Dabura

I hear ya. If I'm being real, I don't genuinely hate them. I don't truly hate any team these days, at least not like I once hated the Avs or the Ducks or the Pens. I hate the Bolts in a "They're our tormentor, so I'm contractually obligated to hate them" way. I don't feel it in my bones. Nothing personal, just business. (The business of being a fan.)

THIS AIN'T THE FANTASY THREAD, NERD!

They beat us in our last two playoff appearances and it's gotten to the point where we're incapable of beating them in a 60-minute game. They bring our shortcomings into sharp focus. Props to Yzerman, who will always have a special place in my heart. But he and the TBL organization can get wreckt. Is that tribalistic? You bet your ass it is!

I couldn't be happier with the remaining teams. Yeah, Tampa's in there, but that gives me a team to actively root against.

Right, it'd be Veleno I'd be pursuing. The cost of being able to draft Wahlstrom is almost inevitably going to be too steep, but if Veleno's available at 11 or 12 or later, that might be doable. Maybe. Possibly. (Probably not.)

I'm more interested in Edmonton's 1st (10th overall), because it's Chiarelli and it sounds like he might be looking to make a shortsighted panic move. But even there, the ask is probably going to be way too much for us. http://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/edmonton-oilers/edmonton-oilers-trading-their-first-round-pick-quite-possible-this-year/wcm/fe19d49a-8bca-41df-b27a-77392e82cd3a How about one of the Isles' two 1sts (11th and 12th overall)?

Fortunately for the Caps, Barry Trotz lives for suffocating, low-scoring hockey.

Gonna take more than that, methinks. One of Hughes, Boqvist, Bouchard, Dobson, Wahlstrom, Tkachuk will be available at #9, and each of those players is sexier, more promising, more valuable than AA + two 2nds. IMO.

FEELS GOOD MAN FEELS REAL GOOD

Racism is a thing and it's dumb. Unfortunately, crying wolf about instances of racism and "hate crime" is also a thing and is also dumb. http://www.fakehatecrimes.org/ I'm sympathetic to Smith and anyone who has to put up with stupid s*** like what's being described in this case. However, in the absence of hard evidence, and with the understanding that Smith is a bit of a hothead, I'm not about to go full WIIM and pen a column about how "Society's acceptance of racism has a glaring effect on hockey culture." I'll leave it at that.

The right-shooting forward curse continues.

Rest in pieces, Bruins.

I'm just saying there should be a wealth of options next summer. Holland himself has said he's focusing on 2019 and 2020, that those are the years where we'll start to see significant roster turnover. By July of next year, the Wings will have cashed in a huge number of picks across the 2018 draft and the 2019 draft. Holland could have a pretty good amount of cap space to work with. There should be a bunch of attractive UFA options, even beyond the biggest names. The trade market could present us with a great opportunity, one that cap space and a newly stocked prospect cupboard might actually make doable. (If all of those really good UFAs are going to get huge contracts, then many or most or all of the organizations handing out those contracts will have to make moves to free up the necessary cap space. Holland could be in a position to pounce.) Zetterberg could retire. Hronek, Cholowski, Rasmussen, et al. (Hughes/Boqvist/Bouchard/Dobson?) will legitimately be in the roster mix. We're potentially looking at a perfect storm of awesome. So. The plan for 2018-19: continue to suck, continue to rebuild through the draft. The plan for 2019-20: stop sucking, start being good again, but don't get impatient and go all in on a stupid playoff push. I believe that's how Holland and co. are approaching things.

There are a number of reasons why I'm not gung-ho about a fourth line of Helm, Abby, Glendening. Even if we're not paying any mind to cap hits or trade value, I'd still have other concerns. I think Helm and Abby are at their best when they're slotted as complementary wingers on scoring lines. They don't really produce their own offense and they're not actually all that great defensively, so I feel like putting them together on a dedicated checking line is just kind of a waste -- for them and the team and the organization. The Abby-Nielsen-Helm line was helpful in that it freed up the top two lines a bit, I guess -- but overall I'd say the line was a drain on the team's offense and scoring. Swap out Nielsen for Glendening and you're probably just getting an inferior version of that line. "But they'd be the fourth line, so they'd only be getting ten minutes," you might say. To which I say: doubtful. Highly doubtful. I dunno that Rasmussen-Nielsen-Svechnikov would only get ten minutes a night, but I wouldn't expect them to get way more minutes than Abby-Glendening-Helm. (And Rasmussen and Svechnikov are both rookies, so I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with that.) So, even if Rasmussen and Svechnikov are playing on the third line and Helm and Abby are playing on the fourth line, Helm and Abby are probably still taking a healthy bite out of those kids' playing time. And if the bottom six is Rasmussen-Nielsen-Svechnikov / Abby-Glendening-Helm, that means Athanasiou is on one of the top two lines (assuming he's still around), which, frankly, I'm not down with. Based on what he showed this season, I'd fully expect him to be a drag on Larkin and Mantha or Zetterberg and Nyquist. So...I'd be ok with one of Helm and Abby on the fourth line with Glendening. But both of them? I'm not sure that it would be this really formidable, super-overqualified fourth line. To me, what makes Helm and Abby valuable is their ability to work with much more skilled players. If you take away those skilled players, you take away their main strength, and you're left with what I'd expect to be a thoroughly mediocre fourth line that can throw its weight around on the forecheck, yes, but spends most of its time chasing the puck on the defensive side of the ice. I'd expect it to hurt the team more than it would help the team, especially if some of the kids we're trusting to hold their own in scoring line roles are overwhelmed. Putting kids in roles that are too demanding can stunt their development just as much as severely limiting their ice time and responsibilities can. Don't get me wrong -- I definitely get where you're coming from and I don't fully disagree. I guess what it comes down to is that, IMO, Larkin and Mantha are the only young forwards who've shown that they absolutely need to be playing big minutes straight out of the gate next season. Frk, Bertuzzi, Svechnikov, Rasmussen, Athanasiou? Not so much. Maybe Bertuzzi, but his success might've just been The Zetterberg Effect. Haven't thought too hard about what I'd ideally like to see on opening night. Maybe something like this: Abdelkader Larkin Mantha Bertuzzi Zetterberg Nyquist Rasmussen Nielsen Helm Svechnikov Athanasiou Glendening Even with everything I've said, I wouldn't complain if they went with your combinations. It's looking like we're in for another season of wheel-spinning, regardless of how the lines and pairings are arranged, so I'm not too invested in 2018-19 roster management at the moment. My hope is that next summer will usher in a new-look forward group with new faces, new energy, new possibilities.

Not really, no.

So. If the Knights win the Cup this season, do we see a copycat effect around the league? Do organizations re-evaluate, re-prioritize, re-orient? Or are the Knights simply a one-off lightning-in-a-bottle situation powered by elite goaltending and a few forwards having career years? We all know the team is overachieving, but is it all just "beginner's luck"?

Yep. I give Chiarelli some credit for making some big changes and trying to "go for it" straight out of the gate. Unfortunately, he made bad decisions that have probably set the Oilers back more than they've pushed them forward.

Sure. But even beyond the biggest names (almost all of whom will indeed re-up with their respective teams), there is a s*** ton of really good talent on that list. Jeff Skinner, for example, has always been underrated. I don't want Holland to try to build a team through free agency, but, in theory at least, I'm down with adding a really good veteran or two to help augment our roster and maybe speed up the rebuild a wee bit.

Wisniewski's a dingus.

I just feel like keeping them on the fourth line is kind of throwing the towel in on getting the most out of them, whether we're talking about getting our money's worth out of their contracts or maximizing their trade value. And, to be fair to them, they're both perfectly capable top-nine complementary wingers. Like, Athanasiou-Larkin-Mantha looks super-sexy on paper and they had that fantastic game against Arizona -- but if we're placing any value at all on underlying numbers, we have to acknowledge that that line spent the vast majority of its time together getting caved in. AA was the weak link there; Helm and Abby made for a more dependable, capable line. Granted, I'm really down on AA after the season he just had. Decent production, but he's playing like a 16-year-old. No possession game to speak of. Defensive liability. No growth. I'm genuinely unconvinced that he's more competent and effective than Helm or Abby.

Well, yeah. Rasmussen-Nielsen-Svechnikov wouldn't be a shutdown line. At least, not in theory. I'm just saying we don't know how Blashill intends to use Nielsen -- and his line -- next season. If he wants three scoring lines, @krsmith17's lines would be a good place to start. If Blashill wants to continue with the 2 scoring lines + 1 designated checking/shutdown line + 1 designated whatevz line scheme, I'd expect Nielsen's RW to be a veteran checking guy like Helm or Abby. Personally, I'm ok with both Helm and Abby being in the top nine because I want at least one of them traded within the next couple of years and no one's going to want them if they're putting up meh numbers as expensive fourth-liners on a meh Red Wings team. Even fi we aren't able to move either of them, we'd basically be giving up on trying to get our money's worth out of them if we're using them as fourth-liners.

I went to Canada once. It was weird.

Yup! It's looking like the Wings might've picked a damn good time to bottom out. We missed Dahlin this year and I'm guessing we'll miss out on Jack Hughes next year, but, even so, there are a lot of really good defensemen at the top of this draft class and there'll probably be a lot of really good centermen at the top of next year's draft class. I don't want to get my hopes up, but it's possible that these two drafts could, ultimately, be all we need to fill our holes and get back on track. (I suspect this is a big reason why Holland was given that two-year extension.)

The big question is whether Blashill wants to continue using Nielsen's line as a designated checking/shutdown line. If yes, then that RW spot is probably occupied by Helm or Abdelkader. ...Unless, perhaps, Blashill and Holland have had a heart-to-heart and they've both decided it's time to let the kids run wild. Holland has stopped just short of admitting he's pretty much written off next season anyway, so I guess it's possible.

And from my (admitedly limited) knowledge of the projected top players, they're right. Seems like the top 10-15 could be very short on top defensemen, for what it's worth. Sort of an inverse of this year's top 10-15.