Waived: Erne on waivers

[Oddbob]

Cannot believe he is going to clear . My guess Elmer will take his spot

There is no spot. Erne was waived so Zadina can come back.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

There is no spot. Erne was waived so Zadina can come back.

What about Berggren?

 

[Gniwder]

What about Berggren?

Was recalled yesterday along with Zadina. Looks like it was a paper move.

Gotta assume Hagg is next if Stevie decides to call up Vrana.

 

[datsyukfan]

Would be nice to get Vrana back up since he is playing a lot better hockey. If it were me I would run these lines:

Bert- Larkin- Raymond
Berggren- Copp- Perron
Zadina- Rass- Vrana
Kubalik- Veleno- Fabbri

In theory it’s a pretty damn good top 12

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Would be nice to get Vrana back up since he is playing a lot better hockey. If it were me I would run these lines:

Bert- Larkin- Raymond
Berggren- Copp- Perron
Zadina- Rass- Vrana
Kubalik- Veleno- Fabbri

In theory it’s a pretty damn good top 12

That’s an OK top 12. Ras makes a much better winger than center and Bert should be nowhere near a team’s first line. I’d much rather have Kubalik with Larkin because they both produce very well together.

I’d like to see this:
Kubalik - Larkin - Perron
Berggren - Veleno - Raymond
Vrana - Copp - Zadina
Bert - Ras - Fabbri

Moving forward: Get rid of Bert and Zadina this season or next to make room for Kasper and Soderblom. Permanently move Ras to wing. Find a way to get a true top flight, point per game winger to replace Perron or Vrana.

 

[Frk It]

Find a way to get a true top flight, point per game winger to replace Perron or Vrana.

 

[jaster]

Veleno should be nowhere near the top-6, esepcially not as a center. Hockey IQ is too low. Sure, a little magician like Berggren can make him look good against other teams' 4th lines, but Joe Veleno, if he carves out a real NHL career, is going to find his bread being buttered in the bottom-6, where he's not depended on for offense.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Why is that an unreasonable goal? This team needs a game breaker up front. Raymond isn’t there yet. Perron, Vrana and Kubalik are all very good but are the guys that should be the 2nd or 3rd best players on their lines. Look at how LA picked up Fiala for a late 1st and Brock Faber.

Time Meier will be made available. Tarasenko is a name that intrigues me in FA. There have to be others that are worth looking at.

Veleno should be nowhere near the top-6, esepcially not as a center. Hockey IQ is too low. Sure, a little magician like Berggren can make him look good against other teams' 4th lines, but Joe Veleno, if he carves out a real NHL career, is going to find his bread being buttered in the bottom-6, where he's not depended on for offense.

He’s been much improved the last 25 games or so. On most nights over this span he was better than Copp at most things aside from face offs, and WAY better than Suter. His speed and defense would work well with that line. And considering Detroit isn’t playing for much besides draft placement right now I don’t see the harm in trying him out with more minutes.

 

[Frk It]

Why is that an unreasonable goal? This team needs a game breaker up front. Raymond isn’t there yet. Perron, Vrana and Kubalik are all very good but are the guys that should be the 2nd or 3rd best players on their lines. Look at how LA picked up Fiala for a late 1st and Brock Faber.

Time Meier will be made available. Tarasenko is a name that intrigues me in FA. There have to be others that are worth looking at.

Look at this team's stats the last few years. We are lucky to have 1 PPG player in any given year. If we could get another one I am pretty sure we would have done that by now.

We are going to have to compete with the entire rest of the league for those guys.

 

[jaster]

Why is that an unreasonable goal? This team needs a game breaker up front. Raymond isn’t there yet. Perron, Vrana and Kubalik are all very good but are the guys that should be the 2nd or 3rd best players on their lines. Look at how LA picked up Fiala for a late 1st and Brock Faber.

Time Meier will be made available. Tarasenko is a name that intrigues me in FA. There have to be others that are worth looking at.

I mean, it is definitely a box the Wings need to check to reach contender status. Meier or Pasta sure would be nice. Tarasenko too old though.

He’s been much improved the last 25 games or so. On most nights over this span he was better than Copp at most things aside from face offs, and WAY better than Suter. His speed and defense would work well with that line. And considering Detroit isn’t playing for much besides draft placement right now I don’t see the harm in trying him out with more minutes.

He has improved, and he needs to continue to improve, because what he is now is not someone you stick with long-term if you want to be a playoff team. What he is now is a future journeyman at best. He makes poor decisions with the puck, and often with the routes he takes on defense. He's just a step behind other players too often. I believe it's why he's not quite trusted to kill penalties. He manages to be ok defensively overall because he hustles and is fine when he keeps his game simple in a sheltered role against other role players. He obviously doesn't get PP time though. He's poor at FOs. If he doesn't take some significant steps the next season or two, I don't really see a future for him in Detroit. And that low IQ concerns me a bit in terms of his prospects for the requisite improvement. I expect him to continue to get better, but I don't know how much.

Disagree on the Copp comparison. He hasn't looked better than Copp, so long as you aren't dismissing QoC. Suter? Well, low bar lol.

This is just an anecdote, but it's kinda stuck with me all season.....

I don't think I mentioned this before, but when I went to the Wings-Hawks preseason game and watched warmups on the glass, I saw an incident between Veleno and Seider that caught my eye. The team was doing a little pass-shoot warmup drill in their zone while Seider was on one knee stretching in the neutral zone, overseeing the warmup and occasionally firing pucks to teammates (from the kneeling position). He'd sometimes holler at a guy for whatever reason, I don't know, I couldn't hear what he was saying, seemed to be directing traffic to some degree. At some point Veleno did something, I don't know what, I definitely missed it, but Seider immediately starting screaming at him. For a moment, I thought he was messing with him, but it quickly became apparent he was serious. Dropped a couple F bombs and was clearly displeased. At the time I was more impressed with Seider seemingly taking up kind of a leadership role during that warmup than I was alarmed at whatever it was Veleno did. But after watching him more this season, I keep going back to that preseason warmup, wondering what he did, because he seems to have some questionable decision-making skills lol.

 

[Henkka]

Timo Meier will be made available. Tarasenko is a name that intrigues me in FA. There have to be others that are worth looking at.

Was funny to notice, when I looked yesterday to those 3,5 season stats...

All had identical points per game.

Meier is heavy shooter, like this points per game was only NHL 70-72 best rating, but Meier has 7th most shots from same period. Only Matthews, MacKinnon, Ovechkin, Pastrnak, BTkachuk and McDavid have more.

Think Meier is right there as another 8.5M player. He has that 10M RFA year, but you can front-load the deal to fix that.

11 + 11 + 11 + 8.5 + 8.5 + 6 + 6 + 6

Consruct that 8 x 8.5M like above. It's like the Hintz deal.

Tarasenko is a bit old. Prefer short deal for him or ROR. I'd try to get those Blues as UFA to join Perron.

But trade for Meier.

 

[Geezer WC]

Veleno should be nowhere near the top-6, esepcially not as a center. Hockey IQ is too low. Sure, a little magician like Berggren can make him look good against other teams' 4th lines, but Joe Veleno, if he carves out a real NHL career, is going to find his bread being buttered in the bottom-6, where he's not depended on for offense.

Ok, but this is trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. He wasn't granted exceptional status into the CHL because he was a defensive bottom 6 guy.

 

[lilidk]

Veleno should be nowhere near the top-6, esepcially not as a center. Hockey IQ is too low. Sure, a little magician like Berggren can make him look good against other teams' 4th lines, but Joe Veleno, if he carves out a real NHL career, is going to find his bread being buttered in the bottom-6, where he's not depended on for offense.

I believe Lalonde already mention it ,Veleno is 4th line center.

 

[lilidk]

That’s an OK top 12. Ras makes a much better winger than center and Bert should be nowhere near a team’s first line. I’d much rather have Kubalik with Larkin because they both produce very well together.

I’d like to see this:
Kubalik - Larkin - Perron
Berggren - Veleno - Raymond
Vrana - Copp - Zadina
Bert - Ras - Fabbri

Moving forward: Get rid of Bert and Zadina this season or next to make room for Kasper and Soderblom. Permanently move Ras to wing. Find a way to get a true top flight, point per game winger to replace Perron or Vrana.

I like that first line and Larkin will help to produce, so we could trade them both before 03/03

 

[jaster]

Ok, but this is trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. He wasn't granted exceptional status into the CHL because he was a defensive bottom 6 guy.

That was 8 years ago. He was 15. That has virtually no bearing on what he has become, what he is, and what he is looking like he'll be moving forward. He's been deployed as a 4th-line center most of his NHL career and he's held up pretty well in that role. He hustles, he hits, and when he keeps things simple he's effective defensively. I don't see a square peg in a round hole situation currently, do you? I think if he develops further he could be a 3rd-line type where he maybe plays with more offensive players, but at no point after he was drafted has he looked anything close to a sure-fire top-6 guy. At the NHL level, the offensive ability and IQ just isn't there.

 

[Geezer WC]

That was 8 years ago. He was 15. That has virtually no bearing on what he has become, what he is, and what he is looking like he'll be moving forward. He's been deployed as a 4th-line center most of his NHL career and he's held up pretty well in that role. He hustles, he hits, and when he keeps things simple he's effective defensively. I don't see a square peg in a round hole situation currently, do you? I think if he develops further he could be a 3rd-line type where he maybe plays with more offensive players, but at no point after he was drafted has he looked anything close to a sure-fire top-6 guy. At the NHL level, the offensive ability and IQ just isn't there.

He was putting up big numbers in the Q at 18. What I have seen is a long slow process turning him into something else. Has it been worth the time and effort? will it be? I don't know. But he is trying, I will give him that.

 

[jaster]

He was putting up big numbers in the Q at 18. What I have seen is a long slow process turning him into something else. Has it been worth the time and effort? will it be? I don't know. But he is trying, I will give him that.

Good numbers in the Q, yeah, but... it's the Q. Huge grain of salt. I remember thinking the numbers didn't mean much in terms of future top-6 upside at the time and that he'd have to show more offensive ability as a pro. And then he never did. I don't know if it's the organization turning him into something else so much as it is Veleno just demonstrating that he doesn't have the ability to be an offensive threat as a pro, and so he had to change his focus out of necessity.

 

[norrisnick]

Good numbers in the Q, yeah, but... it's the Q. Huge grain of salt. I remember thinking the numbers didn't mean much in terms of future top-6 upside at the time and that he'd have to show more offensive ability as a pro. And then he never did. I don't know if it's the organization turning him into something else so much as it is Veleno just demonstrating that he doesn't have the ability to be an offensive threat as a pro, and so he had to change his focus out of necessity.

If you're under 24 offensive play is frowned upon. The only reason Bergie hasn't gotten punted back to GR is because he was driving offense for over a month or so. I guarantee you Lalonde starts twitching every time he carries the puck through neutral without dumping it in.

 

[Frk It]

Veleno should be nowhere near the top-6, esepcially not as a center. Hockey IQ is too low. Sure, a little magician like Berggren can make him look good against other teams' 4th lines, but Joe Veleno, if he carves out a real NHL career, is going to find his bread being buttered in the bottom-6, where he's not depended on for offense.

I still think he could carve out a path as a 3C, but yeah I always saw 3C being the likely outcome for him because of these reasons.

I do think he has improved some over the last 2 years. And I think he actually has decent puck/passing skills. But I do think he is somewhat capped out as far as how far he is going to play in your lineup.

 

[jaster]

I still think he could carve out a path as a 3C, but yeah I always saw 3C being the likely outcome for him because of these reasons.

I do think he has improved some over the last 2 years. And I think he actually has decent puck/passing skills. But I do think he is somewhat capped out as far as how far he is going to play in your lineup.

I agree he's improved, and I agree he has some puck/passing ability. I don't mean to describe him as a total putz. His overall profile is just not top-6 caliber though, like you're saying. I mean there's a reason his draft stock fell as much as it did. I think scouts caught on that, while he was toolsy as all hell when he was 15, the development curve kinda dropped off and his ceiling came down.

Right now, as a 4th-liner, he's.... fine. My hope is that he does develop a little further, to the point where he can be a real asset in the bottom-6. There are some similarities to Zadina here, in that you're hoping these kids can take one more little leap in their development, to go from "not a liability but expendable" to "actual asset." Fingers crossed.

 

[Gniwder]

I agree he's improved, and I agree he has some puck/passing ability. I don't mean to describe him as a total putz. His overall profile is just not top-6 caliber though, like you're saying. I mean there's a reason his draft stock fell as much as it did. I think scouts caught on that, while he was toolsy as all hell when he was 15, the development curve kinda dropped off and his ceiling came down.

Right now, as a 4th-liner, he's.... fine. My hope is that he does develop a little further, to the point where he can be a real asset in the bottom-6. There are some similarities to Zadina here, in that you're hoping these kids can take one more little leap in their development, to go from "not a liability but expendable" to "actual asset." Fingers crossed.

Didn't everyone pretty much say the same crap about Raz last season? Joey is one year younger, and plays better than Raz did last season and has more tools at his disposal. I dunno why he doesn't use those tools, I think he would've developed a lot faster if Blash and Fester just let him loose. The coaches act as if rookie mistakes are gonna keep the team from the playoffs, lol.

Also, poor Joey was tied to Gagner's hips for too long, wound up playing a little too much like him.

 

[Detroit Knights]

Was funny to notice, when I looked yesterday to those 3,5 season stats...

View attachment 646749

All had identical points per game.

Meier is heavy shooter, like this points per game was only NHL 70-72 best rating, but Meier has 7th most shots from same period. Only Matthews, MacKinnon, Ovechkin, Pastrnak, BTkachuk and McDavid have more.

Think Meier is right there as another 8.5M player. He has that 10M RFA year, but you can front-load the deal to fix that.

11 + 11 + 11 + 8.5 + 8.5 + 6 + 6 + 6

Consruct that 8 x 8.5M like above. It's like the Hintz deal.

Tarasenko is a bit old. Prefer short deal for him or ROR. I'd try to get those Blues as UFA to join Perron.

But trade for Meier.

Well, we need a goal scorer for this team. We haven't had one in a very long time that could just grip it and rip it. I have warmed up to Meier and if he can be the goal scorer we need then lets go for em.

He has to be traded by the deadline because if they are shopping karlsson and don't really have anyone else as a "core" player, then he should want out if he wants to win and not go through deep rebuild. Red wings are so close yet so far away it seems and I think if we got a pure goal scorer, we would be in the first round of the playoffs no later than next season. Maybe even turn it around this season and crack a spot. We are only 7 points out from second wild card with 1 game in hand on that team so, who knows I guess.

 

[jaster]

Didn't everyone pretty much say the same crap about Raz last season? Joey is one year younger, and plays better than Raz did last season and has more tools at his disposal. I dunno why he doesn't use those tools, I think he would've developed a lot faster if Blash and Fester just let him loose. The coaches act as if rookie mistakes are gonna keep the team from the playoffs, lol.

Also, poor Joey was tied to Gagner's hips for too long, wound up playing a little too much like him.

I didn't say the same thing about Ras last season, he's always had a higher ceiling than Veleno to me. I was one of the people who always thought Ras, largely due to his size, would take an extra minute to develop, but once he did could bring something unique to the table. Veleno doesn't have a carrying tool like that, there's nothing about him that really stands out, he's pretty bland.

Disagree that Veleno has more tools. Or, if he does, they are mostly average, whereas Ras has superior reach and can protect the puck better, which opens up more offensive opportunities. What tools does Veleno have that he isn't using?

The idea that coaches ruin players as frequently as this board would have you believe has always been strange to me. If your only exposure to hockey were this board, you'd likely believe that 1st rounders, and most 2nd rounders, are all good enough to be top-6 forwards and top-4 defensemen, and if they don't get to that point then the only explanation is that coaches ruined them. It's nuts-o. 95% of the time it's just that players never had what it takes to begin with, and no amount of development will fix that; scouts do the best they can when these kids are 17 and 18, but it's largely a guessing game, no one can accurately predict what players will be D+5.

 

[Gniwder]

I didn't say the same thing about Ras last season, he's always had a higher ceiling than Veleno to me. I was one of the people who always thought Ras, largely due to his size, would take an extra minute to develop, but once he did could bring something unique to the table. Veleno doesn't have a carrying tool like that, there's nothing about him that really stands out, he's pretty bland.

Disagree that Veleno has more tools. Or, if he does, they are mostly average, whereas Ras has superior reach and can protect the puck better, which opens up more offensive opportunities. What tools does Veleno have that he isn't using?

The idea that coaches ruin players as frequently as this board would have you believe has always been strange to me. If your only exposure to hockey were this board, you'd likely believe that 1st rounders, and most 2nd rounders, are all good enough to be top-6 forwards and top-4 defensemen, and if they don't get to that point then the only explanation is that coaches ruined them. It's nuts-o. 95% of the time it's just that players never had what it takes to begin with, and no amount of development will fix that; scouts do the best they can when these kids are 17 and 18, but it's largely a guessing game, no one can accurately predict what players will be D+5.

Well Joey is certainly a better shooter, look at that shot yesterday. He's also a better skater and can actually throw a check.

Raz has reach, and despite the huge improvement he's still not as good on his skates as Joey. Joey can actually do some quick change of direction move, he deked a defender and made him trip over his own skates last season.

Joey does not puck handle through traffic well, and the big issue is that he doesn't have very good vision as far as teammates, but then again neither does Raz. Getting back to the point, I'm giving Joey a couple more years to see if he becomes better than Copp, who according to this board is a 2C.

 

[jaster]

Well Joey is certainly a better shooter, look at that shot yesterday. He's also a better skater and can actually throw a check.

Raz has reach, and despite the huge improvement he's still not as good on his skates as Joey. Joey can actually do some quick change of direction move, he deked a defender and made him trip over his own skates last season.

Joey does not puck handle through traffic well, and the big issue is that he doesn't have very good vision as far as teammates, but then again neither does Raz. Getting back to the point, I'm giving Joey a couple more years to see if he becomes better than Copp, who according to this board is a 2C.

Veleno does some things better than Ras, no question, but Ras's whole package is more intriguing (that's what she said). Regardless, I was never trying to compare the two of them. Who the hell even brought up Ras anyway? I'm over here trying to bag on Veleno and suckas be bringing up Mike Rasmussen. Dafuq.

Anyway, a Copp-Veleno comparison is actually kind of interesting (both are listed as 6-1 and 206 btw, stupid fact of the day). Copp took an offensive jump in his D+8 season, but his early NHL career really really didn't have much more offense than Veleno has provided so far. I doubt Veleno has that late-bloomer factor like Copp (and he's not as good as Copp was at the same age to begin with), but it'll be interesting to see where he goes from here.