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Let’s or forget the most important thing, that being that he is carrying my fantasy team towards a first round bye! Kidding aside, id agree with the idea he is the second best player in the league, but I can’t call him better then McDavid.

I was messing around with what the roster could look like next year, and this is what I came up assuming we don't sign any UFA's. What does everyone think? IMO, if you give us a new coach (Likely Gallant), and roll with this roster, I think we are significantly better then this year. Essentially, I don't re-sign any of our UFA's, I bring up Svech & Ras, trade Glendening, Helm, and Erne, and I let Perlini & Ehn walk (or sign them and send them down). Obviously in this hypothetical scenario we have to win the lottery which really helps. I'd like to see Veleno up as well, but I dont think he will be ready. Ras I did bring up, but I'm on the fence with him, worst case if he isnt ready, I keep Erne or put Smith there and bring up someone else from GR to fill that last roster spot. Line 1 Line 2 Line 3 Line 4 LW Tyler Bertuzzi Alexis Lafrenière Robby Fabbri Justin Abdelkader C Dylan Larkin Valtteri Filppula Andreas Athanasiou Frans Nielsen RW Anthony Mantha Filip Zadina Evgeny Svechnikov Michael Rasmussen DP 1 DP 2 DP 3 Goalies LD Filip Hronek Patrik Nemeth Dennis Cholowski Jonathan Bernier RD Dan DeKeyser Moritz Seider Gustav Lindström Filip Larsson or UFA Healthy Scratches: Hirose Bowey Smith I think our biggest hole is in the 2C spot, Filppula is simply not a top 6 forward anymore. I think our top line is very good, and I think adding Lafrenière completely changes the second line on the wing (though I worry they may be pushed around). Our 3rd line looks pretty good as well as long as AA can handle 3C, and our 4th is what it is. As for the pairings, I like our 1st pair, 2nd is ok but all depends on how Seider progresses, and I like the youth on our 3rd. A lot of kids on D, but it can't be worse the this year. Maybe Yzerman makes a splash and signs a Krug or another UFA. Thoughts?

Lets try to discuss a topic that doesnt get everyone fighting. What do you all think happens with Joe Thornton come deadline? Does he stay with SJ and retire? Does he get traded in an attempt to pull a Ray Bourque? Does he go back to Boston? He doesnt have the impact he used to have, but I think this will be an intriguing story come next Monday.

haha just seeing that now.

I just used those two players as examples. It will be a challenge for sure, I'm just hoping Yzerman explores all options.

If that’s the case, I’d be fine with it. Hopefully the Wings have someone oversees scouting him. We don’t have any big pieces, but maybe Yzerman can get creative. Find a team looking for a couple players. Maybe packaging guys together (for example trading Green and Helm in the same package) will get us a higher pick then trading them separately.

Agreed, I don’t think TB has the cap space to re-sign AA to what he likely wants. As for Edmonton, I’m not sure Holland wants to deal with him again after the hold out a few years ago. I’d take that trade though. What do you think Pulijujarvi would want contract wise?

Right now? I'd say true. I think Ras will be a solid 2nd or 3rd line winger If everything goes right, I get the impression he has JVR upside.

I don’t watch any GR games, but I do follow them. Is Veleno ready for that spot? For that 4th line, I think I’d stick Haas and Benjiman Wing. Nobody will F with us lol.

There has been a lot of talk on the board lately about re-building, building on the fly, tanking etc. That's not what I want to talk about as that as well as Blashill and Holland is already going on in every other thread. I want to discuss our current collection of young players, and what the majority here think they will become. What do you think the outcome for Larkin, Mantha, Mrazek, AA, Jurco, Bertuzzi, Sproul, Marchenko, XO, Coreau, Hicketts Russo, Svechnikov, Cholowski, Saarijarvi, Turgeon, Holmstrom or anyone I didnt list and is in our organization and younger then 25 will be in 5 years? Do you think anyone on this list can become elite? A star? Is this a group of good secondary players? All third Liners? Mostly busts? A combination? Thoughts?

It’s not like this a contest where there are specific rules. It’s just someone giving predictions, what’s the big deal? Even if he was wrong, who cares? I find it odd that this thread got so ugly. I’m very interested to see how this team does under Gallant next year.

I don't think these picks are bad. I'd say the bold is all spot on, green is too early to tell, and only the purple are misses. Really its just the middle tier D that you got wrong, but D are extremely hard to project. I'd say your forward predictions were pretty spot on minus Bertuzzi exceeding (though a case can be made that on a great team, he could be a very good 3rd line guy), and Jurco who was a disappointment.

Not a bad idea. I'm still shocked at how good they are considering they lost Duchene, Bob, and Panarin. As it stands right now, I think Torts wins COY.

Wow, forgot about this thread. I bolded all the flops (though flops may not be the right word considering some of them were low end picks anyways. Nice that we got 3 legit all star level players in Larkin, Bertuzzi, and Mantha. I wont even touch on AA, Ill just say that we definitely got a guy with talent with that pick. Mrazek was a bust for us, but seemed to rebound into an average starter for Carolina. We'll see about Cholowski, Svech, and Turgeon. Its cool re-reading these old threads.

Went to the game last night, this was the second game in a row that I saw them get shutout (I went to the Buffalo game a month or so ago). I can take seeing my team loose, but not seeing them score in two games is brutal. I think at this point a coaching change is inevitable.We are a one line team that is easy to play against because if you shut down Larkin/Bert/AA (which is not what it was with Mantha), the rest of our team is so easy to stop from doing anything. I feel bad for Bernier, he's actually playing good this year for nothing.

I don’t use Twitter. I can’t stand it lol. I see that CRL posted a tweet from HSJ though. You have to think he wants to come back this season, missing the entire season is going to kill his leverage in negotiations. Based on reports, I’m guessing he has a really bad scapula injury.

Who's reporting this? Getting injured and being tough have nothing to do with each other. Ya, he really needs to stop with the fighting. Its one thing if someone starts waling on him and he defends himself, but he has to let someone else do enforcing His body clearly isn't built for it. Isnt this what we paid Abby 4.25mil a year to do?

I was just about to post this. I'd be open to it. Guy has a fantastic resume. He's won a Stanley Cup in Carolina, and he has been to the finals with Nashville and Philly. Going to the finals with 3 different teams is impressive. A lot of people keep saying that we shouldn't fire Blashill until there is a viable permanent replacement, is this it? We may not get a better option in the off-season.

Yup https://oilersnation.com/2019/12/01/jesse-puljujarvi-wont-play-in-the-nhl-this-season/

I love that people actually post there, but I hate the divide and partisan nature of the place. It truly reminds me of politics over there, you have your "right" and you have your "left" and they agree on nothing, all "to proud" to budge.

Its just worse and more extreme

If this was happening all around the league I would agree, but its really just 2 players talking about 1 coach.

Mark Fraser came out and joined Commodore and ripped Babs a new one yesterday. Now Fraser didnt really play under Babs from my understanding, but he claims that 95% of players that have played for him hate him. Check out his twitter for exact words.

A lot of us communicate here when this site goes down https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/letsgowings-com-down.2679947/page-8 Its not the same over there though. a lot of ego/enhanced sense of self on that board. Quite a few posters over there forget they are fans and have reached such delusion that they truly believe they "experts" to the highest degree.

Agreed, ultimately the message being sent here was we are firing the coach for being too hard on you. Not the message to send to a team that can't beat Boston in a playoff team because they are not tough enough.