Dabura

A second lottery wouldn't impact our pick tho, right? http://www.tankathon.com/nhl If that's right, and if I'm reading it right, a second lotto wouldn't have any effect on our position.

Seriously. I need closure, lol. That's another reason why 1st or 2nd would be great -- we'd know who we're getting (assuming Yzerman would take Byfield @ 2nd, which I think is a safe assumption). If it's 3rd or 4th, it's going to be months of wondering who our guy is going to be. We don't even know when the draft is going to be held.

Personally, I don't want ant non-Wings Atlantic team getting Lafreniere or Byfield, especially if it means we pick 3rd or 4th.

Technically, 4th is the most likely. http://www.tankathon.com/nhl/pick_odds 1st - 18.5% 2nd - 16.5% 3rd - 14.4% 4th - 50.6% If there's a silver lining, it's that 18.5 + 16.5 + 14.4 = 49.4. Which mean it's basically a coin flip: heads/tails we pick in the top 3, tails/heads we pick 4th. (Hmm...that sounded more comforting in my head. ) EDIT: Oh, sorry, should've read the rest of the replies.

I'm fully expecting the Sens to win the lotto with the Sharks' pick. We'll see...

Stralman, Cernak, Coburn, McDonagh, Girardi... sure seems to be a thing.

I'm cautiously optimistic. Seems to fit the profile of what Yzerman generally looks for in a defenseman -- i.e., a smart, strong, steady, mobile two-way guy.

In all seriousness tho, a library arena is a genuine possibility next season if we don't get Lafreniere. Hell, it's a genuine possibility even if we *do* get Lafreniere.

Yep, Quinn's a beauty. And, yep, we're not getting him. lol Anecdotally, it feels to me like trading up into the middle or late 1st round is a thing that basically doesn't happen, for whatever reasons. So I'm not expecting Yzerman to do it. On the other hand, we know Yzerman tried to trade down from 6th overall last year. If the lotto kicks us down to 3rd or 4th overall, maybe Yzerman trades down and gets us an additional 1st. I DON'T WANNA WAIT FOR OUR LIVES TO BE OVAHHH

I REEEEEEEEEally wish we owned two 1sts this year. Sanderson, Askarov, Lundell, Seth Jarvis...this 1st round is going to produce a lot of really good NHLers.

Lafreniere's a lock for 1st overall. I've gotta think Byfield's a virtual lock for 2nd. I think once those two are off the board, it's truly anyone's guess how the dominoes will fall. Stutzle is the consensus #3 guy, but there are some valid concerns with him, just as there are with any and every 2020 draft-eligible not named Lafreniere or Byfield. Now, don't get me wrong -- the Wings are so starved for top talent that "We got Stutzle/Rossi/Drysdale/Raymond/Holtz/Askarov/Perfetti, but there are some concerns about him" would be a great "problem" for us to have. It's just...y'know...the HYPE! fiend in me wants an as-close-to-a-sure-thing-elite-NHLer-as-it-gets guy. And that, to me, means Lafreniere or Byfield. If we get Lafreniere, we've finally found our superstar. And he'll step right into the NHL next season and probably do fairly well as a rookie. Wings fans would have an actual reason to catch a game or two at the LCA next season, especially if Yzerman decides to go out and land a big-name guy or two. If we get Byfield...well, as with Lafreniere, we've finally found our superstar. Not quite as sure a thing as Lafreniere. Not as NHL-ready. Probably needs to spend a year in Europe. Probably doesn't become a monster NHL centerman until several years from now. But there's little doubt he's ultimately going to get there. He has the potential to become the most complete centerman in the league. tl;dr I don't want to be ok with where we land in the lotto. I want to be overjoyed with where we land in the lotto.

In the span of about a month, I've gone from not caring about the lotto format to absolutely hating it. lol. I've also gone from thinking I won't be too disappointed with 3rd or 4th overall to realizing 3rd or 4th overall would crush me. To have the kind of season we just had and not even get Lafreniere or Byfield out of it...ugh. I'm trying really hard to not get my hopes up. But I want to believe. (ﾉಥДಥ)ﾉ

Sure. I'm just using "definitively establishes himself as a top-three NHL defenseman" as the target, which adds a year or two to the estimated timeline. So let's call it 3-5 years.

I hope you're not getting your hopes too high, Lefty.

Best and Worst Teams at Finding NHL Players from the Draft [Dobber Prospects] No earth-shattering revelations here, but news is slow.

His rights could get traded. I'm not saying it's definitely going to happen, I'm just saying I'll fret about him if we actually re-sign him and if it's looking like we're going to lose him on waivers and if that strikes me as a big problem. Ideally, you never lose an asset for nothing. But it does happen. [shrug] I think the reason why I'm kinda flippant about this is I'm just so damn sick of our Logjam of Mediocrity on the back end. For the past, like, seven years we've been agonizing and fighting over Red Wings defensemen who ultimately never amounted to anything. With Hronek establishing himself as a legit top-pairing guy and with Seider looking like a future top-pairing guy and with Yzerman probably having some decent cap flexibility for the next few years (which he can put towards a high-end UFA defenseman, if he so desires), I'm that much more disinclined to care about what happens with a player like Bowey. I'm being kinda harsh, I guess. But 2019-20 was pretty harsh on Wings fans. So...eat my shorts, Red Wings blue line.

Basically, yeah. Hope for a quick ascent, but expect a slow ascent. Hronek was drafted in 2016. 2020-21 will be the first season where he's utilized as a legit go-to guy straight out of the gate. That's four(ish) years.

To be fair, Bowey 1) hasn't been re-signed yet and 2) is nothing more than a #5-7 defenseman at the NHL level.

Nemeth's ok in my book. Good shutdown guy. ...Which sort of proves your point, I guess. Our blue line is so thin that I'm cool with Patrik Nemeth being one half of our top pairing.

Agreed. I'm just salty because my awful team is probably gonna get bent over by Parity™ at the draft lotto.

I doubt Yzerman brings him back. But we definitely need to add a veteran top-four defenseman, maybe two. I think overpaying T. J. Brodie on a three-year deal would be ideal. That doesn't sound too appealing, I know, but I feel we need a Brodie. Good skater. Good puck-mover. Good first pass. Plays a pretty steady two-way game. Can play hard minutes. Granted, it helps to be Mark Giordano's default partner. For what it's worth, Blashill has said he wants Hronek to model his game after Giordano's. Maybe Brodie can help Hronek reach his full potential. Brodie probably goes to Toronto, though. mehhh.

The Billion Dollar Question: Has giving 15 teams a shot at a top-three pick actually helped combat shameless tanking and fostered Parity™? Maybe it's too early in the experiment to reach any solid conclusions, but...I kinda feel like the answer is no. The Wings are coming off a historically awful season. The Sens went all-in on a cynical/realistic blowup and nuked their roster from orbit. A couple years ago the Avs were dreadful. The Devils are back to being a Mickey Mouse team. The Sabres are the Sabres. It took the Oilers this long to get their act together. Point is: Teams sucking is very much still a thing. "Yes, but GMs and owners understand that they can't necessarily count on the draft bailing them out." OK...but has that actually changed the equation in a meaningful way? Yzerman could've added players who are better than Filppula and Nemeth. He didn't. Why didn't he? I think you could make the case that he sat on his hands because he decided the Wings "had to" suck this season. Why did the Wings "have to" suck? Because the Wings need a superstar and you have to draft that kind of player, and you can't expect to find that player outside the top 3 in any given draft. Hardcore sucking wouldn't guarantee us the 1st overall pick, but apparently that's a moot point, as it seems to me the mentality at the top of this organization's pecking order is "We want the best shot at 1st overall that we can give ourselves." And the Wings aren't exactly unique in this regard. "Everyone has to spend some time at the bottom" is, to me, a euphemistic way of saying "Tanking is still a thing. And, in fact, the way things are set up now, we've actually created an ecosystem where tanking is an institutionalized necessity." There are counterpoints, of course. I like that the Isles flipped reality the bird and said, "Screw you all. We went out and got Barry Trotz because we have no interest in being a basement team. Our mediocre-ass team is making the playoffs this season." I like that the Coyotes and Canucks have been patient and seem to be on the verge of turning things around, all without hardcore tanking and a single recent top-three pick between them. At the end of the day, it's on the GMs and owners and coaches and players and scouts. The Detroit Red Wings haven't been victimized by the draft lotto. They don't have to play the tank game. No one's forcing Yzerman to not go playoffs-or-bust. I guess my point is that Yzerman, like any GM, is a pretty smart guy who hates losing and believes in the importance of integrity...so, for him or any other GM to be like "Yeah, we're gonna be bad for a while. What can you do, y'know? It's just the way it is. [shrug] No sense in adding marquee UFAs at this time"...that sucks, man. I don't like it. I've never liked incentivized tanking. The more I think about it, the less convinced I am that the 15-team lotto system actually disincentivizes tanking in any measurable, meaningful way.

Seemed like he genuinely enjoyed being a Wing, or at least a Michigan resident. Wouldn't surprise me if he wanted to re-up for one more year.