Dabura

PK End of 1st. No score. Two bad teams with no confidence going at it on a terrible ice surface. The Stars were slightly less bad than the Wings.

This is some ugly-ass hockey, fam. From both sides. Pretty sure the CBA explicitly forbids messing with time.

Time travel is so damn confusing.

"This will be our 30th icing of the game." - Ken Spoken like a true LGWer.

Cheater.

LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOO

This just in: 8 o'clock start times are dumb.

I feel like there isn't much of a connection between size and concussions. I suspect it's more about the type of game you play and the situations you tend to put yourself in. Aaron Ekblad and Auston Matthews are big men and each of them has already suffered multiple concussions. Hughes is the same size as Brayden Point, FWIW.

When it comes to the Wings, I don't really differentiate between LW and RW anymore, because the Wings themselves don't really differentiate between the two. And I think the Wings are kind of ahead of the curve on this point. Because, for all intents and purposes, LW = RW = LW in today's game. I'd like to see the Wings add a couple high-end RH shooters, but I'm not gonna say Frk is our only RW just because he shoots right. I'd like to see us add Mark Stone at a not-insane price (meaning trade and/or UFA), but I don't see us getting him for anything less than an insane price. I don't think the fact that he shoots right means we should be significantly more interested than we otherwise would be. But that's all kind of beside the point, which is that we're not as deep on the wing as many Wings fans would like to believe we are. On this, you and I seem to agree. We also seem to agree re: the D and G depth charts. I say it a lot and I'll say it again: A team is only as deep as its top talent allows it to be.

Over a week old, but good draft rankings are hard to come by and DobberProspects is one of the better resources out there: 2019 NHL Draft Rankings - WJC Mini Version (December 2018) [DobberProspects] Draft HYPE!

I don't really mind Abby on the first line. He hasn't been producing, but Larkin and Nyquist most definitely have, and I do think there's something to the idea that Abby complements those two in ways which don't show up on the score sheet. Bert's probably the better player, but I like him with Glendening and Rasmussen. Or, at least, I think that's about the best imitation of a legit third line that Blashill can offer up, given what he has to work with. But, I mean, I'm not really invested in lines and pairings this season, so I'm fine with anything. I will be salty if Larkin's point streak ends tonight tho.

...All of which makes the thought of us landing a guy like Hughes or Kakko that much more HYPE!tastic.

That bit about Seguin interests me: Seguin has put up 11 goals and 32 points in 38 games. His shooting % is currently 7.5, which is well below his career average of 11.1. The piece says an average Seguin season would translate to four extra goals (give or take). That would put him at 15 goals and 36 points (give or take). This interests me because of Larkin's current stats line: 16 goals and 37 points in 39 games played. Larkin's current S% is 11 (Seguin's career average), which is well above his career average of 9.3. You probably see where I'm going with this. At the halfway point of this season, a possibly-slightly-overachieving 22-year-old Dylan Larkin is giving the Wings the kind of production you might expect from Tyler Seguin. Now, I'm not suggesting Larkin has established himself as a Seguin-caliber centerman. Even if Larkin finishes this season with, say, 80 points, I'd want to see him do it again next season. Then I might feel comfortable saying we have our elite(ish) 1C. But my point is this: Larkin is doing well enough this season that it doesn't feel like a huge stretch to imagine him as an elite(ish) 1C at age 25. His contract is looking pretty good right now, no?

I try to avoid SBNation these days, because Vox is a pox upon us all and I don't want to give them the clicks. That being said, the Lites comments are too wild to not bring up in this GDT, and I've always felt the folks at Defending Big D do pretty good work (i.e. mostly bulls***-free). So here's some stuff from them: Dallas Stars Daily Links: Stars Make Headlines as Lites Calls out Top Players [Defending Big D] Opinion: Stars Have Bigger Problem Than Benn and Seguin's Play [Defending Big D] How The Stars Compare with Core Scoring Across the League [Defending Big D] From that third piece: I'm expecting a pissed off Stars team tonight.

I think this season has pretty much nuked the idea that the Wings are relatively deep at the wing position(s).

Slow-motion free fall.

And this guy said it. The absolute madman!

LMAO: Stars CEO rips Benn, Seguin: 'They are f---ing horses---' [theScore] We need to get Jim Lites on LGW.com.

Notes: Wings switch some lines and defense pairs in practice [DetroitRedWings.com] tl;dr Athanasiou Larkin Abdelkader Nyquist Nielsen Vanek Bertuzzi Glendening Rasmussen Megan/Frk de la Rose Ehn Ericsson Daley Kronwall Jensen Cholowski Hronek

HYPE! LGRW!

Nah. 4 goals on 40 shots isn't so bad. One goal was Ericsson blowing a tire, basically giving Kessel a breakaway. Another goal was a perfect shot-pass-tip. Kessel basically owned us.

Points update: Larkin (1G) - 16 goals and 37 points thru 39 games Nyquist (1A) - 9 goals and 32 points thru 39 games Larkin extended his point streak to 12 games. I'm probably gonna miss Saturday's game. Hopefully not, but we'll see. G'night, fam!

Pens score on the empty net. This one's over. Still gonna be a little while for all of them, I think.