dont care what position tomasina plays it adds up to a late first where he was just drafted , aa is worth a late first . aa just hit 30 on a junk team and on a junk line with a junk defense . and hes under contract this year then a rfa next summer , thats 2 years minimum .
If a late first C is what you want... Veleno is that guy. Or whoever the Wings have available on the board next season.
All I'm saying is that other teams aren't going to look at AA as this incredibly valuable piece where they'll trade you a center with more upside than Joe Veleno (which is the whole reason you're stating that you're interested. You're not certain on Veleno, so you want someone better than him). They'll look at him as a nice piece that scored 30 goals but ultimately a guy who will be an RFA coming up for a deal where he'd want 6-7M if he's even got a decent year this year, who doesn't use his linemates and is kind of a one-trick pony. It's a hell of a trick, but they're going to try to buy him cheap from you or not at all.
AA is a guy you'll never get anywhere close to his actual value for, because teams will glom onto all the negatives that are there in his game.
e:
do you understand teams want to win the cup now . a team like preds just adding duchene is right there , and a guy like aa could make them top challengers for the next 3 seasons . theyll move a late first round pick for that . mean while you act like tomasina is lafraniere . while continuing to ignore the wings lack of center depth and discounting excellent d prospects like mcissac and choski . do you realize how good choski looked first half last year , and what a great season mcissac had . time shall prove my point
I do understand that. And I'm not acting like Tomasino is Lafreniere. I'm saying that teams aren't going to trade legitimate young center prospects to you for Andreas Athanasiou who is a wing that doesn't use his linemates and kind of is what he is at this point. I'm saying that to get a Veleno level prospect C out of someone, you have to give them something other than AA.
And regardless of what you think, I'm not discounting that Cholo and McIsaac played well or had good parts of seasons. Just that have a good part of a season or looking really good in juniors tells you nothing. Brendan Smith looked amazing his first year in Detroit. Jonathan Ericsson looked like a huge plus his first playoff season. Hell, Jakub Kindl when he got his 4x2.4 extension looked like he was finally becoming a top 4 D. I'm just saying that starting next season, the Wings are going to have three or four open slots on their D.
Ericsson
Green
Kronwall
Daley
All gone. So, even if every single one of those guys hits (Seider, Lindstrom, Cholo, McIsaac, and Regula), that's only 9 current D men of real worth in the system. DDK, Hronek, those 5, and then you have a few long shots in Kaski, Hicketts, and Bowey. And then a couple of hail mary shots in Setkov, Saarijarvi, and others.
The Wings defensive depth is not good, particularly noting that they'll have to replace more than half of their starting D by 20-21. Neither is their center depth.
