Dabura

Welp, looks like I jinxed Seider. Probably injured. I'm sorry, frens.

Right. The NHL has had a coke problem for decades. So, whatever. My concern would be off-ice dingusry *plus* -- and maybe largely *because of* -- a leadership void. Zetterberg leaves. A year later, Kronwall leaves. Nielsen wears an A and our backup goalie is outscoring him. Howard is fat and he and his wife have, like, 30 children of their own to raise, which is probably why he's fat. Green's wife just had a baby and he's physically broken and sometimes he plays hockey for us and he's probably retiring this summer. Ericsson is broken. Daley is broken. I could go on, but you get it. It's a really bad situation. It's what I mean when I say this is more than a talent thing. This is a sinkhole. We need leadership, guys who command respect. We need accountability. We need bag skates. We need the carrot and the stick. We need talent, but I think there's a whole "human management" component to this mess. I just saw Cholowski's been sent to GR. I like this take: I dunno that I actually buy it. But it's a nice thought. I would like to know how many times this team has been bag skated this season. Cuz I feel like the answer is zero. And, if so, I'd like to know why that is. If the answer is "It's not their fault that they suck. We don't have enough talent to compete with other teams," I think maybe we've identified our culture problem.

This is what's so weird about me not being all that worried despite all my alarms going off. Like, look at the Jets. Scheifele. Laine. Connor. Ehlers. Wheeler. Morrissey. Hellebuyck. For a couple of seasons they had all these guys *plus* Byfuglien and Trouba and Myers. That's exponentially more talent than we have, and it was built up over many years of sucking -- and they still went out like chumps in the 2018 conference finals and in the first round last season. We'll be lucky if our first pick in the upcoming draft becomes Scheifele-good. Even then, we'd have holes. And even if we fill all those holes, we could still be a chump team that gets chump results, because hockey is stupid. We could lose our whole Cup-worthy blue line in one offseason because reasons. On the plus side: It was that ragtag underdog Knights team that ousted the Jets in 2018 and a similarly overachieving Blues team that spanked the Jets this past season. You can have all the talent in the world on your team and routinely end up disappointed. Yzerman learned that as a Red Wings player and, more recently, as the Lightning's GM. There's always a plucky Tortorella Blue Jackets team ready to f*** your s*** up. So, while we do have obvious and numerous holes...I think maybe I'm just ready for the Wings to come at things from a different angle. Instead of being A Perennial Powerhouse, maybe Yzerman tries to MacGyver the s*** out of this thing and put together a team that's far more than the sum of its parts and exists to f*** "better" teams' s*** up. Bertuzzi-Larkin-Mantha is a pretty good top line, imo. Ideally, it's a second line. Fabbri appears to be a pretty solid top-six Nyquist type. I'd like to think that's Zadina's floor. Add Lafreniere or Byfield, or maybe hope that Stutzle is indeed another Elias Pettersson (which isn't necessarily a big stretch). That's a pretty good top six, in theory. Sign a UFA in the mold of T.J. Oshie (my preference would be Kyle Palmieri, who's UFA-eligible at the end of next season) and bump Fabbri or Zadina down to the bottom six. Mantha -- Byfield -- Palmieri Bertuzzi -- Larkin -- Zadina Fabbri -- Rasmussen/Veleno (?) - Athanasiou (?) [who cares] -- [who cares] -- [who cares] Hronek is a legit top-pairing defenseman and Seider appears to be well on his way to becoming one. At present, we basically have nothing truly exciting in the system beyond those two guys. McIsaac is a good-not-great prospect. Cholowski is Kindl. So I'd expect Yzerman to use his newfound cap flexibility to target guys outside the organization. The nice thing about trying to put a solid D group together is you only need to find three or four winners. If Hronek and Seider are two, we're already halfway there. In theory. I guess. Maybe. Ideally. Possibly. Goalies are dumb. Overpay for Markstrom or Lehner. I dunno. I hate goalies. Truth. I'd really like to see us become one of those organizations that, y'know, actually hits on a number of picks across a number of drafts. That would be cool.

I'm nodding in agreement and yet I don't feel it in my gut. Maybe I'm in denial. Hopefully Zadina and Seider can be impact NHLers next season. I adore Seider. Rasmussen's been out with an injury, so for now I'm (unfairly) treating him as someone who isn't going to help us soon. Veleno clearly isn't close, which is a big bummer. Hopefully our 2020 1st is NHL-ready...

I'm sure there's a skill component, don't get me wrong. I mostly agree with you. But I've been watching hockey for a long time (we all have) and, personally, I've never seen anything like this. I've seen horrific losing streaks. I've seen teams that've collectively given up the ghost. What I'm seeing with this Wings team feels different to me. But maybe that's because I'm an obsessive Wings fan and I'm closer to it and invested in it.

At the beginning of the season, I was right there with you. "We have a skill problem, plain and simple. All is going according to plan. This has to happen." 15 games ago, I was right there with you. "We have a skill problem, plain and simple. All is going according to plan. This has to happen." Today? I can't say I'm definitely right there with you. I suspect our problems go much deeper than skill. I saw Bertuzzi casually skate over the puck 75 times last night. It killed my soul. Funny thing is, I'm not all that worried about the long-term rebuild. Everything says I should be, but for whatever reason I'm not. I still feel like this thing can be turned around within the next two years.

I'm generally not a fan of the whole Athletic scene; they're all a buncha pinko commie nerds to me. But at this point I'll take any morsel of HYPE! that I can get.

The Perlini trade certainly feels like a bust right now; people who were saying he'll be playing in Europe next year are looking smart. Maybe he and Erne and Hirose and Ehn can all be Liiga teammates. No point in moving Fabbri unless it's part of an ambitious package for a big-name player. Give Fabbri a bridge deal and hope he continues to be one of the best bargains in the league for the next couple of years.

Can't have the smallish pimple-faced 20-year-old Euro outworking our homegrown Michigan tuffbois and Frans Filapoola.

100% A year or two ago I saw the light and realized maintaining a winning culture isn't just an empty Hollandism -- it's a thing, it's meaningful, it's important. More important than anything. So I've been arguing in favor of keeping that going and not blowing things to hell "because lotto odds." Well, that culture appears to be gone now. Poof. Only took 30 games. Which makes me wonder if it was ever there in the first place. The stories we're hearing about Babcock and the possibility that Holland knowingly enabled all of that madness certainly isn't making me feel super proud to have defended The Winning Culture Plan. A few weeks ago some insider(ish) guy on Twitter -- I think he claims to be part of the Wings' media machinery -- said he has it on good authority that Larkin has a coke habit. I have no real reason to believe him and maybe for that reason I'm a dingus for even bringing it up here. But, honestly, it wouldn't surprise me. No team performs as poorly as this team is performing. It just doesn't happen. A s*** roster plus s*** coaching can't account for the level of suck we're witnessing; I'd be surprised if there isn't a "culture problem."

Already steeling myself for it. Already working on convincing myself that Lafreniere is injury-prone and not a great skater and that Byfield is dominating because he's bigger and stronger than his peers (a la Rasmussen). In all seriousness tho, I'm starting to wonder if I wouldn't take Tim Stutzle 2nd overall anyway. Everything I've seen of him and everything I'm hearing about him has me thinking he's a gem. This draft is going to produce a handful of Pettersson-tier overachievers; I don't see why Stutzle can't be one of them.

A part of me hopes Yzerman is secretly seething. I remember reading a pretty good piece on Shanahan's first couple of seasons as Toronto's emperor, or whatever the hell his title was. After his first season, which was an "evaluation" season, he held a press conference and essentially said, "I had no idea it was this bad. I'm sorry. I'm going to nuke everything. It isn't going to happen overnight, but it's going to happen. This can't continue." Wonder if we get one of those pressers from Yzerman at the end of the season.

Srsly tho. I'm really starting to legit hate this team. Not the Red Wings as a franchise. Not these players on a personal level. Just...this team. The mix. The lack of effort. The stupid, lazy passes into everyone's skates. The suck. The shamefulness and shamelessness of it all. There is nothing redeeming here. There is nothing exciting here. There are no fun narratives to follow, aside from "Who will we take with the 3rd overall pick?" I can't believe things have gotten this bad.

Zadina sent to GR. I hate this team.

I mean, I'm here for it. Good on Zadina. But, like, holy f*** this team is a disaster.

I can't believe we're gonna do this 50 more times this season.

Seattle wouldn't be ok with that tho.

no i don't want to i refuse you can't make me

Why is Filip Zadina the best puck-hounding forechecker on a team full of 4th line grinders?

I miss Hellebuyck. Blashill has to go. This has to be the end. I'm done with this era.

Of course that isn't a penalty shot. Of course not.