lordstanley

A new milestone in a bad way in the Wings are now no longer a win away from the playoff cut line. With NYI's win over Dallas last night, the Islanders are 3 up on the Wings, although the Wings do have 2 games in hand. The Wings also have to pass Ottawa and with Ottawa's OTL last night the Wings are 2 behind Ottawa with a game in hand - the Sens are way ahead on the tiebreaker. What a difference a week makes. Recall last Friday morning there were 6 teams with either 84 or 83 points: Montreal, Pittsburgh, Boston and Detroit with 84 and Columbus and NYI with 83. Since then Montreal has picked up 6 pts, Boston and Pittsburgh and Columbus and NYI have picked up 4 pts and the Wings are stuck on 84 pts with 0 points since then. Two NHL games tonight, one is irrelevant and the other is Wings at Sabres, where the Wings will be big underdogs.

The Wings lost long enough to accumulate enough top picks. Top 10 picks seven years in a row - two by Holland, five by Yzerman. Problem is only three are proven hits so far and none are superstars.

Only the 6th player since 1900 to get 4 hits in MLB debut on Opening Day.

Do you want to known what was the score of the Tigers game on Opening Day 1984?

Are his legs even bigger than before? That was my first thought watching today.

On the out of town scoreboard, Poland comes from behind and beats Albania 2-1!

Yes, final game at Tiger Stadium.

Javy strikes out. But the Tigers are on pace to score 5,832 runs this season.

McGonidouble. 3-0!

Tigers lead. Can McGonigle get a grand slam in his first at bat?

This would be a perfect time for a Tork-bomb

Game is on MLB Network so I will be able to watch. Maybe already mentioned this spring, but price of MLB At Bat has doubled. Those gripping oppo taco commercials must have driven higher demand! I might stick with my Sirius XM subscription because it has audio for all Tigers, Wings, Pistons and Lions games but the problem is it lags by a minute or two, worse than At Bat.

We talk about the Wings not having lottery luck, but of course there's drafting luck too. Otherwise how did the knucklehead organization that picked Kotkaniemi at #3 and David Reinbacher at #5 also be brainiacs in between then by picking Lane Hutson at #62 and Jacob Fowler at #69. Yzerman's rebuild in Tampa benefited immensely from picking Vasilevsky at #19, Brayden Point at #79, and Anthony Cirelli at #72. We're waiting for such drafting luck.

Agree with both of your sentences.

Here's Corey Pronman ranking the Red Wings' prospect pool at #7 entering the 2018-2019 season, just months before Yzerman took over the so-called wreckage of a franchise. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/459786/2018/08/30/pronman-2018-19-nhl-farm-system-rankings/ Here's the Bleacher Report ranking the Red Wings' prospect pool at #10 in 2015. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2505679-re-ranking-every-teams-prospect-pool-after-2015-nhl-draft All Yzerman can hang his hat on now is prospect pool, prospect pool, prospect pool. The Wings had highly-regarded prospect pools throughout the 2010s so what do we have to show for missing the playoffs 9 straight years, maybe 10.

I'm not saying that any of Buffalo, Montreal, Anaheim, Ottawa, Columbus etc. are teams to emulate. Just that Yzerman is really no further ahead than teams that were just as bad or worse a few years ago. Also, Holland had two big top 10 misses - Zadina at #6 and Rasmussen at #9. That's it. In his last four drafts before that he got Mantha at #20, Larkin at #15, picked Svech at #19 where busts aren't unusual, and made up for his #20 Cholowski pick by picking Hronek at #53. Yzerman hasn't set the world on fire with his drafting, yielding nothing outside of the top 15 in his first four drafts 2019-2022 apart from Albert Johansson, being generous.

I can't wait to see how Athletics' tickets are priced. Game ticket $17. View of the field $40. Early arrival fee for entrance more than 30 minutes prior to gametime $20. Stadium resort fee $60. Entertainment fee $20. Mobile ticket access fee $15. Total $172

For reference, when Yzerman took over in 2019 the Wings had just completed a 74 pt season. Buffalo had 76 points that season, Ottawa had 64. In 2021, in a strike-shortened season, the Wings had 11 more points than Buffalo. In 2022, the Wings had 19 more points than Montreal. In 2023, the Wings had 12 points more than Montreal, 21 points more than Columbus, and 22 more points than Anaheim. In 2024, the Wings had 13 more points than Ottawa, 15 points more than Columbus, 4 points more than Minnesota, and 32 more points than Anaheim. In 1995, Detroit had 7 more points than Buffalo, 10 points more than Boston, and 6 points more than Pittsburgh. The Wings' rock bottom wasn't unprecedented in length or depth. All those teams have caught or passed the Wings this season.

Sabres lose once in a blue moon ...so they do so tonight against Boston. Bruins now 4 pts up on Detroit.

And I would say so far from his 7 drafts the only impact players he has brought in via the draft are his three top-6 picks of Seider, Raymond and Edvinsson. Obviously still time and hope for Cossa, Augustine, Kasper, ASP, MBN, Danielson, Finnie, Bear but question marks until proven otherwise at the NHL level.

I'd give up a lot of prospects/picks for Auston Matthews this summer. Like, choose 5 assets other than Seider/Edvinsson/Raymond/DeBrincat/Larkin (fewer than 5 assets if one of the assets given is DeBrincat or Larkin). 2 more years left on his contract.

So let's check and see how we're doing on March 24, shall we? 4-5-2 for 10 pts in 11 games in March. Wings are 6th in the Atlantic, 10th in the East, 1 pt behind 8th place Ottawa with the same number of games played. 11 Wings games to go in the regular season - 5 at home, 6 on the road.

Ilitch and Yzerman have failed by not convincing the NHL governors to switch to a 60-game, 5-month regular season.

Can't blame the out of town scoreboard tonight. While Columbus and Montreal won, the Wings were gifted regulation losses by Pittsburgh, NYI and Boston. The door was open ...

Right, and they shouldn't have two of their few offensive threats DeBrincat and Larkin taking the physicality into their own hands too late and taking themselves off the ice with penalties when needing a goal with 8 seconds too late.