Red Wings Sign Drew Miller to One-Year Extension

[Mijatovic]

Miller is a good PK'er. Decent forward, who's mostly reliable.

The first parts debatle. The second part is not even defensible. You need to have some offense to be a forward, not just float on the ice for a quarter of the game every night, and if you get 2 points in 30 odd games, can you really call him a forward?

 

[Fugu]

The first parts debatle. The second part is not even defensible. You need to have some offense to be a forward, not just float on the ice for a quarter of the game every night, and if you get 2 points in 30 odd games, can you really call him a forward?

I did mean in the context of a 10 min/gm guy, who helps out on the PK.

You're ignoring the other stuff I said where he doesn't really have much that sets him apart from scores of players filling similar roles, and possibly much younger players. That's why I said you sign these guys in August. There really was no urgency.

 

[Pavels Dog]

The first parts debatle. The second part is not even defensible. You need to have some offense to be a forward, not just float on the ice for a quarter of the game every night, and if you get 2 points in 30 odd games, can you really call him a forward?

We're probably going to sign Martin to our 4th line as well, 3-4 million is what you pay for a guy that brings offense in that kind of role.

 

[njx9]

Once our top three lines start scoring at better than league basement pace, I'll worry about whether our grind line guys are scoring. Miller, Martin, Glendening, whoever aren't out to score goals. If they get some, bonus! But if they chew up 8-10 tough minutes a night and play defense like they did against Tampa in 2015, that's perfectly acceptable on this particular team.

 

[HockeyinHD]

I parse because it is helpful to respond to the specific comment, avoiding situations like you engaged in here with some fairly amusing misrepresentations. When your comment is right under what you're responding to it's a little harder to completely lose the substance of the comment.

Miller is just like Glendening except he's less physical, less productive offensively, plays far fewer minutes, and can't take draws. Other than that, yes, mirror images.

Well obviously I was referring to players who were precisely identical in every facet, instead of referring to a general range of role and responsibilities. You should parse more.

For the offensive star thing, I think you'd have to define offensive star.

Offensive seems like a fairly obvious word. Star seems like a fairly obvious word. 'Offensive star' seems like putting two fairly obvious words together to create another fairly obvious term. Do you really think it's that difficult to pick out the offensive stars on a given team, which was the context of my point? You should parse more.

And you're padding your roster turnover numbers. Kindl and Andersson were barely on the team last year, while Quincey barely broke the half season mark. Richards took the vet signing spot that Holland seems to use every year to bring in some new blood. The only significant change would be Datsyuk and possibly Helm. You may as well add Franzen to your list of guys who are being changed over since he played a game last year.

MOD
If your point is roster turnover, there you go. If your point wasn't that, if it was some ephemeral demand for roster turnover at specific positions, your argument has devolved from one about general roster management to 'Winger98 doesn't like players x y and z and wants them gone.'

Then again, you apparently see dumping Miller a burning the place down.

Exactly right. I see the signing or not signing of one 4th line forward as the epitome of all things roster construction, even after specifically saying there are many exit ramps between burning it down and staying the course.

Yes, you've nailed it. You've seen through my facade.

 

[Henkka]

Once our top three lines start scoring at better than league basement pace, I'll worry about whether our grind line guys are scoring. Miller, Martin, Glendening, whoever aren't out to score goals. If they get some, bonus! But if they chew up 8-10 tough minutes a night and play defense like they did against Tampa in 2015, that's perfectly acceptable on this particular team.

That's excactly same what Penguins 4th line did. Just mistake free hockey. Pushin the puck from defensive zone to offensive zone. Then offensive lines can start from offensive zone. It's winning hockey.

 

[Jkalapeno]

My only problem is that I was really hoping to see Larkin, Athanasiou and Sheahan all get PK time. Now, with Abdelkader, Miller and Glendening having almost guaranteed spots that probably won't happen.

 

[Winger98]

I parse because it is helpful to respond to the specific comment, avoiding situations like you engaged in here with some fairly amusing misrepresentations. When your comment is right under what you're responding to it's a little harder to completely lose the substance of the comment.

Well obviously I was referring to players who were precisely identical in every facet, instead of referring to a general range of role and responsibilities. You should parse more.

Offensive seems like a fairly obvious word. Star seems like a fairly obvious word. 'Offensive star' seems like putting two fairly obvious words together to create another fairly obvious term. Do you really think it's that difficult to pick out the offensive stars on a given team, which was the context of my point? You should parse more.

MOD
If your point is roster turnover, there you go. If your point wasn't that, if it was some ephemeral demand for roster turnover at specific positions, your argument has devolved from one about general roster management to 'Winger98 doesn't like players x y and z and wants them gone.'

Exactly right. I see the signing or not signing of one 4th line forward as the epitome of all things roster construction, even after specifically saying there are many exit ramps between burning it down and staying the course.

Yes, you've nailed it. You've seen through my facade.

Yes, it's clear why you parse and edit.

You're the one who drew your comparisons, if you don't want to stand by them, don't make them.

And you still didn't clarify if players like Bergeron or Zajac would fit for an "offensive star" or not.

Why would we replace Miller with one of those guys on the PK? That would be silly.

Miller and Glendening are our two best PK forwards. If you want to discuss PK as a whole and how to improve it, these are a couple of the last guys worth discussing. If you want to upgrade our PK, then you start looking at how to improve upon the weakest links.

Because Miller shouldn't be signed.

I don't see Miller as a strong link in our PK. You can call him one of our best PK forwards, but that says more about our PK forward group than it does him. If we're looking for immediate improvement of the PK, the only right answer probably involves Mrazek and his becoming the next Hasek.

I think you could put Larkin or Athanasiou out for Miller, and we wouldn't see our PK success rate change much, and you hope they get better as the season goes along and they grow as players.

I think Miller would've been an easy place to start, but I think he'd be a largely meaningless place to start. Sort of like letting Kindl go, though at least there, there's an argument that it might give Ouellet a crack. I hope, Holland's comment notwithstanding, that Helm is the easy, and effective place to start, followed by Quincey.

As for the PK, I can agree to that, and maybe with Larkin (and sort of AA) having a year under his belt, he'll be more ready to really contribute there. I think the problems with the PK seemed to stem more from defensive positioning than from forward play, but maybe having better forwards, or at least more mobile forwards, would make a bigger difference than I'm giving it credit for.

Fair enough. With most of the top free agents already off the market, and smoke around re-signing Helm, I've gotten increasingly pessimistic towards Holland living up to his change mantra. Signing Miller just feels like the first step towards a Holland presser with the same, "prices were high, and we really like our kids (though we're not going to play them)."

As I said posts ago, it's not so much about Miller as how Holland has operated the past five years.

 

[Eye of Ra]

red wings never change. always this type of players gets resigned. we could get better.

 

[Pavels Dog]

I think you could put Larkin or Athanasiou out for Miller, and we wouldn't see our PK success rate change much, and you hope they get better as the season goes along and they grow as players.

Which is why we should play AA and Larkin on the PK as well. Miller won't be in the lineup every game and we probably shouldn't give Larkin an extra 3 minutes per night on the PK unless we want to reduce his icetime on ES or PP. AA could pick up a lot more PK time next season than he did this year. But if we don't re-sign Helm that's some PK minutes that someone has to take as well.