Jason_R

Mr. Reliable, in every way.

There it is. Blake Miller. He’ll be a Lion for ten years.

Is this pick taking forever?

Glad to see the Rams take someone who won’t help this year.

Tater can rest easy. Proctor is going to the heat and humidity of Miami.

The run on tackles has begun.

After all the rumors today I’m imagining Brad rushing the stage, grabbing the mic from Roger Goodell, and saying “I’d like to announce a trade.”

I read him as saying they wanted to see how the goalies performed in the playoffs before they made any determinations. But there has to be zero chance that Talbot is back and probably a 90% chance that 35 NHL starts are shared by Cossa and Postava.

Every bit of news today is even more of a smokescreen than every bit of news leading up to today. I don’t expect Brad to trade up today. If he does it would probably be because a defensive player like Downs slides down to the teens.

The most interesting thing I heard at the press conference was Todd saying that if Lucas Raymond took 100 more shots on goal, with his shooting percentage, he would be a 40 goal scorer. He scored 25 this season and his career high is 31 so far. Todd also said, about the 2C role, something like “I guess that’s the role that Copp ended up playing,” suggesting that he was playing out of position due to lack of talent. Todd and Stevie agreed that Marco’s slump had to do with him being asked to play too many roles (due to lack of talent). They still seem high on him and Danielson. Stevie seemed more subdued than last season’s presser. He acknowledged that throughout the season he and Todd didn’t believe they were as good as their record but he felt like they had done enough to justify the Faulk trade. He was clearly discouraged by the collapse, but he did not seem totally surprised by it. He kept appealing to his own experience to say to people like Larkin and others that it is harder than you think to get over the hump.

hide the china!

Kerby replacement?

A better player for his career than Tork.

Stevie needs to be calling on everyone.

The way I see it there are two paths forward. One is to stay the course. Continue to introduce the kids gradually. Hope for incremental improvement until CCR (or I guess I should say CCCR) are off your books. Sign free agents to fill whatever gaps are left over and hope for the best. The other is to make your own luck, maybe on a reclamation project like EP40. As I said in another post, if they took the last two years of Compher and Rasmussen (maybe also Danielson or Kasper or a goalie), that would make the effective annual value of EP40 just under $9 million. If his knee is right, and his head got right playing with a bunch of fellow Swedes and freed from the Canadian hockey media that is often harsh with non-Canadian players, you could end up with another center capable of putting up Dylan Larkin numbers at effectively a Dylan Larkin salary. No, you would not be getting around the criticism that your team is soft, but yes you would be making a dent in the even strength scoring situation. But there are still a lot of years on that contract so your Swedish brain trust needs to be 100% sure that EP can be resurrected in Detroit.

Well, one of them needs to be ready for heavy minutes in Detroit next season, and the other needs to get some starts in Detroit also. Id like to think that of Cossa, Postava, and Augustine, one can get traded but Gibson is only under contract for next year so they may not want to be aggressive in moving one of them. But when has Stevie been aggressive as a GM?

The best thing that can be said about Mazur so far is that he can be on the ice for 5v5 goals against more cheaply than players like Rasmussen or Appleton. But at least he did some hitting, which is an improvement, and he is young and hungry and hasn’t reached his ceiling. And if all Dylan James does is crash the net, well, we don’t really have anyone who does that now, so maybe he and some of the kids can make up a really abrasive third or fourth line. I have dibs on calling them the Grit Line.

This is awesome. Kocur hadn’t gotten re-signed and was playing in a beer league in Detroit. Chicago came to town and he talked to Probert after. Said next time you come to Detroit, rough them up a bit so they think about needing an enforcer. Probert did. Bowman called Kocur the next day and told him to go to minor league camp and get in shape. He did and they signed him. Next time Chicago was in town he and Probert fought. They were down on the ice and Kocur told him hey thanks a lot.

If I recall correctly, Ted Williams had 20/10 vision. He claimed he could see the seams on the baseball as it left the pitcher's hand. There are certainly many skills that go into being a capable hitter at the MLB level, but one that you cannot train is vision. One study says the average MLB player has 20/13 vision. https://www.aao.org/museum/exhibition-detail/sports-vision. 4% of players have 20/8 vision, and it doesn't seem like you can get vision better than that. https://www.advancedvisiontherapycenter.com/about/Baseballs-Visual-Demands.html Maybe Javy has ordinary eyesight like the rest of us.

OTOH…

Yes, that’s why I said they would be the guts of the trade. I don’t know who else would have to be included. Danielson? The bigger point is that Stevie was rumored to have been exploring EP40 at the trade deadline. Could a trade like this be a springboard out of purgatory? Or would it be an anchor?

Copp led the league… in goals below expected.

So let’s say the new guy is told to get EP40 off the books. Is there any circumstance under which it makes sense for Stevie to make a play for him, as was rumored at the trade deadline? As far as I can tell he has 6 years left at $11.6 million, $69.6 total. Assuming he passes a physical and his knee isn’t shot, would you trade for him if the guts of the deal were Vancouver taking Compher and Rasmussen? If we can unload those contracts, which total almost $17 million still, that brings the net cost of EP40 to $53 million, which is $8.83 million a year. assuming his knee checks out, you end up with a player who, even playing on a bad team in a bad situation, has been much more productive than Copp. Maybe in a less bad situation, playing with a bunch of Swedes, and not having the unforgiving eye of the Canadian hockey media on him he might bounce back to a 65 point player. Not great but would have been enough for third or fourth on this year’s team. Put Larkin with DeBrincat on the first line, then Pettersson and Raymond on the second line, maybe with Genborg eventually for some physical presence. It could be a disaster so you’d have to make sure Hakan and Lidstrom and all the other Swedes are bought in. But this rebuild is stuck in limbo unless Stevie can pull a rabbit out of his hat.

12th best goalie, 12th best record.