Part of me was thinking how crazy it is we've been so good lately with guys like Ehn, Frk, Hirose, Kuffner, Puempel, Turgeon, Chelios, McIlrath and Witkowski in the lineup. Then I remembered they are replacing guys like Abby, Glendening, Nielsen, Vanek, De la Rose, Daley and Ericsson And I'm not too shocked anymore. Salary aside (which is awful), the fact a guy like Abby is even taking a roster spot at this point is bad. He is probably our worst regular forward and I'd take quite a few of these young guys before seeing him come back with a roster spot
Filip Larsson who was our 6th round pick in 2016 picked up back to back shutouts for Denver to lead them to the frozen four. As a freshman he was a top 5 goalie in the NCAA.
Think of how bad your salary structure is when you can owe Darren Helm almost $8m over the next two years and he can't scratch the top two list of worst contracts among your forwards.
That’s my biggest fear with Holland controlling the purse strings for another summer. He can’t help himself when he has money. I know why he signed Nielsen and Helm that summer, but it was the wrong choice. You have to hope he learned his lesson.
I’ll look at the positive, which is that Larkin signed a great deal for us. And though they were all bridge deals, he got huge bargains on AA, Bert and Mantha. Let’s hope he has better luck with UFA.
Some fucker on FB got me with a legit looking press release announcing Yzerman as new Vice President. Forgot today's date and texted like 5 people before realizing my mistake
Hurricanes going to trade Adam Fox rights. Would he be worth a 2nd? Would that be enough? Think hes their top prospect. Right hand shooting college defenseman who is probably ready to play next year
He was a 3rd round pick 3 years ago that is refusing to sign with them. As such the only value to them is what they can get in a trade so it depends on how many suitors he has. This years 3rd (likely right where he was picked) or next years 2nd from Washington would be fine with me.
And Bertuzzi has raised his stock from a 3rd line guy to a top 6 forward the way he has played. Mantha and AA appear to be top 6 forwards too. Speaking of Bertuzzi
Wings had three awful stretches, 0-5-2 to start year, 2-10-3 in December and 1-9-3 around the trade deadline. 3-24-8 in those 3 stretches. We are 29-14-2 outside those stretches. They've shown flashes of looking good and also flashes of being the worst team. Odd season, but some positives to take from it going forward
I'm still annoyed but it's fun. D situation is still fucked and goalie going forward is uncertain but I'm feeling better and better about forward. Cannot stress enough finding a 2C is imperative, I'm definitely going to talk myself into Duchene and be pissed in 3-4 years if it happens.
2 g 5 a last 6 AA His hot streak started a little earlier, extend him out and he is 6 g 5 a last 9 games
Mantha 7 g 7 a +9 last 6 games Bertuzzi 5 g 8 a +8 last 5 games Larkin 5 g 6 a +10 last 6 games AA 6 g 5 a +4 last 9 games Hirose 1 g 5 a +3 last 8 games Hronek 2 g 3 a +2 last 4 games Madison Bowey is also a +5 his last 3 game DeKeyser 1 g 2 a +8 his last 6 Both of them have positive +/- on the season now
I think it’s entirely possible that Hronek is better than Chychrun. Crazy we got Cholowski and Hronek in that deal.
We just scored with a PP that had Puempel Hirose and Kuffner on the ice. It is getting pretty crazy at this point
2016-Jun-25 Traded from Detroit Red Wings with round 1 pick in the 2016 draft (Jakob Chychrun) to Arizona Coyotes for Joe Vitale, round 1 pick in the 2016 draft (Dennis Cholowski) and round 2 pick in the 2016 draft (Filip Hronek)
So win tomorrow (which we assuredly will) and have the 6th best odds. Lose and we have the 4th best odds.
Ive convinced myself we wont get lucky with a top 2 pick and Zegras is the guy I'm on board with now. Think he would be a great linemate in the future with Zadina. His playmaking and Zadina goalscoring could be fun. Future 2nd line with AA going back to wing.
That win streak maybe cost us the two slot but realistically it only cost us the three. If could have been much worse.
Since the lowest we can go is 7, this is my personal top 7 players: 1. Hughes 2. Kakko 3. Zegras 4. Podkolzin 5. Byram 6. Couzens 7. Turcotte Hughes and Kakko are self explanatory. Zegras is nearly as good a playmaker as Hughes and that’s one that we don’t have right now. Put Zegras and Zadina together and you’ll have magic one day. Podkolzin would be 3 if he wasn’t a wing. He’s too talented to pass up on if these other guys are gone. Byram is very good but I think he’s overrated because of how bad this D class is. Couzens and Turcotte give you another Larkin type. Clearly that isn’t a bad thing, but man there would be a lot of redundancy between Larkin, one of those kids and Veleno.
It sounds like Kronwall is leaning towards coming back next year. If we move Daley, I’m fine with it. If we can’t move any of the other D and this forces Cholowski to GR, I’m very very against it.
I am ok with Kronwall back if we can cut some dead weight. We are going to have a good chunk of cap space but we are going to need to clear roster spots. Even if we re-sign no one who is a FA, we have Green, DeKeyser, Daley, Hronek, Cholowski, Bowey and Ericsson on D. If we could dump both Ericsson and Daley (or even just bite the bullet and move on without them) I think we could live with Kronwall back on a one year deal. Green-(Hopefully top level FA), Kronwall-Hronek and Cholowski-Bowey Have a similar issue at forward. Currently even assuming we do not re-sign any current FA we have (14) forwards who will be fighting for a spot. Bertuzzi, Larkin, Mantha, Zadina, AA, Helm, Hirose, Nielsen, Ras, Abby, Glendening, Ehn, de la Rose and Svechnikov. Would be really nice if this offseason we could find a way to dump some of this dead weight. Luckily we losing Vanek and Kronwall contract this offseason and next offseason we will be dumping Howard, Green, Daley and Ericsson. But still 3 more years of Frans and 4 more years of Abdelkader
I’m still not certain Vanek is gone. The club loves him and he loves being here. It makes no sense but that’s where we are at.
Let’s do whatever we can to get rid of Abdelkader. He had like 19 points in 72 games. He might be worst every day player in the NHL
Just like with Kronwall, I wouldn't mind Vanek as a 3rd line winger on a one year deal but that again is if it is not at the expense of guys like Ras. If you can dump Abby, Helm, Nielsen, etc. Abdelkader really needs to go, but given his contract and the club seeming love of him as well he is probably going nowhere.
I take back what I said about Vanek, just don't see how he fits in even with cutting dead weight. Ideally next year I would like to see us line up similar to this Bert-Larkin-Mantha AA- (FA Center, preferably on a short deal, maybe Pavelski) - Zadina Ras-(Rookie Center, Veleno or 1st rd pick)-Hirose/Svechnikov Helm-Nielsen-Glendening Ehn, Frk/de la Rose Green-Karlsson Hronek-DeKeyser Cholowski-Bowey Whoever you can't dump between Daley/Ericsson That is unrealistic because I can't see us dumping Abdelkader, so likely there won't be a FA center and Nielsen moves up and we insert Abby into the lineup. Also see us re-signing Kronwall and not signing Karlsson.
So I went to tank a thon and simmed the lottery 20 times http://www.tankathon.com/nhl We ended up win: 6th pick - 4 time 5th pick - 9 times 3rd pick - 3 times 2nd pick - 3 times 1st pick - 1 time