Dabura

There's a market for this kind of content! It's why I've joked about starting an LGRW.com YouTube channel where we all get on Skype or whatever and just yell at each other.

Point being...probably a big "No" on that whole trading for Puljujarvi thing.

Isn't Yzerman the guy who famously refused to give Jonathan Drouin an inch when Drouin was acting like an entitled punk?

A hockey fan doing what he loves: talking hockey. I like hearing what he has to say about stuff. When it comes to the Wings, it's nice to get a well-informed outsider's take.

Yeah, Last Word On Hockey has become one of my go-to resources for draft/prospect stuff. Personally, I'm cautiously bullish on our top prospects; I can't convince myself that we have all the pieces we need, but I'd like to think we're only a Lafreniere away from being relevant again. I talk about this a lot but I really do feel that the Wings have done a good job of building up some good organizational depth and that the only real problem now is the lack of a powerhouse player who can tie everything together and make things click. The rising tide that lifts all boats. (Because, like I always say, your team is only as deep as your top talent allows it to be.) Maybe Veleno is the next Ryan O'Reilly, maybe he isn't. IMO, the real question is "What do you get if you toss a gamechanging player into the mix with our top young players (e.g. Veleno)?" I think two things happen: 1) Veleno-->O'Reilly2.0 becomes more doable (rising tide, boats), and 2) the need for Veleno-->O'Reilly2.0 lessens (rising tide, boats). So that's how I'm looking at our prospect situation. The Wings are constructing a big fuse and looking for a match. Matches are extremely difficult to come by in this metaphor, but we only need one. In theory.

Veleno HYPE! https://dobberprospects.com/player/joe-veleno/ https://dobberprospects.com/prospect-ramblings-roster-bubble-prospects/ https://www.nhl.com/redwings/news/red-wings-prospect-veleno-impresses-in-first-wjss-game/c-308399912 https://www.tsn.ca/dach-veleno-and-lafreniere-dazzle-in-top-line-tour-de-force-for-canada-1.1344525

That's the dilemma for Wings fans. On the one hand, f*** yes we want our team in the 2020 playoffs! On the other hand, conventional wisdom says the Wings need to suck a little while longer so that Yzerman can build a proper foundation for what we hope would be a sustainably good team. The way I've chosen to approach this whole business is "Root for wins, be happy when we win, and be ok with losses."

Interesting...

Well, that's the hope. It's what we tell ourselves to help make the losing tolerable. Mind you, I don't disagree with where you're coming from. (I Like'd your post.) It's just a difficult head-versus-heart thing for me, which is made all the more difficult for me by my pathological ability to play devil's advocate and rationalize diametrically opposed viewpoints (if only for rhetorical sport). Push-and-pull. Want-but-do-not-want. I say it a lot: I don't know how Oilers fans do it. I miss the simpler times. I miss "We have to make the playoffs and win the Cup. Period." For what it's worth, I do believe this Wings team is capable of making the 2020 playoffs. Not because I believe this team stacks up really well against most of the teams in our division (I don't believe that) but because in today's NHL you just kind of expect there to be one or two surprise overachievers every season. Everyone believed Vegas would blow chunks in their inaugural season, and we all know what happened. (And that Knights team was not significantly better than our projected 2019-20 Wings team, on paper.) Everyone believed the 2018-19 Isles would blow chunks, and we all know what happened. (And that Isles team was not significantly better than our projected 2019-20 Wings team, on paper.) All a team really needs is monster seasons from two or three key players. That can be enough to get you into the playoffs. Larkin hitting 80 points would be huge, largely because it'd probably mean we got 20-25-goal seasons from multiple players and at least one 30-goal season from someone. If Mantha can refrain from breaking his hands on third-pairing defensemen's faces, that would be big. Having the Bertuzzi-Larkin-Mantha line in place straight out of the gate could be big. If Hronek picks up right where he left off this past season and maintains that scoring pace over the course of an entire season, that would be yuuuge. Hell, a solid power play may have been enough to get us into the playoffs this past season, so the fact that Hronek is a natural PP QB is exciting. Losing Vanek is arguably addition by subtraction; he put up points, but the 2018-19 Red Wings season often felt to me like one of those Make-A-Wish dream-come-true dealies for a grown-ass man in Thomas Vanek. I'm actually kind of bullish on Nemeth; while we do need more scoring from our back end and Nemeth is in no way a point-producer, I think we've kind of overlooked the importance of having at least a couple of big steady shutdown defenders. I don't mind DeKeyser as our top shutdown guy for the time being, but he can only do so much. Ericsson's had his moments, but they've been few and far between and I believe his body has been falling apart for some time now. Howard will be playing for another contract and I assume he wants to stay in Detroit; I'm expecting him to be pretty motivated. He's capable of getting hot for extended periods of time. We'll need one hell of a season from him if we're going to seriously challenge for a playoff berth.

Huh, somehow I totally missed that. Thx 4 the info.

Yzerman said he expects to know at the end of summer and no sooner than that.

I'm all for making the playoffs. Sucking sucks. The cap ecosystem punishes success. The lottery system doesn't necessarily punish failure, but it's basically a total crapshoot in how it rewards failure. And drafting has always been a crapshoot. So it's at least two levels of crapshoot. I hate that I'm being conditioned to defend the learned helplessness that Yzerman seems to have embraced. I mean, I get why he's embraced it. It's not surprising to me nor is it illogical to me, given the realities of today's NHL. I don't hate the player, I hate the game. I hate that the Smart Take is that the Wings need to suck. I hate that Detroit media was all "It's good that Athanasiou is getting a long look at center cuz that's his natural position" and now those same people are all "It's good that Athanasiou is moving back to the wing cuz that's his natural position." Make the playoffs. Go on a run. Give the Parity Gods and Internet Intelligentsia the double middle finger salute. Make Larkin the new captain because he hates losing as much as he loves winning and this team needs a pulse. Do stuff.

I think it's really dicey. Reasons: The league is so volatile now that anything can happen in the span of a year, never mind four years. Drafting is a crapshoot. Maybe the four 1sts are all late 1sts...and maybe a couple of them end up coming back to haunt you. The Caps drafted John Carlson 27th overall in 2008 and the next year they drafted Evgeny Kuznetsov 26th overall. Food for thought. The contract itself. Being an offer sheet contract, it would likely be an overpayment. Possibly an overpayment on top of what would've been an overpayment in the first place (i.e. the hypothetical contract he'd be signing to stay in Toronto).

No. Loch Ness is the new target. We gonna find that plesiosaur-ass monster.

Krug, Trocheck, DeBrincat. It hurts.

>My heart says, "HELL YEAH, BROTHER!" >My head says, "Pump the brakes. 20 games means nothing, whether we're talking about a line or an entire team." I think back to 2013-14. Tatar-Sheahan-Jurco was an awesome line for a few games. Nyquist put up 48 points in 57 games. Did any of that carry over into subsequent seasons? Not really. Small sample sizes have made and broken careers. Beware!

I hear ya. I guess I just feel like it's kinda weird to go straight to this concern. I doubt the Ilitches have the patience for a 400-year rebuild plan and I doubt Yzerman himself has much interest in stretching this suck fest out much longer than it needs to be stretched out. I think Yzerman looks at what we have and his one major complaint is that there's a crippling lack of elite talent in the system. "I'm gonna get my kind of players in here and then we'll see what we have and go from there" is probably a thing, to some extent, but there's a middle ground here: Yzerman can pick and choose from what he inherited from Holland while also putting his own stamp on things. Basically, what Jeff Gorton's done with the Rangers: move out some older players (Mantha, Bertuzzi and Athanasiou are already in their mid-20s), get lucky in the draft lotto one year, make a big trade that summer, make a big splash in free agency that summer. My biggest fear, as a Wings fan, is that we're not going to get a Kakko or a Hughes or even a(nother) Zibanejad/Larkin within the next two drafts, because 1) I'm honestly not sure if Yzerman is kinda great at drafting or kinda bad at it, and 2) drafting is basically random anyway. If that's what happens, I do think things could get dicey. But I'd expect it to be a "We're gonna brute-force our way back to relevance with desperation moves" kind of dicey as opposed to a "OK, now begins the ACTUAL rebuild, which will take another 3-5 years because now we're building around Seider" kind of dicey. I'm about as unexcited as I've ever been, but I figure I'd feel the same way with Holland still at the helm. The hard truth is that we need a Lafreniere in the worst way. GIven that, I'm willing to swallow the suck pill for at least another season. It's the circle of life in today's NHL and it currently has us bent over a table.

I mean, it's possible. But, personally, I don't have "Two years from now he's going to blow up the team and start a new rebuild" very high on my list of concerns. I would think it's much more likely that he wants to get a couple of drafts under his belt and then make adjustments here and there over the next however many years. Maybe he signs a couple of marquee UFAs. Maybe he trades Mantha and Cholowski. He can make the team his team without it being a teardown.

#Pray4Lafreniere

I guess I'm kinda neutral on all of this; I was ok with Holland staying on and I'm ok with Yzerman replacing him. I'm not convinced Yzerman is an upgrade over Holland (I discussed my concerns about Yzerman at length a few months ago), but, either way, it was probably time for a change. Fan resentment towards Holland had gotten so loud that it was threatening to become part of the Red Wings brand. Bad energy. Bad vibes. It became clear this past season that the Yzerman-or-bust movement would only continue to grow louder and louder until A) we got Yzerman or B) those angry fans became apathetic and tuned out. From a business perspective, the only thing worse than angry fans is numb, disinterested fans. Do I think Holland would've been crucified for doing what Yzerman's done this offseason? Yup. Do I think that's stupid? Yup. Do I think the fart-sniffing pundit class has, for years now, been too quick to shower Yzerman with praise and equally quick to rain scorn down on Holland? Yup. Do I think that's stupid? Yup. Do I think it's very possible that if Yzerman doesn't inherit Stamkos and Hedman, the Lightning rebuild goes sideways and he gets fired after a few seasons? Yup. Is any of this enough to keep me up at night? Nah. I'm willing to give Yzerman the benefit of the doubt for the time being. I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm telling myself that the brain trust is just trying to run out the clock on a number of our veteran contracts and that the end of those contracts wil be the end of the status quo holding pattern we've been stuck in.

Prob'ly Werenski.

SAD!