mackel

All that does is accelerate our path to forever .500, in the absence of "luck" in the lottery we need to double down and strip this thing down to the studs. Adding UFAs makes us a bit better in the short term and worse in the medium/long term. Yzerman preached patience and with our "luck" in (rigged) drafts we need as many picks as we can get. Ideally over the next 3 seasons we should trade or otherwise let go of all but a small handful of our current full timer roster (3 or 4 guys)

If only.

Realistically, we're in a bad spot... in our division, Boston, TB and Toronto are all good teams and will be for 5ish more years... Ottawa already has a better group of prospects than we do AND will add 2 really good ones this draft. Now if the NHL completes part 2 of the rigged draft and Lafreniere ends up on a team in our division we're really f***ed. I'm predicting that (some of) our prospects become our new core and that (most of) of our current core ie. Larkin, Mantha, Bertuzz, Fabbri etc. are traded in a rebuild reset. I think this process got a minimum of 3 years longer and maybe 5+ years longer if Lafreniere ends up with Montreal, Florida, Toronto, etc

The "but that is what it is" attitude and those 'classy' comments from Yzerman are part of the problem... we need more Brian Burke's calling out this 2nd rate league and their made for TV rigged draft.

I know I'm done... I will not watch or consume anything NHL "league" related atleast until the Wings play again and maybe not for some time... if Lafreniere ends up on a team in our division, a team that is, by default already far better that we are... well never say never but it'll be EFFING close if I engage with the league outside of this board again.

People will call you crazy BUT you're 100% correct! Who'd watch the 2nd lottery if the 2nd or 3rd pick were at stake? Answer: Far fewer than having the the 1st overall pick and a borderline generational player hanging in the balance. In hindsight the 1st pick was NEVER actually available to the bottom 7, I'd not be surprised if we didn't even have any balls in the machine... LA won the bottom 7 lottery once the 1st overall pick was set aside. I can't prove this... but I'll never believe otherwise, it fits the gimmick they setup "too perfectly" to not be a setup.

I'm so depressed I can't even address the Zadina in the room.

This disaster made thar all the more true!

As soon as they made that change, for this made for TV stunt it was a foregone conclusion this would happen. I'm sure some f***tard will say... we were most likely to draft 4th so it's ok, well look at the odds for the winning team and realize this is NOT OK.

I've even canceled my Athletic subscription... not much point of even popping in here, our rebuild just got derailed... Ottawa was always going to do well, but it's abundantly clear the NHL is targeting the wings... dropping max spots in 3 straight years... TEAM 2.5% will be another team from our division. Toronto or Montreal most likely...

#CANCEL the NHL

Tomorrow is the day we get ..."bleeped".

ahhhh don't take it to heart its just a classic case of group think.

I agree and disagree with you on this... I really think a new voice is needed, it seemed to me players were tuning him out, given some of the horrid performances we saw last year. BUT if you wan to build through the draft I guess Blash is a good choice behind the bench.

OMG stop it @krsmith17 will be upset that you don't agree with him... I mean come on... "so and so" had 30 points as an 8 year old playing with 10 year olds and Zetterberg only had 25 points as an 8 year old playing house league... so clearly "so and so" projects to be as good or better, because that's how things work... dontcha know! Silly @ChristopherReevesLegs why would be using a complete stat line? You are trying to have a back and forth with a guy that omitted an entire season of Zadina's career to make his bottom line stats look better, thinking nobody would notice. This is also a guy that says "He's [Larkin] doing this on the league worst team, in every statistical category, with very little support." as if having an above average 2nd line center playing as a 1st line center isn't part of the overall problem...

Would please stop attacking me with every post... I'm not going to be bullied into agreeing with with you... I've voiced my opinion, I've made my case with facts... you don't like that I'm likely right and you're dream world is challenged... I get it... but I'm sick an tired of your s***. Notice how you incited this entire back and forth and the last one and the one before that, because you can't handle someone disagreeing with your lazy homer take.... again I get it.

I didn't back out of the debate I definitively ended it with facts, not wistful unfounded optimism. You were/are wrong; I showed that empirically and you're to dumb or stubborn to acknowledge it... that's on you not me. You're lazy and you suck.

Look in a mirror and say just that. FYI you don't have to constantly bring up the fact you disagree with me... I know you do and so does anyone who's been on LGW in the last 5 months... your not gonna change my mind. I did an analysis of every team in the league for KRSMITH on this very subject... it's in some old thread (feel free to track it down)... statistically Larkin slots as a 2C on more teams than he does as a 1C and on a number of teams he slots in as the 3C... but yes puddle, since I hold a view different than your own... gotcha

Since neither likely will I won't feel any pain. Now should one or both follow your fairytale narrative I'll be happy to be wrong.

Good for you, I find it ludicrous that anyone considers Larkin anything more than a quality 2nd line center... but your entitled to your POV. It's a good point that maybe Turk and Lambert didn't want to coach this dumpster fire of a team.

I'd not be thrilled with Larkin as the captain as I think he's overrated on and off the ice... but I can live with it. Bringing Blashill back when there are 2 very good options readily available makes no sense to me... I'll likely never understand why.

I just have visions of the Leafs or Oilers picking ahead of us... if that happens I don't think it could in anyway be justified by the "league". Imagine if the Leafs get Lafreniere cost controlled for 3 years... all of a sudden they can trade Marner for a boatload of futures get out from under their self inflicted cap problems and be set for a decade or more... oh and they're in our division. I'll be cheering for Montreal and Toronto this play in... it's in our interest for sure!

A CRL post like by krsmith, what kind of unholy alliance is this lol None of the players you listed were ranked top 3 or drafted top 6 aside from Yzerman, so yea there's that.

Let me fix this for you... After next seasons trade deadline... Bertuzzi - Larkin - Mantha Lafreniere - Rasmussen - Gagner Fabbri - Veleno - Zadina Smith - Glendening - Svechnikov Erne / Timashov Krug - Seider DeKeyser - Hronek Nemeth - Bowey / Lindstrom Lehner Bernier *Filppula, Helm and Cholowski - traded *Abdelkader - compliance buyout/buried in the AHL *Nielsen - buried in the AHL

This is an interesting article... https://thehockeynews.com/news/article/nhl-draft-it-aint-easy-picking-goalies?fbclid=IwAR0QvtzWojD1G5Op-G5HTAUplHCnhozxRB2OL_vReFMz8sX9rSkpf_Skx8M It may also indirectly make a case for us to go hard after an established 20 something year old goalie, to bridge what could likely be a sizable gap even if some of our goal-tending prospects pan out. My targets would be Robin Lehner and Matt Murray.