Jason_R

Yes and one of his seventh round picks was the best player on the ice yesterday. And he brought in the team’s best forward through a trade. And he signed Gibson who covered up for a full season of weak offense and almost dragged them to the playoffs. And he made a trade at the deadline like the players asked for last season and they still wet the bed. I don’t claim he is perfect, but yes, when we could have had Quinn Hughes and Kenny picked Zadina, when we could have had Martin Necas or Nick Suzuki or Robert Thomas or Jason Robertson and Kenny picked Rasmussen… you can go on and on down the list and see that good franchises still have players contributing and even leading their teams from draft picks made ten or more years ago. Any one of those players would have made this a playoff roster. Firing Yzerman is not going to help. In fact he is the only one who has the credibility to rebuild this franchise from the depths that Kenny left it in. Do they need more money in analytics? Do they need more help in scouting? Player development? I don’t know, but I think Yzerman should be on the phone to his peers across town who are leading franchise turnarounds. I think he needs to buy out Compher. I think he needs to let Mac call up some kids who will allow him to bench bottom six vets who aren’t playing with an edge. And I think he needs to listen to trade offers for Larkin, Raymond, Edvinsson, or a goalie prospect.

Don’t forget Stevie drafted Mo Seider, well ahead of when everyone thought he would go, and he is now the team’s cornerstone and a Norris Trophy contender. Raymond is a legitimate scorer and the second-leading scorer of his draft year. Edvinsson and Seider are by some measures the best defensive pairing in the league. Some of the prospects are TBD, but they are getting their chance. If just one of Kenny’s first round picks other than Larkin had been a good one, this team would have been in the playoffs three years ago. And go back and look at how much talent Kenny overlooked, including several players the Wings were looking to trade for this year.

I know the first part of that tweet is wishful thinking. I’ve been saying for months that the rebuild doesn’t end until CCR contracts are up. The second part of the tweet is true: if you aren’t scoring, you better be hitting. This year’s bottom six hasn’t done either.

Yes, if you aren’t scoring, you need to be hitting.

I don’t expect Mac to go. They made a marginal improvement this year. This is clearly a roster issue. They just aren’t hard to play against. They do not wear people down. By the end of the game, you want your opponent to be so tired of playing against you that they can’t wait to get off the ice. Instead, by the end of the game the Wings have given their best effort and don’t have enough grit or talent to hang on.

Welp, it was a season.

I wondered WTH Raymond was doing putting the puck between his skates but I quickly repented. 😂

Copp had an empty net and wouldn’t pull the trigger.

Since the Canadian teams don’t seem to like the American Olympic hockey players, what do we think about a trade for Brady Tkachuk? He has one more year on his contract for a little over $8 million. He would bring an abrasiveness to the team that we haven’t had in a long time not to mention being a top line scorer.

Boston loses.

From way downtown. It's gonna be nice to have MBN back on the big league roster next season.

Yes, it seems like anything big that Stevie does this offseason would have to come through a trade.

I don’t disagree. But season two does not necessarily define a career.

I see speculation that the influx of players into GR means promotions for next season. What do the tea leaves say?

All I’ll say is if they pick Proctor they need to make him hire a personal chef and they need to make him weigh in daily.

https://octopusthrower.com/don-t-worry-about-slumping-red-wings-sophomore-01knt0b5rte4 For Kasper panicans.

Yes, Edvinsson was down below the face off dot when he threaded that needle to Kane. With his size it doesn’t seem like he should be so nimble but he is. Can we please get ASP on a training program and bulk him up to grown man weight? Maybe we might be on the way to having a good defensive core.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the Proctor love is real. Brad loves his athletic freaks and Proctor is one of the freakiest physical specimens in this draft. Dan wants a run game that physically dominates defenses at the line of scrimmage. Proctor is the most dominant run blocker in the draft. You don’t have to pass block very often if you are always in 2nd and 3. But yes, sometimes their visions for how players will develop or fit in are not realized and you don’t want to whiff on a first round player who balloons to 400 pounds.

Tackle? Not so fast my friend!

They look pretty good when they are buzzing around the ice.

https://prashanthiyer.substack.com/p/what-the-hell-happened-to-the-detroit Worth a read. One passage stood out to me: “At the team-level, this is a team that simply could not disrupt the opposition’s cycle, allowing a league-high 560 cycle chances against at 5v5 this year. They allowed the 7th most 5v5 high-danger chances against while generating the 3rd fewest.”

Yes and what do I know, I last played hockey when I was eight. But it seems like this season has revealed some untapped offensive potential in the defensive corps. And it makes me wonder when I see guy like Faulk coming in from a different system, streaking up the ice as a defenseman, creating a passing lane for a breakout pass from a forward, then burying a breakaway chance… what have the Wings been coaching their defensemen to do previously. Has this kind of selective aggressiveness by defensemen been encouraged or discouraged? Either way I like it and hope to see more of it.

Of course the roster isn’t good enough but you play with who you have and you have to maximize their effectiveness. When you are talking about needing incremental improvements to make the playoffs, you can’t afford to under-utilize talent. It should raise questions when we see players leave for other teams and suddenly flourish elsewhere. The roster not being good enough is why ASP made his NHL debut at age 20 weighing probably 165 pounds. Nobody thought when camp started that he would make the NHL roster; everyone thought he needed time in GR to acclimate to NA play and bulk up to grown man weight. The roster was thin enough that they called him up and put him in a role he wasn’t ready for. Now that Faulk is here to anchor the second unit, is ASP ready for sheltered minutes on the third pair and on PP2?