buddha

if the lions published 1/10th of their draft board, it would dwarf the size of the best work of carlos monarrez and rob parker combined.

in defense of stevie, the wings have had horrible horrible bad luck. that said, montreal, ottawa, and now buffalo have passed them. heck, pittsburgh is trying to lose and has passed them. philly is getting nothing from its superstar young forward, is in front office disarray, and is close to passing them. how long do injuries and dropping in the lottery and "no one wants to sign here" do we accept before it becomes obvious that this front office just doesnt have it? are folks clamoring to sign in ottawa? demanding to go to buffalo? telling their agents they must look into all the good things about the ISLANDERS? i doubt it. but those teams ascend and we drop every time larkin gets a hangnail. enough may finally be enough.

the alternative was to not sign middling veterans early and continue to bottom out. to continue to accumulate draft capital. yzerman didnt do that. he said he didnt want a losing culture and instead signed a bunch of veterans to overpriced contracts: chairot, copp, and compher being the biggest three. the mantha trade has not borne any fruit (despite the posts here, cossa has not done anything of note other than have the lowest gaa on this juggernaut team. he may work out, he has given them nothing yet.) bertuzzi got you the pick that got you debrincat. kane is a nice novelty player. the core is seider/raymond/edvinsson/kasper/danielson/asp. do compher and copp and chairot compliment that core? maybe. but not enough to make the playoffs 7 years in. the pro-yzerman argument is that the wings were so bad under kenny that they were the worst team in modern nhl history with the worst farm system in the league. this is true, but how long to dig out of that? 8 years? do you give him another year? two? do you give him ten years? again, the fear in refusing to bottom out for multiple years is that you end up in the mushy middle: never bad enough to get a star, never good enough to make the playoffs. i think those fears have been realized.

lol brad stevens. unc is about to be in for a rude awakening.

three picks hitting in six years is not a great ratio. and they were all top 6, you BETTER hit in the top 6. kasper falling off the planet has been a huge disappointment. to me he belongs on the first line as a winger, but rven when he's been up there he hasnt been great. yeah yeah, he does other things. well, we need him to score. a little more cole caufield and a little less kotaneimi.

we dont know what they offered other free agents. in his defense, the big free agents didnt want to come here. and honestly, if they had traded for quinn hughes - a dynamic offensive player but a small one - would it have made a difference this year? i have my doubts...but 5x5 scoring has been so difficult for them and hughes definitely would have helped with that.

and debrincat fell into his lap because he told ottawa he would only go to detroit or he would leave as a free agent. hard to count that as a savvy deal.

btw, raymond has been mostly awol when they needed him most. again.

copp has been good, compher was a big miss. not replacing rasmussen was a miss. not getting bigger up front was a miss.

dusty may mentioned for the unc job. unsurprising. he'll be mentioned for every big job now.

another year and another collapse. and we dont even get a middling pick out of it this year. this was the year they fixed the goalie. this was the year they made a move at the deadline. this was the year they traded the future for the present. and it looks like theyre going to fail again. if they do, they should make changes. the careful plodding approach, taking low ceiling high floor guys, not overspending on high impact players, hasnt worked out. time for a change.

good night, gracie.

i agree, but they can compete now for players they had no chance at before.

kasper has been a massive disappointment. danielson too, to a lesser degree. those guys are both top ten picks and they havent come close to the impact of seider/raymond/edvinsson.

getting rid of the money rules is the best thing to happen to michigan. now they dont have to keep up this facade about not paying players. now that its out in the open, michigan can unleash the money cannon of one of the richest, most sports obsessed fan bases in the country. and they have.