kickazz

Bold prediction- Wings will win

Not much of a rivalry when they're 2-0 against us in the playoffs. They're far superior to us as far as recent playoff runs are concerned.

Daaaaaaaaam Mrazek (dam daniel voice)

Nielsen killing penalties because he's a premier penalty killer. I like. Good job Doug Houda.

No, the last few seasons he's spent a good amount of time injured so it just feels like we're starting the season without him again or something.

For #1 - Larkin hasn't led the Red Wings in points in season yet. This year could be his first time.

No lol I know it's not you. You're one of the more level headed posters that actually understands what is considered good , bad and okay in hockey and management.

Careful Kip. There's members here who think the OMG line deserves to be put together because of their "phenomenal" preseason performance against AHL players.

Anyways, Holland is untouchable so none of these last few decisions is going to change a thing in case you're hoping for that

Yeah? And were you at training camp watching the 4th line play? "Deserves" to play lol. Quit hyping the 4th line, we all know you're truly basing your judgement off the preseason games. There's literally no basis for your argument as far as training camp is concerned, because you don't know how the training camp was because their performance wasn't reported to the press. Which means none of us know how the players actually performed in training camp. Take a minute to think about it, freshly signed Miller and Ott aren't going to be waived. That would look terrible for management. Even Khan mentioned this indirectly in his article few weeks ago.

Is that exactly what you're going though? Guy gets the least defensive zone starts and starts his shifts against weak opponents and you're labeling him as a "strong possession" player. If we dig into his usage he really did have the least defensive zone starts. Tatar was starting in the defensive zone around 40% of the time while Pulk was starting around 30%. That's very very low. Mostly likely below league average. It doesn't take much to take a faceoff in the offensive zone and shoot on the net to increase your corsi rating. It's much harder to do that when you spend 40 or 50% (like Tatar, Datsyuk) of the time in your own zone and have to bring the puck to the other end. In fact, Pukkinen has a worse Corsi against per TOI than Tatar and even with LESS defensive zone starts. So no, he isn't a "strong possession" player by any means as you say he is. He simply spends most of his time starting his shift on the offensive zone against weaker opponents and happens to shoot a lot. And when looking at corsi against, he's actually worse. So to me that doesn't really translate to strong possession overall. It would be one thing if he had more defensive zone starts and still maintained those corsi for numbers and had better numbers for corsi against. Then one can definitely say that he actually does have the ability to move the length of the ice and has dominant possession, rather than just starting on offensive side and throwing a shot on goal - which I believe is what ends up happening in his case causing his numbers to look good on paper. Take a loot at Brenden Smith's defensive zone starts and his corsi rating, then take a look at Niklas Lidstrom's defensive zone starts and his corsi rating. Smith has as good, if not better Corsi than Lidstrom did in his career. Are you telling me Smith is a stronger possession player than Lidstrom was? Or does it mean Smith likely has sheltered minutes? One played 29 minutes a night against the toughest opponents, the other barely plays 16 minutes a night against weaker opponents (whenever possible, because we know quality of competition tends to balance out over the course of the season). It's likely the latter. Just as with Pulkinnen. Less minutes, sheltered, better opportunities at the start of a shift.

The scouts saw weaknesses in him during draft maybe but then he came into the AHL and became the best goal scorer in that league. His value definitely went up while he was in the NHL. Eventually he comes into the NHL and does okay. Babcock doesn't really utilize him. We knew he wasn't likely going to be a top player here, at least not with our coaching system. It would have been better to move him right then and there in 2015, at the very least for a pick, rather than just hanging on... hanging on... hanging on.... and then losing him on waivers. It doesn't take a genius to be preemptive about the situation. Holland isn't an idiot. He just has a loaded/log jammed roster that he's having trouble distributing. I don't think Pulkinnen is in the same boat as Nestrasil, Ferraro, Janmak etc. Pulk was the best goal scorer in the AHL, that's actually a good incentive for any sort of trade. But when you come up to the NHL and get buried on the scratch list consistently, then prove yourself to be injury prone, that no longer bodes well for your resume. So here we are today. Far as the stats. 6g, 11p in 23 games and excellent advanced stats with sheltered minutes. I mean the advanced stats were so good that a lot of his numbers were superior to everyone on the roster. Except that he really wasn't superior when it came down to it. I've already said ad nauseam that advanced stats and numbers aren't the end all be all. Not without the context of the situation Why? Because Pulkkinen. Pulkkinen's advanced stats we're a classic example of an outlier. As someone who is as much into advanced stats as you, you should clearly see his numbers weren't making much sense when compared to other top players. If I remember correctly, a lot of his advanced stats we're far superior to Datsyuk. And we both know he's not better than Datsyuk.

Should have traded Pulk when Babcock was scratching him. Instead they beat a dead horse and allowed his value to decrease further. Obviously you're not going to get traded after almost two years of being a waste of space. And yes I like Holland. But no excuses here. We could have definitely gotten some good return if we had traded him earlier on. How many people predicted he wouldn't be able to translate his AHL "one trick pony" game into the NHL? A lot. This is definitely not hindsight at all. This was coming and we all knew it was, ESPECIALLY because of the Red Wings defensive coaching system. He was never a good fit for us since day 1. As far as trade value, the difference in 2015 year he was known as the Brett Hull of AHL. This past year, he was known as the 14th forward. The latter doesn't sound very appealing in a trade deal. Now Frk is another story, can't really blame Holland for that one.

Lines during practice today: Tomas Tatar-Frans Nielsen-Henrik Zetterberg Justin Abdelkader-Dylan Larkin-Riley Sheahan Gustav Nyquist-Darren Helm-Thomas Vanek Steve Ott-Luke Glendening-Drew Miller Danny DeKeyser-Alexey Marchenko Brendan Smith-Mike Green Jonathan Ericsson-Xavier Ouellet

Pulkinnen on waivers. I saw this day coming for 2 years now. He was not good enough for the NHL. But possibility of losing him for nothing is... annoying. On the bright side AA and Mantha still have a shot now that Pulk is waived.

looks great

It's only the preseason. And we have yet to face actual 2 NHL lines in a game.

Because you have a history of bs arguments against Swedes. That's why. Ok scorer?? 28 goals, 27 goals and 17 goals in a year where entire teams scoring was down. Lmao at "ok scorer". When was the last time we had players score 28 and 27 goals two years in a row on our team? And you do realize Tatar is about to get a fatter check than Nyquist is when his contract renews right? And Abdekader isn't overpaid. This has been disproved in these forums time and again. Do we need to do it again?

It's because he's Swedish.

Im voting for Henrik Zetterberg as a write-in candidate. Would rather have the Swedish Mafia runing our Gov. Then we would for sure win the Stanley Cup? Yea?

Pow! Right in the kisser..Still better than having that psycho/cheater in Russia.

Just a cheaper, younger, and likely a better option on the 4th line for us. Nothing more, nothing less. Other better options are probably Bertuzzi and Nosek.

So what if teams passed on him. That's not really a convincing argument. Almost as weak of a point as the one being pointed out in your post.

I like the way you think. That's mainly the reason I dislike Team Canada. Although I hate Patrick Kane the rest of players on USA squad I actually like. Makes it easy to cheer for them. When Team Canada had Yzerman and Shanahan playing for them, I was always rooting for them.

With this win. Toronto is great again.