poel

Uhhm no? Looking back than 10 years the best player drafted 9th would probably be Logan Couture who's still a 2C. Lots of decent players drafted 9th but essentially no superstars. Players like Ehlers, Horvat, Trouba or Granlund as well as my countryman Meier who's likely to break out next season. You also got some who didn't work out quite that well. Cowen or Bailey for example. If you go further back it gets even worse with the likes of Sheppard, Lee, Smid, Taticek, Ruutu, Krahn, Lundmark or Rupp. Phaneuf would be the exception. The wings picked a solid player here. I'd take him over Vilardi and that Swedish defenseman any day of the week.

Probably because somebody, can't exactly remember who it was, just gave him a huge contract extension. Hard to justify a 2 Million man playing for Grand Rapids just a few months after he got his contract.

Man, what a boring boring game. Would drive me crazy to see them lose this one without beating the crap outta Dubinsky. Do something. Show some emotions. WTF is wrong with this team. I mean it's still a one shot game but nonetheless it's just blah...

Have a guess

Markstrom is pretty good and has a very good defense in front of him. Wings should trade for one of them. Not a bad choice. Miller is playing very well though. Has been excellent this season. Don't know about his plans though.

A defender has to be able to play defense. Not the greatest fan of so called defenders like Karlsson. Especially in our situation we need the young guys to be solid. Ouellet and Jensen have been a lot better than Sproul. Sproul has to improve or he's not gonna stick for very long. They should try to push Jensen a little and see how it goes. Has been playing few and easy minutes only.

Nice goal! Btw: if you waive Mrazek in a 10 teams keeper league that's pretty telling He hasn't been good for a while now but is still a young goalie with a lot of upside. Not very smart to give up on him in a keeper league...

16 Teams in my league. NHL Roster plus one extra bench and three IR+. I don't have a lot of options. If I don't start Mrazek tonight I have to start him in Columbus or in Minnesota...also not gonna be pretty I also have Vasilevskiy but he's not gonna help with games in Minnesota and Winnipeg remaining this week and Johnson, Palat and Killorn all injured That's why I wanted to start Mrazek tonight but Sproul is really bad. Got knocked down on his first shift and scored on in his second. Not really his mistake but everytime he's on the ice, he's in trouble.

Wasn't Sproul -3 in like 7mins or so last game? He's well on pace now

Meh. I wanted to start Mrazek for my fantasy team tonight. Can't risk that with Sproul in. Scary to play him in Washington. What is Blashill thinking? Could be quite an ugly game.

Somebody has to beat him up on Saturday. I don't care who. But it has to be done.

I never called Jensen "bad". All I'm saying is that he's a career AHLer and he'd be still playing there hadn't it been for our terrible defense. He's no young prospect anymore and yet only played a handful of games in the NHL. Even if you, for some funny reason, thought that he's better than Marchenko, it would have been easier to just waive Jensen. No way he would have been claimed. They probably waived Marchenko to get cap relief. Time will tell but to me it's still a bad decision.

DeKeyser is good but he can't do it all alone. Not his best season but still our best defender against the puck. Plays the harderst minutes now...probably just takes time to adjust. I'd rather have Ericsson with 0 points and 0 own goals. His points really don't help if he scores an own goal every other game.

No, it isn't. But, sadly, still better than ours...

Sorry, but this is hilarious. Play Ericsson like they play Jensen and he'll look like an all star. I can only repeat. Easiest competition, few minutes and only about 20% defensive zone starts. It doesn't get any easier. Shows you coaches don't trust him all that much. He has looked okay but that doesn't change his status of a career AHLer. If we only had a half decent defenseman on the roster, Jensen would be back in Grand Rapids. And make no mistake...there's no way somebody would claim him. Unlike Marchenko, he's no proven NHLer. He was playing okay and that's what kept him on the roster. Who else should they have played? There was only Sproul available. Everybody else was injured...

Let's not act like Sproul would be a talent or something like that. Only one year younger than Marchenko but several years behind him in terms of development. Marchenko has been playing solid minutes for years now. Not gonna wow you offensively but if I watch our defense I couldn't care less. Sproul was terrible in just about every single shift he played at this level. Don't know why people are so obsessed...where does the obsession come from? Is that a Sheahan type of thing? Yet another talent about to break out...

I don't even care if he has value or not. He makes less mistakes than at least 50% of our defense and therefore should be dressing for the Wings.

You can't be serious about that. The last time Sproul played, he had multiple giveaways in every single shift he played. He managed to go -2 in only 7mins and both goals were purely on him. He wasn't much better before that. Why wouldn't you waive him? Ericsson probably has more own goals than points. He's ridiculously bad. Jensen is a career AHLer. Hasn't been all that bad but plays easy 3rd pairing minutes only. Our defense is so bad that I'd just play the solid guys who at least don't log a giveaway per shift. The way this group played so far, Lashoff or Marchenko should be in. Not gonna do much offensively but at least good enough to play some solid minutes.

Jensen is playing 3rd pairing minutes. All other defenders get more defensive zone starts and harder competition. He's still with the Wings because we don't have a better option. Sproul and Ericsson are below terrible.

I don't care about points. Ericsson may have 9 points but they don't help as he scored 11 own goals. But other than that, you're right. If their defense is crap, ours isn't even a joke. Kronwall has health issues and declined rapidly, Jensen is AHL material, Ericsson and Sproul are even worse. The only good ones we have are DeKeyser and Green. I hated to get Green for the kind of money he gets, but man...what would he do without him? He was always crap defensively when playing for the Caps...he's been really good for us. Marchenko doesn't do much offensively but at least he always played solid minutes. Our defensemen, except DeKeyser, Green and at times Ouellet, can't even play solid hockey and are nothing but turnover machines.

Yet another own goal by Ericsson. His 12th of the season?

Corrected it for you. Sproul was brutal recently.

I'd have done the same. For two reasons: 1.) Two huge divisional games coming up before the break. Back to back in Boston and the day after Toronto at home. You absolutely want Mrazek in net in both of those games as Howard won't be back before the break. 2.) Game today isn't gonna be a good one for any goalies confidence. Rags scored less than 4 goals in only one of their last six contests.

Would love to watch but I'm not gonna deal with that Peter McBiased. Why is there not so called "French" stream today? Gotta find a Russian stream or so