Mr.TaterSalad

So does that mean no on a player like Chris Tanev?

This is a fair and valid point. Frankly one I agree with. I do condemn the brutal, barbaric acts of Hamas and so too should anyone, anywhere, on any side of the political spectrum. I think the Palestinian people should use non-violence to achieve their nation state and to achieve equity. I do condemn anyone who wishes to wipe Israel and the Jewish people off the map. But until only recently, among many nations in the west, criticism of Israel and settler violence has been tepid and criticism of Palestinians has been much more fervent. Do I wish Israel was being led by a good and decent man like the late Yitzhak Rabin at a moment like this. Hell yes I do. I think the conflict would be in a far better space than where we are at today. I'd also feel morally better about my country support a Rabin-led, Labor Party government with aid as well. But that simply isn't the case. Israel is now being led by a wannabe dictator, who spits in the face of a leader like Rabin. In-fact, Rabin wasn't hardline enough for the right-wing of Israel and so one of their militants assassinated the man for not being militant enough towards the Palestinians. And Netanyahu is a cooperator and complicit in Rabin being murdered in the first place.

This simply isn't true. The military aid that we have given, up to this point, has had almost no conditions placed upon it. Even as Netanyahu is out there saying that Israel has the right to control from the river to the sea. Even as he has come out and explicitly said time and again Palestinians have no right to statehood or personhood as a Palestinian people. Whether it be money for the iron dome or direct military aid to use on weaponry, munitions, or transportation, that aid has had little in the way of condition placed upon it. That means has for the most part been, unconditional support. Furthermore, even with a corrupt dictator-lite in power like Bibi, we have US politicians running around (in Israel no less) talking about how they are our special ally and how we need to cherish the Israeli democracy. What democracy exactly are we cherishing? The one that Netanyahu is actively trying to overthrow? Would you want an elected leader of another parliament running around the US saying we have a special relationship with Trump as his MAGA supporters are storming the capital?

You missed the point completely but I know you did so on purpose. By giving unconditioned military aid to the Netanyahu government you are supporting Netanyahu unconditionally. You are supporting him regardless of his attempts to overthrow democracy in Israel and turn that country into a dictatorship. Which is what he was trying to do prior to October 7th and is still in all likelihood, trying to do now. He is the Israeli version of Donald Trump. The man has autocratic and fascist tendencies. He wants to be Israel's dictator and that is not really up for debate amongst most honest people who support democratic values and democracy. But ok, let's play the game you want to. If people gathered at a synagogue in Southfield and said we're going to develop a plan to take over the eastside of Dearborn, and then marched into that area of Dearborn with guns, and told people they have 72 hours to vacate their homes or face violence or death, I'd be pretty pissed about that too. Just as I am upset about what happened on October 7th. Israeli settlers have been marching in and encroaching upon their Palestinian neighbors for decades and killing hundreds of them. Consider this report from the UN from just last year. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported, from January to September 2023, Israeli settlers and forces killed 189 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and wounded 8,192. The UNOCHA said on average, there are 3 cases of settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank of the Jordan River every single day, resulting in the killing and injuring of Palestinians, harming their property, and preventing them from reaching their land, workplace, family, and friends. This doesn't justify October 7th in any way, shape or form, but merely points out the settler violence that Netanyahu has continued to allow and not condemn on the Israeli side of this horrible conflict.

If the shoe was on the other foot, and we suffered a major terrorist attack while Trump was President, would you want a country, Israel or otherwise, to give Trump unconditional military aid and allow Trump to operate with little restraint or without a ceasefire in place? I would guess that most here would not want Trump to have unconditional military support, nor would they want to allow him to operate militarily with minimal restraint. Furthermore, would the decent-minded, non-right wing people of that country giving us the unconditioned aid want their tax dollars going to support a man like Trump? I bet they wouldn't. So why the double standard for Netanyahu? We know full well that Bibi is the Jewish/Israeli version of Donald Trump. He is a crook, a conman, a liar, a narcissist, a racist, and a wannabe dictator. He is a dangerous man, who posses the same direct threat to democracy as Trump does in this country. The man tried to hijack his nation's high court and singlehandedly change its judicial system to avoid prosecution and keep himself and the Likud in power as if he was the dictator of Isreal. Centrists and center-left types who oppose Trump would be going bananas in this country if Trump attempted that same maneuver that Bibi did in his judicial system. And rightfully so I might add. But when it comes to Bibi, you have the centrists and center-left falling all over themselves, talking about what a special relationship we have with Israel. And how we love her and support her unconditionally. WTF, Netanyahu is almost a mirror image of Trump. Why the heck would we support a woefully corrupt, jackboot thug and wannabe dictator like that with unconditional love, support, and military aid. This is the guy whom we consider our most cherished ally and have a special relationship with? If we're willing to support Netanyahu and his Likud government in this way than why not support Viktor Orban or Alexander Lukashenko too? What's the difference between a Bibi and those two? You can, and must, condemn the brutal and barbaric terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7th. You can, and you must, condemn any use of human shields, bunkers under hospitals/schools/residential areas, weapons caches near homes and in mosques. But for god sakes, you can condemn all of that without supporting Bibi unconditionally and intern, supporting the Likud Party in the same way.

I went through it too in my 20s. I voted for Ron Paul in two different primaries, read Mises Institute publications and Milton Friedman, the whole bit. Another question to ask, what do people think the percentage of Michigan voters will be that vote uncommitted on Tuesday?

Would you want to take on Boston in the first round lol? Maybe that could be to our benefit, who knows.

I think I largely agree with what you are saying here. Assuming our young core currently in the NHL and those waiting in the wings (no pun) to come up keep developing as we hope they do, we will be set to be the future of the Eastern Conference, whereas teams like Tampa Bay represent its past success. I do agree with you that the Devils, and also likely the Rangers, are the teams we will be competing with heavily over the next 3-4 seasons for the East, as other, older rosters, continue to decline. Florida has a middle of the pack roster and core when it comes to the age of their team, but I don't fear Florida as some juggernaut the way I fear Boston or feared Tampa Bay in years past. Florida has a nice roster but nothing that I don't think our core couldn't get past in the playoffs. I'll believe it when I see it with Toronto at this point. Everyone blamed Babcock for their lack of playoff success and now Sheldon Keefe has been the HC for 4 seasons, with largely the same core of players in-tact, and his squads still can't get it done either. Toronto certainly has the offensive fire power to compete with the best of them, but they just haven't translated that into any kind of playoff success. I spent from 2020 to last season predicting Boston's downfall due to having one of the oldest rosters in the league and aging superstars on it. I thought once Chara was done they'd falter and they haven't in each of the subsequent seasons since he's been gone. I'm likely done predicting Boston's downfall at this point because they just keep on winning despite their older than league average roster year after year. At the beginning of the season I was not quite ready to count out Tampa Bay given that they still have Kucherov, Stammer, and Hedman. I had their window to still make a run in the playoffs as this season and they don't appear to be making anything of it. So I can start to get behind the idea that their window is closed. Though it feels like with that core of players, a big time deadline move could jolt them back in it.

One of the Downriver Democratic State Reps Jaime Churches, from the Woodhaven area, is now also voting uncommitted in the primary. She's no far left type either. By my count I believe there are now 4 State House Reps that are now publicly expressing support for voting uncommitted. Jaime Churches from Downriver, Alabas Farhat from Dearborn, Abe Aiyash from Detroit/Hamtramck, and Dylan Wegela from Garden City.

AWESOME OT goal there by Kaner!

Thank you! Obliviously the East is considerably tougher come playoff time than the West and that is the big hang up that all the stats in the world just can makeup for. Just because conference is considerably tougher now doesn't mean a year or two from now it still will be. I was trying to statistically point out a lot of the similarities between where we are right now and where Vegas/St. Louis were in their respective Cup winning years. Difference conferences and tougher playoff matchups clearly stand in our way. To Buddha's point, we don't play the physical style of hockey that St. Louis played, but I don't know if it will matter as much. Patrick Kane, while of course an older and a different player these days, has still managed to be a double digit point producer in the playoffs before and I'd like to think we can squeeze one more run out of him. Maybe teams will press on him harder in the playoffs and take him out of games. But he's still a very talented, crafty player, who can find his way to the net.

I'm not saying we will win the Cup this year if we make the playoffs, but I think we are getting closer than people think as our defense, goaltending, and scoring depth improves. Larkin is the closest player we have to a PPG+ player on this team. We likely don't have a guy whose going to be contributing at a 2 PPG+ clip, nor consistently be an 90-100+ PPS type of a player. The more I looked into the numbers, the more I'm beginning to see that's not going to be a problem based on what two other recent Stanley Cup winners had on their teams. Sure, it would be nice to have a Connor McDavid, Jason Robertson, Mikko Rantanen, Mitch Marner type goal scorer and point producer. We don't need that though to win a Stanley Cup. Look at the Stanley Cup winner from just last year, the Vegas Golden Knights. Their top point producer in the regular season was Jack Eichel with 66 points and he was also their top goal scorer with 27 goals. In 2019 when the Blues won the Cup Ryan O'Reilly lead the team with 77 points and Vladimir Tarasenko had the most goals at 33. Neither team even had a guy that produced 80+ points or scored more than 35 goals, much less a 40 goals scorer. Both Vegas last year and St. Louis in 2019 played smart, defensively responsible, two-way hockey. Neither team turned the puck over a lot and both were in the bottom 10 of the league in defensive zone giveaways, with Vegas being in the bottom 3 last season. If you subtract our disastrously bad defense and goaltending in the month of December this season, we'd likely be in the bottom 7-10 in defensive zone giveaways too. I pulled these numbers from a poster (maximus91) on reddit and it further fits my narrative that our pathway forward is the Golden Knights and Blues models of building a Cup contending team. Both teams had only three 20+ goal scorers and only St. Louis had a singular 30 goal scorer. Both teams only had one player with PPG stats that season. Vegas had seven players with 40+ points last season, we potentially have 7-8 guys that could reach 40+ points this season (Larkin, DeBrincat, Raymond, Sprong, Gostisbehere, Seider, Compher, and maybe Kane). Two D-men reached the 40 point mark on Vegas, we likely have two that will hit that mark this season in Gostisbehere and Seider. Vegas had twelve 10+ goal scorers on their Cup team last year, St. Louis had thirteen 10+ goal scorers in 2019, we are currently at the same number now as Vegas was last year. They had 3 guys (Marchessault, Eichel, Smith) go over 20 goals, St. Louis had 3 guys (Tarasenko, O'Reilly, Perron), and we are likely to have 3 this year (Larkin, Raymond, DeBrincat). They had one D-men go over 50 points on Vegas in Pietrangelo, St. Louis had no D-men over 50 points, we don't have a D-man close to the 50 point mark. Vegas only gave up 229 GA, St. Louis in 2019 was at 220 GA, and this year we are currently at 181 GA and trending towards similar numbers for both teams. Vegas had 5 different goalies start for them and all but Jonathan Quick had above 915 SAV%, St. Louis had 3 goalies start with two (Allen and Binnington) above a 900 SV%, we have had 3 goalies start for us this year and 2 of 3 are above a 900 SV%. We aren't building a team in the mold of Colorado, Edmonton, or Toronto with multiple 90+ PPS or multiple 40+ GPS type of guys. We are much more in-line with recent Cup winners like Vegas and St. Louis. Both were teams who played smart two-way hockey, didn't turn the puck over, had a lot of goal scoring depth as opposed to a dominate first scoring line, were tough on the defensive end, and had multiple, quality starting goalies. A little more offensive contribution, a little more consistent defensive play and a goalie who can help carry the starting load with Alex Lyon (I'm looking at you Sebastian Cossa) and I really don't think we are as far away as people seem to think from being a Cup contender.

Martin Mayhew and Tom Lewand let Suh walk without getting nothing for him because they were arrogant about the fact they'd resign him.

Great teams add marquee players in free agency often. The defending Super Bowl champs just spent big money in free agency last year on their offensive line adding Jawaan Taylor at RT. The runner up in the Super Bowl spent big money in free agency on their defensive line adding Javon Hargrave at DT. No reason, other than it isn't likely Holmes' plan, that we can't be in on one marquee free agent like a Danielle Hunter, Jaylon Johnson, L'Jarius Sneed, etc.

Xavien Howard had a PPF grade last season of only 55 and that was with him playing opposite Jalen Ramsey. He had 1 INT and only 42 tackles in 13 games played. He hasn't had more than 1 INT in a season since 2021. He's 30 years old currently. He might be a guy I'd take a flyer on though as a depth piece if he wasn't looking for big time, starting CB1 money. I am not giving him CB 1 money though.

I'm letting Jonah Jackson walk if he's asking for more than this organization thinks he's worth. I know Holmes has stated he wants to keep his own guys around (technically Jackson was a Quinn pick) but I think you can find serviceable starting guards, at a decent contract, in free agency or in the 2nd or 3rd rounds of the draft. If increasing the cap makes Jonah Jackson more expensive than someone else can have him.

I just don't get bringing back Badgley and doing so this early on in the offseason. Are they not going to go out now and scout and look at other options? I guess this means drafting a Will Reichard late in the draft is off the table now. It's disappointing that they signed him so soon and are now presumably not going to go out and look at other, serious options for a starting kicker.

I'm Hungarian-American on my dad's side of the family, so if Trump comes out with a line of stuffed peppers, chicken paprikash, and kolaches then I'm sold. I'll even switch my avatar to MAGA.

The Ilitches are corporate welfare queens, crooks, and gangsters, who have ripped off taxpayers in the poorest big city in America time and again. They have suckled off the tit of the public dole for years. No one in Detroit or Southeast Michigan collects welfare quite like the Ilitch Family. They are Tony Jack Giacalone with a legit pizza business and entertainment company as their front.

You can't negotiate with fascistic terrorists like this member of the Likud party and Israeli government . . .

A decent, honorable leader of Jewish Trump's fascistic Likud Party proud of the death and destruction Isreal has caused. Our most cherished ally in the world. The country we have a special relationship with.

I try to avoid hero worship and giving someone deity like status. But man do I miss this guy and what an intellect he was. There was no one quite like Christopher Hitchens. His sharp whit and use of the English language were like no one else I've heard before. His poignant views on religion and sharp critiques of it were unlike anyone else's. Maybe that means I just need to listen to and ready from more people than just Hitchens. But I've found myself thinking about him and watching his commentary a lot this past week.

A lot of people on the left had/have great concern over what's still happening in Yemen. As well, when George WMD. Bush wasn't stepping up to stop genocide in Darfur in Sudan it was many on the left who were most critical. When DubyaMD beat the war drum to go to Iraq it was the left who was protesting that foreign conflict while the center of the party, like Hillary Clinton, were being craven and acquiescing to the warmongers in DubyaMDs administration. When the left and libertarians were out in the streets protesting the Iraq War others were talking about weapons of mass destruction, yellow cake uranium from Niger, mushroom clouds over NYC, Sadaams ties to Al-Qaeda, etc. Many in the center were spinning the same lies and promoting the same fabricated intelligence reports that DubyaMD was pushing.

I don't think he does either. He's not enough of a high motor, try hard guy and takes too many plays off for this regime to take a chance on him.

Now the question at Safety is about whether or not CJGJ comes back.