Dabura

Ah, but why are the special teams better?

NO DEKEYSER It's a lot of things, IMO. But if I have to pick a primary reason, I'll go with the kids.

I wouldn't worry about it. Holland has no interest in moving Larkin or Mantha and I think he only moves Athanasiou if it becomes clear that the relationship is just not going to work. I believe Holland is or will be looking to move Nyquist for a pick and/or prospect this season. A salary dump to help the "Sign Larkin, Mantha, Athanasiou" fund and a way to open a permanent spot for Athanasiou in the top six.

I think Dickie's looking ahead a couple of years to a hypothetical situation where Larkin and Mantha have established themselves as truly elite players. In which case, yeah, Mantha probably could fetch us a really good young defenseman...but probably not an elite 1D. If we only have two elite players and they're both forwards and we're looking to trade one for a defenseman, that defenseman has to be phenomenal. That, or your prospective trade partner has an embarrassment of riches on the blue line and desperately needs to add a top-tier forward, as in Nashville trading Seth Jones for Ryan Johansen. Though, even there, Nashville gave up a young 1C for a defenseman who isn't guaranteed to become a great 1D. And now Columbus is trying to win a Cup with Nick Foligno/Alexander Wennberg and Brandon Dubinsky as their top two centermen. Fortunately for them, Werenski and Bobrovsky are phenomenal. Huh? OEL has been an elite defenseman for years now.

Y'know, I think back to our three most recent playoff series -- Chicago in 2013, Tampa in 2014, Tampa in 2015. We had the inferior D group in each series and it's probably fair to say that was the big deciding factor in each series. However, I feel like the real story of each of those series was, basically, "They scored when they absolutely needed to score and we failed to score when we absolutely needed to score." Our forwards struggled to get to the inside in the o-zone and generate a lot of Grade A scoring chances, we didn't bury enough of the you-absolutely-have-to-score-there chances that we did get, and the power play wasn't good enough. Really close games that could go either way -- that's where you really want to have a gamebreaking scorer, or two, or three. We don't know how Mantha will pan out, but he has all the tools needed to become that kind of gamebreaking scorer who can be counted on to tip the scale in his team's favor in a buttclenchingly close game or playoff series. And that's a really big deal, especially for an organization that's in the situation we're in. If you're Ken Holland, you don't trade Mantha this year or next year or the year after that -- unless, perhaps, you draft an Andrei Svechnikov.

Srsly tho. It'd have to be one helluva defenseman. And even then, I dunno. We're not really in a position to be moving our top talent, because we appear to have only two top-tier(ish) players in the entire system atm. Tampa could afford to part with Drouin because they have a fantastic core trio in Stamkos, Kucherov, Hedman. We don't have that kind of flexibility. (At least, not yet.) It'd probably be a lateral move, at best. It's generally harder to find an elite defenseman than it is to find an elite winger, I'll concede that. But it's pretty damn hard to find a dominant 6'5" scoring winger. FWIW, Kevin Allen of USA Today did a piece on the Wings' rebuild-on-the-fly and the elusiveness of That Elite Defenseman: Red Wings: Rebuild on the fly could work with this path He's right that "a premium defenseman is the hardest piece to find in a rebuild." But I think he's also right that "If any of [Larkin, Mantha, Athanasiou] fall short of expectations, the Red Wings' rebuilding efforts will be slowed, even with a premium defenseman."

Falcor is GOAT, confirmed.

BLASPHEMY! BURN THE HERETIC!

Re: Larkin, Man, I'm just happy we finally have a viable young 1C again, for the first time since, like, young Datsyuk-Zetterberg. I mean, *knock on wood* and all that. But, yeah. Larkin is really good and is only 21 and let me enjoy this HYPE! I need this HYPE! This HYPE! sustains me.

Glendening is the next captain. (e5)

Lock him up, Kenny!

2 POINTS!!! Final score: 3-1. That's a big win. I know it's just Buffalo, but we have to find ways to win this kind of game, and we did. Good stuff. We're now in third place in the Atlantic. WE'RE COMING FOR YOU, TAMPA.

LARKIN! 3-1! Our transition game has been awesome here in the third. Nielsen line -- mainly Helm and Glendening -- has set the pace.

LOL no. We're running 11 forwards and 7 defensemen, so that probably threw off their formatting or something.

kickazz knew.

Definitely redeemed himself. Great screen by Abby.

TATAR!

FFS, score could be 15-1 right now. Bury your chances.

Call stands. Should've been called back, IMO.

Sabres score. 1-1. All started because of another bad decision by AA in the o-zone. Wings challenge. Goalie interference. Under review.

PP is awful tonight. (That's what she said.)

Nyquist is going to have nightmares about this game. PP

Word.

I'm pretty sure they put the wrong guy in the box. Glendening should be in there, but Helm is serving it. Can't remember the last time I saw that, where they just straight-up get the wrong guy and don't catch it. I have to be missing something.

To be fair, he also has more goals than Larkin. I ain't complaining. Score all the goals, Luke.