mitch Marner mold. Remains to be seen whether he'll get up in that 80 point range but 57 points as a 19 yo NHL rookie is a pretty good start. If Raymond consistently gets into the 75-85 point range then I'd say he's a more valuable pick than Sanderson. Especially when you consider LD is an organizational strength even without Sanderson. The goalie is the bigger gamble (as you've pointed out). If Cossa becomes an bonafide starting goalie then I think that trumps a 2/3 line center, but there's obviously a bigger risk in him hitting his ceiling. It was a gamble, but a calculated one. Hard to bet against 6'6 in a goalie. How many goalies like him DON'T make it? He has all the athletic tools PLUS the 1st round pedigree. He's any easy guy to bet on.

Both of those players are really good, but so are the guys we took. In any draft there are going to be guys taken later who turn out to be better players than guys taken earlier. That's hindsight. I'd be irritated if he passed on Sanderson or Johnson for someone way off the board, but both of those picks (Raymond and Cossa) were reasonable given our needs and given how highly both of those players were thought of. I'm not mad about either pick. It's not like we're hurting for centers or left handed defensemen now anyway. If we had those two guys instead of Raymond and Cossa we'd be talking about how much we need offense and goaltending right now.

There are no GMs that make zero mistakes, so if those are his worst transgressions we're in good shape. Svech, at best, would have been a third line winger, Regula looks like a depth defender (I thought he'd be better), and Cossa still projects as a starting goalie (even if he doesn't end up better than Wallstedt). He's made no glaring mistakes and has some considerable "wins" to his credit (e.g. mid to late round drafting, the Debrincat trade, the Walman trade). I guess you could say the Chiarot and Holl contracts are "mistakes" but neither of those deals block any young guys from playing time and it's not my money, so I don't think they're all that bad. If guys like Wallinder and Edvinsson can't (eventually) beat out Chiarot or Holl for a spot on the team then they're not ready to play in the NHL anyway.

If anything Compher allowed Colorado to pump up MacKinnon's numbers. Compher played 20 minutes a night and started in the defensive zone more than half the time. By comparison MacKinnon started in the o-zone 63% of the time. Compher was on the ice against top competition and in every defensive situation. He scored despite unfavorable usage. I'd expect his production to be right around the 40 point range, but I fully expect Larkin and Copp's numbers to increase as a result of having Compher on the roster.

I'm planning to get to a ton of GR games this year. This team is going to be loaded with future Red Wings, and should be one of the top teams in the AHL. I saw them a few times last season and it was cool seeing Edvinsson, Johansson, and Hanas out there. This year will be even better with Wallinder, Kasper, Mazur, Cossa, and Lombardi on the team too. I may end up watching more GR games live than Detroit games this season.

How's everyone feeling about the Yzerplan after the offseason? I'm enthusiastic, but I'd be curious to hear what others think. Tear down Holland's mess. Check Hit on early and late round draft picks. Check Manage the cap, including maintaining flexibility and weaponizing it for picks. Check Trades, big and little. Check. Savvy free agent signings to plug holes and flip for more draft capital. Check Aside from winning the draft lottery I'm not sure how he could have done anything more.

I like the accountability but I worry that it would just result in refs putting their whistles in their pockets instead of making better decisions when calling penalties. It's easier to defend doing nothing than doing making the wrong call.

The NHL is not a developmental league. You don’t just put guys in the NHL and tell them to learn, especially in top line roles, it doesn’t work. Imagine if, on your first day of a new job, your boss told you that you’d be evaluated based on how you perform against the very best people in your field over the course of 82, one hour long, competitions. You’d be f*cked. “Our scouts said you need to work on your faceoffs kid, well tonight you get to practice against Ryan O’Reilly. Don’t worry though, you’ve got Alexander Barkov and Patrice Bergeron later this week if that doesn’t go well for you. We’ll check back in at the end of the month and let you know if you’re meeting the standard your 20 minutes a night justifies”.

Why do you want it to grow? Serious question. How does more eyes (from non traditional markets) on the NHL impact your enjoyment of the game?

I thought we all hated the NBA and didn’t want hockey to be anything like basketball?

Cya Nylander.

It's a great contract, and to be honest he's probably marginally underpaid. Veleno's defensive metrics grade our really well (amongst the best on the team) and his offense is mediocre for his ice time. He's probably worth more than league minimum, but he has zero leverage and it's a buyers market for NHL GMs right now so he had to take what he could get. Smart on his part to do a one year deal though, as he should be in line for a nice little raise if his offense improves even a little bit (the aforementioned 15 goal, 30 pt. season I referenced above). As far as Holland goes, his UFA signing at the end of his tenure in Detroit were really bad but I never had a problem with how he handled RFAs. If anything I think he probably could have stood to pay a bit more for RFAs and get them on longer term deals (the way Dave Poile did in Nashville) for guy who were obviously going to make it (Tatar, Nyquist). Otherwise, every bad deal he signed was with a UFA (Nielsen, Ericsson, Dekeyser, Abdelkader, etc.).

I do too. I'm not mad at the deal, and I like the flexibility. I also think that it's not out of the realm of possibility that he has 15 goal, 30 point upside from the 4th line with good defensive metrics. IF he gets there, and SY can take full advantage of Veleno's RFA years, then he might even become a real asset for the team. He has a lot to prove this year and his career with the Red Wings is more or less riding on it but I definitely think he's got a good shot at getting there.

Just out of curiosity, what player do you think that package would fetch? Because there aren't too many decent forwards to be had for a mediocre 4th line center and a guy who can't stay on the ice. I like what they've done with Veleno here. It's a true "show me" contract. If he gets outplayed by Christian Fischer this season then he's gone and we don't have to think about him again. But if he has a breakout (relative to expectations), and I kinda think he might, then everything's gravy.

I don't disagree with the bolded. Seems like the plan is to make a playoff push with the veterans, and then swap the crappy vets with more talented younger players over the next few seasons. I'm not mad at that philosophy. I'd rather those guys develop on a winner than come up early and lose game after game. I don't really think it hurts them either. If Edvinsson can't beat out Maatta for a spot then he shouldn't be in the NHL. Same for Mazur, Sodorblom, Kasper, Wallinder, etc. For a few of those guys I think it will happen sooner than we imagine anyway. I think all the guys I just mentioned will all be full time regulars by the start of next seasons (2024-25) if not sooner.

I'm not sure if you're intending for this to sound negative, or if I'm just reading into it too much. But I have no problem with how he was managed. He earned a spot in camp, came in an acquitted himself well for his first 10-15 games, and then started looking overwhelmed. So SY sent him down. I think that's pretty solid asset management TBH.

I'm still standing behind my prediction from a year or so ago, I think Elmer will score 30 goals in an NHL season at least once.

I sometimes forget that we have Elmer Sodorblom in our farm system still. This dude is a stud. Check out these highlights. He scored at a 20 goal pace as a rookie, not too shabby.

I dunno guys, SY has generally (Raymond and ASP being the exceptions) stayed away from smallish, skill, players in favor of bigger guys with great athleticism at the top of the draft. Every year all the know-it-alls tell us that he's going to draft Zegras, or Eklund, or Savoie, or Rossi, or Benson, etc. and every single year he takes a big athletic dude. Seider, Edvinsson, Kasper, Danielson, Cossa, Wallinder. I don't think it's a guarantee that he'd have taken Stutzle. I could easily see him taking Byfield in that draft. We're all sleeping on him because Stutzle and Raymond have turned out really well, but in his draft year Byfield was regularly discussed as being the guy to take the top spot from Lafreniere.