Dabura

On the top pairing with John Carlson.

wtf i love ken kal now

Yep, my mind went straight to AA. Could just be a truism, though. It's not like he's gonna say, "I would most certainly NOT love to make a value-for-value trade as part of the rebuild process." It'd help if we had more context, but I dunno if that's available. If AA does get dealt in a "value-for-value" trade, I wouldn't necessarily expect the return to be a defenseman, since the trade market value of a good young defenseman -- whether he's NHL-proven or an unproven teenage prospect -- is crazy right now. Maybe a guy like Alex Wennberg is a semi-realistic target? 23-year-old centerman. Swedish. Coming off a disappointing 8-goal, 35-point regular season for a Blue Jackets team that some feel needs to add some pure goal-scoring punch in the offseason. Overtaken by Pierre-Luc Dubois on the depth chart. Under contract for five more years @ $4.9M per year, which is looking pretty ugly right now but could end up being pretty good value. Or how about Boone Jenner? I'm sure Holland will pursue him if there's actually something there to pursue. I guess my assertion that we can "rule out Tavares" doesn't necessarily follow from Holland's statement that the Wings aren't going to be a player in free agency (or whatever Holland's actual statement was). It's possible he simply meant he's not going to be aggressively pursuing multiple players like he normally does. I'm hoping the Vanek-Wings ship has sailed. He's super-skilled and the Wings seemed to like him as a teammate, but he's also old and slow and a defensive liability and a subpar possession player. With Rasmussen looking to make the team out of camp and Andrei Svechnikov/Tkachuk/Zadina possibly being in the mix, I've got no interest in a veteran stopgap/roadblock PP specialist at the moment. That's just me tho.

No. It's all about the Jagr pro tryout redemption arch, baby.

Holland also said the Wings won't be players in free agency, so we can rule out Tavares, Carlson, et al. and be content with the knowledge that, at the very least, our team won't be getting older next season. Which, for the Wings, is a pretty big deal. Holland and Blashill and Zetterberg have always maintained that if there's going to be a Red Wings youth revolution, the kids have to prove that it would be a revolution worth having. To our young forwards' credit, they made a strong case this season, maybe especially over the last two or three weeks of the season. And to Holland's credit and Blashill's credit and Zetterberg's credit, it seems like they're acknowledging it and embracing it. Now watch us bring back Vanek.

Hmm, so maybe I'm wrong and the team will in fact look pretty different next season. Of course, as far as I know, Holland didn't specify when the team might be expected to hit that hypothetical "4-5" mark (opening night? Mid-season injury fill-ins? Post-trade deadline call-ups?) or if "4-5" even means four or five guys *all on the roster at the same time, all holding down regular spots at the same time*. In any case, here's the exact quote (I assume): “At the end of the day, I’m hoping and expecting that a minimum of two and maybe four or five kids between the age of nineteen and twenty-two are on the roster next year that weren’t on the team to start this year,” Holland said. (Wingsnation) I'm guessing the minimum two are Svechikov and Hicketts. They're pretty safe bets for the opening night roster and full-time duty. I'm guessing the other candidates -- for opening night or some point later in the season -- are Rasmussen, Dahlin/A. Svechnikov/Tkachuk/Zadina, Turgeon, Hronek, Cholowski. Is David Pope done with school? Another possibility is a good young player that we get in a trade, e.g. Kasperi Kapanen, Haydn Fleury.

HYPE!

I look forward to Chara devouring him.

1 goal, 3 assists in the Americans' Game 3 win. 10 goals, 13 assists through 7 games.

http://whl.ca/article/americans-rasmussen-named-whl-on-the-run-player-of-the-week Calgary, Alta. – The Western Hockey League announced today that Tri-City Americans captain Michael Rasmussen has been named the WHL On the Run Player of the Week for the week ending April 8, 2018. Rasmussen, who was selected by the Detroit Red Wings in the first round, ninth overall, of the 2017 NHL Draft, registered seven points (4G-3A) and a plus-five rating in two games as the Americans took a commanding 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven Round Two series against the Victoria Royals in the 2018 WHL Playoffs. In the series-opening game Friday, Rasmussen had a goal and three points as his team won by a 7-0 result. The Surrey, B.C. product scored the opening goal of the game, having it stand up as the game-winner. He also picked up a primary assist on the insurance goal and a power play assist later in the game. He led a sweep of the three stars of the game and was also named the first star of the night across the WHL. A night later, Rasmussen recorded the first hat trick of his WHL Playoffs career in a 4-1 win for the Americans. Rasmussen scored the first, second, and fourth goals for the Americans, once again picking up the game-winning goal. He also had a primary assist on Morgan Geekie’s third period goal to factor into all four of the Americans’ goals. Rasmussen once again earned first star honours of the game and across the WHL for the evening. Overall, Rasmussen finished with five points (3G-2A) at even strength and two points (1G-1A) on the power play. The first two games have been a continuation of Rasmussen’s successful voyage into the 2018 WHL Playoffs. Through six games this post-season, the 6-foot-6, 221-pound forward has 19 points (9G-10A), featuring four power-play goals and a pair of game-winning goals. --- Michael Rasmussen exists to make me look stupid. I am ok with this.

*solemn agreement nod* We'll be lucky if Hicketts is on the opening night roster, never mind Hronek or Cholowski or Hughes/Boqvist/Bouchard. The team we watched last week is more or less the team we'll be watching next season. Drafting Dahlin, acquiring Tavares, acquiring Karlsson -- it'd take something of this magnitude for us to see a genuine roster shakeup over the coming summer.

Heh, sorry 'bout that. "Great minds" and all that. Yup. I'm even ok with Blashill not running a fourth line of Abdelkader-Glendening-Helm. The more time Helm and Abdelkader spend on a bad Wings team's fourth line, the harder it'll be to 1) get our money's worth out of their contracts and 2) trade them.

A dramatic two-year turnaround is possible, but the odds are very much against it. I'm hoping for the best while expecting the worst. The thing about the Bruins is they have Marchand and Bergeron, both of whom rank among the very best players in the league. So they have a strong foundation, plus they have solid veterans in Chara, Krejci, Backes. Then you add kids like Pastrnak, who's as effective as any of our top young forwards, and McAvoy, who'd probably be our best defenseman. And in goal, Rask is better than Howard and Khudobin has dramatically outperformed Mrazek this season. Point being, we have a lot of work to do, a lot of catching up to do. The planets -- all of them -- will have to align for us to be the best or second-best team in the Atlantic Division by 2020 or 2021. We'll have to get extremely lucky in the draft (this year's and/or next year's) and possibly acquire a top UFA like John Carlson or Erik Karlsson or Jeff Skinner. It's generally agreed that pretty much everything has gone right for the Leafs' rebuild. Yet, even with all of their young talent and Babcock behind the bench and Lamoriello upstairs and all the money and resources in the world at their disposal, it's been a few years now and they're not yet a really serious Cup contender (IMO). /buzzkill

I've actually warmed to Blashill a bit. Larkin had a solid year, took a big step forward. Mantha had a solid year. Bertuzzi's showing a lot of promise. Frk performed about as well as we could've realistically hoped he would. None of us liked that Svechnikov was basically glued to the bench for his first few games with the Wings this season, but maybe that was the right way to ease him in; he looked comfortable by the end of his stay and was starting to produce. Glendening scored 11 goals and finished with just shy of 20 points. Nielsen's numbers were disappointing, but he was used in a shutdown role, which may or may not have been optimal deployment on Blashill's part. Zetterberg was Zetterberg. Helm and Abdelkader were Helm and Abdelkader. AA produced like a middle/bottom-six winger, which is what he is right now. I guess you could say Nyquist and Tatar regressed, but I'm not convinced either one would be much better on a different team. Tatar hasn't really done anything as a Knight. Our defense group is crap, but I'm not sure many coaches would get more out of it. Ericsson was good this season, by Ericsson standards. Kronwall put up close to 30 points. DeKeyser has been slowly deteriorating, I don't how much of that is Blashill. Green was Green. Daley puts up more points if Blashill uses him on the PP more often, but the Ericsson-Daley pairing was pretty good for us. Jensen was Jensen, a bottom-pairing 27-year-old defenseman without much scoring upside. Hicketts looked good and it seems like Blashill's been very clear with him on what he needs to do if he wants to stick in the NHL. Team sucks at making passes through neutral ice and winning games in OT and scoring on the power play with any kind of regularity. But, overall, I'm not sure Blashill is really part of the problem right now.

Aw crap, I'd forgotten that's how it works.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from process." - Arthur C. Clarke

It's remarkable how much Larkin has grown as a player this season and, in contrast, how little AA has grown as a player this season. Is Larkin any more naturally talented than AA? Not really. Is Larkin ten times more self-driven to be the best player he can possibly be? Seems to be the case. Last year, someone high up -- I think it was Holland -- said the organization will be putting a lot of emphasis on "character" in their amateur scouting and drafting. Maybe those guys actually know what they're doing!

"Parity."

How do we feel about AA? I've gotta be honest: even if he wants to stay and is willing to sign a reasonable extension, I might look to move him at the draft if I'm Holland. I reached a point during last night's game, seeing him try to "I'm hot s***" deke past a defenseman for the 48,000th time this season and fail for the 47,997th time this season, where I just kind of threw my hands up in the air and really started to wonder if he isn't in fact a "problem kid." I'm sure Blashill and other players have told him he needs to grow his game. ("Maybe don't go for the low-percentage deke every. single. time.") I'm sure Blashill and other players have told him he needs to get much stronger, as the lightest breeze can easily separate him from the puck. That he apparently hasn't taken this advice to heart is not encouraging. He plays like a bottom-six winger. He plays bad possession hockey. He plays dumb hockey. For me, it's getting kind of old. Problem is, everyone else in the league can see this, so I doubt his trade value is especially high. I don't think he gets us a Justin Faulk. I'm not sure he could even get us a late 1st.

Unless we're picking 2nd overall (Svechnikov), I think it's almost a given that we'll be taking a defenseman with our first pick. The consensus top defensemen not named Dahlin are pretty much set: Hughes, Boqvist, Bouchard, Dobson. Maybe also Ty Smith, depending on who you ask. For what it's worth (not much), Draper didn't mention Hughes when he rattled off names in his recent interview with HSJ: HSJ: Is the defense position a priority? KD: “A major priority. You have Dahlin. You have Boqvist, you have Evan Bouchard playing in London, you have Noah Dobson in Acadie-Bathurst. You have Ty Smith playing out west. There’s a pretty good crew of defensemen that are going to be available in the top 20. Our second 1st, I don't know, because Vegas's postseason fate is totally up in the air at this time and, as far as I'm concerned, there really isn't a whole lot of separation in the rough consensus 16-31 range anyway. I assume the Wings would like a defenseman or centerman as opposed to a winger, but there should be some pretty sexy wingers available in that range, e.g. Joel Farabee (not sure he slides that far, but we'll see), Serron Noel, Dominik Bokk. I agree with @LeftWinger that having those two early 2nds is a really big deal. People are focused on our first 1st, and rightfully so, but that cluster of picks -- Vegas's 1st and the two early 2nds -- could be where we really make bank.

Let's hope not!

Can't pick 10th, unless we trade down. But yeah, I hear ya.

Well, we knew it wasn't going to be just one year. Regardless of who's in charge, next season's team is almost guaranteed to look the same as this season's team and perform just as poorly, which is probably for the best. But, crucially, Kronwall and Nyquist and Howard will all be on expiring contracts. That could give Holland some room to change things up next summer.