kickazz

And hospitalizes him* Don't forget that part.

Apparently it's inoperable. Sad. But so was Datsyuk's knee and he still was able to produce so..

I may be going to the Sweden vs. Russia game I haven't decided yet. Larkin's North America jersey looks pretty sweet. http://shop.nhl.com/Men_World_Cup_of_Hockey/Mens_North_America_Hockey_Dylan_Larkin_adidas_Black_World_Cup_of_Hockey_2016_Premier_Player_Jersey

Will we though?

Lol. If I went through the last 500 GDTs (I'm not even exaggerating it's that sad), I'd probably find a million posts of you doing the same exact thing. Practice what you preach. And from what I've seen, a lot of people have actually suggested their ideal line-ups and direction they would like out of the team.

RIP R2D2 https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/aug/13/kenny-baker-r2-d2-dies-star-wars

Well that information depresses me then. Balls on Blashill's side of the court I guess.

The question for me then is this. The high quality shot attempts and second scoring chances made against us, when is this happening? Is it because of player deployment? matchups? defensive pairs? Where are the weak links causing those issues on defense? Is it just lack of traditional defensive skill all across the board?

Yeah. I know exactly how our possession is. We've always been a possession driven team with Babcock's "shoot the puck" mentality. We were one of the top possession team in 2015 when we took Tampa to game 7. Our possession dipped under Blashill this last year. Which is fine, rookie coach. When I quoted Krsmith and made the statement it was because weeks ago a member was trying to justify sitting and shot blocking over possession style hockey. Anyways, it's funny you mention Toronto though. For years Toronto was one of the worst possession teams and just this past year they were around top 10 on possession. It only makes sense since their new coach happens to be our old coach. As for the bold part. You just said it yourself. Only LA and Chicago have really been better. And they've also happened to combine for 5 Stanley cups in the last 7 years. I don't understand, aren't you one of the "pro possession-style hockey" people? Also are you looking at CF%?

Highly skilled goal scorer in the AHL maybe lol. Oh but that's what the coaches want and their word is a gold mine. None of us have any idea what we're talking about. We just read WIIM and are clueless about hockey. Clearly what Blashill did was the recipe for success. Dump and chase all day baby that's where it's at, just look at the last 7 years of Stanley cup winners. Wait a minute lol.. LA, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Boston... Well teams are all ranked 1-4 in possession that DON'T rely on dump and chase... Whoops!

Ooooooh.. I don't know if I have energy for it, but you bring another good topic to debate about. I'd take the opposite stance on this but maybe we should leave it for another day lol.

You're misreading my posts entirely. I can't sit here and explain them.

The argument for Jurco has been he was mismanaged and put on 4th line where he doesn't belong. Not sure if I agree with that anymore, because maybe management wanted him as a 4th line player and that's why they put him there? Generally for players that are supposed to be top 6 players, you don't want to develop them on a 4th line. If Larkin was going to make the roster only to play on the 4th line, it would probably be better for him to play in GR as a first or second line center. But idk maybe management doesn't see a difference between top 9 or top 12.

So to get a better understanding of what you're saying, you think in order for a kid to make the roster, he's not only going to have to outperform, but far exceed exceptions of someone already on the roster? As in, AA can't just be slightly better than Sheahan, he's going to have to be much much better? Or am I misinterpreting your post? So let me ask you this. Hypothetically speaking all our main roster players end up starting on opening night. Would you have guessed Larkin being on opening night? This would have been the starting roster if Larkin wasn't a part of the equation. 15 forwards. Actually we had more forwards last year by the looks of it. Abdelkader - Datsyuk - Zetterberg Nyquist - Richards - Tatar Helm - Sheahan - Franzen Miller - Glendening - Ferraro Andersson Jurco Pulkinnen Larkin This year it perhaps would be Abdelkader - Larkin - Zetterberg Tatar - Nielsen - Vanek Helm - Sheahan - Nyquist Miller - Glendening - Ott Jurco AA Mantha So actually, AA (and Mantha) might in reality have a better shot of making the roster than I originally thought. Assuming they are open to moving Sheahan to 4th line and letting AA play 3rd line. And that is assuming AA meets management's level of expectations in camp.

Maybe he could have pushed them out but neither of them at top 9 if all our guys were healthy (maybe Andersson was at one point). As far as Mantha/Bert, I don't think you would have said that if they ended up making the roster much like when Larkin did (who you initially wanted in GR lol). Because I see folks here saying that "if a player does really well he would definitely replace someone in the line up". That statement may apply to a lot of teams but I'm not sure if it applies to the Red Wings. I don't think it's that easy with this franchise. Bertuzzi and Mantha did better than Larkin did in the preseason games but neither replaced any of Andersson, Ferarro, or Miller. Bertuzzi scoring like 5 points and Andersson scoring 1 in preseason. And still got sent down in favor of Andersson? My point is, it doesn't necessarily matter how well they did. That's just one part of the equation. There needs to be space available. Ultimately this training camp and preseason might show us what happens when you're stacked up on fowards. Let's see how AA, Mantha do and lets see how Holland responds in the case they really do well and out perform others.

Roy's anger issues always got the best of him. Guy acts on impulse and that's why he probably ended up rage quitting.

He earned his spot, no one is arguing that, I just think there were circumstances that helped his situation. Injuries for one. Now here is something I wondered about last year -->Tyler Bertuzzi and Anthony Mantha both scored more than Larkin did in the pre-season games last year and one wasn't even considered to be a 13th or 14th forward last year while the other didn't even get an opportunity till the last month of the season. Why?

Except that he played lol.

I'll put it this way. Larkin got the spot because it was available and also because he was the best player not part of the official the roster during the training camp. Add in the factor that we're losing our top centerman in a year.. We needed to groom up another asap. Worked out well for us in the end.

How is it way off?? Take a look at the top 9 roster going into 2015/16. Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Abdelkader, Nyquist, Tatar, Richards, Franzen, Sheahan, Helm. If all those players played and Franzen and Datsyuk weren't injured who exactly would Larkin have replaced on the top 9? I'd honestly like to know your opinion on that. This is not speculation on my part, I'm just going based off of what the roster was heading into training camp and who was eligible to be sent down. We had 9 roster players none of which were eligible to be sent down. In fact Larkin didn't only secure a spot with 1 roster spot but there were actually two by the time Franzen got injured. I really can't think of one player on that top 9 list that would have been scratched in favor of Larkin. Maybe Sheahan? Big maybe though because he's one of our few big bodies forwards. Maybe Helm? But Helm is the versatile one who kills penalties. Hell I haven't even listed Pulkinen or Jurco! Our beloved 13th and 14th forwards. Also didn't list Ferraro, Glendog or Miller but that's just because they're bottom 3. And then there was also Andersson.

It's common sense really. Just put yourself in the shoes of Holland and your star player tells you he's leaving for Russia and you watch as your other star player is slower than a hippopotomus on ice. What would common sense have you do? Probably go out and get a centerman right? Or bring one up from the system. Well they did both things. They got Nielsen and they brought up Larkin.

They hyped it up and fed the story to us that he made the roster because he was so good. In reality, none of us back then knew what was brewing with Datsyuk behind the scenes. Now that the story is made public it all makes sense. Datsyuk was told by Holland and Illitches that if he honored the 2015/16 contract he was free to go. At the same exact time, Larkin makes the top 6 as a winger on Zetterberg's line as Datsyuk is on his last year to give him the needed experience before he took the helm down the road. That is no mere coincidence. The Red Wings NEVER allow 19 year olds on their roster regardless of how good they are. Management played their cards right. They knew they would be losing a star player so they went all in on their 1st round pick. It's a business dude, to management it's all about business and trying to fill holes before they're created. If Datsyuk wasn't injured or if he was to stay and complete his contract, that winger slot would have been filled by Zetterberg and the first line would have been the usual Abdelkader - Datsyuk - Zetterberg or something along those lines. I'm not saying Larkin didn't get in because he wasn't good. He was definitely good enough. It just so happened he was lucky that there was a slot open for him. Datsyuk gone, Zetterberg heavily declined. Nielsen takes one of the center spots and now we are hearing that Larkin takes the other top 6 center spot. Coincidence? I don't think so. This was all planned ahead of time because they knew what was coming before it came. I just wish they could have had the same luck on defense.

Yeah Jurco and Pulk would probably be the guys they're fighting for spots with. But lose them on waiver? I don't think that's happening.

Who cares about Colorado anyway. That franchise slowly lost its fan base when the Red Wings humiliated them in game 7 in 2002. They just couldn't recover after that. They signed Roy as a coach and made headlines a handful of times and now that he's gone the org will just go back to something no one cares about.

I said this before. Larkin didn't force his way into the roster. We had an injured first line centerman who had been wanting to leave for Russia for two years. Larkin made the roster because we needed someone to fill a top 6 center role sooner rather than later. Larkin will be on center opening night this season for that very reason. If they hadn't brought him up last year then we would have had zero centers aside from a washed up Zetterberg. We only now signed Nielsen but last summer we didn't know we were going to have him. AA and Mantha have it even harder than Larkin did because there's literally no spots available for them on the roster. Larkin not only had a spot open but he also killed it in camp. It's like a two step scenario the way I look at it. First step is do well. Second step is "is there an open spot?" Mantha only makes it if there's injuries imo. Even if he kills it in camp, I just don't see him making it opening night. AA possibly the same situation, even though AA should be in by his better performance than most players on the roster last year. Some people here and on twitter are delusional and think that all it takes is for Mantha and AA to do really well in camp and they should get a spot "if they didn't make it that means they weren't good enough". That's not what it comes down to. As of now we have no spots so it doesn't matter how well these kids do. The other point I wanted to make was Ott and Miller aren't the spots AA and Mantha would be fighting for. Guys like Bertuzzi and Callahan would probably be gunning for those guys spots. AA and Mantha are top 9 players. And who did we re-sign for top 9 long term...