obey86
Registered User
- Jun 9, 2009
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Larkin has had comparable or better years than many centers on playoff teams. Predators, Sharks, Golden Knights, Islanders, Blue Jackets, Blues, Stars, and Flames.
18/19 Tank Tracker Part Deux
- Thread starter Winger98
- Start date
Larkin has had comparable or better years than many centers on playoff teams. Predators, Sharks, Golden Knights, Islanders, Blue Jackets, Blues, Stars, and Flames.
Pavels Dog
Registered User
Not all #1Cs are superstars or need to be. Toews just had a career year, but previously had a career high of just 76 points. Kopitar has one 90+ season and one 80+ season, but otherwise has career numbers that are pretty close to what Larkin posted this year. Both guys have multiple cups as #1Cs.
If we find a #1C that is better than Larkin? It's an amazing situation. But it's not an absolute necessity in order to become a good or great team.
jkutswings
hot piss hockey
- Jul 10, 2014
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But realistically, this team is being built on the strength of its forwards. If Detroit already had a solid defense, I would completely agree, but I think that unless something crazy like EK + Trouba happens, the Wings will need another center at least comparable to Larkin.
Scoring is way up this season, almost at 05-06 levels. Comparing bulk totals doesn't really tell you much. Kopitars countless 70 pt seasons were way better finishes than Larkin's 70 pt season.
Larkin barely finished top 50 in scoring this season. Sure 70 pts looks ice but it wasn't anything special. For example, Kopitars 74 point season in 15-16 ended up being 13th in scoring thzt year. For Larkin to have a similar finish hed have had to put up 92 points this season. Huge difference.
ZDH
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Christien
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jkutswings
hot piss hockey
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Barring injury, I would be stunned if there's a team in the NHL who wouldn't take Hughes at #1. Kakko is a great player, and has definitely narrowed the gap, but every time a scouting update happens, Jack is still at the top across the board.
I certainly would be happy if Detroit lands Kakko at 2, but if the Wings end up at 1, it's Hughes for sure.
I certainly would be happy if Detroit lands Kakko at 2, but if the Wings end up at 1, it's Hughes for sure.
ZDH
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Pretty demoralizing to run draft sim after draft sim and seeing us picking 6th overall pretty consistently.
I know the odds but it's still going to be difficult to keep expectations down and not get angry if we do drop several spots, especially if a team like Chicago lucks out.
I know the odds but it's still going to be difficult to keep expectations down and not get angry if we do drop several spots, especially if a team like Chicago lucks out.
Shaman464
No u
Picking 5th or 6th instead of having a nearly 50% chance at #1-3. And, they aren't great players, 50 points this season seems to be about the same as 35-40 points in prior seasons, its just not that good. Its nice to see players take steps forward, but, those wins likely weren't good for the long term health of the organization.
Dotter
THE ATHLETIC IS GARBAGE
On the flip side, the reality is if the players you already drafted bust i.e., Larkin, Mantha, Bertuzzi, Hronek, then what is the 1st overall going to do? Look at Oilers, they have many 1st overalls and still can make the playoffs. Wings are (thank god!) are doing it different; they are building a winning culture while tanking.
You can't have it both ways.
Shaman464
No u
Its not about 'winning culture' the Oilers had a much better 'winning culture' in the 90s but guess which team ended up finishing the 90s with more cups? The problem with the Oilers is that they never have been willing to make moves to actually improve their team. You can have all the great top liners in the world, but, without defense, and without knowing which role players to keep, let go, and bring on board the team doesn't seem to do well.
Who ever started the 'winning culture' troupe needs to be court ordered into a vow of silence, because its BS cover for shit moves made by Holland (IE signing vets).
Toews had Kane, Hossa, Keith when he won his. Those are world class, all-star talents. So far Larkin is alone. AA and Mantha put up damn good numbers this season but neither are even close to Hossa or Kane.
Kopitar had Quick playing out of his mind and Doughty, a true 1D. We do not have anything close to a 1D.
No, you don't need to be a 80/90 point 1C to win a cup. But the rest of the team will really need to pick up the slack if you want that to be the case.
It's funny that Pittsburgh and Chicago all lost so much so badly and then... somehow got a winning culture. It's pretty clear that culture follows talent, not the other way around. What kind of "winning culture" can you have when your team lacks the talent to win?
The culture argument is garbage.
Dotter
THE ATHLETIC IS GARBAGE
You keep talking about points like it is the "be all, end all!". If these measly "50 point players" were so bad, then why Detroit winning too much? Why so many 1 goal games?
And Mantha only played 67 games and still scored almost 50. Bert is becoming a BEAST and Larkin is nearly a PPG player at 23 who plays the game the right way. Hirose (the free asset that came from nowhere) almost has an assist in each of his first 7 NHL games ever played! That Hronek bum has a .5 ppg his rookie season as a defenseman... he's basically a free pick that you cried when Wings traded Datsyuk for Cholo/Hronek over some kid who's name I can't even remember that plays out West somewhere.
You downplay the development "only 50 point season".
And then you are also the guy who wanted to tar-and-feather Ken Holland for not playing the kids. Then he plays the kids, then you want to burn Blashill at-the-stake for not utilizing the kids the way you think they should be utilized. Then they play the kids, utilize them to put up points and learn to win and succeed, now you are up-in-arms over the team not losing enough to your liking.
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Tasteslikekevinbacon
Registered User
Just did tankathon one time and got 1st for the wings. Don’t worry fellas I’ll call it in to the league and sort it out
Shaman464
No u
Detroit won 29 games if you don't count the skills competition. That's not winning too much. They had a hot streak when a lot of the other bottom feeders already packed it in.
Mantha was 98th in the league for ppg. Larkin was 37th. These aren't amazing results. Bert is playing fine, but he's not a beast. Hirose came in during a hot streak and got a lot of assists. I wouldn't read too much into that.
The kids are playing fine, but, "learning to win and succeed" is a BS talking point in and of itself when the team won 29 games all season. That's not winning or succeeding. One winning streak doesn't make this seasons a success, especially when its in the last couple weeks of the season, and if that streak never happened these players would still be on the same development curves they are on now. You're acting like this team had just missed the playoffs and the winning streak was the key to that.
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ricky0034
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- Jun 8, 2010
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eh i'd say the bigger problem is the Oilers tried to make moves but were really stupid about it
Wing used to be their strength then they made a bunch of stupid trades and now they have great Centers thanks to recent draft picks but some of the worst Wingers in the league and their Defense still sucks
Shaman464
No u
They tend to wait way too long to make moves. The Larsson trade is a great example. Hall came in with a lot of buzz, and they probably could have scored a much better return if they realized they needed to part with him sooner, instead they wait until he's at rock bottom value to do it.
Pavels Dog
Registered User
No disagreement there. But we're going in circles here. If we can't draft Hughes/Kakko, let's hope we can draft someone that can go on to be a Hossa, Keith, Quick (well hopefully not a goalie in the 1st round), Doughty, Letang, Kessel... the objective should be to draft great players, not to stare too much at what your vision of the perfect team is, because you can't make plans with the draft lottery. If the best player available at where we draft is a winger, we should absolutely take that guy. Because talent/skill is way more important than the best players on the team fitting the perfect mold of #1C-#2C-#1W-#1D-#1G.
Dotter
THE ATHLETIC IS GARBAGE
The biggest problem for the Oilers is they can't draft their Bertuzzi's in the 3rd round, their Hroneks in the 2nd round, their Andreas Athanasiou in the 4th round, their Glendenings, their Helms, their ____ (insert late round pick and undrafted hero here).
TBL does it. Chicago does it. Detroit does it. Oilers does not. But I agree, Oilers also have the aforementioned problem you described. Basically, Oilers are the official blueprint on how NOT to build a hockey team. Yet the way @Shaman464 wants DRWs to build a hockey team. Makes no sense.
Shaman464
No u
Wanting Detroit to draft the best possible player with their first pick means they can't draft well with the rest of their picks? No idea how you made that leap, but you might as well change your name to super dotter because you can make massive logical leaps in a single bound.
Shaman464
No u
Where did I say I want to kids to fail? Another logical leap, its like your logic proof, super dotter. I want the kids to do well, and they did fine, but, none of them, aside from possible Larkin, are the kid of talent that form the core of contending teams. I mean, you may have started watching hockey in 2014, but for those of us who have watched it longer, have seen what a team with mediocre talent around one or two good players get you, and its called the 2000s era Calgary flames. If you want to watch a decade of mediocrity because you don't want to admit this team is still threadbare on talent, that's your right, but some of us like watching good hockey, and want to think during a season a Cup is a possibility, not just maybe making the playoffs if injuries don't happen and most of the players decide not to float most of the season.
And what did basically every young player having a career year get Detroit? 4th worst in the league. And most of those 'kids' are at the point in their careers where they are most likely to be at their offensive peaks. Expecting most of them to continue to get significantly better at this point is whistling in the wind.
Watching you two argue is amusing, because you are both the extremists of the HF boards DRW posters. Shaman is TANK OR DIE and basically hates almost every move made by KH (except the ones in retrospect proven beyond doubt to be successful), and Dotter hates the pro-tank stance just as much. Almost everyone else on here is somewhere between these two positions on most subjects.
Me? As I've said before, I liked the streak, and thought it was worth trying to rebuild on the fly, but there were some major mistakes in the last few years of that approach - though more in particular than policy. Now, I like the moves. Introduce the kids a few at a time, lean on them when they show the requisite work ethic, take them out of the spotlight when they struggle, and slowly sell of vets for more picks. Apart from the Abby contract combined with the Nielsen contract, its hard to hate too much of the recent period, even if not everything has panned out exactly as we'd have hoped.
Re picks, its hard to complain too much if other teams have shown a far greater expertise at tanking even though we had a team mostly made up of kids and AHL-ers down the stretch. Disappointed that NJ snuck into 3rd ahead of us, but they have missed their best player by a mile for most of the season. LA have been threatening to fall over for a while, and Ottowa don't even get anything for their spectacular suicide over the last 2-3 years.
Also, lets argue the toss when we know what pick we have. We can get anywhere between 1 & 7. I doubt there's consensus beyond 1 & 2 who we should pick, but frankly, if you can't find a player to improve this franchise with a top 7 pick, you need to sack your head scout.
Me? As I've said before, I liked the streak, and thought it was worth trying to rebuild on the fly, but there were some major mistakes in the last few years of that approach - though more in particular than policy. Now, I like the moves. Introduce the kids a few at a time, lean on them when they show the requisite work ethic, take them out of the spotlight when they struggle, and slowly sell of vets for more picks. Apart from the Abby contract combined with the Nielsen contract, its hard to hate too much of the recent period, even if not everything has panned out exactly as we'd have hoped.
Re picks, its hard to complain too much if other teams have shown a far greater expertise at tanking even though we had a team mostly made up of kids and AHL-ers down the stretch. Disappointed that NJ snuck into 3rd ahead of us, but they have missed their best player by a mile for most of the season. LA have been threatening to fall over for a while, and Ottowa don't even get anything for their spectacular suicide over the last 2-3 years.
Also, lets argue the toss when we know what pick we have. We can get anywhere between 1 & 7. I doubt there's consensus beyond 1 & 2 who we should pick, but frankly, if you can't find a player to improve this franchise with a top 7 pick, you need to sack your head scout.
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