I think he was being generous. Our cupboard is EMPTY.
You can thank Tyler Wright for his horrid drafting ability as we’ve had way more misses than hits the past 6 or so years (combined with the league worst lottery luck).
I still feel like we're OK.
I see this:
Center
Larkin as a 1 or 2 C. Maybe as a Ryan OReilly Center. Veleno as a 2 or 3 C, maybe a Bozak type center.
We still need some help here in our top 6.
Could Fabbri be that guy? Worth trying, but I don't see it as a really likely option. Wonder if he's like a poor man's trocheck.
Some will say Rasmussen, but I really don't envision him as a top 9 center. Especially if Veleno is one of the others.
Bottom Line - Need a top 6 center. Not easy to find.
Wingers
Mantha legit top 6 or even top line winger.
Bertuzzi legit top 6 or middle six winger.
Zadina should be a top six winger. Maybe a top liner.
Fabbri seems OK as a middle six winger.
After that it's a bunch of prospects, some fading, and some waiver wire fodder.
Rasmussen should be a top 9 winger. He could still be a heavy, net-front, board-battle warrior who scores 30 goals from the wing. Or maybe he's more of a 15-20 goal guy who plays Line 3 and the 2nd Unit. Either way, I'm comfy with him as a top nine winger.
Svechnikov could easily be a top nine winger, still. Harder to envision him scoring 30. But I could see him in that heavy-winger, 15-20 goal, 30-40 point, 2ndpp unit role. Time is admittedly not in his favor, but it would be foolish to just write him off.
Givani Smith could be a third line winger who plays netfront on the PP. Would love to see him score 25-30 goals in GR next season.
Berggren and Mastrosimone seem like two other candidates for top 9 roles. Soderblom, Grewe and several others have flashed potential
So where does that leave us.
Do we REALLY need 2 top line wingers, four top 6 wingers, and six top 9 wingers? Probably not. No team can really do that in the salary cap era.
But Mantha/Zadina give us a pretty good start at wing as first liners or possible first liners..
Bertuzzi/Fabbri/Rasmussen.... now we have 5 of the six wingers we need for our top 3 lines. We only need one of Svech, Berggren, Smith, Grew, Soderblom, etc, to win a top 9 job.
A lot of this rests on 1) Mantha staying healthy 2) Zadina developing and 3) Rasmussen's development.
Left Defense
We need 3 LD.
Dekeyser is our top LD and he's missed substantial chunks of the season three straight years. He's 30. Nemeth is 28. We're basically needing to develop 3 left defense. If we draft one this year, by the time they're really ready, Dekeyser is 33-34 and Nemeth is likely on another team.
So who are our candidates:
Cholowski: The clock is ticking on Cholowski. I don't think anyone expects a first pairing guy out of him anymore. I think top 4 is starting to look optimistic. And if he doesn't find some grit and some ability to contribute offensively (the real mystery is his inability to contribute any offense, whatsoever, at 5 on 5.), he might be destined for an AHL career. I still see him as a likely bottom pairing defenseman.
McIsaac: I think McIsaac, at this point, is probably our safest bet for a top 4 role, even though it's far from a sure thing. I think he's almost surely an NHLer if he stays healthy. Realistically, he's a 2 or 3 LD. He could be a left-side Brad Stuart, but not as rugged.
Johansson: One of my favorite prospects, he's a great skater. I'm interested to see if he's grown at all from the 6'0 he was drafted at. He's got skating ability that reminds me of Liljegren. I think he's got an outside shot at being a top-pairing defenseman in this league, particularly if his partner is a guy like Seider. But he's got a lot to prove. I can't say I'm really sure he'll be a 2nd or 3rd pairing guy, either.
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After that, I'm really not sure we have any LD worth mentioning. Cooper Moore is miles away. Kotkansalo was being used as a forward last year. Setkov? I don't think so.
So a) we don't have a top pairing type guy. We might not have 2 LD either.
We need a blue-chip LD prospect. Maybe 2.
Right Defense.
Filip Hronek is already established as a legit defenseman. Can he clean up that defense a bit? Would a better team and better coach help him not look as lost as Bowey? I think so. So, defense is a bit of a question, but I think he's realistically a top 4 defenseman in the NHL.
Moritz Seider? We better hope he's a top pairing guy. If everything turns out right, Seider plays 25-minutes a night, big defensive assignments, big PK minutes and maybe some second unit PP minutes. Seider has a long way to go before he's a legit, 25-minute a night guy. But we drafted him 6th, so I think it's fair to have high expectations and assume the Wings got it right until he shows us otherwise.
So, I'm not going to say first pairing, RD, but I am going to say, top 4 RD.
Now we've got more prospects. Gustav Lindstrom is the oldest. He'll be 22 in October, which seems crazy. He didn't look terrible in Detroit last year, but I'm a long ways away from saying he's legit. Anti Tuomisto? He hasn't played against anything resembling high quality competition. Realistically, where the heck would he fit if he did kind of turn into that big shot from the point defenseman? Gustav Berglund might be the most underrated prospect in the system. He's got some size. He's a good skater. And showed decent hockey sense. And there are some prospect watchers who like Seth Barton, the 21-year-old ready to start his junior year in college.
Bottom Line: We have two top 4 D, one of whom seems like a reasonable bet at being a top pairing guy.
You can find 3rd pairing defensemen anywhere, and we've got 3-4 prospects capable of turning into that.
Goalie
We've got nobody on the Wings who we can really expect to be here in 3-4 seasons.
Prospect-wise, we're pretty barren, too.
We need a starter and a backup.
Viktor Brattstrom, 23, had a nice season for Timra. He's 6'4. But is he a prospect?
Carter Gylander is a 6'5 goalie about to play his freshman year at Colgate. Who knows?
Jesper Eliasson, 20, had a rough year in a lower league in Sweden.
Keith Petruzzelli, 21, has been around a long time. He's gotten better every season in college. Shouldn't he be signed before his senior year begins??
Filip Larsson, 22, got beat up in Grand Rapids and improved in Toledo, but was still obviously lower in the depth charts than a couple guys with little shot at the NHL.
Bottom Line: We need a #1 and #2 and we have no reason to believe we have either in our system at the moment.
So, Our Needs
C: 1 or 2C.
W: Maybe a 2W?
LD: 1LD, 2LD
RD: None
G: 1G, 2G