Dotter
THE ATHLETIC IS GARBAGE
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 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.
I'm not anti-tank. Last night game made me happy. I wanted Wings to finish 4th instead of 6th as I suspected NYRs were going to lose.
But I also am not going to burn down the city if Wings finish 4th instead of 1st. The silver-lining to this awesome season was the kids. They were so much fun to watch and Blashill's system with team speed is exciting hockey. These 1 goal games are much funner to watch than 6-1 blowouts.
Awesome regualar season for a rebuilding team! Sensational, memorable, and happy with the brass from ownership, to Ken Holland to Blashill.
For me, this was the perfect tank. The kids foiled our chances at top 3 losers, but also who would have predicted LA Kings were going to be so bad??? And the kids stepped up and wanted to win. That's how tanking should be!
Let the chips fall as they may, let the hockey gods decide on lottery day. Wings are getting a good player in this draft regardless where they pick!