Scott R Lucidi

If we were going to get Lindholm, Chychrun, or Forsberg, that would have been the ask. For me, I would have liked to see us deal our 2022 pick for Lindholm or Forsberg at the TDL. That would have done a couple things - A) give us a great player to fill a hole for 8 years, and B) push the team to win. Now we're stuck in a situation where it's better for us to lose, and I don't think you want to be in that position if you can avoid it. I don't want to see a top 10 pick leave our stockpile, but I also understand that drafting #9 isn't the same as drafting #2. Michael Rasmussen's draft class is a good example of the steep decline in talent level once you get past the first 3-5 picks. So if we had made our team better at the deadline with Lindholm, Chychrun, or Forsberg, I'd say that we could have pushed for a .500 record by years end and ended up in the 12-16th pick range. Odds of that pick doing anything special are very low. But the good news is that we're nearing the end of totally sucking. Next year, we should be in the fair to pretty good range. We will be exciting to watch at the very least.

yah, it's tough. We had that scenario with Yzerman/Fedorov and Zetterberg/Datsyuk, but it's more like 1C-A, 1C-B at that point. Just because Malkin plays on the 2nd line doesn't mean he's a 2C. I see what you're saying.

I would like to see what he does once we have MORE players that are good. In all fairness, he's only 1 year ahead of Berggren in age but has almost 2 1/2 season of NHL experience more than Berggren. Sucks to use a high draft pick on a talented player, develop his game to play "Red Wings Hockey" at the NHL level because he's better than any of our other scrubs, then trade him because he's not playing like Lucas Raymond or Jakub Vrana. We have to all accept that he's NOT those 2 guys. And until he's a worse option than 12 other forwards, we should just tolerate him. It's like throwing out Osterle when we had Dekeyser and Leddy. In other news, everybody happy with Veleno? Hard to be as happy for him as Seider and Raymond, but he's been damn good this 2nd half of the season. Looks like a LEGIT 3rd line center that can play 2nd line when needed. I'm stoked on the guy. Can't wait to see his offseason progress on the weight pile and how he comes to camp in September.

Vrana has outscored Zadina without even playing. Even Veleno is finding the net more often now. I'd give Zadina top line duties with Larkin and Raymond the rest of the year to see if he can pull his head out of his ass on from a scoresheet standpoint. He's playing a good 200' game, and that's all fine, but he NEEDS to produce for this team.

We won't have a chance to sign Lindholm. He will go 9 for 8 with Anaheim. They'll offer 8 for 8 and get it done at 9 for 8. Wings aren't going to go to 11 for 7 to snag him.

WOH! He's worth that, but I didn't think he was going to get that. Interesting. Forsberg and Lindholm gonna get big money too.

I love at Edmonton games. The ice is so good there. Seider is going to look beastly tonight.

I called this last week, I believe. He's GLASS JOE. And this is why you need a guy like Zadina. Is he better than Fabbri? Maybe not. Is he available to fill in for Fabbri, Bertuzzi, Vrana on a moment's notice - absolutely.

yah, gonna be fun to watch a defense with (2) huge all stars. If we can get one more surprise out the pool of defensemen that turns into a gem, gonna be good times for Wings fans.

The hilarious part of all of it is how frugal he is with pretend money. Like George Costanza type frugal. I've never had a harder time getting a guy to just say "That would be awesome" when thinking up pipe dreams.

Same thing. "If we can get Austin Matthews, let's do it." NO SHYTE. Both of these guys are good enough that their teams are more than likely going to re-sign them and not let them hit the market. It's more than likely a pipe dream to even discuss it. But it's worth noting that you do not know how UFA works. ALL UFA'S are going to be in the 25-28 year old range, Marc. They hit UFA after a certain amount of time in the league / as a professional under contract (7 years I believe). We're not going to be able to pick up a 22 year old UFA in the offseason. Those free agents are RESTRICTED.

Want to know why our power play has SUCKED for the last 10 years? Because we have 11 LEFT HANDED FORWARDS. That's why. A good team NEVER has all left handed players. It's ok if your centers are left handed, but that means one of your wingers has to be right handed. When 2 guys get in a 2 on one break, you want to have your left handed guy down the right side and your right handed guy down the left side. That way, they can snap a shot or face the other player and pass to a player that's facing them. When they're both left handed, it's awkward and makes it easier on the defender to get in the way and break up the play. I can't understand for the life of me how the Red Wings and some of the fans don't understand why handedness matters. It seems like they've woken up to its importance on defense, but can't figure out that the offense needs to have it too. You would think that the addition of Lucas Raymond this year would be a 100% EYE OPENER, but I guess not.

Yah, This looks awesome. Add Berggren next to Smith for our 23rd. Soderblom and Niederbach in GR for call ups.

Do you think Seider skates better? Edvinsson looks to be pretty slick for a big fella.

We're fine down the middle, provided that we get a 2RW that's worth a crap. Vrana-Larkin-Raymond Bertuzzi-Veleno-_______ (This guy HAS to be right handed) Zadina-Fabbri-Berggren Smith-Rasmussen-Soderblom Forsberg would be the best fill in the blank. Niederbach up and coming.

I believe he meant "Eddog", tbh.

You've mentioned repeatedly that we do not have the cap room to sign free agents, and that you don't want Yzerman to do so. But then in the next breath, you say we're not going to be a contender for another 4-5 years. I don't think you understand that we can't wait until Larkin, Seider, Edvinsson, Vrana, Raymond, and Bertuzzi are taking up 45 million of cap space to bring in a top notch UFA. The smart thing to do is to add 15 million a year in UFA for 7 years while we have all these rookies/sophmores. Then we can shed the cap space with trades after 4-5 years and pay the homegrown talent if they perform. If the Wings have any opportunity to pick up Lindholm and/or Forsberg, they should jump at it. The cap space is there, and both of those guys provide an immediate upgrade for our team. DeKeyser has modified his No Movement Clause to "Full Movement Allowed". He stated that he is willing to modify it further to "Please God, Move Me" if and when necessary.

Olli, What are the challenges you're facing now here in Detroit? "Well, the coaches would have to be high not to play me, so really there aren't any. I mean, Dekeyser? Leddy? Come on."

I wish we had one more right handed winger like Raymond. We really need to pick up Forsberg this offseason. Our handedness is still way too left hand dominant. It screws us over a lot more than people realize.

I'm not a Zadina apologist. I just give our prospects the benefit of the doubt is all. I just don't see how swapping Zadina for Holloway helps us. Getting rid of Leddy helps us. That's for sure. I want him to succeed. I just think he'll get injured and be done. He doesn't seem super durable so far.

Our rebuild is going to take a bit longer if Steve can't lure in a UFA or two. I think you are right, though. Lindholm and Forsberg are pipedreams.

Names: Agreed, but I think that Yzerman wants time frame is end of current contract. Fabrri: I wouldn't count on this. Guy is GLASS JOE. Agree with this. I still think Leddy will be traded at the deadline. I just think the return is going to be poor - prospect we've never heard of and a 3rd.

1) This is false. I don't insinuate anything. I say what i mean and mean what i say. If you are INFERRING something different than what I say, that's on you. I've never said we can't or shouldn't trade him. If the deal is right, I would have no problem with it. My problem is that some people on here put out trades for him that involve receiving rejects from other teams and not the "24 younger players in the NHL that are younger and scoring more than Zadina" or prospects/draft picks that have a good chance of fitting that scenario in the future. If you want to talk Zadina for Farrabee, Filip Tomasino, or Seth Jarvis, let's talk. But I'm going to call you stupid if your trade discussion goes like this: Kip: Zadina sucks. Trade Zadina for Eric Stahl and a 3rd. Scott: How does that make us better? Kip: Zadina sucks, bro. He's not gonna turn into a good player. Just like Brendan Smith, you need to realize. He's never getting better. So to reiterate the point I'm actually making, show me how we're going to get better by trading Zadina or doing something different with him, and I'll listen. There are good arguments to be made against the Wings management/coaches playing the right players at the current moment, so I think you could actually make some valid points. But I think past this year, you're going to be SOL with that argument. I believe you're going to see the top 20 guys in the organization in the lineup each night, provided they are healthy, from the start of next season on. 2) Namestnikov and Fabbri will both soon be gone. They are rentals/stop gaps filling in until younger players are ready. AGAIN, not saying Zadina is one of the younger players that is ready. Only saying that we don't need to play guys that aren't part of our future. That doesn't help us AT ALL. 3) You're on. $10.00 for fun. You can hold onto the money if you send me your paypal. I've been welched on twice now on LGW (Number9/CRL/BlueAdams cough cough cough). 4) Fair enough on the first part. Not true on the 2nd part. Zadina is better than you want to give him credit for. He's just not in the role he's been in his whole life (scoring winger on the top line), so you have to get used to accepting non-scoring winger out of him. I'll give you that he's not very good at non-scoring winger compared to the guys we've had in the past (Maltby, Brown, McCarty, etc.). But this is a different league today and we're a different talent level team. You know that. I think all of your frustration is just stemming from you wanting us to be better faster. That's completely understandable. I'd like to see that too.

I dub this line "Tic Tac Joe" If you watched last night, you probably couldn't believe your freaking eyes for the first 2/3rds of the play. Tic - Zadina with a beautiful lead pass across the blue line to a moving Rasmussen Tac - Rasmussen with a beautiful spin move with eyes in the back of his head and passes to an on coming Veleno Joe - Veleno completely astonished that he's wide open for 5 full strides to the goalie (on a breakaway basically) and finishes by shooting a 22 mph wrist shot flub at the goalies stick. Seriously, I really LIKE that line. I don't know why everybody is ready to give up on a 3rd line of 1st rounders. Nobody pegged these guys to be 40 goal/80 point guys when they were drafted. All 3 of them are 22 years old right now. And who else are we going to substitute at this stage? Bertuzzi - Larkin - Raymond Vrana - Suter - Forsberg Berggren - Veleno - Zadina Smith - Rasmussen - Soderblom Lindholm - Seider Edvinsson - Hronek Sebrango - Lindstrom Ned THIS is the Yzerplan.

Yah, Erne doesn't make sense for next year. Vrana-Larkin-Raymond Bertuzzi-Suter-Forsberg Zadina-Veleno-Fabri Berggren-Rasmussen-Smith Seider - Sebrango Hronek - McIsaac Lindstrom - Edvinsson Ned Cossa 3 min wage back ups.