Dabura

Cholowski = Kindl 2.0. One-dimensional offensive defenseman who doesn't put up enough points to justify the super-cushy deployment.

What's your take on Mittelstadt? Does he look like he could be a 2C?

I mean, I'm not gonna shout from the top of the Empire State Building that Jonathan Bernier and Thomas Greiss are the greatest goalies in NHL history. But Greiss played a few games in the playoffs last season and his save percentage was .929%. And this season, behind a really bad team, and after a really rocky start (probably a big-time adjustment period), he finished at .912%. Bernier's been a revelation as a Wing. He was our MVP this season. In a just world, he's playing for a playoff team next season. If there's a rock-solid argument for why Bernier and Greiss definitely aren't Cup contender material, I confess I don't know what that argument is. And I'm not trying to be obstinate. I've given a fair amount of thought to this and I really don't think there's much of a case against rolling with a mercenary UFA signing. That kind of blue-sky hope is not a strategy. But I do understand your logic and I do think it has some merit. I'm not gonna be upset if we end up taking Wallstedt with our first pick. Because we will have filled a big hole on the organizational depth chart. Hell, like I've said, I'd be ok with trading down and taking Chaz Lucius. Lucius is very much a high-risk, high-reward prospect. So, no, I can't say I'm fundamentally opposed to risking big in an attempt to win big. In all honesty, there's a part of me that's done with this "You did the crime (of being a good team for a long time), now do the time (in rebuild hell)" bulls***. That part of me is always trying to think up ways that Galaxy Brain Yzerman might be able to flip the script and MacGyver us a deus ex machina workaround. Getting the next Carey Price would be one such way, as a Price-level goalie means you can lower the bar at every key skater position. All of a sudden, there's less need for a conventional core (i.e. star power), because your goalie is just that good. Sounds great, right? Well, sure. It's a nice thought. But let's really think about this for a moment. Consider: > Your Price-level goalie has to be every bit as good as Carey Price. (Ideally, he's even better than Price.) > How many Carey Prices are there? How likely is it that Wallstedt is that good? > Even if Wallstedt *is* that good, how much success have the Habs enjoyed in the Carey Price Era? > We can say the reason why Price hasn't won the Habs multiple Cups is a combination of poor management and poor coaching, but it's really easy to say your GM and coach are gonna be the ones who crack the code and succeed where other GM-coach tandems have failed. > A Price-level goalie is going to demand a Price-level contract. And let's say we do get lucky in next year's lotto draw and that player becomes an absolute superstar. That's a monster contract. And let's not forget Seider, who we're thinking could be a future Norris-winner. That's a monster contract. Now, maybe our future Wings star players sign team-friendly contracts. That's a possibility. Worth noting, though: Michigan taxes aren't as kind to NHL stars as Florida taxes are. That's a lot to consider. There's a lot that would have to go right. It seems appealing to us now because we're looking for a workaround, a way to accelerate the rebuild and beat the system. But we're probably better off embracing conventional wisdom and playing the odds and taking a skater with our first pick in this draft. We have needs at key skater positions and top 10 picks are how you fill those holes.

REGULAR STATS POSSESSION METRICS (EV) RATE METRICS (EV) THOUGHTS Sam Reinhart and Dylan Larkin are solid hockey players. In some respects, they're surprisingly similar. I think it's fair to say Larkin is better defensively and is more of a true centerman. One of the things that stands out to me is the gap in shots-on-goal volume; Larkin is signficantly more high-volume. Given that Larkin's career shooting percentage is 9.1%, I'm going to conclude that he's what you might call a "brute force" goal-scorer, as opposed to a precision sniper. In contrast, Reinhart's career shooting percentage is 13.6% – and that's not significantly inflated by unsustainably good scoring runs. This season, he shot 19.2. (Unsustainably good.) The season before that, he shot 15.3. The season before that, he shot 12.22. The season before that, he shot 13.3. I dare say he's a good shooter. Why doesn't Reinhart shoot more, then? I'm guessing it's because Eichel is the go-to shooter on that team. (Eichel fires a ton of shots. Way more than Larkin.) So here's the question: What happens if Reinhart isn't playing on a team with a franchise player go-to shooter like Eichel? What if the coach tells Reinhart to defer less and shoot more? His shooting percentage probably comes down (I mean from his career average, not last season's unsustainably good rate), but I'm not sure it comes down by a whole lot. Stats-wise, this is the kind of thing you look for in a "could benefit from a change of scenery" player. Would Reinhart be redundant in our forward group? Maybe. I dunno. If he's a centerman, he meets the "Look, all we really need at center is a guy who's roughly equivalent to Larkin" requirement. If he's a winger (I'm leaning that way), I'd like to think he and Larkin would complement each other. Overall, I don't feel Reinhart is a player we need to be aggressively pursuing. If the ask isn't ridiculous, I wouldn't mind adding him – but a lot of teams are going to be in on him and at least several of them are going to be very serious about getting him. Vancouver. LA. Philly. NYI. Et al. We're not getting Reinhart.

If memory serves, he retreated from "unequivocal bust" and moved to "Nyquist/Tatar 2.0, which is a bust." I gave him a lot of crap for the Nyquist/Tatar projection, so that's what I'd be eating crow about, mostly.

If I'm Yzerman and I'm pursuing Reinhart, that would be my reasoning; I'd be counting on Larkin and Reinhart being roughly equivalent players, with one being more of a matchup/shutdown guy and the other being a high-percentage shooter (which Larkin is unequivocally not) who can consistently beat up on other teams' secondary talent. Or, at the very least, I'd be thinking Larkin and Reinhart could work very well on the same line together. My hangup is the other party in this hypothetical arrangement; I can't see Buffalo giving a divison rival and fellow cellar dweller a borderline 1C in his prime at a very agreeable price. Because surely the last thing they want is to get punked by Yzerman and have that come back to haunt them multiple times every year. But if we want to go crazy... 6OA + Zadina + Fabbri for Reinhart + Buffalo's 2022 1st (no lotto protection).

Bernier's save percentage this season: .914%. Greiss's save percentage this season: .912%. Good goalies will always be available for cheap. Maybe Yzerman trades up a few spots for Cossa. But I really can't see him taking a goalie with our first pick, even if he trades down a few spots. We've been limping along with an inadequate core of skaters and stopgap veteran mercenaries. Yzerman himself has said it's time for the team to start getting younger and taking real steps forward. He's also said the ETA for this rebuild is 3-5 years from now. If we assume 1) we're not going to get lucky in any lotto draws and 2) none of our non-marquee prospects will become true cornerstone guys, then our hopes and dreams are pretty much pinned on Seider, Raymond, 6OA in this draft, a top 10 pick in next year's draft, and maybe a top 10 pick in the 2023 draft (depending on how competitive we are at that point). Two or three picks. The fate of our rebuild largely hinges on two or three picks. We need to make those picks count. We need to come away with a very good NHL top-six centerman and a very good NHL top-four defenseman. Three years from now, we need to be able to say, "We have a core of skaters and this core is going to make us a perennial Cup contender."

For me it really just comes down to the ask.

If Zadina ends up being what you said he'd be, which is Nyquist/Tatar, which I gave you a lot of grief for saying, I will absolutely eat the crow that's served to me. At present, the jury's out. Zadina demonstrated this season that he can play regular minutes in the NHL and that his ceiling is still high. His game's generally solid and he shows flashes of Datsyukian brilliance. Blashill clearly trusts him with first-line duty. But we need him to be a big producer and he was definitely not that this season. In fairness, he's still quite young and inexperienced. And, to his credit, he did generate plenty of scoring chances for himself and his teammates this season. He needs to put up points next season, though. If he doesn't, the honeymoon's over.

A guy who's very similar to Reinhart and isn't in our division (or conference, for that matter): Elias Lindholm. I dunno that he'd be any less expensive than Reinhart, though. Another Flame who's similar to Reinhart but more proven at center (albeit just as questionable defensively): Sean Monahan. A few weeks ago it was reported that Brad Treliving was listening to offers on Monahan. Monahan's coming off a rough individual season, so Treliving would be selling low on a player who's otherwise produced pretty well. Kind of a Larkin situation. I guess the thinking is that he's going to be 27 in October, and he's only got two years left on his contract, and the Flames are kind of drifting along aimlessly in No Man's Land and could probably use a big shakeup. I dunno. The more I dig into potential big-name trade targets, the less likely a summer encore to the Mantha trade looks to me. In terms of roster players, what we have to offer are wingers and Hronek. Moving Hronek is probably Peter-->Paul at best. I can't see Yzerman moving Bertuzzi when he's rehabbing from back surgery. I can't see Yzerman moving Vrana after a solid (if unsustainable) 11 games. I think Fabbri and Zadina are realistic trade chips at this time, but I also think neither player gets you much in a trade. So, on the trade front, my expectation is Yzerman will be treating cap space as his biggest asset. So...probably no huge trades.

I'm not super big on Reinhart as a serious trade target. Reasons: > Intradivision, i.e. Kevyn Adams would probably want to bleed us, i.e. a late 1st + Zadina + a nothing defenseman (Cholowski) probably doesn't do it. Now, maybe Reinhart badly wants out of Buffalo and is willing to bend Adams over a barrel. But my sense is that isn't the case. > For each of the past three seasons, his zone start split at even strength has been right around 60/40. That's pretty cushy deployment. So, even if he *is* a true centerman (the jury's out on that, I think), he's likely a 2C. Larkin would eat the hard minutes, Reinhart would eat the cake minutes. Which would be fine if I believed we could get him for a very fair price. But, again, I don't believe that. > His shooting percentage this season was 19.2%.

I still like this roster.

Worth noting: Vrana's shooting percentage as a Wing is 25%. No one is a 25% shooter (McDavid's single-season career high is 17.08), so that's gonna come wayyy down in a larger sample size. Point being: I don't feel Vrana should be totally untouchable. But I agree that Yzerman isn't going to deal him after only 11 games.

Bernier has performed remarkably well behind bad Wings teams. This season he was borderline Vezina-caliber, indisputably our MVP. Greiss got off to a really rough start this season, but he turned it around and played like the Greiss we thought we were getting when we signed him. That's the case against taking Wallstedt in the top 10. Good goalies are always available. 2Cs and 2Ds? Not so much. If you want to trade for one (a 2C/2D), it's likely going to cost you at least one significant asset. If you want to sign one as a free agent, you're likely going to have to significantly overpay. Is that an airtight argument? Nah. But GMs agree with it. I'll add that even if we're thinking about positions of need, with goalie being a big one for us, we're basically one good player away from being set at center and one good player away from being set on defense.

I like Dougie Hamilton. Slavin-Hamilton is arguably the best D pairing in the league. ...But Slavin's at least half of that equation. ...And we're pretty set at RD. (Feels so weird to say that.) ...And, age-wise, Hamilton doesn't really fit our rebuild timeline. Now, maybe Yzerman and Blashill feel one of Hamilton, Hronek, Seider can play on the left side. Or maybe Yzerman would trade Hronek for a centerman. If Yzerman wants to close the book on the rebuild and go HAM on getting into the playoffs next season...then, yeah, signing Hamilton and trading Hronek for a centerman is probably the way to go. That'd be cool. Which is how we know it's not going to happen.

Was bored. Wanted to see how we might look with only a few UFA adds, no significant trades. UFA adds: Blake Coleman, Dmitry Kulikov, Alex Wennberg. Seattle: Namestnikov. Bertuzzi Larkin Coleman Vrana Wennberg Zadina Veleno Rasmussen Fabbri Erne Glendening Panik Nielsen, Smith Kulikov Hronek DeKeyser Seider Cholowski Stecher Lindstrom Bernier Greiss Wennberg's not going to score like he did this season (unsustainable shooting percentage), but he's a true centerman who can play tough minutes and keep his head above water. Basically a placeholder in the middle six for a couple of years as we sort ourselves out at center. I'm tired of stopgaps, but Wennberg's gonna be 27 in September, so it's not like we're re-signing Filppula. Coleman's a good winger who can play center if needed. Given that we're so weak at center, so I'd like to see us ice a deep(ish) winger group. I liked Hronek with Nemeth. Kulikov is sort of a Nemeth type; he won't put up points, but he can drive possession in a tough shutdown role. I like this lineup. I feel like this lineup would be watchable, possibly even competitive.

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I do hope Yzerman does some flexing in the coming weeks. Certainly the planets are doing their part and aligning. There's the static cap and the consequent crunch. There's the expansion draft. There's some unhappy high-end talent. There are some desperate GMs. There's our once-in-a-decade cap flexibility. There's our wealth of draft picks. There's Yzerman reportedly being open to moving nearly anyone on our organizational depth chart. I know people want us to hardcore suck for at least one more year, because Lambert, Wright, et al. And maybe that's the right way to go. But Yzerman's been very clear about his desire to see his team take steps forward and get better every year, and I feel like maybe that ball is already rolling. I mean, sure, we weren't a good team this season – but we didn't finish in the bottom three, and you could make the case that if we'd boasted a league-average power play and/or league-average OT chops, we would've finished closer to a playoff berth than to 31st overall. Being bent over and buttf***ed by injuries certainly didn't help. So my point is I'm not sure standing pat makes a ton of sense. Maybe now's the time to either see what an actual NHL lineup can do – i.e. go hunting for a couple significant roster additions, beyond our own pipeline – or go absolutely HAM on collecting picks & prospects. Or maybe even both...?! I don't really have any specific proposals. A couple players I like are Jack Rathbone (LHD, VAN) and Peyton Krebs (C, WPG).

I mean, no one should be ruling out the possibility that we do in fact end up with some legit star power. We might already have a future Norris winner in Seider. Certainly Raymond has star potential. We'll be getting a good player with our top pick in the upcoming draft. And we'll likely be getting a good player with our first pick in next year's draft. So there's reason to be hopeful. I'm not trying to hate on anyone for being hopeful. Not at all. I'm hopeful. ...But, yeah, I'd be lying if I said my expectations haven't begun to shift. I'm starting to embrace what you're talking about. The blue-collar mentality. The underdog ethos. Lean and mean. Forged in the crucible that is Not Having Superstar Talent to Lean on and Hide Behind. Ideally, we have the superstar talent *PLUS* the blue-collar attitude. But "ideally" rarely lines up with reality. Right. That Blues team, or your standard Preds team, or these Knights teams, or these Trotz Isles teams, or these Slavin-Hamilton 'canes teams... Exactly. Well said. It's not the kind of team you draw up when your organization embarks on a rebuild, but it's the kind of team you're likely going to get. And that's ok!

Yeah yeah yeah, I get that. We all get that. We're all on the same page. Lots of star players = good. Getting lots of star players = the plan. What I'm trying to get you folks to start thinking about is the very real possibility that we're not going to win any draft lottos and will have to settle for a Wings team that isn't particularly sexy on paper but still has the potential to win a Cup or two.

I'm not saying you should actively try to assemble a team like this Habs team. I'm saying McDavid and Matthews are golfing.

Anyway... How 'bout those Habs? Completed the sweep against the Jets. Headed to the conference finals. They're doing what they're doing with a center group of Phillip Danault, Nick Suzuki, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, and Eric Staal. Danault is basically being used as a sacrificial human shield for Suzuki and Kotkaniemi. And it's working. No production from Danault, sure, but Suzuki and Kotkaniemi are scoring lots and the other teams' top players haven't been scoring lots. The Habs' winger group? Nothing special. Their blue line? Nothing special. Their goaltending? Well, ok, it does help to have a Carey Price in net. But my point stands.

Seider will be the Val Kilmer Doc Holliday to Larkin's Kurt Russell Wyatt Earp; everyone will openly agree that Seider is the real MVP, and with everyone in agreement on that, there won't be any drama. Tombstone is a solid movie, even with the main protagonist being thoroughly upstaged by a supporting character. What *will* piss people off is if Seider performs well enough to win the Calder but gets snubbed like Kilmer got snubbed by the Oscars people. But even then, that wouldn't lead to infighting within Wings World. Quite the opposite. We'd be reminded that the world hates the Red Wings and their fans. We'd be reminded that it's us versus the world.

I guess I'm just not understanding why we need to be having hard conversations about Larkin at this time. Would I like to have a 1C who's significantly better than Larkin? Sure. Do I have a foolproof plan for acquiring that player? Nope. I'm assuming we're not getting that player. And I'm saying that's not necessarily a bad thing. If we can instead simply find a centerman who's about as good as Larkin overall but maybe more of a natural scorer, that could be enough.

Raymond.