gehringer_2

yeah - nice play by Tork goes for naught.

well, he wasn't fooled

thrill seeking behavior? Death wish? The big crash that messed him up the first time was pretty nuts, no sane person would have been trying to take the turn he did.

Probably not much because he hasn't read anything this long since Penn, if he ever even did then.

Yup - I remember a long interview with Yzerman when he took the job and the concept he laid out was to bring in talent no older than Larkin and to have a cup challenging team while Larkin was still in relatively prime production. He clearly thought at the time he could pull off a gradual build without going any further down. 20/20 as they say...

Ok, it was 4.

The markets are in freefall - down 9% so far (that > $5 trillion in lost equity), WIT is back up to $99, the Strait is still closed, the mullahs are still in charge, US munition stocks are depleted, and NYT reports that now Trump is bored with the whole affair. So much winning.

I can't wait to see how the Dems somehow snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here.

who said anything about evil genius? He's just a guy who his father picked to run things because he had shown himself to be at minimum the pick of the litter, who has spent his life around the management of professional sports, who has managed over a decade now not to muck up a multibillion dollar operation at LC/Olympia so I think the default assumption that he has some idea he knows what he doing is actually pretty strong. If you talk about evidence, what evidence is there to the contrary? He's brought in an apparently excellent management team at the Tigers and he has a lot more history around hockey than baseball. It's always enjoyable to completely dismiss people as idiots - I do it mostly in the political forum myself, but there really is a lot more evidence CI is a competent person than for the contrary. One problem with the Wings is that they probably make money even missing the playoffs so there isn't enough pressure from that direction.

This is all true, but there is a big additional step between, "I'd love to have D Larkin as a teammate" and "I'd love to be on a team that's going to miss the playoffs just to play with D Larkin." 🤷‍♂️ The latter is going to weigh heavier than the former!

If your team has a rep for being inept, it's a big problem no matter who you are. Beyond that, most of these guys are Canadian or northern Euro. They're not dying to get to Florida or the SW desert.

LOL, c'mon Buddha, you think Chris Ilitch has been in a cocoon all his life as #1 son and heir apparent while his family ran a hockey team? Ok, sure.

I'm gonna say it's only in rare cases who is on a team impacts a player's choice either way as much as what that team is. In the case of Patrick Kane the fact the DeBrincat had come here probably was a factor, but I doubt anyone can come up with another case outside of family ties.

I think it's pretty certain Ilitch and Yzerman had talked through the immediate future of the team when he hired him and part of discussion would have to have been "I want this team improving starting tomorrow" vs "invest the time you need to make this team better". Once that was decided, sure it's all Yzerman, but any owner is involved enough to have made that initial guidance determination, and if you were hired as a GM and your owner didn't, you'd be a fool to take the job.

what's considered 'the modern era'?

bottom line is that Yzerman (and maybe Ilitch) didn't want to pay the price for Holland having let things get so bad, which was to be a bad team longer. In a capped league there are only so many levers. Outside of the three big draft hits, they haven't scouted better than the rest of the league, which is one of only three ways to get better. They didn't lose enough to collect more top picks, which is the 2nd way to get better, and Yzerman has not managed to pick any other GM's pocket in a trade, which is the third way to get better. If you don't do any of those, what can you expect the outcome to be? So they either need to go back to losing and collecting picks, they need to trade better, or they need to scout better. How do either of those last two things improve unless you upgrade the people tasked to do them who haven't done them well enough so far to produce the needed improvement?

Trump says he's 'signing an order' to move funds to pay TSA. I guess this counts as a TACO as TSA is going to get paid which relieves the pressure but the Dems haven't given him anything on the DHS budget. Of course it isn't clear he will have any legal authority for how he gets the money there, but I doubt anyone is going to challenge it.

Broadcast disclaimer by Bob Costas.

PTBDNS!

Holton not finishing his pitches

If he hasn't been sent down by June 1 it's already a massive success.

yeah - punished for making the attempt. if Javy just eats it and makes no throw it's a hit all the way.

This telecast is so much better than Sinclair. Higher res, way less crap on the screen. Better camera work. They should have make the move away from Sinclair the last time.

if he doesn't challenge that one he gets another one even further away.

Beckman, ugh.