Red Wings 2026 April Game Thread

[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. 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

If you trade Larkin then you might as well start the rebuild over and keep on taking until you get a top line capable of putting up 90+ points in a season on the regular. 

[buddha]

12 minutes ago, Jason_R said:

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. 

come on, jason.  7th round pick hits are pure luck.  getting a plugger like finnie is nice, but it doesnt show any particular acumen.

gibson for a second was a decent trade.

debrincat told ottawa he would not sign an extension and would only sign an extension in detroit.  that's not yzerman finding a good deal, its having a deal thrown into his lap.  i dont give him much credit for that.

every prospect who we are expecting to be good will not pan out.  we expected kasper to be good, buium, wallinder, tuomisto...where are they?

he's reponsible for the final product and the final product hasnt been good enough.  in fact, its failed in spectacular ways in multiple seasons now.

none of us can say with any certainty that "firing yzerman wont help."  how do you know that?  

the criticism about yzerman's plan when he started this was his signing middling talent to long term deals, thus raising the floor temporarily but in a way that prevents them from bottoming out long enough.  the second criticism was in his drafting "try hard" players who dont have elite skills like danielson and kasper.  well, how are they doing?  third, the "plan" to get cap space and sign free agents failed because he refused to sign any top free agents while we had space and now EVERYONE has space and there is no one to sign.  no kyle connor.  no mitch marner.  no gavrikov.  no guentzle.

and stop dreaming about trading for austin matthews because 1) they traded their asset for justin faulk; and 2) the bidding would start with mo seider.

we need to stop blaming kenny for taking zadina over hughes and realize yzerman's failure to draft quality depth players and inability to sign quality players has resulted in this season's collapse.

[buddha]

11 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

If you trade Larkin then you might as well start the rebuild over and keep on taking until you get a top line capable of putting up 90+ points in a season on the regular. 

i think its too late to trade larkin.

[Jason_R]

2 minutes ago, buddha said:

come on, jason.  7th round pick hits are pure luck.  getting a plugger like finnie is nice, but it doesnt show any particular acumen.

gibson for a second was a decent trade.

debrincat told ottawa he would not sign an extension and would only sign an extension in detroit.  that's not yzerman finding a good deal, its having a deal thrown into his lap.  i dont give him much credit for that.

every prospect who we are expecting to be good will not pan out.  we expected kasper to be good, buium, wallinder, tuomisto...where are they?

he's reponsible for the final product and the final product hasnt been good enough.  in fact, its failed in spectacular ways in multiple seasons now.

none of us can say with any certainty that "firing yzerman wont help."  how do you know that?  

the criticism about yzerman's plan when he started this was his signing middling talent to long term deals, thus raising the floor temporarily but in a way that prevents them from bottoming out long enough.  the second criticism was in his drafting "try hard" players who dont have elite skills like danielson and kasper.  well, how are they doing?  third, the "plan" to get cap space and sign free agents failed because he refused to sign any top free agents while we had space and now EVERYONE has space and there is no one to sign.  no kyle connor.  no mitch marner.  no gavrikov.  no guentzle.

and stop dreaming about trading for austin matthews because 1) they traded their asset for justin faulk; and 2) the bidding would start with mo seider.

we need to stop blaming kenny for taking zadina over hughes and realize yzerman's failure to draft quality depth players and inability to sign quality players has resulted in this season's collapse.

We must never stop blaming Kenny! His failure was abject and complete and will still be felt for another five years. If anyone other than Yzerman was responsible for cleaning up the nuclear waste dump Kenny left, Hockeytown would have chewed them up and spit them out a long time ago. 

I haven't said a word about trading for Matthews. Not sure where that is coming from. Their best trade option is probably Edvinsson, once they sign him to an extension. I'm not sure I'd want to part with him now that he and Seider are the on the way to being the best pairing in the league. Would I consider trading him for Brady Tkachuk if he told Ottawa I'm not re-signing here and if we could get him extended? Now that would be interesting. 

[Hongbit]

Had anyone looked up Mo Mantha’s numbers in Pittsburgh this season.  Hockey is weird. 

Kenny also made a few very good deals this season to put the Kings on the cusp of the playoffs despite having the 2nd fewest regulation wins in the league and also get a few extra draft picks while doing it. 

[lordstanley]

1 hour ago, Jason_R said:

We must never stop blaming Kenny! His failure was abject and complete and will still be felt for another five years. If anyone other than Yzerman was responsible for cleaning up the nuclear waste dump Kenny left, Hockeytown would have chewed them up and spit them out a long time ago. 

I haven't said a word about trading for Matthews. Not sure where that is coming from. Their best trade option is probably Edvinsson, once they sign him to an extension. I'm not sure I'd want to part with him now that he and Seider are the on the way to being the best pairing in the league. Would I consider trading him for Brady Tkachuk if he told Ottawa I'm not re-signing here and if we could get him extended? Now that would be interesting. 

Apart from Larkin, Kenny had two #15 picks in 25 years! Yzerman has had seven #15 picks already.  The year before Holland picked Larkin he picked Mantha at #20 - Mantha was handed to Yzerman in 2019 as a 24 year old coming off a 25G 48Pts in 67 games. Holland also picked Tyler Bertuzzi late in the 2nd round in the same draft as Mantha and Bertuzzi was handed to Yzerman in 2019 as a 24 year old coming off a 21 G 47 Pts season. Hronek, drafted late in the 2nd round in 2016, was handed to Yzerman as a 21 year old. Holland missed on two top 10s - Zadina and Rasmussen - but let's see how much better than those two Kasper and Danielson turn out to be. That's not defending Holland, just saying that apart from his three top 6 overall picks Yzerman's drafting hasn't yielded much ...yet. 

A 91 point season with 2 games to go, on the playoff bubble, isn't much different than what I expected last September. We'd feel differently about 91 points if: a) the points hadn't been frontended in the first 2/3 of the season followed by a 1/3 of the season collapse; and b) youth like Kasper, Danielson, ASP and Cossa had contributed to those 91 points.

[buddha]

yzerman's success in drafting has been greatly exaggerated.

to stanley's point, its still a little early for most of the picks.  otoh, you could see seider/raymond as hits right away.  edvinsson took a year.

kasper has had 1/2 a good season and a flop.  danielson flopped this year.  asp was shown to be quite flawed.  while every prospect develops in their own way, if they were going to be stars you would likely know it already.

and the success of finnie and kasper on the top line next to raymond/larkin tells me more about larkin than it does about yzerman's drafting.  

[buddha]

1 hour ago, Jason_R said:

We must never stop blaming Kenny! His failure was abject and complete and will still be felt for another five years. If anyone other than Yzerman was responsible for cleaning up the nuclear waste dump Kenny left, Hockeytown would have chewed them up and spit them out a long time ago. 

I haven't said a word about trading for Matthews. Not sure where that is coming from. Their best trade option is probably Edvinsson, once they sign him to an extension. I'm not sure I'd want to part with him now that he and Seider are the on the way to being the best pairing in the league. Would I consider trading him for Brady Tkachuk if he told Ottawa I'm not re-signing here and if we could get him extended? Now that would be interesting. 

i thought you mentioned a matthews trade at some point.  my bad.

i often wonder if detroit has shopped its prospects and people dont want them (other than edvinsson)?  the "no one wanted danielson" rumors were all over the place.  if true, it says a lot about detroit's drafting the last few years.

[buddha]

if danielson and kasper arent 2 and 3 c next year with cossa in net and asp somewhere on the blue line, then the team is trouble OR theyve been traded for actual nhl talent.

[gehringer_2]

16 hours ago, buddha said:

if they fired mcclellan i wouldnt be surprised.  this is probably their worst collapse in a long time.  even worse than last year.

The question is whether he is a poor coach given that his team collapsed at the finish, or a good coach that had them playing way over their heads through a good part of the season until reality struck against other teams raising their games?

Personally it always seems unlikely to me the personnel on this team should have been able to achieve and hold a divisional lead for as long as they did at all.

[buddha]

5 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

The question is whether he is a poor coach given that his team collapsed at the finish, or a good coach that had them playing way over their heads through a good part of the season until reality struck against other teams raising their games?

Personally it always seems unlikely to me the personnel on this team should have been able to achieve and hold a divisional lead for as long as they did at all.

i think its more on the talent on the team than mcclleland.  lots of fragile players in that locker room, it seems.  it could also be that when other teams turned up the heat and started playing hard, the wings cant compete.  they may also have been playing through injury.

regardless, i think its more on the team than the coach.