Dabura

Wait so are we ironically hating on Zadina or unironically hating on Zadina? I need to know if I should be praying for him at night or stabbing pins in a voodoo doll.

Anyway I've gotta run. Stay safe, everyone. (Even you, kip.) Peace.

I feel for you, man. Truly. I can't imagine what it must be like having some ******* with a DBZ avatar living rent-free in your head for years.

Lafreniere > Mike Ricci > Gretzky Right. If you firmly believe Lafreniere isn't all that special and you own the 1OA pick, you should be looking to trade down. Personally, I feel Lafreniere is good enough that I'd need someone to blow me away with a trade proposal. I'd need convincing.

Yes, yes, poor persecuted kip. :'( I've always been open to trading down from 1OA, in theory. My hangup has always been the return. If I'm trading Lafreniere, I need to be getting something that's jizz-in-your-pants amazing. Stutzle + Rossi is, at the very least, in the ballpark. I actually like each of those players more than I like Byfield, so, for me, that might as well be the 2nd and 3rd overall picks.

I think my biggest gripe with The Plan is that even if Holland/Yzerman truly wanted to go nuclear and load up on 1sts and other teams' top prospects...I feel like it's been a long-ass time since we last had a core group of players who could actually get us there. Which is sort of the whole problem, right? The Wings have struggled enormously to produce both 1) elite cornerstone players and 2) "merely sexy" players like your Duchenes and your Turrises and your Hoffmans and your Pageaus. The natural result has been not enough winning (no elite players) + no GMs throwing premium futures at us (no sexy late-20s trade bait). Even now, you don't see a ton of people talking about our top players. Doesn't necessarily mean we couldn't get a huge return for, say, Mantha, but I guess my point is that I'm not sold on this notion that Yzerman not trading our young guys = missing the boat. I'm sure there will be big trades in the future, when we can honestly say that we have too many good centermen/wingers/defensemen/goalies. We're not there yet. ...Though, it's possible we're only a few months away, depending on how the draft plays out.

Nah, not a no-brainer. We don't know that either of these guys will be a full-time centerman at the NHL level. That's why I say I'd be having endless convos with my scouts. Don't get me wrong tho -- you don't have to convince me that Stutzle and Rossi are fantastic prospects. It's killing me that we don't have another early 1st to work with and I completely understand the logic in trading down from 1st overall.

I guess I'd lean towards Stutzle and Rossi...? Maybe? Put it this way: It's close. I'd be having long, loooooong talks with my scouts for days on end. I'll be much more sour if the Sens get Lafreniere and Stutzle/Rossi. I might join the "F**** this s***, burn it to the ground" camp if that s*** happens.

I'm actually pretty open to whatever. Most of the arguing I do here is for rhetorical sport. There's definitely a part of me that hates what this team and franchise have become and wants to see Yzerman take a hammer to it.

I mean, anything's possible. But I don't think he's going to trade one of our best young players unless there's a real problem and/or he 100% believes he's 100% winning the trade(s). Seems like AA was a source of friction. So Yzerman dumped him. I can't see that happening with any of Larkin, Mantha, Bertuzzi, Fabbri, Hronek. At least, not any time soon. We need players who can hold their own in demanding roles on a bad team and all these guys can do that. They're not going to win a ton of games, but they're young and serviceable, and that's really all we need right now as we lick our wounds and bide our time. If we get a player who's good enough that he has a rising-tide-that-lifts-all-boats effect on the roster, we could end up being very happy that Yzerman stuck with these guys. Totally fair. "Hope for the best, expect the worst." I get it. Personally, I'm choosing to embrace the (possibly misguided) HYPE! Why? Because it's all I have left right now as a Wings fan. lol. Everything sucks; I need something to believe in. We all do. It helps that I'm really freaking high on a bunch of this year's top draft-eligibles. More so than usual.

Right. We're on the same page. Point is, basically, we'd be getting a guy who's likely going to be as good as Larkin if not better. I'd be perfectly fine with an O'Reilly-Schenn scheme where you could call either player the 1C depending on how you personally define things. Do I want a McDavid? Absolutely. Would I settle for O'Reilly-Schenn? Absolutely. Do I think we have an O'Reilly-esque centerman and are now in a position to draft a Schenn-esque centerman (in addition to having Veleno and Rasmussen in the system)? Absolutely. And I'm pretty pumped about it.

This gives me a better sense of where you're coming from. Legit thanks for elaborating. (I haven't been lurking much lately, so I'm not sure where people are at right now re: the rebuild.) You're in the "Nuke the site from orbit" camp. Your fear is that we fall into a late-stage Hollandism cycle of Respectable Mediocrity™. I can, erm, respect that. I'm not feeling it tho. Yzerman's not attached to our players the way Holland was, so I don't think we have to worry about him riding a mediocre core for way too long "because homegrown guys" or whatever. Again, Yzerman's been pretty clear and consistent with his prognosis: Our young core is flat-out not going to be enough, so we need to add. I truly don't see why this has to be a 10-year thing. I'm all for Yzerman trying outside-the-box stuff in an effort to speed up the timeline, but I don't think it's a "Burn it to the ground or we're stuck in hell for 10 years" situation. What we have right now isn't anything to write home about, admittedly. Maybe Larkin is better suited for the 2C role. Maybe Veleno is looking like a 3C. But even if these things are true, we know that at least one of Byfield, Stutzle, Rossi, Drysdale, Raymond is going to be available when we make our first pick in the upcoming draft (assuming we don't get 1st). These are "elite, elite" prospects. Better than your average consolation prize pool, as this draft class has lived up to the "unusually deep" HYPE! Adding Lafreniere or any one of these players will be an enormous win for the rebuild effort. I know I say something to that effect every year, but, I mean, have y'all seen Marco Rossi play hockey?! Dude SCREAMS "Yzerman guy." Dude SCREAMS "Brayden Point (but better)." And some people are thinking he might not even go in the top five. Point being, again: We are getting an insanely good prospect, very likely the best we've had in eons. Adding Byfield is a quantum leap forward for the rebuild (even if he settles in as a winger). Adding Stutzle is a quantum leap forward for the rebuild (even if he settles in as a winger). Adding Rossi is a quantum leap forward for the rebuild (even if he settles in as a winger). Etc. All of a sudden, with one player added, entire discussions become outdated. If we're adding, say, Stutzle, and we think he's a centerman, the "Can Larkin and Veleno cut it as our go-to centermen?" conversation is basically no longer a thing. If we're getting Stutzle and he's a winger, we're about as set as you can be on the wings without adding any big names via trade or free agency. All of this is also true for Byfield and Rossi. We're probably headed for another prime lotto pick next year. And Yzerman's going to have cap flexibility -- with a pretty interesting 2021 UFA class. And we know Yzerman isn't afraid to make trades. So...I don't wanna be That Guy, but...it's not a total blue-sky pipe dream to think things could get better in a hurry if a few things go right.

I think Zadina has the potential to be better than Oshie/Tatar/Nyquist/Hudler. I don't think that's a stretch at this point in time. I know you're not crazy about his game, and I respect that, but, for me, there's a lot to like. I think he can be elite(ish). Yes, Hughes is looking like he would've been the smarter pick. But time will tell. Beyond Hughes, no 2018 hidden gems have emerged: https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl2018e.html We're in agreement about Zadina likely not being That Guy We Need; he's likely not going to be Pastrnak or Kucherov. ...Though, to be fair, Pastrnak and Kucherov have played with best-of-the-best players for most (all?) of their respective NHL careers, which has undoubtedly boosted them. In any case, I don't really hold anything against Zadina. He can only be the player he is. It's on the brain trust to fill the holes that need to be filled. I agree that the top priority has to be finding A Legit Superstar and that wanking ourselves off to our current "core" is starting to feel kinda stupid. We have sort of a "core by default," i.e. they're the best we've got, so we imbue them with importance and potential that maybe they haven't quite earned. But, as with Zadina, I don't really hold our situation against them. Hot take: Larkin is Toews without the Kane & Keith boost. Even with the Kane & Keith boost, Toews has cracked 70 points only twice in his career (76 in 2010-11, 81 in 2018-19). He's never hit 85 points. People can point to Toews's two-way play, which is fair, but I'd argue Larkin's underlying numbers point to him being a future Selke guy. People can point to Toews's intangible leadership qualities, but we all know he's a big baby. Ryan O'Reilly's never put up big numbers, but damn if he hasn't established himself as one of the most valuable players in the league. I think Larkin can become the player O'Reilly is today -- but even if he does, Yzerman needs to be winning lots of picks and trades and free agent signings for us to have a team like the 2019 Blues within the next three years. I don't really understand the "crutch" argument. Would you really have Yzerman trade our best young roster guys? If we do that, we could be gutting organizational depth that we've built up over years. Having Lafreniere and no supporting cast isn't much/any better than having a lot of good-not-great guys who lack a superstar leader. I think Yzerman has it right: We have some good young pieces, but it's not enough, and so we need to add, and we need a bunch of those adds to be big wins. I don't see why that has to take 10 years. These days, Cup-winners are generally driven by players in their late 20s and early 30s. I'd like to see us winning some playoff games by the time Larkin is 27ish, which would be three or four years from now. I think that's a reasonable timeline.

10 years is way too blackpill'd for me. I can't bring myself to even consider that. Mind you, I'm defining the end of the rebuild as merely a return to respectability and playoff bubble team status. I'm of the opinion that this season was a perfect storm of suck and that, as such, it doesn't necessarily 100% reflect where things are at and where things can be within a couple of years. Like, there were nights this season where our top D pairing was Trevor Daley & Alex Biega, or some such insanity. *Anything* is *exponentially* better than that.

An elephant in the room is something no one wants to talk about. All you do is talk about Zadina. So, nah. I'm saying Zadina probably isn't the 60-goal destroyer of worlds that our rebuild needs right now. That's all. "Something like Oshie" -- specifically/ideally: a better Oshie -- would still be a very important piece for this rebuild, quite possibly a cornerstone piece.

Agreed. The larger point I'm making is that this rebuild is probably going to take longer than we'd all like it to.

Thanks for the tip. I saw it was Yahoo and was prepared for a load of bulls***, but it's Adam Gretz and he's pretty decent. Overall, a not-terrible read. 5/10. Would maybe recommend. Gretz makes a good point about Seider -- that he's probably a ways away from being a legit dominant top-pairing guy. Even if we think he's the next Victor Hedman, we need to realize and remember that it took Hedman roughly half a decade to become That Guy... https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=107121 Grezt doesn't really touch on Bertuzzi, which makes me think he hasn't watched much Wings hockey lately. (Fair enough.) But I agree with him that 1) Larkin and Mantha are legit top-line players and 2) you're not winning a Cup with Larkin and Mantha as your best players, i.e. the Wings need a superstar. Gretz says Zadina becoming That Guy is still a possibility, but I think we all understand that that's looking like a long shot at this time. Realistically, a "fully realized" Zadina is probably something like T.J. Oshie.

(Note: I don't think they'd trade Dahlin. I'm trying to pull blood from a stone here.)

Because Sabres.

What's your take on compliance buyouts? Have people figured out if that'd even be legal under the current CBA? I feel like the NHLPA would riot.

You're hitting on one of the main reasons why I wouldn't have much of an appetite for trading the Lafreniere pick: On the whole, I'm not particularly high on most of our fellow basement teams' young talent.

Well, for starters, we can put a line through Eichel's name, as he's about as untouchable as it gets. Dahlin for Lafreniere...is an interesting idea. Maybe Buffalo's not thrilled with what Dahlin's shown and they're salivating over the idea of Lafreniere playing on Eichel's wing for years to come. I doubt Yzerman helps them -- an Atlantic rival -- make that a reality. I don't wanna see Lafreniere-Eichel-Cozens six times a season, even with a top pairing of Dahlin-Seider/Hronek. (God help us if Buffalo wins the lotto.) NJ...man, I don't know what's going in NJ. Maybe they're like, "F*** it, we're blowing this s*** up," and they offer us Hughes and their 1st. If their 1st is in the top four, I think I have to seriously consider it. Hughes has had a very underwhelming rookie season, but that doesn't surprise me all that much cuz the Devils are clownshoes and Hughes needs to go through puberty. I still believe he's going to end up being a stud. I don't really see Winnipeg as a realistic player for the pick; they're in win-now mode (or, at least, they were...?) and they're pretty deep at the wing position(s) and their 1st is probably going to be a mid-rounder.

I mean, I'm still firmly in the "Lafreniere is f***ing unreal" camp. He's very likely not going to be as good as Crosby or McDavid, but I still have him down as a sure-thing franchise cornerstone player who challenges for the Art Ross every season of his prime. But I'm also still open to the idea of trading that pick for a ransom.

That's fair. Didn't mean to bash on him too hard, just sayin' we probably wouldn't be getting the Turris of a few years ago, if that's what people would be expecting. 50+ points might be a little optimistic. Could come down to usage. If Larkin can continue to eat really hard minutes and Turris's line gets a lot of cake minutes, I suppose it's entirely possible.