Jason_R

“Brad Holmes, do you or do you not affirm this to be your official list of draft priorities?”

It is a tough business, pro sports. Everyone is clawing for every inch. You need to have some luck. Stevie got lucky that DeBrincat forced his way back home but that is really the only luck he has gotten. In retrospect, maybe the worst thing that happened to this franchise was letting Jim Nill leave.

I have been assuming the rebuild is over when Copp and Compher come off the books. Copp has the 2026-27 season left, for Compher (and Rasmussen) it is 2027-28. That is a much longer timeline than fans want to accept, but that is probably the timeline Yzerman annd Ilitch are operating under. One way to handle this is to tread water until those contracts come off the books. Those three contracts equal $12 million annually. Assuming some of the kids can step in to fill these slots for cheap, that leaves a lot of room to sign a big ticket free agent center. In summer 2028. I’m getting impatient though and would love it if Stevie could package up Compher, a goalie, and a few prospects/picks for a bona fide center this offseason.

They appeal to a certain type of fan. Brad has always done a good job of adjusting the roster going into the draft to minimize any glaring needs. He has done that this time also. He isn’t forced to take a tackle at 17. And no, he doesn’t owe it to fans or to interviewers to give a full or final account of his draft or roster plans. He is even entitled to lie or use smokescreens if it suits him. He can, will, and should do and say anything he thinks will improve his competitive situation. I still think they will take an OT in the first round, and I hope they will have the opportunity to trade back in the first round to do so.

Yzerman hasn’t been perfect. But he has had almost nothing to work with and no margin for error. ButI think just like this year was the trade deadline when he was obligated to make a move, this off-season will be the one where he is on the clock to make a franchise altering deal. He has to get a proven scorer this off-season.

Starting in 2015 Buffalo picked 2, 8, 8, 1, 7, 8, 1, 9, 13, 14, 9. They should be good after that run. Montreal has a 1 and two 5s over the past four drafts. I wouldn’t say Ottawa is a model franchise. They are just a tick above Detroit. But if Holland had not absolutely mangled the draft for years the Wings would be in the playoffs.

It’s easy to conclude that if they tanked their draft position would have been better and the rebuild would have gone faster but maybe not. How is it working out for Chicago so far? And we know as well as any franchise that tanking is not a sure thing. Looking back at Holland’s drafts is infuriating. It is astonishing how frequently and how badly he missed. A dozen players picked after Evgeny Svechnikov in 2015 outperformed him. Would you like to have Sebastian Aho right now? In 2016, Tage Thompson and Alex DeBrincat went after Holland picked Dennis Cholowski. In 2017 they could have had Martin Necas or Nick Suzuki instead of Rasmussen, not to mention trade targets Robert Thomas and Jason Robertson. We all know how Zadina worked out, and again we could not pull together a trade to get a player that Ken Holland could have had in the draft. Yes, it is easy to second guess draft picks, but if we are going to second guess Yzerman, we need to do the same for Holland. In most of these seasons Holland had his choice of multiple players who have turned into good to excellent NHL contributors. If Holland had even gotten two of these drafts right this year’s Wings would be a playoff team.

Fans may want to believe Copp and Compher were signed to help take the next step, and if that next step was from the basement of the NHL (17 wins, .275 points percentage in 2019-20) to the mushy middle, maybe those fans are right. But they were most certainly not signed to be the straws that stir the drink. They are still on the roster because their contracts are not expired. I have said before, the market is the market, and the market means you pay too much in dollars and in term, especially if you are a basement dweller. It sucks to suck. They are also still on the roster because nobody has stolen their jobs. I’m sure there have been times where Stevie would have liked nothing more than to trade away Compher and even retain salary but he couldn’t because nobody was ready for his minutes. And they are still on the roster because Stevie was more realistic than fans about how bad the roster was and how long it would take for the kids to be ready. They have done their job, which is to eat minutes and years for a rebuilding franchise. There is no glamor in it, no glory, but the pay is good.

Brad Holmes needs to take out an ad in the Detroit Free Press, right next to a Carlos Monarrez article, saying, “Larry Borom is our starting left tackle. We will not be drafting a tackle at pick 17. Also, we will soon publish our full draft board alongside a compilation of the best work from Rob Parker.”

And Borom was as good as Decker was last year. It would not be ideal if he ends up the starter, but with an upgrade at center and the depth they have added, the OL will be much improved even if Borom starts. Which he won’t, because they will draft their new tackle for the next ten years in the first round, and the tackle depth is deep enough that they might be able to move back from 17 to do it.

They were not misses. They always were average players signed at market prices to fill out the roster while the talent pipeline was restocked. The market is the market. This is why Yzerman does not want to build a team through FA. But it’s time now for the prospects to do something. Finnie is a great story. Kasper needs to produce. Danielson and ASP and MBN need to produce. Either on the ice or in a trade for a top line forward.

kasper, danielson, ASP, MBN all had the chance to give the roster a jolt. Nobody has done it.

IIRC JVR had a deflection chance go off the post.

Disappointing. Another game they get a goal disallowed by inches. Multiple posts. Some great chances turned away. Some questionable calls. But they just aren’t that difficult to play against. They aren’t abrasive.

Yeah if they get run out of their own rink by a team with all these injuries, they’re done.