Dabura

Bonus Friedman, because why not:

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/30-thoughts-who-will-coach-maple-leafs-next/ Elliotte Friedman remains A-OK in my book.

It amazes me how many people go from "Well, Babcock hasn't re-signed yet" to "Well, if he wanted to stay in Detroit, he would've re-signed by now. That he hasn't re-signed means something is wrong." E.J. Hradek just did it on NHL Live. I wanted to kick his fool ass. Like, seriously. This is hard-line negotiation and a season-long ego trip for Babcock. He's absolutely loving everyone in Toronto lusting after him - but it doesn't mean he has any intention of going there. It's a bargaining tactic. He wants his money, and, ultimately, Mike Ilitch is going to give it to him. In the meantime, Babcock gets to be the (incredibly masculine) belle of the ball and feel "real good" about himself. Babcock will re-sign with the Wings. Or he'll go to Toronto.

WHY WOULDN'T MIKE BABCOCK WANT TO COACH THE LEAFS? THINK OF THE POSSIBILITIES, MAN! KESSEL! PHANUEF! ...CLARKSON! I'M GETTING HARD JUST THINKING ABOUT IT!

Getting that defenseman has to be the priority. But I feel the only way we're getting a defenseman is if Kenny is very, very comfortable with the player and the asking price and the contract situation - otherwise, he's just going to stand pat. So, our pool probably looks something like this: Franson Methot Michalek Petry Robidas Salo Zidlicky (I was gonna add more names, but my soul started hurting.) Carlson, Barrie, Ellis, Savard, Krug, Hamilton, Faulk, Vatanen, Yandle, Ekman-Larsson, Wideman, Byfuglien, Myers - I think these guys are probably pipe dreams. I think it's pretty safe to say that Mike Green isn't happening. Point being, we should also be looking at forwards. If we're not going to go big on defense (and it's in no way a given that we're going to add anyone on defense), we should consider adding a scoring forward. That Kenny asked about Perron (assuming that source is legit) is, to me, somewhat encouraging.

http://www.mynhltraderumors.com/2015/01/04/rumors-jackets-blues-leafs-sabres-oilers-kings-and-wings/ That makes me feel a bit better, I guess.

I couldn't believe we followed up Tatar's goal the way we did. "Hey, let's just kind of jerk around on our half of the ice and make sure Jimmy can't make his way to the bench. It's not like the game's on the line and we're killing valuable clock. Oh, wait." As soon as we'd gained possession off the faceoff, we should've been thinking offensive zone faceoff. Gain their zone with possession, fire it on net, force a freeze and a faceoff. Simple. Instead, it took a fortuitous icing for us to get the o-zone faceoff. That shouldn't have been the case. Jimmy should've been slamming his stick on the ice, telling the skaters in front of him to wake the hell up. We don't need opposing goalies and special teams to suck. Not sure why that'd be your takeaway from this game. It was just One of Those Nights. Though, actually, even with nothing going our way and every Wings defenseman not named Ouellet having a rough night, it was essentially a 2-1 loss, a close game that could've gone either way.

(Athanasiou, btw, is a stud. Before he got his jaw busted, he was looking like a potential callup option. I'm expecting pretty big things from him.)

Pretty much this. I'd also add that Kenny surely wants him leading the way on the farm. We want the Griffins to be successful, win a Calder Cup. If you remove Pulkkinen from that lineup, with Athanasiou already out with a broken jaw...things would likely get pretty ugly.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about adding an offensive defenseman. We struggle to score primarily because our defensemen struggle to move the puck and shoot the puck and put up points. Ericsson is a shutdown defenseman. Quincey is a shutdown defenseman. DeKeyser is a shutdown defenseman. We want to play the way we played in '08 and '09, but we don't have the blue line for it. We had one straight-up shutdown defenseman in that top four (Stuart) and three all-star offensive defensemen (Lidstrom, Rafalski, Kronwall). Now we just have Kronwall. That's not nearly good enough. That's why we run around in our end. It's why we trudge through the middle of the ice, often settling for just clearing the red line so we can dump it in and get a line change. It's why our power play often sucks. It's why we aren't a high-scoring team. But we also don't have enough scoring depth up front. Even when we had Lidstrom and Rafalski and we'd just won the Cup, we thought it was worth adding Hossa. That gave us Datsyuk in his prime, Zetterberg in his prime, Franzen in his prime, Hossa in his prime, and good secondary scorers in Samuelsson, Cleary, and Filppula. (And even then, we came up short that year.) At present, we have an old Datsyuk, and old Zetterberg, Nyquist (can he be a major factor in the playoffs?), Tatar (can he be a major factor in the playoffs?), and sometimes an old Franzen (when he feels like showing up). Jurco is a possession monster, but he's not a significant scoring threat (yet). Helm's not a goal scorer. Abdelkader's having a career year, but he's not a goal scorer. Miller and Glendening don't score. The jury's out on Weiss. Sheahan's a stud, but he's not a goal scorer. I get that adding a scoring winger isn't going to fix this team's fundamental problems, but there's no such thing as too much scoring depth. If we're not going to put our late first-round pick towards a top-end defenseman like Yandle, if we're not going to use it on a rental like Green, if we're going to use it to select a pimple-faced teenager who won't be a real factor for the Wings until 2019, I think we should consider adding a gritty right-shot scoring winger. If we're loading up for a deep run (and I'm not sure that we are), better safe than sorry. Depth, depth, depth. It matters. And at some point we do have to add some righties. That's another reason why we don't move the puck as well as we'd like - everyone's a left shot. It's a wonder we move the puck as well as we do, actually.

As someone who deals with health issues (kidney stones, back pain...) on a daily basis, I can understand and respect his decision. Ultimately, it's just a website, and hockey is just a game. Health and family and quality of life is all that really matters. I hope everything works out for him. He'll be in my thoughts and prayers.

Our defense is the main issue, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't consider adding 26-year-old 20-goal scorers, especially if they're right shots. Like, this isn't a difficult concept. And it's not like we're adding a big-name defenseman anyway. It'll be a Petry, a Zidlicky. We could afford that and a Perron. Then we'd have a whopping three right-shooting impact players! http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2014/12/05/detroit-holds-early-scouting-meeting-absolutely-wants-two-or-three-more-right-shots/ IF ONLY THERE WERE A HOCKEY STORE HE COULD GO TO! ALAS!

Miller stood on his head, our special teams failed us, and man oh man oh man do we need help on the back end.

I've talked up Perron a few times. This is a right-shot second-line winger who's good for 20+ goals. He can score, dangle, make plays. He plays a gritty game, likes to agitate, is a pain in the ass to play against. He's 26. His contract situation is pretty close to ideal, from the perspective of a team that's considering adding him. That's a quality package for a late first-round pick. A good value. This is the kind of deal we should be looking to make. Fairly low risk, fairly high reward. A player who's likely to out-produce most of our forwards (we have four big guns). Secondary scoring. Scoring depth. Last night's game reminds us that we're a team that can really struggle to score goals. This is all moot, of course. Yet, it's not. The point I'm making is not ZOMG DAVID PERRON!!!11 The point I'm making is, we (Ken Holland) should be looking at players/cases like Perron. We should be looking to make smart trades. We should be looking to take advantage of the Oilers, the Coyotes, et al. We should be looking to make our team as formidable as we possibly can. We should be proactive. We only have so many postseason runs with Datsyuk left. We can afford to move a late first-round pick. We can't afford to sit on our hands while conference rivals look to make meaningful improvements to their rosters.

He's a right-shot winger in the prime of his career who scored 30 goals for the Oilers. (He got lucky. He'll never score 30 again. But still.) He plays with an edge, likes to agitate, goes to the dirty areas, is a pain in the ass to play against - but he's also skilled enough to be considered a goal-scorer. I'd like him as a gritty complementary winger with good scoring upside. His cap hit's good, he's only signed for one more year past this year, so it wouldn't be a major investment. It'd be a late first-rounder for a guy who could add a dimension to our forward corps that we're somewhat lacking. At the very least, he'd give us some more scoring depth. Basically, I'd take Perron over a kid who's seven years away from playing big, meaningful minutes for the Wings (i.e. the kid we would, and will, take with our first-round pick). I know - "We should use that first-round pick on a defenseman, not David frickin' Perron." I just have zero faith that that's going to happen. We're not getting Myers, we're not getting Yandle, and we won't move a first for a rental (Green). We're going to sit on the pick, because "there's no hockey store." That makes me a sad panda. The one thing I "like" about not getting Perron is his hips are a major issue. He might be one big hit away from being borderline useless. ...But we all know he's going to be huge for the Pens, because of course he will.

Also, we've lost some games. True contenders (e.g. Kings, Blues, Bruins) don't lose games. Shawn Thornton was available, but Ken Holland is an idiot and so he let him go to the Panthers. Do you think it's a coincidence that the Panthers have beaten us twice? Thornton and Mitchell and Bolland give them toughness and leadership and character, something the Wings completely lack. We'll be lucky to make the playoffs.

Yeah but we don't fight enough. What if someone takes a run at Zetterberg? Who's gonna lay down the law? Therefore, we are not contenders. Your argument is stupid.

"Mathfreaks?" Is this a thing now? Cuz, if so, we should start calling Babcock Mr. Mathfreak, since he luvs teh mathz. Also, we should stop using numbers altogether. Goals, assists, PP%, PK%, faceoff %, shots on goal, shots against, scoring chances, blocked shots, turnovers, takeaways, wins-losses-OT, save percentage, GAA, hits... WHAT MATTERS IS FIGHTS. YOU CAN'T MEASURE TOUGHNESS WITH A CALCULATOR. BUT MATHFREAKS DON'T GET THAT. CUZ THEY DON'T ACTUALLY WATCH THE GAMES.

+1

The Oilers, in a nut shell: drafted Paajarvi in the first round, traded Paajarvi for Perron, traded Perron for a first-round pick. "I'm so darn glad he let me try it again..."

It's really not, especially when you consider their needs. They're the best team in their division, maybe in their conference. They want the Cup. A late 1st means nothing to them. They need wingers like whoa. Perron scored 30 goals for the Edmonton Oilers. Imagine what he could do in the Pens' top six.

Eichel has all the tools; from a pure talent, skill, ability standpoint he'll have few peers in the NHL. But I'm not sold on him being a sure-thing generational superstar. DeAngelo is good, but he was also responsible for that first empty net goal against Canada, with so much on the line. He doesn't screw up there (twice), maybe the US ties it and doesn't face Russia in the quarters. Ultimately, though, it all falls at the feet of the captain. You need your best/most important player to be your best/most important player. Your leader has to lead, and I don't feel like Eichel really did that in a meaningful, tangible way. To be fair, though, this is a tournament for 19-year-olds - which is to say, they probably shouldn't have named him captain.

I'd wanted Perron. Right shot, scored 30 goals last year on a godawful team, can play on a scoring line or a checking line, plays a gritty game, in the prime years of his career, a year left on his deal, good cap hit, hungry to win - BUT THERE'S NO HOCKEY STORE!!!11 Knew he'd end up with the Pens, though.

How about Almqvist's rights? Frk? They have a real need for right wingers. Point is, we could probably afford Zidlicky.

We wouldn't necessarily have to wait until the deadline, as the writing's on the wall for the Devils. Lousy roster, nothing in the pipeline, everyone knows what must be done. They need to stockpile futures. Zidlicky's old, and it shows, but we don't need a world-beater, we just need a good second-pairing defenseman who can move the puck, generate offense, put up points, run a power play. That's Zidlicky. We have enough "defensive defensemen"; few if any teams suppress shots as well as the Wings do. Plus, going back to his age - the best thing for us might actually be a veteran stopgap. What would he cost? I have to think they'd want futures, not a key roster player. Maybe we can throw Kindl in.