buddha

ausar played 9 second half minutes. jenkins played 16. he's looking for shooting to spread out orlando, and since his boss refused to get him any shooting, he's turning to a g-league player to get it (because duncan or huerter or lavert (!) were giving us nothing). as most knowledgeable pistons fans will attest, this team scores off its defense. when you take ausar away in some desperate search for shooting/spacing, you are playing away from your strengths. out. coached.

he scored 20 goals as a 22 year old playing against players younger than him. if he has any nhl ambitions i would expect him to do that. i dont think he gets his goals through speed, stick handling, great passing, or high end "skills," i think he gets them by charging to the net and being physical. that's great. the nhl is full of guys like that. but he's not particularly big, not particularly fast, and doesnt set the game on fire by being more skilled than others. he's carter mazur. a plugger. the world needs pluggers, but the world needs another alex debrincat more.

another fourth liner who tries hard but has limited skill. he'll fit right in on the first line here.

theyre bringing a lot of urban's old offense back. a lot more qb runs. that will take advantage of underwood's size and athleticism more. carr is athletic, but he has a pop gun arm. not sure he's a long term solution but it would depend on the offense they run. and if underwood did leave, they'll have LOTS OF MONEY left over to go get another qb.

underwood's comp is cam newton or vince young. He's massive, he can run like a deer, has a cannon for an arm... and **** mechanics that impacts his accuracy. i'm not saying he's going to final get it like young or newton, but that's his comp.

We all said "duren has to show it in the playoffs. regular season games when the other team is playing 3/5ths of their lineup and not trying is not a good measure." welp. not off to a great start. its only one game, but someone else is going to have to step it up. tobias harris is not the #2 guy on a championship team. duren has to be.

grand rapids gets beat again. cossa finishes with the worst save % on the team this year (he finished ahead of augustine, but he just got there so we'll cut him some slack). meanwhile, jesper wellstadt just started a playoff game and gave up 1 goal to dallas. #yzerplan.

you should be more concerned with the anti-semitic candidates who will be sitting on your board soon. says a lot about the democratic party as a whole, and the university of michigan's future.

Detroit is the first #1 seed in 27 years to never have a lead in game one of the opening series.

JJ was a great teammate too. not sure about milton. To your point, Underwood didnt seem to get much coaching last year. Let's see how he responds to actual coaching this year. so far, not good.

in better news, i made $20 on my magic moneyline pick tonight! and its only one game. plenty of time to bounce back. but they'll need a HUGE game from cade to do it.

psssst....some of us have been saying this all year long. jenkins is a nice story, but he'll be exposed when other teams pick it up. the team has no spacing and the duren/cade lob action is easily stopped in the playoffs. duncan cant guard and is past his prime. will be exposed in the playoffs. JB is a great regular season coach, but was fired from cleveland because he cant get it done in the post season. This was the year to make a move to get a star. instead they traded for heurter and now have to pay duren. how is the team going to be with duren as their second highest paid player? JB's hatred for ausar is a fireable offense.

🤔

not yet.

ref show in cleveland.

there's a british sideline reporter? wtf?

i forgot jalen green was on phoenix. man, who do you root against? the triumverate of ass hole that is steve kerr, draymond green, and jimmy butler or the unique piece of **** of dillon brooks combined with the guy who thinks he's better than cade, jalen green?

the best part about phoenix-golden state is that one of draymond green or dillon brooks is going to lose.

there was a lot of that. once they were down 30, ball started going one on five and scoring.

as much as I bag on ep40 for being soft and the most overpaid player in the league, im almost positive vancouver will get more than just two god awful overpaid players like compher and rasmussen in return.

that's just silly. any such arrangement without trevor linden is meaningless!

i like the play in round. i hate the nba playoff schedule tjat refuses to show more than one gane at a time and results in 3 or 4 days between games. they should be playing roughly every other day.

AJD Melting Pot. really good substack from one of the mgoblog boys. i think the wings' problem is not yzerman per se, but that yzerman has allowed the wings' front office to become the wings' retirement home. yzerman led a really good front office in tampa bay, one that has continued to be good after he left. here, he has draper and horcoff. guys who have been here for a decade. a decade of losing and tiny improvements on the ice and - outside of three top 6 picks - has failed in the draft. why are they still here? why are the only additions to the staff nick kronwall and lidstrom? julein brisebois never played an nhl game in his life and now he's the best gm in hockey after being there with yzerman. it takes talent to find that guy. it takes no talent to find kronwall or lidstrom, theyre literally contacts in his phone. time to overhaul this mess. go get the next julien brisebois, and if yzerman isnt ruthless enough to fire his underperforming ex-teammates, then go find someone who will.

multiple good pieces out there in the substack-verse on the need to overhaul the front office. "Look, those are the three most important picks Yzerman has made, since they were the highest. But you also get less credit for nailing them. Getting a really good hockey player out of the 6th, 4th, and 7th overall picks should be the baseline expectation for any GM in the National Hockey League. But can you get really good (or even just regular good) players when you pick 9th or 14th or 20th? Or out of the 2nd or 3rd rounds? That’s what differentiates strong front offices from average/weak ones, and what elevates rebuilds into contenders. Right now, it’s not great. Only seven Yzerman draft picks played more than 40 games for the Red Wings this season, in year #7 of a rebuild. Of those seven players, one is a third pair defenseman, one is a young D who was clearly not NHL ready, and the other is a former 7th rounder who scored 30 points. The final name is Marco Kasper, who went from one of the most exciting players at the end of last year to scoring just 19 points. That is close to a five-alarm fire for me. As it stands currently, Detroit doesn’t have a single impactful NHL player out of the 2022 or 2023 drafts. Maybe that will happen in the future but I’m not feeling great right now. Nate Danielson, the 2023 first rounder, came up and played 28 games, making little impact. Together with the Kasper, the players you picked 8th and 9th overall in ‘22 and ‘23 combined to score 26 points. "

you wrote that you didnt think they were far from being the top team in the conference. i think theyre miles from being the top team in the conference.