Dabura

Looks that way! We actually some have decent scoring depth now, at least on paper. HYPE!!!!!

The Discord is basically the new LGW chatroom. Oh s*** son

TFW you will never have the privilege of busting on Monica Bellucci's bust.

He could probably score more goals if he wanted to. I guess he's just bored/sadistic and feels he has to find increasingly creative ways to torment opposing defenses.

Here's a (slightly old) look at Lafreniere:

He's as good a setup guy as he is a finisher. Probably better, tbh. That's one of the things that makes him so dangerous.

[fart noise] Honestly, dude, I don't think you have a point. And even if you do, I'm at the point where I don't care. You're saying I'm hung up on mainstream opinions, all when I'm one of, like, four people in the entire world who cares enough to post lots of thoughts on lots of different draft-eligibles on LetsGoWings.com on a semi-regular basis. "You can't see that there are other non-consensus-1st-overall guys who are capable of being just as good as the consensus 1st overall guys" is not an actual thing. It's a weird straw man that you've been beating on and off for the past year. I've said roughly 8,000 times on this forum that 2020 is looking like a very deep draft and that we can reasonably expect it to produce a lot of great NHLers. There's nothing to say Lafreniere or Byfield will be the two best NHLers this draft produces. I'm completely down with that notion. However, for the time being, I'm focused on them because they seem to me to be the safest bets for what the Wings need, which is a gamechanging pickup who can pay immediate dividends. I could write an essay about how "ACKSHUALLY, DRYSDALE IS THE REAL #1 HERE, BECAUSE MAKAR"...but I don't wanna. I get the feeling people are overrating Raymond. I wonder about Holtz's overall game. I see hints of Elias Pettersson in Stutzle. I think what Lundell is doing in the Liiga is really impressive. I think what Byfield is doing for a kid his age is extraordinary, though I put an asterisk next to his name because he's bigger and stronger and faster than his peers. I love Lafreniere, but I'm not a fan of his skating and I'm a bit concerned that his aggressive playing style is going to lead to lots of injuries -- and there's also the fact that he missed the cutoff for 2019 draft eligibility by a hair (i.e. he's older than most, i.e. let's not get *too* starry eyed over his production). I have lots of thoughts about lots of stuff. I don't post all those thoughts. But I do have them.

The Red Wings suck and have sucked for a few years now. I'm a HYPE! junkie, these days more than ever. You bet your ass I'm gonna get excited about consensus 1st overall guys, especially if they don't give me a reason to not get excited about them. I really like what I've seen of Stutzle, but I'm not going to go crazy for him unless the lotto draw places us outside the top two. (Though, honestly, he might be my pick at #2.) I was aware of and keen on Zegras, but I didn't go all in on him until I knew we weren't getting Hughes or Kakko.

The consensus #1 guy is almost always the safest pick at #1, and for good reason. If you're saying I never entertain the notion that someone taken after 1st overall could be the better NHLer, well, that's a nice straw man, I guess. "bUt YoU sAiD hUgHeS pLaYs ChEsS aNd KaKkO pLaYs ChEcKeRs!" I stand by that. I think he sees the game at a level that Kakko doesn't. I believe he processes the game at a level that Kakko doesn't. I believe his natural hockey sense is freakish. I believe he's a pure scorer who has the potential to be one of the top playmakers in the league for years and years to come. I think players who match his profile are more rare and more valuable than players who match Kakko's profile. Larionov "played chess" while a lot of his contemporaries "played checkers." I would've taken Dahlin 1st overall, but I loved Svechnikov and to this day it kills me that we didn't get him. I would've taken Matthews 1st overall. I would've taken McDavid 1st overall. I would've taken Hischier 1st overall. I'd probably take Lafreniere 1st overall, though I do have some concerns about him. None of this means I think David Pastrnaks aren't a thing. Just a few days ago I said on this very forum that Cale Makar is a great reason why we shouldn't be too disappointed if we pick 3rd or 4th overall. I get your thing. "If Player A and Player B are basically equal, you choose based on perceived positional need" etc. "I like Stutzle, but if he doesn't project as a center, I like him considerably less." To me, that's a boring, reductive, surface-level way of looking at things. My thing is that I'd ideally like to know enough about the two players to be able to strongly feel that the players are not, in fact, basically equal. I watched Hughes and I watched Kakko; I felt Hughes was the better prospect. I felt -- and still feel -- he has a God-given X factor quality that Kakko lacks. tl;dr hughes rules kakko drools

Well said. TBH, I'm kind of tired of agonizing over specific holes in our depth chart and ranking them according to the conventional wisdom re: which positions are more important than others. The Knights nearly won a Cup with a team full of nobodies. The Blues won a Cup with a forward core of O'Reilly, Schenn, Tarasenko, Schwartz, Perron and a defense core of Pietrangelo, Parayko, Gunnarsson, Bouwmeester. I'd love to have a top-tier player at every position, but looking for a special mix of mostly-unspectacular players might be the way to go in today's league. (Credit where it's due: This is something kip has been saying for a while now.) Is Veleno/Rasmussen a high-scoring 1C? Prob'ly not. But put him between Lafreniere and Mantha in a couple of years and maybe he is. Why not. That's no more implausible than Filip "Literally who?" Hronek putting up 40 points through his first 77 NHL games.

I haven't seen enough of him to have a really strong opinion. But what little I have seen of him has me thinking all the ingredients are there for a really good player, possibly a cornerstone guy. Nielsen never had his hands and skating and ability to make big plays with the puck at top speed. I'm not really sure what to make of the DEL, but certainly Stutzle has an extremely impressive international resume. I'm really eager to see what he does at the upcoming WJC.

Even when the 'hawks were good, Toews was never really a huge scorer. 76 points in 2010-11 and 81 points last season, those are his career highs. I can't even remember who the 2Cs were for those three Cups. Michael...Handzus...? The Virgin Quinton vs The Chad Baguette

I'm not even all-in on Lafreniere; I think there's a case to be made for Byfield being the better pick at #1. I'm just saying Lafreniere isn't exactly your typical winger who's going to live and die based on who he's flanking, so holding the fact that he's not a centerman against him strikes me as kinda small-brained.

I don't recall saying Hughes is unequivocally generational. What Hughes is: a tiny-ass 18-year-old who's putting up points as a centerman on a team that can't score goals. I dunno, I must be sleeping on all the other 2019 draftees that are doing the same thing right now. It's almost like Hughes is exactly the kind of centerman you're always saying we need. Also: I'm on record saying way back in the middle of last season that Kakko would likely win the Calder this season, as Kakko is big and strong and he's coming from the Liiga.

I think the winger-versus-center argument re: Lafreniere and Byfield is selling Lafreniere short. Dude's a monster offense driver, monster possession player, monster playmaker, monster scoring threat. Is he "generational"? I dunno. Is Draisaitl generational? If Larkin gets to play with Draisaitl on his wing every night, can we reasonably expect that to make Larkin a better player?

I love that it's basically a free do-over with Nyquist. 2019-20 Fabbri = 2013-14 Nyquist (he of 28 goals and 48 points in 57 games). Same age Same size Same strengths Same playing style Same jersey number Same type of "I don't know where the hell this production is coming from. All I know is it's exactly the kind of overachieving we need right now" manna from Heaven X factor dealy That said, I don't expect him to be a 75-point player for us; I assume he's going to come down to Earth at some point, just as young Nyquist ultimately did. Still, it's awesome that we got a free young Nyquist. I dunno how I feel about it if I'm a Blues fan. On the one hand, major props to Doug Armstrong for doing right by one of his people. On the other hand, was that really the best deal he could make?

Now that we're Cup contenders again he wants back in on the action. Shameful. Absolutely shameful. smdh

I lied -- it's actually 15 points. I mean, the numbers and his usage don't lie. *At the very least*, he's trending in that direction.

awww yissss

Numbers: Fabbri: 8 goals and 14 points 15 points thru 16 games as a Red Wing Zadina: 6 points and an even +/- thru 8 games (6 points thru his past 5 games) Hronek: 7 goals and 17 points thru 31 games (NHL career: 12 goals and 40 points thru 77 games) Feels good. Feels real good. Now let's kick the s*** out of the Habs on Saturday.

zAdInA iS a BuSt

You're welcome.

Gonna have to miss this one. Have to go out and do stupid real life stuff. Sorry, fam!