krsmith17

You say that "it doesn't matter if Miller or Jurco are better", then go on to compare him to Athanasiou. Jurco is scratched over Miller, despite Jurco being the MUCH better hockey player. Jurco isn't Athanasiou. AA can make something out of nothing with speed alone. He doesn't need to be surrounded by good players to make things happen. Jurco does, same way Tatar or Nyquist or countless other skilled players need to play with other skilled players. Your graphic also shows that he plays half his time with Glendening, and a third of his time with Ott. That's terrible. Sure, he plays a scattered shift with good players, I never argued that. My point is that he has never (since his rookie season) has seen significant time with skilled players. Again, give him a 10 game stint on a line with Tatar and Larkin, and I'd be shocked if he (they) didn't produce. Was Jurco the worst player on the ice last game? Hell no, not even close. But yet he's the odd man out. Why is it that literally every single player can have bad shifts, bad games, bad stretches of games, but they will never get scratched? But Jurco dogs it on one backcheck, one shift in on game, and he gets scratched for 7 games... Because Blashill is a f***ing moron...

I'm glad Zetterberg isn't going, he could use the rest. He'd probably just turn it down anyway, ending up in a suspension...

How is it not about a fair shot? You say how Miller and Ott have a better scoring rate, but again, they both continue to get the ice time, while Jurco sits in the press box... You can't be arguing that Miller and Ott are better hockey players than Jurco... Like I've always said, and I still stand by this, give Jurco a 10 game stint with legitimate linemates, let him play his game, and he would impress. F*** off giving him 2 games and scratching him after seeing limited ice time with Glendening, Miller, Ott, Sheahan, etc... He's not a "grinder", stop treating him as one...

If you really think Jurco has been given a fair shot, I don't know what to say... If Jurco was given the same rope as Sheahan, or basically any under achieving player on this team he would be producing... The skill is there, I have no idea why he's in Blashill's dog house, other than the fact that Blash is a complete moron...

You think you have a 3.3% chance of marrying Kate Upton. I really wish I had your good looks, charm and money... I think we can still make the playoffs, and I'll be rooting for the Wings until the last game of the season, hoping to squeeze in... However, if we are out of it come trade deadline, I'd be shopping all pending UFA's as well as Green. If we can trade some / all of those players and head into the summer with 4 or 5 picks in the first two rounds, that'd be great to start building back up again.

Too early to talk about the 2018 draft? Never! Although I'm very surprised he said Samuelsson and not the extremely hyped "Lil' Svech" aka Andrei Svechnikov... Richdg already has the '19, '20, '21 and '22 drafts planned out...

So what was your favourite part of his post? The fact that he just made up numbers or that he strayed from his original argument? 32 points in 54 games? Where are you getting these numbers? He put up 29 points in 37 games at UofM, and he put up 18 points in 22 games in his final season (draft year) in the USHL... And what's your point anyway? Why does it matter what kind of production Trouba had at the college level? Your argument is that Foote is better offensively NOW than Trouba is NOW, which is asinine... Trouba is not "the 4th best defenseman on Winnipeg" either. Byfuglien may be better right now, but Enstrom and Meyers definitely aren't. EDIT: I see where you came up with the 32 points in 54 games, but I don't get why you would add together his Junior and US National U18 stats, or what it even has to do with your original argument...

Yes, this is based on practice lines, that they will likely use in tomorrow's game, assuming Abdelkader and Green are ready to go... Mantha and Zetterberg have been carrying that line, Tatar has been a passenger in my opinion. Nyquist has been playing well, generating chances, just can't buy a goal right now. Maybe Zetterberg and Mantha can get him going offensively. Nyquist definitely should not be the guy sitting...

Trouba is 22 years old, has been poorly utilized in Winnipeg, and despite that is currently having a career year. So far he has 13 points in 27 games, his 0.48 points per game is good for 36th in the league for defensemen. He absolutely is / will be a top pair defenseman. The only question is, will he become a true number one?... On our current roster, I'd only put Green ahead of him, and in two years time, whether Green is still here or not, Trouba would likely be the best defenseman on the team. Trouba is better than DeKeyser and it's not even close... You can't seriously think "Foote is already a better offensive player"?... If Foote played 27 games in Winnipeg this season, he wouldn't have anything close to 13 points, likewise, if Trouba played 42 games down in Kelowna, he'd sure as hell have more than 30 points... I'd take Ekblad (wouldn't happen even if we had all thirty 2017 1st round picks), Jones or Hamilton over Trouba, but I see Trouba as the most attainable, even though I don't see any as being very likely...

Is Blashill finally starting to get it? He has the top 6 exactly the way I'd have it... Nyquist - Zetterberg - Mantha Athanasiou - Nielsen - Vanek And the only change I would make in the bottom 6... Tatar - Larkin - Abdelkader Miller - Sheahan - Glendening is scratch Miller, but Abby down on the 4th line, and insert Jurco on the 3rd line... The defense pairs are... DeKeyser - Green Ericsson - Marchenko Ouellet - Sproul so no real complaints there either based on what we have available... And Mrazek starting...

Says who? You? Trouba is 100% a better player right now, and who's to say that Foote develops into the player we think he "could" be? I'd take the sure thing over the 18 year old kid any day. And this is coming from a guy that has said in the past that Foote would be my number one target in the draft... I'd take any of the 4 above over Foote, this is not a generational talent that we're talking about here...

I don't think drafting right-handed defensemen is as important as it was a few years ago. We currently have Sproul, Russo, Marchenko, Jensen, Hronek, Saarijarvi and Sambrook in the system that shoot right-handed. Of course not all of them will pan out, but I believe we have at least two (Sproul, Russo, Hronek) that could fill the top 4, and another few that could fill the bottom pair. I'd be more concerned about looking for right-handed forwards. We don't have a single top 6 forward in the system that shoots right-handed. The only few we have are Glendening, Nastasiuk, and Frk, which are all bottom 6 at best... I agree with LeftWinger in trading our pick for a top pair defenseman if possible. This is supposedly a very weak draft class, so if we can trade a top 5 pick for a Trouba or Hamilton, I'd do it in a heartbeat. There seems to be question marks with just about every single player in this draft, and I'm not really sold on Liljegren or whoever else may be available. If we can get an already (or closer to becoming) stud defenseman, I'm all for that...

Any player should be available at the right price, but no team is going to overpay for Larkin, Mantha or Athanasiou at the deadline. Players that teams usually overpay for are pending UFA's and sometimes players with a year remaining. For that reason, I would be shopping Vanek, Smith, Green and Ott. Any other player we could trade would have to be a "hockey trade", and I'm not trading low on any of the kids. That's why I wouldn't trade any of Larkin, Mantha, Athanasiou, Jurco, Sproul, Ouellet, or Mrazek. Players I would be willing to trade low on are Howard and Ericsson. Other players I'd shop for the right price are Nyquist, Tatar, Sheahan and Marchenko. If we can get some decent picks / prospects for Vanek and Green, and offload a couple other big contracts we absolutely should. My fear though is that Holland holds on to everyone, or even worse again, decides to buy...

How did he slip all the way to Carolina?

I'd love to see them take the record, but it's certainly going to be tough to tie / beat it, with their next two games against the Capitals and Rangers...

I'd put a claim in on Rattie for sure. No way he clears all 30 teams...

My bad. To be fair though, the video is a little grainy (on my phone at least), and all I seen was number 30 (Van Pottelberghe's number) on a red team (Switzerland and Denmark jerseys do look quite similar at first glance). I'm fully aware that VP is Swiss, I just assumed Nerve was posting a vid of our goalie... Anyway, forget everything I said. Carry on...

So confused... Who else would you blame for that goal?...

I'm sure you know a hell of a lot more than me on Van Pottelberghe, so I'll take your word for it. I honestly haven't watched a single Switzerland game so far this year, and only watched one last year against Canada, which he looked great. My comment was purely tongue in cheek based on the fact that I know he's had solid numbers so far in this tournament, and then seeing that video that Nerve posted... hence the "can't stop a beach ball" comment...

Van Pottelberghe stands on his head one game and can't stop a beach ball the next game...

It's not so much that I don't think Fowler is a top pair defenseman, I just find it funny that you're labeling Mantha as a 2nd line forward, when he's playing top line now as a 22 year old rookie... Mantha has all the tools to become an elite power forward. No one in our system has the same combination of size, skill, speed, hands, toughness. Personally, I'm not trading him for anything short of a true number one defenseman (not a number two)...

I have money on the line for this game. I say 4-2 Wings. Another big game for Mantha with two points. Enjoy the game marcaractac and whoever else is fortunate enough to be at this one.

I can do that too... Top line power forward > second pair defenseman

F*** that! To me, Mantha should be one of two or three guys that are untouchables, unless of course it's a massive overpayment on the other end. I'm with Rich on this one. Not like it matters though, Mantha isn't going anywhere.

I personally wouldn't trade Blashill... yet. The biggest issue I have with Blash is his player usage, so I would first take away the s*** on the roster that he insists on playing big minutes... Trade Ericsson for a late round pick. Retain some salary if need be. Trade Ott and Miller for late round / conditional picks at the deadline. Trade anyone with value, outside of Larkin, Mantha, Mrazek at the deadline. Vanek, Tatar, Nyquist, Green, Smith, Helm, etc. would all be available for the right price. If Blashill still can't put some semblance of a lineup together without the plugs, then he'd be gone...