Dabura

We're not ready for prime time.

I think I'm with Jonas on this one. A known stud... 24 years old... Signed long-term... So why would Armstrong even wanna move him? Also, I feel like Yzerman generally doesn't like having young players on long deals. Right. I think we're in agreement. I was mainly responding to CRL's rumor about a 2- or 3-year-deal.

I think he's still a good player who could help us, I just doubt Yzerman would go really hard after him.

Ain't no way Yzerman signs Kane for 3 years. *Maaaaybe* 2. But even then, only if he comes cheap. IMO. I mean, don't get me wrong - I'm fully expecting our scoring to smash into a brick wall any game now, so I'm still very much in the "We need all the depth scoring we can get" camp. But...a 35-year-old...coming off hip surgery? BAH GAWD! THAT'S KEN HOLLAND'S MUSIC!

I get lots of stuff wrong, so let me bask in the glow of having gotten this right.

Talk about how cool DeBrincat is.

Pinch me. Wait! No! Don't!

This one feels good. This one feels really, really good.

A deep dive re: how dominant this win was (after the first period): Statistical Review: Red Wings 4, Blue Jackets 0 - The Hockey News

Soon enough we're gonna have Larkin, Danielson, Kasper down the middle and it's gonna be awesome.

Right, that's what I'm saying. Even with DeBrincat, everything will have to go right for us if we want to make noise next season.

Our forward group now screams "Finally! We're truly only one year away from the playoffs now!" and I hate it lmao But like I said in a rant a few weeks ago: Once Kasper and Mazur and Danielson find their way into the lineup, things are going to get interesting in a hurry.

Dorion had no leverage; DeBrincat wanted to come here and the other teams on his list couldn't really make it work.

THE ABSOLUTE MADMAN

I'm pleased with this haul. We're now looking at Seider, Edvinsson, ASP on the back end and Larkin, Kasper, Danielson down the middle (with Kasper or Danielson maybe moving to the wing if necessary). And we finally have a quality RH center prospect.

Playoffs? Probably a couple years away. Legit contention? Probably 4+ years away. That's the brutal truth, imo. Well, if Vegas is the model, then Seattle's still got a few years to go. Vegas had to acquire basically every player in the league before they finally found the right mix.

Getting upset is good; it means you have a pulse! The mocks are all over the place re: the Wings, as you'd expect. Personally, I'd be thrilled with Danielson and Willander, though I reckon we'd have to trade up from 17 if we want both.

He needs to shoot way more often; he deferred like crazy this season and that's a big reason the goals didn't come like they did in his first year. He also got kicked down to the 2nd PP unit, which surely didn't help his production. Though, as with the deferring, that's on him. On the whole, I'm not worried about him. Dude's put up 102 points thru his first two seasons and he's only 21. He needs to improve in certain areas and I've no doubt he will. He should bounce back next season.

Disagree. Kasper's got one game of NHL experience (against a Leafs team that was without much of its top talent). Barbashev's got 71 playoff games under his belt and is on the verge of winning his second Cup in four years, with two different teams. We should want both players on our team.

Absolutely.

The Leafs have all the firepower in the world and they have all their money tied up in that. We have no firepower and we have no money tied up in that. I don't think signing Alex DeBrincat makes us the Leafs, or in any way puts us on the path to becoming the Leafs.

I respect everyone's opinions on this. But I'm prepared to throw down over this. Or at least rant a bit. My opinion: We need scoring punch in the worst way, and we've needed it in the worst way for the better part of a decade, and we've had all these draft picks and all these prospects and all these free agent opportunities and all these trade opportunities......... .........yet somehow we still desperately need scoring punch. I wanted Matthew Tkachuk. "Too expensive," people said. OK. Fair enough. But if you want a bigger, grittier, more complete version of DeBrincat, you're basically looking for a unicorn - unless you want to pay out the ass, or unless you get really lucky in the draft. I think the time's come for us to get serious about really, truly moving forward. I love David Perron - but I hate that he's one of our top two wingers at this stage of the rebuild. It's unacceptable to me. We've got a lot of good young players in our system right now, that's true. And that's good. And we'll need them to be good. And they probably will be good. But there's no rule that says we can't trade for other teams' young players. We can sit here and say "Nah, f*** this goal-scoring punk. If he REALLY wants to be a Wing, he'll sit out for a year and wait until free agency next summer." And we can watch that ship sail away. And that will be the 415th ship we've watched sail away since the start of this rebuild - because "Nah it just didn't make sense for us, given where we're at. I'd rather we do the other thing [which we won't end up doing]." And we can spend another year losing close games because we can't score goals. Or......................... ...............we can say "F*** the police" and grab the 25-year-old right-shooting goal-scoring winger right now and sign him to a big deal and take our chances with that investment. "But do you really want to chance it?" Yes, I do. We have all the cap flexibility an organization could ever want. All the money in the Bertuzzi fund can now be used for other stuff. All the money in the Vrana fund can now be used for other stuff. And we also have draft capital. "Yeah, but our young guys are going to start eating up cap space really quickly." Maybe they will, maybe they won't. What I care about now is getting solid footing. Tangible things. Known things. Alex DeBrincat has scored 40 goals twice. He's a natural scorer. He can and will put up points. These are known things. I don't want to go through the motions for another 82 games and accept that we don't need to ice the best damned lineup we can ice "because it's just not time yet. I think we need at least one more really good draft." We've been saying "We just need one more really good draft" for the past 500 years. Enough already! If we can land DeBrincat without giving up our 1st, I think that's a major coup. Pick a name out of a hat for that pick. Let's call it Nate Danielson. If we land DeBrincat and Nate Danielson, I think that's bloody fantastic. All of a sudden we're talking about Larkin, Kasper, Danielson, Veleno down the middle. All of a sudden we're talking about flanking those guys with DeBrincat, Raymond, Mazur, et al. I don't want to wait a second longer than we have to on taking the next step. I don't want to rush it, but I do want to push it. I don't want our young leaders to grow any more accustomed to losing than they already are. We need to start winning games. We need to start doing that whole "winning culture" thing now - not two or three years from now. So. Give me a proven scorer. Who's 25 years old. And who shoots right. And who's from Detroit. [/rant]

THANK YOU! I OWE IT ALL TO THE MILFS!

Fair. But let's consider the positives: 25 years old (26 in December) Right-handed shot Hometown kid who seemingly wouldn't mind coming home 2017-18: 28 goals and 52 points in 82 games 2018-19: 41 goals and 76 points in 82 games 2019-20: 18 goals and 45 points in 70 games 2020-21: 32 goals and 56 points in 50 games 2021-22: 41 goals and 78 points in 82 games 2022-23: 27 goals and 66 points in 82 games And let's also consider this: We can't score goals to save our lives Basically, we're talking about a young player in his prime who can flat-out produce - and who (if the whispers are to be believed) has the Wings on his short list of teams he wants to play for. If that's not something we're interested in, then I'm honestly not sure what we're even doing. Do I love the idea of giving up some good pieces and then signing him to a deal that's comparable to Larkin's? Not really, no. But we're beggars, and I dunno that we can afford to pretend we're choosers.