Dabura

Heh, Draisaitl with the German-style three fingers.

If we pick Sonny Milano I will riot.

To be honest, we don't have a Neal or a Hornqvist, i.e. proven top-six goal-scorers in their prime years and on agreeable contracts. We've got our aging core (all untouchables) and some promising young talent.

I'm guessing the Pens want a better net front presence in their top six. Hornqvist is a lot like Holmstrom in that regard, and he could probably be a consistent 25+ goal scorer with the talent he'll be playing with. Their power play remains lethal.

Hornqvist goes to Pittsburgh. I've wanted him on the Wings for a long time now, but whatever.

James Neal is going to Nashville. Official.

RIP Bill Nylander.

Oh, hey, Dreger's talking about the Leafs.

All these great young players going to all these teams that are only slightly worse than the Wings.

"DAMMIT THEY TOOK EKBLAD!!" "DAMMIT THEY TOOK REINHART!!"

Islanders next. Now it gets interesting.

Poor Draisaitl. RIP. My thoughts exactly. Stupid parity.

THE WINGS HAVE RE-SIGNED JONAS GUSTAVSSON!! "Welcome to Philadelphia." - Philadelphia

Ekblad on the verge of tears. Because he's so happy to be a Florida Panther or because he's so gutted to be a Florida Panther.

The Atlantic Division gets tougher every hour.

So I'm waiting to see what we do (and/or don't do) in the first round before I go any deeper into the identity/philosophy discussion. The Draft is practically in my backyard (figuratively but also kind of literally) and I've been able to chat up a few people in really high places. It's been wild. It's given me insight and perspective and it has me looking at things in new ways. One of those things is the Wings and our "five year drought." I think the argument can be made that Kenneth Mark Holland has, for the most part, been doing all the right things since '09 and that he has, in fact, put his team in a very good position to re-establish itself as a contender - provided certain things happen (and certain other things don't) here in this offseason. I'd love to see us land Tyler Myers.

Not surprising - and I don't mean that in a Holland-hating sense. I'm willing to bet the Leafs would offer him $6M x 4 years if they thought it'd get them their man. (Assuming Shanny has no real power.) Not sure if they'd be able to pull that off, cap-wise. But you get what I'm saying. Niskanen's a solid defenseman in the prime of his career who has all the qualities we're looking for in our Quincey upgrade. If you have to give a little more than you'd like, so be it.

To be fair, Niskanen's always been a good NHL defenseman. He just reached new heights this season (at least in terms of point production), largely because he was used efficiently and effectively. I wasn't too keen on signing Niskanen until fairly recently. I was afraid he might be that dreaded one-hit wonder who can singlehandedly wreck a team's cap situation for years. But if you dig into this guy's fancy stats and whatnot, you find a player who's a pretty solid fit for what we, realistically, should want, which is a really solid #3 or #4. Actually, more than that - it's a solid top four. That's what we'd be expecting if we were to sign Niskanen. We'd expect to have a solid first pairing and perhaps an equally solid second pairing, with lots of room for growth-from-within (Smith, DeKeyser, Ouellet, Sproul, Marchenko, Backman, Jensen, even Lashoff). Given 1) our needs, 2) that what Niskanen's rumored to be looking for is more or less the standard rate for a top-four defenseman in his prime who can put up points like a lunatic if put in the right situation, 3) that the cap is expected to steadily rise (which goes hand-in-hand with inflation, e.g. an overpayment for Niskanen might look like a pretty good deal in 2016 dollars), and 4) that going with unproven kids or trading several assets for a big name wouldn't be any less risky than just spending money on an established talent...given all that, I'd be comfortable with giving Niskanen a big deal, within reason. (But then, it's not my money.) Between Boyle for two years and Niskanen for around six...I guess Boyle would make more sense. (FWIW, Kenny's explicitly said he wants a defenseman who's looking for a couple years. I suppose that doesn't bode too well for our Niskanen hopes.) But knowing that even if none of our kids pans out we'd still have a legitimate blue line for years to come? That'd be a pretty big deal. So, I'd love Boyle or Niskanen, assuming fairly reasonable coin and term.

Alfredsson - 41 Iginla - 36 Datsyuk - 35 Cleary - 35 Franzen - 34 Zetterberg - 33 Weiss - 31 Playing with fire, Kenny. Playing with fire.

Yo. Sorry for being kind of a ****** yesterday, kip. I was passing a kidney stone. Fun, fun, fun! Heading out the door right now, but I'm hoping to flesh my thoughts out tonight. I stand by my assertion that it boils down to a simple lack of elite skill and talent, but I myself have actually been banging the identity crisis drum here and there for several years now, so I totally get where you're coming from. I guess at some recent point in time I decided that things like "identity" and "philosophy" are sort of peripheral issues for our club. I'll try to expand when I get back. Peace out.

Maybe I'm going too far here (I'M OUT OF CONTROL, MAN), but I thought it might be nice to have a thread of random hockey-related news item stuff. The idea being, like, I come across this a few minutes ago... https://twitter.com/BarDown/status/477884296900800512/photo/1 ...and I kinda wanted to make a thread about it, in which I'd say, "Yeah, slow news day." But it'd be a stupid thread that'd get, like, one reply. I dunno. Can we give it a try? We're bound to have some really slow news days this summer, even with the draft and free agency and prospect stuff and whatnot. Cool?

I think you're reaching, kip. But, to be honest, you're kind of confusing me, so...I dunno. At the end of the day, I think we're two or three impact players away from legitimate contention. To me, that's a talent problem more than anything else. We know the kind of team we'd like to be. We know the kind of game we'd like to play. We know the systems we'd like to use to great success. We just don't have the talent pool and depth chart needed to make it all work and translate it into a deep run. (Then again, the East is definitely weak, and we really didn't get a fair crack at it this season.) I'm not saying we should add anyone based on talent alone. I'm just saying our top six isn't a legitimate top six and our top four isn't a legitimate top four and that's what's really holding us back.

There's no identity crisis. There's no philosophical quandary. We simply don't have enough top-level talent. Our top four has gone from Lidstrom-Rafalski/Kronwall-Stuart to Kronwall-Ericsson/DeKeyser-Smith. Our top six has gone from Datsyuk in his prime, Zetterberg in his prime, Franzen in his prime, Hossa in his prime, Holmstrom, and Filppula to Datsyuk at 35 (and coming off an injury-ravaged season), Zetterberg at 33 (and coming off an injury-ravaged season), Franzen's corpse at 34 (and coming off an injury-ravaged season), the ghost of Stephen Weiss (RIP), Abdelkader, and...Nyquist? And Jimmy Howard has never made it past the second round.

What about Brent Burns?

So, wait. Are the Oilers seriously considering trading Perron? I'd thought it was just a joke that had gathered some steam on the interwebz and the social mediaz. Maybe not? The Case for the Edmonton Oilers trading David Perron [David Staples, Edmonton Journal] I would love to have David Perron on our team. And Nurse or Klefbom. We're loaded with players the Oilers would love to have. Kick these mofoing tires, Kenny.