Dabura

Worth point out that Chicago and Colorado are pretty competitive teams right now and LA still has elite talent. Point being: These teams might favor players that they feel are a little closer to being NHL-ready impact players. So maybe I was wrong to say Podkolzin's contract situation -- coupled with the fact that he's a winger -- could be a dealbreaker for multiple teams. If it's between Podkolzin and, say, Turcotte, who's possibly the purest centerman in this draft class and possibly only a year away from making the jump to the NHL...maybe the team picks Turcotte. Defensemen are a crapshoot and they tend to take some time to come into their own and not everyone agrees that Byram is an "elite, elite" player, so there's slide potential there as well.

nsh what is u doin

He was a central piece in the Kessel trade. My understanding is moving him was strictly business; Pens wanted a big gun and he was part of the price they had to pay. Seems like he could be the odd man out in the Leafs' looming cap crunch, which is kind of a shame because he's already a pretty good top-six scoring winger and I feel he's capable of being as good as Panarin. At worst, he's Tatar. In a vacuum, I think he makes perfect sense for the Wings. The right age (a week older than Larkin), can step in immediately, right-handed shot, natural goal-scorer who could become lethal on the PP. Not sure what the ask would be. If he's getting moved, it's as a cap dump...so I'm tempted to say a pick and/or a prospect might be enough. Or maybe we offer-sheet him...? If Dubas doesn't want to trade him within the division, an offer-sheet would be the only way we could land him. Maybe it would be worth it, maybe not.

[orders custom afanasyev jersey]

>Be the BJs >Quickly and painlessly dispatch the league's top team >Kick back and watch two teams beat each other up for six or seven games >Play the winner As a non-ancient Wings fan who's never known a Cinderella Wings team, I unironically wonder what that's like. I guess 2013 might count.

Bruins lead 4-2 after 40 mins.

At this point, I crave intrigue, drama, mystery boxes, the great unknown. "You've never heard of this kid, but he's #1 on my list" is a 10/10 on my personal Intrigue Boner Scale. So I guess I'm just fishing for any opinions people might have on this player. I'm not about to rearrange my preferences around him, but at the same time I have to acknowledge that I'm familiar with only, like, 40 of the players in this draft class, so I've got pretty big blind spot when it comes to non-high-profile types and potential sleepers.

Pastrnak woke up.

I mean, I'm open to being persuaded about anything. Maybe he's a sleeper. If not worth the 6th overall pick, then maybe worth a later pick in a trade back scenario? Could he be a legit 2nd-round target? Would he be worth trying to trade up into late 1st round? I know very little about him and I'm genuinely curious.

Bruins up 2-0. https://www.nhl.com/gamecenter/bos-vs-tor/2019/04/17/2018030124#game=2018030124,game_state=live I hate that I have to root for them.

Any appetite for a Kasperi Kapanen trade?

I like Eberle for the right-hand shot, but I feel like he's basically Nyquist. In terms of dad guys...I guess there's Spezza...? meh. I'm having a really tough time identifying a plausible path to the 2020 playoffs. It sucks. I want to speculate and rosterbate and trust that Holland has something up his sleeve, but I'm starting to think we're in for another season of spinning our wheels, because there really isn't anything else we can do that makes a ton of sense. The team will continue to get younger, which is good, and there'll be a questionable UFA signing or two, and that'll probably be it. I've joked about Derick Brassard and Tyler Myers being *chef kiss* Holland targets. If we can NOT sign those guys, I would consider that a big win.

I hear ya. I'm generally not a fan of WIIM or SB Nation, but I feel Iyer's done some good work here. Also, news is slow and the Wings are a total nonentity in the rumor mill right now, so I'll take what I can get.

A good read: Rebuilding the Red Wings - My Approach To The 2019 Offseason [Winging It In Motown] tl;dr This team isn't a Connor McDavid away from being a truly solid playoff team, so management should hold off on making any big moves until 2020-21. Embrace the suck for one more season. There are some good discussions in the comment section of this piece... (Note: I am not any of these people.) The idea of an enormous one-year UFA deal is intriguing. I suppose that could be classified as an "outside the box" move, no?

Which one is the one where they're all in space and some stuff blows up?

6 Detroit Red Wings Draft Options at No. 6 [The Hockey Writers] I've seen Afanasyev in action a couple times -- though, I wasn't specifically watching him. I do remember being impressed. Seems like another "Damn, I really wish we'd been able to get an additional 1st" case. Anyone here have any opinions on him? Here's another brief profile, from back in December: Draft Watch: USHL 2019 Draft Eligible Skaters You Should Know [Access Hockey MI] (Note: He's a winger.)

Eliminate everything but the Cup.

I go back and forth on this issue. Goals versus assists, I mean. On the one hand, goals are goals; you want goals, you want guys who are proven high-percentage goal-scorers. On the other hand, you could argue that playmakers are equally valuable because some of the best goal-scorers need good setup guys. What makes AA a tricky case -- and you've been hitting on this point -- is that he doesn't necessarily need setup guys as much as a guy like, say, Ovi does. A lot/Most of AA's goals are rush goals. For that reason, "AA scores most of his goals on breakaways" isn't necessarily the damning criticism that some people might think it is. I like Mantha's all-around game; I think he's the better playmaker, I think he's the better possession player (in terms of the conventional shot-based metrics), I think he's better on the cycle, I think he's the smarter player. At the same time, I feel like AA is arguably a gamebreaking goal-scorer and has the capacity to be wildly effective just doing his thing and perfecting it, whereas maybe Mantha is more of an all-around solid guy who doesn't necessarily offer real gamebreaking prowess. But then Mantha has a Mule-esque monster game and I throw my hands up in the air and ask why we're even talking about trading either of these guys when our only core scorers are Bertuzzi, Larkin, Mantha, Athanasiou, an unproven Hirose, and an unproven Zadina.

Getting Q probably makes Panarin more of a luxury than a necessity, tbh. Hell, even without Q, I dunno that a pricey scoring winger is really something the Panthers need. Not like the dude's having a really stellar season. Goaltending seems to be their biggest area of need right now. Sorta like the Lady Byng, I suppose.

mods are asleep, post weeb s***

Then you're a Red Wing. OH YES I DID

CKA. CSKA. General Ak bars. Ska music. It's all the same s*** to me.

Seems like everyone is very high on Byram but not everyone is sold on him projecting as an "elite, elite" NHL defenseman. Personally? I love him. But I guess it's fair to say he's more appealing than Boqvist, Bouchard, Dobson were and not quite as appealing as Hughes was. No one would put him on Heiskanen's level. (I really slept on Heiskanen until fairly recently, which shows how little my takes matter.)

And there's always CSKA.