buddha

big ten continues to roll.

that was a huge huge win.

if they went full tank, the move would have been to trade larkin.

8 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

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 certainly dont feel he's some evil genius like you do, that he's holding back detroit sports teams by pinching pennies.  this tigers' summer sort of undercut your thesis on that one.

i think he's a nepo baby who hasnt done the work like his dad did.  i'm not sure why you think otherwise.

8 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

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.

you "think its pretty certain" based on what?  again, you put stock in illitch having a plan other than yzerman falling into his lap and him saying "ok."  i think its more likely yzerman said "i'll take the job, but the farm system is **** and it will take ten years to rebuild and i want him, him, him, and him to come to my staff and a budget for whatever i want."

yzerman had all the leverage and illitch has no history of knowing anything about hockey or any connections in the league to make a judgment on who to hire.

6 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

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?

i dont think illitch had anything to do with it.  i think it was all yzerman.  i doubt illitch is that involved in the day to day.

27 minutes ago, sagnam said:

You might be on to something. Maybe it’s becuase of Larkin that they don’t want to sign here.

jason previously stated that players want to play with dylan larkin.  i'm asking who.  

48 minutes ago, Jason_R said:

Knucklehead

****ing idiot is more like it.

38 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

If you could wave a wand and make every team healthy and not tanking, I think New Orleans would be the worst team in the league. 

Imagine being that bad and not having a first round pick this year. 

I would fire Joe. 

derrick queen has fallen off rhe map a little bit too.  you know, the reason why they gave up an unprotected first round pick in a loaded draft?

44 minutes ago, Jason_R said:

I don’t agree with the sentiment that nobody wants to come to Detroit. Detroit is the 12th largest media market in the NHL and an original six team. It is also home to many NHL players. It is a town known for an intensely supportive fan base. If you are a free agent and your choice is between Detroit and Ottawa does anyone really think that players will flock to Ottawa? Columbus? Calgary? Raleigh? Buffalo? Winnipeg? Maybe some prefer NYC, Vegas, LA. Maybe some prefer no tax states. But these guys want to get paid, they want to play, and they want to compete. Detroit wasn’t competitive five years ago or even three. They are on the cusp now. 

Also, maybe I’m forgetting someone but the only player I remember using a NMC to veto a trade to Detroit was Tyler Myers who apparently has a child with special needs, who was born and has family in Texas, and who ended up in Dallas. Faulk had a 15-team no trade clause, so either Detroit was not on it, or he willingly waived it. 

what free agents have signed here to play with dylan larkin?

15 minutes ago, slothfacekilla said:

You know the fanbase is down bad when people are pining for the chance to draft Shane Wright

there were folks on this site clamoring to trade up to draft shane wright...

the idea that everyone loves dylan larkin and wants to play with him is a myth.

didnt we go through this at the trade deadline when players were using their nmc to NOT come to detroit?

and yet still has PE buy ad space on the floor.

57 minutes ago, Jason_R said:

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. 

with the rise of the salary cap, there arent nearly as many free agents to sign because most teams have more than enough room to sign them.  maybe that changes in the near future, but our hopes for all these teams to be dropping their best players like flies who will find their way to detroit because we have cap space is not happening.

i've been as patient as the next guy, and the wings have had nothing but bad luck when it comes to injuries and lotteries, but he is the one responsible for the results on the ice, and those results havent been good enough.

every town has a writer like that.  it used to be drew sharpe forever.  then rahb pawker.  now monarrez.

we dont have a first round pick next year anymore.  that would likely end any pipedream of getting matthews.  even if the leafs would trade him to us.

The great josh giddey missed another triple double by 1 rebound last night as the bulls put up 137 on the sixers.

and lost by 20.  the bulls gave up 157 points in a game.

no one should take any of these great looking numbers by mediocre players seriously.  neither team tried.  it was the equivalent of an all star game, without any all stars.

twolves are currently 4.5 games ahead of toronto for the 19th spot in the draft, so it looks like the pistons will get their swap to move up 5 or 6 picks in the draft.

21 minutes ago, lordstanley said:

Here's Corey Pronman ranking the Red Wings' prospect pool at #7 entering the 2018-2019 season, just months before Yzerman took over the so-called wreckage of a franchise.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/459786/2018/08/30/pronman-2018-19-nhl-farm-system-rankings/

Here's the Bleacher Report ranking the Red Wings' prospect pool at #10 in 2015.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2505679-re-ranking-every-teams-prospect-pool-after-2015-nhl-draft

All Yzerman can hang his hat on now is prospect pool, prospect pool, prospect pool. The Wings had highly-regarded prospect pools throughout the 2010s so what do we have to show for missing the playoffs 9 straight years, maybe 10.

That says more about corey pronman than it does about the talent in the wings' prospect pool in 2019.

and it should be a cautionary tale for those of us who love to espouse all the talent we have just waiting to be nhlers.  odds are that 75% of cossa, bear, augustine, lombardi, danielson, asp, wallinder, tuomisto, et al arent going to be nhl players of any note.

4 minutes ago, Jason_R said:

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. 

yes, but we said the same thing LAST YEAR when there were actual scorers available.  some said it this year when the best scoring defenseman in the league was available.

when will we actually see him obtain this great scorer? 

10 hours ago, Jason_R said:

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. 

if youre under the impression that i have never second guessed kenny holland, youre barking up the wrong tree.

yzerman was dealt the worst hand in the nhl because of kenny holland.  kenny holland is why we are here.  yzerman just hasnt been able to dig out of it.

if the lions published 1/10th of their draft board, it would dwarf the size of the best work of carlos monarrez and rob parker combined.

in defense of stevie, the wings have had horrible horrible bad luck.  

that said, montreal, ottawa, and now buffalo have passed them.  heck, pittsburgh is trying to lose and has passed them.  philly is getting nothing from its superstar young forward, is in front office disarray, and is close to passing them.

how long do injuries and dropping in the lottery and "no one wants to sign here" do we accept before it becomes obvious that this front office just doesnt have it?  are folks clamoring to sign in ottawa?  demanding to go to buffalo?  telling their agents they must look into all the good things about the ISLANDERS?

i doubt it.  but those teams ascend and we drop every time larkin gets a hangnail.  enough may finally be enough.

10 minutes ago, Jason_R said:

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. 

the alternative was to not sign middling veterans early and continue to bottom out.  to continue to accumulate draft capital.  yzerman didnt do that.  he said he didnt want a losing culture and instead signed a bunch of veterans to overpriced contracts: chairot, copp, and compher being the biggest three.

the mantha trade has not borne any fruit (despite the posts here, cossa has not done anything of note other than have the lowest gaa on this juggernaut team.  he may work out, he has given them nothing yet.)  bertuzzi got you the pick that got you debrincat.  kane is a nice novelty player.  

the core is seider/raymond/edvinsson/kasper/danielson/asp.  do compher and copp and chairot compliment that core?  maybe.  but not enough to make the playoffs 7 years in.

the pro-yzerman argument is that the wings were so bad under kenny that they were the worst team in modern nhl history with the worst farm system in the league.  this is true, but how long to dig out of that?  8 years?  do you give him another year?  two?  do you give him ten years?

again, the fear in refusing to bottom out for multiple years is that you end up in the mushy middle: never bad enough to get a star, never good enough to make the playoffs. i think those fears have been realized.

3 hours ago, Deleterious said:

UNC expected to pursue Donovan and Stevens for their open head coach job 

 

lol brad stevens.  unc is about to be in for a rude awakening.