Z-Less Line-up 18-19

BC Ben

Registered User
Mar 26, 2010
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True North
Zadina needs to learn to keep that head up in the NHL or he’ll be on the injured reserve sooner than later. I see him getting a long look, but ultimately he plays AHL and comes up sometime later in the season.

What’s the D corps looking like?
 

Lazlo Hollyfeld

The jersey ad still sucks
Mar 4, 2004
28,131
26,425
I'd probably take that bet. Door is wide open for him, don't think he needs to be dominant in preseason just competent.
I agree in essence but kinda wonder what's the point? The Wings are likely going to be terrible this season.

I'm excited to see the kid play but wouldn't it be better for his development to let him have a season in the AHL before making the jump?
 

ArGarBarGar

What do we want!? Unfair!
Sep 8, 2008
44,017
11,677
I agree in essence but kinda wonder what's the point? The Wings are likely going to be terrible this season.

I'm excited to see the kid play but wouldn't it be better for his development to let him have a season in the AHL before making the jump?
Does he have to be playing for a winning team to develop?

If he can play in the NHL and is good with the NHL speed, I see no reason to take him down to the AHL to "insulate" him from anything. The sooner he can get used to the NHL game the better for us, and the AHL doesn't necessarily make that easier when it is an inferior league with inferior competition in every aspect.
 

Lazlo Hollyfeld

The jersey ad still sucks
Mar 4, 2004
28,131
26,425
Does he have to be playing for a winning team to develop?

If he can play in the NHL and is good with the NHL speed, I see no reason to take him down to the AHL to "insulate" him from anything. The sooner he can get used to the NHL game the better for us, and the AHL doesn't necessarily make that easier when it is an inferior league with inferior competition in every aspect.
No he definitely doesn't. It's more about burning a year of his status on a crapshow team.

I'm also probably being a bit reactionary after seeing him get crushed the other day while puck watching.
 

Eye of Ra

Grandmaster General of the International boards
Nov 15, 2008
17,963
4,454
Malmö, Sweden
kronwall, abby, helm, jensen, glendening and ericsson, how is it possible that they are still in the NHL. bench them, trade them, whatever.

Mantha - Larkin - Zadina
Nyquist - Nielsen - Vanek
Svechnikov - Athanasiou - Rasmussen
Bertuzzi - Ehn/Veleno - Frk

DeKeyser-Green
Sulak-Daley
Hronek/Hicketts/Cholowski/Särijärvi

Howard/Bernier/Säteri
 

Ulysses31

Registered User
Oct 7, 2015
2,761
1,552
What's a computer?
think last forward spot between svechnikov, frk and zadina.

Centre locks: neilson , Aa, sweet larkin, LGD

wing locks: abby, helm, lil bert, nyquist, mantha, rasmussen, vanek

leaves one spot on wing
 

Henkka

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
31,077
12,076
Tampere, Finland
I predict these are the season starting lines:

Helm - Larkin - Mantha
Bertuzzi - Nielsen - Nyquist
Akader - Athanasiou - Vanek
Rasmussen - Glendening - Frk/Svechnikov
(Witkowski)

They have used those first 3 lines on latest games against BOS and CHI. And all have worked great together. I also like the role mixes on those lines.
 

jkutswings

hot piss hockey
Jul 10, 2014
10,840
8,558
This seems as good a thread as any to post this. TSN had an article today about rebuilding teams leaning on youth, and the section of talking with Scotty Bowman caught my eye, especially the slogan in Montreal (emphasis mine):

https://www.tsn.ca/rebuilding-teams-leaning-on-youth-1.1182325

Hall of Fame coach Scotty Bowman, who won nine Stanley Cup titles between three teams, said the salary cap makes it more difficult to maintain a contender, though it's not all that different since winning his first championship with the 1973 Montreal Canadiens.

"The challenge is you have to have players coming in the front door," Bowman said. "When I was in Montreal, they had a slogan that was in the dressing room. It said 'And the kids go marching on.' That was 50 years ago, but it's so much more now."


Indeed. Let's get those kiddos marching.
 

Henkka

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
31,077
12,076
Tampere, Finland
I could think the team starts with 12+9+2 roster, because of the injuries at defence. The problem is, those injuries are so minor, that it could prevent opening extra roster spots using short-term IR. That's a minimum for 1 week, but players could be out shorter time than that.

That could mean a scenario, where Rasmussen and Svechnikov will be technically being "sent down" (only guys outside of waivers), because those roster spots are needed for defencemen.

4th line would be Witkowski - Glendy - Frk, for first 1-2 games. Then we should get regulars back, send kid defencemen to AHL and call Ras and Svech to play instead of them.

Grand Rapids has 2 home games at October 5th and 6th and then a 1-week break, so it should easy to juggle with guys. Red Wings season opener is October 4th at home against Columbus, and the 2nd game is October 7th at Los Angeles.

Biggest decision is that Western trip, but the games will be played on monday and tuesday against LAK and ANA, and Griffins won't play at same time, so you can take anybody on that trip, which is normally planned to play for Griffins.
 
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SuperScript29

Registered User
Nov 17, 2017
2,069
1,673
I really hope Rasmussen makes the team, he's gonna make a lot of people eat crow. He may not looks like a star out there, but I'm willing to bet that he's ready to produce top-6 numbers.
 

Henkka

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
31,077
12,076
Tampere, Finland
I really hope Rasmussen makes the team, he's gonna make a lot of people eat crow. He may not looks like a star out there, but I'm willing to bet that he's ready to produce top-6 numbers.

I think he is a lock. Best of forward prospects, not liable at all defensively. Only this injury mess could prevent him not playing for the opener, but after that he should be a regular.
 

marcmadsen

Registered User
Sep 29, 2016
110
94
My wishful lines (based on who I think will make the team):

Bertuzzi - Larkin - Mantha
Svechnikov - Athanasiou - Vanek
Nyquist - Nielsen - Rasmussen
Abdelkader - Glendening - Helm
Frk, Witkowski

and I'd like to see ice time distributed essentially equally amongst the AA, Nielsen, and Glendening lines. So, by that line of thinking I wouldn't look at the AA line as the second line, or the Nielsen line as the third line, etc.

Lines I think they will use:

Helm - Larkin - Mantha
Bertuzzi - Nielsen - Nyquist
Abdelkader - Athanasiou - Vanek
Rasmussen- Glendening - Svechnikov
Witkowski, Frk
 
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Maurice of Orange

Wahatquenak
Feb 5, 2016
10,125
6,737
Hopefully Kenny can entice a team to take one of the long contracts off Detroit’s hands.
Just looking at the roster, I feel Holland has really put you guys in a bind for atleast the next 2-3 years in a very bad place called Cap Hell.
Owners should seriously be looking at Stevie Y as new GM over the summer.
Best of luck to wings, they have promising looking defensive prospects that could be very good in time.
 

Reddwit

Registered User
Feb 4, 2016
7,696
3,418
Hopefully Kenny can entice a team to take one of the long contracts off Detroit’s hands.
Just looking at the roster, I feel Holland has really put you guys in a bind for atleast the next 2-3 years in a very bad place called Cap Hell.
Owners should seriously be looking at Stevie Y as new GM over the summer.
Best of luck to wings, they have promising looking defensive prospects that could be very good in time.

You’ll find the majority of Wings fans would agree that Holland has handed out some bonkers contracts recently and are in favor of Stevie taking over. But as someone who is a huge critic of Holland and a constant cap analyzer, Detroit is in a much better cap position than it seems superficially. They’ll only have 1-2 bad contracts by the time they need to start counting pennies and that’s without utilizing buyouts, cap dump trades, or if all goes the worst possible way in the expansion draft.

Personally, I’m much more worried about them acquiring the talent they need in the necessary time frame for it to make organizational sense than anything.
 

SimonEdvinssonAtSix

It's possible to commit no mistakes and still lose
Nov 2, 2018
1,402
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Hopefully Kenny can entice a team to take one of the long contracts off Detroit’s hands.
Just looking at the roster, I feel Holland has really put you guys in a bind for atleast the next 2-3 years in a very bad place called Cap Hell.
Owners should seriously be looking at Stevie Y as new GM over the summer.
Best of luck to wings, they have promising looking defensive prospects that could be very good in time.

This is the last year of cap hell for Detroit. We have bad contracts off the books each year starting next.
This off season we lose Vanek (3M) Kronwall (4.75M) Nyquist (4.75M) and Howard (5.3M), Next off season we lose Ericsson (4.25) Daley (3.2M) Green (5.375)

We probably bring Howard back @ 4M (?) and we have some prospects that look ready for the bigs. If the Red Wings can nail another draft or 2 we're back sooner than most think.
 
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Henkka

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
31,077
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Tampere, Finland
This is the last year of cap hell for Detroit.

It really is.

Even with some extensions:

2019-20 roster

1. Larkin, 6.100M
2. Nyquist, 6.000M (EXTENDED)
3. Nielsen, 5.250M
4. Akader, 4.250M
5. Helm, 3.850M
6. Mantha, 3.300M
7. AA, 3.000M
8. Glendy, 1.800M
9. Bert, 1.400M
10. ZADINA, 925k
11. Rasmussen, 894k
12. Svechnikov, 863k
-------------------
13. De La Rose, 900k
14. Ehn, 759k

Vanek, Frk, Witkowski gone.

1. Green, 5.375M
2. DeKeyser, 5.000M
3. Ericsson, 4.250M
4. Daley, 3.167M
5. Cholowski, 894k
6. Hronek, 714k
-----------------
7. Jensen? 1.250M (extended)

1. Howard, 4.25M (extended)

2. Bernier, 3.000M

That's total 77.5M with Franzen + Zetterberg. + Weiss + other extra crap.

5.5M in cap space.

13.8M capspace via LTIR.

Trading Daley or Ericsson at 2019 deadine would open even more space. Daley gone = ~17M of cap space. And dealing Franzen contract away, that would open more summer cap space by 1.7M. Not counting that possibility in here.

***

So, even as a pipe dream, this UFA splash would be possible.

Sign Artemi Panarin for 10M instead of Nyquist 6.0M. (+4M more)
Sign Sergei Bobrovsky for 9M instead of Howard 4.25M) (+4.75M more)
Sign Erik Karlsson for 10M and have him instead of Trevor Daley (traded) 3.167M (6.833M more)
-------------------------
Total added caphits: 16.583M

In theory, these add-ons will fit in on that 17M room, if Daley is gone.

I definitely won't believe that to happen, but just proved how it's mathematically possible. Pretty easy field to work for a GM, imo.
 
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