krsmith17

I think Athanasiou would be more than capable of retrieving pucks for that line. I think the combination of speed and skill would be lethal on that line. Of course it will likely be Nielsen and Abdelkader up there with Nyquist or Tatar, so whatever...

I'm not saying I hope they end up on LTIR (although I do believe that may be the best situation for the team). What I'm saying is I hope if that is the case, that Holland has already been made aware, which would explain why he hasn't done anything (yet) to make the team cap compliant. I don't actually hope ill health on anyone, but when a man's knees are as bad as Kronwall's, maybe hanging them up (unofficially) would be the best thing for his long term health. You're acting as if I'm saying I hope he gets hit by a car or something... If Kronwall comes back and is capable of playing 80% of the season as a legit top 4, great for us.

I've never been high on Marchenko, always thought he was a borderline NHL defenseman. I doubt he gets claimed, and expect he will head back to Russia soon enough.

For sure. We need him playing full time center as soon as possible, and I'm happy to hear that he will at least start there again this season. Ideally he plays 2C behind Zetterberg, but if that spot goes to Nielsen, I'd also rather him as 3C rather than wing. My ideal top 6 would be... Nyquist - Zetterberg - Mantha Tatar - Larkin - Athanasiou

Unfortunately Sproul only makes $625K, so that doesn't help us a whole lot. Another move would still need to be made after Athanasiou is re-signed.

Ideally we'd like to go with 14 forwards, 7 defensemen, and 2 goalies. We have 8 defensemen (Green, Daley, DeKeyser, Kronwall, Ericsson, Jensen, Ouellet, Sproul) that are not waiver exempt, so trading one (preferably Ericsson) and retaining salary, does help. We gain $2-3M in cap space that would allow us to re-sign Athanasiou, plus one less defenseman would allow us to carry the one extra forward. Of course we know Holland will not trade Ericsson (or anyone for that matter), so unfortunately that leaves us hoping that one of Kronwall or Ericsson end up on LTIR, just so the cap situation "works itself out"...

Teams probably wouldn't want those players at their current cap hits, which is why we'd have to retain salary. Again, no player is untradeable. If Holland really wanted to (he doesn't) he could trade Ericsson to a team like New Jersey or Buffalo. Ericsson ($1.5M retained) and a mid round pick (3rd or 4th) for a late round pick (6th or 7th) would likely get a deal done. I agree. But as for the bolded, the same can be said for trading Ericsson as well.

I agree to a certain extent. I think Holland is sometimes loyal to a fault, especially when it comes to mediocre bottom six forwards / bottom four defensemen. And he certainly looks after the Michigan boys. I like Abby, but there's no way he should have gotten the contract he did. Slightly overpaid in salary, and massively overpaid in term. Glendening is probably the worst contract on the team. Massively overpaid in both salary and term. DeKeyser is a solid middle six defenseman, but again, probably a little overpaid. I get that you sometimes have overpay to keep players, but these were three players that played their entire careers in Michigan, from college to Grand Rapids to Detroit, and likely would have taken a bit of a discount to continue playing in their home state. But moreso than the loyalty, my frustration with the organization is their desire for every single player to be a defensive stalwart, and value hard work over high skill. They want to turn every pure goal scorer into a defensive specialist, because defense wins championships... just ask Pittsburgh. Sure, we need players to be defensively responsible, but not every player needs to be a Selke candidate. I'd rather have a 30+ goal, 60+ point producer that is decent defensively, than a 15 goal, 30 point producer that is an ace defensively. Management seems to prefer the latter though, and have the former improve his defense at the expense of his offense...

Guaranteed! 25-30 goals and assists, 50-60 points.

What about Bill?

I'm saying they're not terrible comparisons when speaking of contract negotiations, like you seem to believe. Like I said, they're both bottom six forwards (or at least played that way) at this stage of their careers. They're both capable of playing all three forward positions. I do think they're playing style and level of skill is very different, but production has been somewhat comparable when taking into account usage. Anyway, like I said, hopefully he signs for around what Sheahan signed last year, regardless of whether or not they're comparable.

Exactly what I do like to see as well.

When you said drafted a different positions, I assumed you meant actually position, not position in the draft. Regardless, since when does where a player is drafted dictate how much he should get paid? I'm not saying Athanasiou should get a lot more than Sheahan, I'm hoping he get some somewhere between $1.85-2.15M for 2 years, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's asking for a little more than that, based on what some others on the team (including Sheahan) are making. You think they're such different players, but both at this stage of their careers are bottom six forwards that can play wing or center. You also say that Athanasiou doesn't kill penalties, and no he doesn't near as much as he should be. He already has 2 short handed goals in limited ice time. I'm not sure if this was meant to turn into a who's better, but in my opinion, it's not even close. I don't really think Athanasiou is really being overhyped by many (besides LeftWinger) though. He's an exciting player, very good middle 6 winger right now and has all the tools to develop into a solid top 6 winger over the next couple years.

Not many people are defending the way Holland has managed this team over the past few seasons. Most are saying we should move on from him after this season, or at the very least, we should explore other options. The difference is, no one is stooping to your level, saying he should be dead, "sleeping with the fishes" or if he were lying in a ditch on the side of the road, you'd piss on him... That's beyond ridiculous, but whatever, people say ridiculous s*** behind their computers all the time... How do you know Holland hasn't already offered a contract in the ballpark of $2M? You don't. For all we know, Athanasiou is holding out for $3.5M, and if that's the case, Holland should be holding out. I'm not even saying Athanasiou wouldn't earn that contract. I think he's capable of earning every penny and then some. The problem is, he hasn't yet, and you don't sign such a young player with such a small sample size, to a contract based on what a player potentially could do, but rather what he has shown he can do. RFA's rarely get overpaid, and Holland is great at re-signing his RFA's. He will sign a very fair contract in the coming weeks, and you will look back on this and (hopefully) realize how ridiculous you really were acting... Not getting into the Nyquist / Tatar thing again. You refuse to admit they're good secondary players on fair contracts, so whatever...

They are very different in their style of play, Athanasiou being the more dynamic of the two, while Sheahan is more defensive responsible. Sheahan did have two productive years, followed by a down year before signing his contract. Athanasiou hasn't gotten enough of an opportunity to prove his worth, which I think is a good thing for the team. How were they drafted at very different positions though? You make it sound like we're talking about a center and a goaltender here. Both were drafted as centers, and both have seen significant time on the wing. I think they' are comparable, and I think Athanasiou will get a very similar contract as well, 2 years at around $2M.

To be fair, we're talking about top line, not top six, but your point stands. There are 90 forwards (93 including Vegas) that play on a teams top line, and we have at least 2 or 3 with the potential to become top 90 in this league.

You mean he would be a 3C on Pittsburgh? That I will agree with, although he'd likely play on Crosby or Malkin's wing in that situation. But no, he is not a 3C on just any Stanley Cup winning team. He ranked top 25 in points last season for all positions. That absolutely qualifies you as a top line player. He may not be elite anymore (although I'd argue that he still is borderline elite, even at the age of 36), but he's certainly not a third liner... You really don't think a single player within our organization has the ability / potential to become a top line player? We're not talking about elite here, we're talking top 90 forward in the league... I'll say it again, Tatar and Nyquist do not NEED to be moved. They're both very good secondary players on fair contracts. If we could trade one in a package to upgrade our defense, sure, but not just to dump them... Abdelkader is on an awful contract, but on a team with a handful of bad contracts, it looks a lot worse. Kronwall and Nielsen I'll agree with, and I'd add Ericsson to that list as well.

Are you saying that none of the players on the team are top line players right now? Or are you saying that we don't have any future top line talent, whether on the team (Larkin, Mantha) or in the pipeline (Svechnikov, Rasmussen, Cholowski)? Zetterberg was a top line talent last season and hopefully we don't see a huge drop off over the next couple seasons. We have several players in the organization that could develop into top line players in the near future. Of the 4 I mentioned previously, maybe only 2 or 3 of them become top line players, but that's still not "ZERO". There's always the chance that a player exceeds expectations as well. Maybe Athanasiou or Hronek become the top line player(s) that we all hope they could be. Maybe a player completely off everyone's radar like Jack Adams or Malte Setkov come out of nowhere and become top level player(s). We do need to add another one or two for sure though, and hopefully that comes in the next draft or two...

Yeah, and we can do a similar re-tool in the same time frame, if things go well for the next 2 seasons. Like Dickie said, Larkin, Mantha, Athanasiou, Svechnikov, Cholowski, is a good young core to build around. If they all continue to develop the way they should, and we get ourselves a top end defenseman, we should be in great shape. We also need Mrazek to return to form this season. He can't be any worse, but can he get back to Vezina level? Time will tell...

I'm confused. What is "BS" in what Dickie wrote? He basically said if everything goes right, we could be a contender in 3 years. Which is absolutely true, and the same could be said about literally every single team in the NHL. Are you saying that we don't have a good potential core? Or we don't have any complimentary players? Or we don't have any young players to fill out the roster? Or if A, B, and C hit their ceiling, we won't be a very good team?... I agree 100% with Dickie on this and I think if all goes well we could be a legit contender in 3 years. Unfortunately, in order for things to start going right, Ken Holland is going to have to move on...

Yeah, a team doesn't miss the playoffs all but one season in a 12 year span and say that the rebuild started in year 10... In saying that, I think the point remains that the Leafs were in as bad a spot as us 2-3 years ago, and they completely retooled that team from one of the worst to one of the top up-and-coming teams in no time. They had a couple nice pieces in place (as we do now), but getting Matthews really put them over the top. The unfortunate thing is, although Dahlin and Svechnikov are projected to be very good NHLers, I'm not sure if either are on the level of Matthews. Getting a stud at number one or two would definitely speed up this rebuild / retool in a big way though. I definitely don't think it will take 10 years to build this team back up, with a few key additions, it could be done in 2-3 in my opinion.

Larkin didn't start with the Red Wings in his draft year though, he played a full season with UofM and then played half a dozen games with the Griffins in the playoffs, before making the jump the following season. I guess there were a couple players ahead of Larkin at the time, namely Mantha, who just came off a "very, very, very disappointing" season, and Athanasiou, who just came off a mediocre half season. In Rasmussen's case, he is just recovering from a wrist injury, which caused him to miss 1/3 of last season, and he needs to jump past 2-3 players that are coming off a Calder Cup championship season, one of which (Bertuzzi) just won the Jack A. Butterfield trophy as playoff MVP. I think comparing Larkin and Rasmussen is apples and oranges. Like I said, and management have said, he will be given an opportunity to make the team, but realistically, he will play at least one more season in Tri-City, possibly two. When he's no longer property of the CHL two years from now, he still may have to play a half to full season in Grand Rapids before finally getting a look in Detroit in year three...

I'm sure he'll be given a "shot", but no way he makes the team. Bertuzzi and Svechnikov are ahead of him for sure.

What the Detroit Red Wings roster will look like in 3 years (2019-20) according to The Hockey News... Larkin - Zetterberg - Mantha Tatar - Nielsen - Svechnikov Athanasiou - Holmstrom - Abdelkader Bertuzzi - Glendening - Smith DeKeyser - Daley Cholowski - Sproul Ouellet - Jensen Coreau Mrazek Link - http://www.thehockeynews.com/news/article/2020-vision-what-the-detroit-red-wings-roster-will-look-like-in-three-years What do you think our roster will look like in 3 years from now, without taking into account any blockbuster trades or UFA signings?... I'm hoping for something like this (I drafted Andrei in the 2018 draft)... Tatar - Larkin - Mantha Svechnikov - Zetterberg - Svechnikov Bertuzzi - Rasmussen - Athanasiou Abdelkader / Helm - Turgeon - Smith Cholowski - Hronek DeKeyser - Sproul Hicketts - Sambrook Mrazek Coreau