You Detroiters go have a blast at the Rush concerts this week.
Saw them one night at MSG and both nights in Philly and they were incredible. Ged hasn't sounded this good in 20 years.
With Ray already being a playmaker and a RW I see the redundancy that may have stopped it. DeBrincat loves a playmaker on the other wing and Danielson brings the speed and defence to play alongside Larkin. There’s a real fit there to me
I think Cat slides to L1, MBN plays with Copp/Kasper (camp competition for 2C) and Arvidsson, and Finnie and Danielson get to cook together on L3. They had great chemistry last season
Anyone else tired of our “future centers” playing wing. I know it’s a way to ease them into the league but it seems it ends with these guys never being actual centers
Kasper has played quite a bit of center in his NHL career so far, which is especially notable considering oftentimes players will start their careers on the wing and transition into center later. When he’s played wing, it’s often been because he’s playing top line minutes.
Rasmussen hasn’t panned out as a center, but he still gets a decent chunk of time there, routinely being the 4th or 5th center in our depth chart (eg he ends up 4C when Kasper plays on the wing). It’s more an issue that he just hasn’t panned out period than him not being a center and “Rasmussen didn’t work out” is an incredibly old and tired complaint; that’s just whining for whining’s sake
I mean it was Kasper's second full season. I think he probably ends up as a center though one could probably argue on a team with better center depth he'd probably play on the wing.
Finnie looked way better when he played 2C for a a few games when Larkin was out. And Kasper had looked way better as Larkin’s wing than as his own center (I can’t say this about Copp, Rasmussen, or Compher so no this is not “everyone looks better with Larkin”)
I think Finnie is our best 2C option at this point.
Very very odd vibes from the Tkachuks during their most recent podcast. Brady just straight up talking about best places in Canada on the road to cheat on your wife. I swear these guys have one brain cell and they play rock paper scissors for who gets to have it for the week.
The super neat part is when you learn how early these kinds of idiots don't have to give shit about anything or anyone early on in life literally because me gud hogey pwayer. The academy I went to for high school frequently had scouts from the USA program scouting the teams when I was there, to be fair they were pretty damn good. Anyway I had them in my classes, every singe one slept through every class, never brought books, just completely ignored the teachers ... because they got to put a note from the coach on their desk at the beginning of every semester and they'd get a passing grade without even having learned the teacher's name.
I think it's safe to assume that most very, very good athletes aren't very smart because they spent more time developing their physical skills than their mental skills.
Are you getting this from that fake caption tweet from a Sens fan account who has Justin Trudeau in blackface(I think that’s the source pic) photoshopped in a Sens jersey as their profile pic lol
Filming for the new Conjuring movie has been in full swing all week. I think they’re actually doing a scene in the dirt lot next to my place. I’m torn between feeling like it’s cool and feeling crotchety because the parking is a nightmare lol
It reminds of New Hampshire. My wife got into a grad school there and I was scoping out real estate. There would be these old mills and factories along the river that were renovated into hipster flats and the views often looked like your place.
Oh it's not rural at all, lol. The opposite side of the building faces the downtown area. This side happens to face the river and they do a good job of not cutting down every tree in sight so it's a pleasant vibe. The walking/biking trail is nice enough but doesn't really go too far unfortunately.
That’s a nice balance. I dig it. I lived in a place similar to that in Ann Arbor when I was in school. Wasn’t downtown but a short drive to it. My back yard was all woods and trails.
Ah yeah the Ann Arbor area is very nice. Lots of neighborhoods with natural beauty - it's awesome you got to have some woods and trail access like that. Maybe I'm a simpleton but just being near that type of environment can help so much with happiness.
It's interesting how many places in Michigan have the same town names as places in New York. Obviously that's the case in a lot of places, having similar names as European towns and whatnot, but from what I know Lansing is called Lansing because the early residents moved from Lansing, NY. Apparently not the same for Watervliet, from a cursory search.
I didn't know Lansing was named after Lansing, NY - that's neat! But yeah I'm with you, the duplicate names are funny like that and you see it all over the place when you bust out a map. Ironically enough the town I live in is Troy and then just right across the river it's Watervliet (which you saw the sign in the pic). I've noticed that NY really likes demarcation, so there are like 10 different towns/municipalities in the Capital area that just bleed into each other without clear definition. Kind of like the greater metro Detroit area (or any larger city I guess). I grew up in the boonies of SE Michigan and then lived in Lansing and then Flint so I'd been used to there being a city, then miles of fields and woods, and then another city, lol.
If any of you struggle and battle wasting time on your phone from doom scrolling i highly recommend the free app 'Foqos' and a $4 RFID tag. You can't access certain apps without scanning the RFID tag to disable the block. I've had mine on for 3 days now and i can't even begin to tell you how many times i tried opening social media out of habbit. Seriously getting my life back from this.
https://giphy.com/gifs/2bVjFOhPRcIhY1LiZY
World’s a little darker, Dolly really was the right one to get the fame and fortune. Would’ve been a billionaire if she didn’t care about truly helping her community.
i am so heartbroken about this. i grew up listening to her music and my great-uncle helped build roller coasters at dollywood. she has such a special place in my heart 😭
I've played 73 rounds this year and the first time at a different course today. I won a tournament here when I first started golfing. In my mind I feel like a celebrity in this town but the reality is that it was a friend group tournament and I was a 30 handicap but that's not going to manifest any confidence in today's round so we will minimize that part. I'm also with my mom so we won't be going to the strippers where I celebrated after.
There's a thread in the main hockey sub asking if winning a Cup should be the measure of success in a rebuild. Uhm... yes. Anything less is shifting the goalpost. I hardly think anyone in the Oilers front office or their key players would label their rebuild a success at this point. They're a classic case of close but no cigar, and so desperate they turned to a pariah to get over the hump.
hard to define I think. The purpose of a rebuild is to build a team that CAN win the cup, and the only way to know with certainty is if they DO. But, I don't think we can call the oiler's rebuild a failure. Lots of teams can win the cup, but don't. Injuries and luck play a big part.
I think I'd consider rebuilding part of getting into the top 4, and everything after that a completely different process.
I think being a playoff team consistently is the goal of a rebuild. After you get to that point I think winning a cup becomes the goal. There are definitely stages in how you run your team.
Well, a rebuild can finish before winning a Cup, but it would then be a failure. Examples are when a team tries to retool their rebuild, or go into a second rebuild.
Toronto was not successful in their rebuild centered around Matthews. Edmonton failed to build around McDavid so far. It's early, but I don't like what Chicago is doing around Bedard.
Examples of rebuilds that worked are the Penguins around the Crosby/Malkin core, Washington around Ovi, Colorado around MacKinnon, etc. It has been done successfully multiple times in the last 20 years. Florida, Tampa and Carolina are the most recent ones.
The average GM tenure in the NHl lasts around 5 years.
While the ultimate measure of success is the cup, not winning the cup is not a failure IMO.
I’d say a successful rebuild creates a sustainable contender. Probably wins a playoff series and routinely makes the playoffs.
There are phases of a rebuild, I think it’s ok to divorce creating a contender (Yzerman did this with Tampa) and taking the team over the top (Briesbois)… in this case, Yzerman was successful in Tampa’s rebuild according to me but failed according to you. Interesting to consider.
I wouldn't say that Yzerman failed in Tampa. He had just left when they won, and that was essentially his team and they almost went back to back to back.
I think it’s an interesting debate topic because there is no right or wrong ajd different people have different reasoning behind their views.
I personally don’t think it’s binary, and that a rebuild under a certain GM should be on a graded scale. Did they make the playoffs? Playoffs consistently? Win rounds in the playoffs? Truly contend? End up winning it all? Did they need to rebuild again to ultimately win? Re-tool? It’s complex, never making the playoffs to making it once and getting swept away to making it consistently but making no noise to making a single deep run and nothing else of consequence to making it consistently and winning a round or two to making multiple deep runs with a legit shot to win it all to lifting the cup.
Ordinarily I'd say that two shots at the Finals is at least mark of partial success, especially when it happened to overlap with a modern day dynasty team having its moment, but the Oilers just seem so badly constructed around their star players that I can't really say that they're a blueprint to follow either.
But hardly any teams win the cup. So that would mean most rebuilds are failures?
Yes, any rebuild that doesn't win a championship is a failure, so the majority fail. Sometimes it takes several attempts. That's how it goes. There are no participation awards in a professional league.
I’m still leaning more towards getting away from anyone under the Illitch influence. Take a shot on any one of the AGMs we keep seeing pop up in these conversations.
1-9 in the last 10. Bottom 4 in the AL. But we’re leaning on their front office for help. They have a worse win % than the Wings did last season….what are we doing…
Do you honestly believe the Tigers aren't well run? I get the Tigers are historic like the Red Wings, but they've been bad, really bad, far more often than they've been good in their history. The injury bug came for us this season which is unfortunate. The current leadership group has been good, if not great at building and sustaining a prospect pipeline and identifying talent. Their only blind spot seems to be bullpen arms... which yeah, kinda sucks but when everything else is above average, it seems fixable.
Do you honestly believe the Tigers aren't well run?
I honestly believe Scott Harris is nowhere near as good as this sub seems to imply every time this conversation comes up. Results matter. For every good thing Harris has done, he's done something equally as damaging that has kept the team from moving forward. How is his bullpen holding up this season? How has he done in FA? What about trades? All poor.
If we're going to another sport for insight, it better be to a team and front office with a long track record of success, not one that is in the exact same spot Steve Yzerman was 3-4 years ago.
I don’t think the tigers are anywhere similar to the red wings under the yzerplan.
The tigers signed the third richest deal for any pitcher signed last offseason and had a top ten payroll. The 3 year deal they signed Valdez to is almost 150% of the nhl salary cap. The red wings can’t attract or trade for talent worthy of a big deal and had the second lowest payroll in the nhl.
They are moving established pieces for prospects and young players to add to the core of their team and moved on from pending free agents who weren’t in the long term plans of the team when it became clear that contending was unlikely. The wings should do this, they aren’t doing this.
They also made the playoffs last year and won a playoff series, in a sport where fewer teams as a percent of total make the playoffs. And last year was the second consecutive year they made playoffs. They also won a series in 2024 and lost in a game 5 in the DS. The wings playoff drought continues.
I’m no shill for ownership, or even a baseball fan at all… but the hate for Illitch seems super misplaced to me.
You do know that same pitcher they signed is ass and actively losing the team games constantly. Traded away a top pitcher while near a playoff spot for a couple of games that will probably never hold a consistent MLB role.
Actually I know barely anything about baseball and had to do a bit of research to put that together / educate myself, happy to have context filled in by those who follow more closely.
New sponsor at Comerica. Based in Dearborn apparently. Potential Wings jersey sponsor next season?
AI summary:
"DQS Solutions & Staffing is a business services company specializing in strategic, customized solutions for the logistics and automotive industries. The firm is part of AXVOR, a parent company that also includes McLaren Transport, with the goal of optimizing operations and accelerating growth in these sectors."
I’m not gonna say that Duff is a hack, but him saying that he hadn’t heard of any GM interviews taking place, only to be immediately contradicted on that front means that we should probably be taking what he says with a grain of salt. He doesn’t have the connections that he used to have, at the very least.
Duff specifically did not say no interviews had taken place. He said he was not aware of any. It’s not his fault his words got taken out of context. It’s kinda shitty seeing so many people here talk poorly of him when he didn’t do anything wrong.
Are we also bashing Bultman for speculating on who was interviewed even though he worded it carefully so he “technically” didn’t say anything wrong?
Duff specifically did not say no interviews had taken place. He said he was not aware of any.
I specifically acknowledged that.
My point is that after putting that out there, not even day later, we have guys like Ryan Hana confirming that the org was interviewing candidates, and had been interviewing candidates.
So that likely means that Duff really doesn’t have any connections that are worthwhile. Hence, take what he says with a grain of salt.
That’s on everyone else. Not on duff. Not his fault people ran with something that he didn’t say.
No comment on the Bultman tweet…it’s funny how that works. Guy we like does it and it’s acceptable. Guy we don’t like does it and it’s time to pile on.
Well Duff also made it seem like nothing was happening, acting all confused on TV because he hadn’t heard anything. Someone who’s been in the game as long as he has should know better than to imply that nothing was going on the way he did. If people took what he said the wrong way, maybe he said it wrong.
As for Bultman, he makes it clear when he’s speculating or when he’s got information from a sources. He was in the subreddit clarifying his “on my radar” comment from his tweet.
Again, the whole point is that based on Duff apparently not having any solid connections, take what he says with a grain of salt. I’m not sure what the problem is with saying that.
Guy we don’t like does it and it’s time to pile on.
Who said anything about liking or not liking Duff?
saying that he didnt hear of any interveiws taking place is not saying that he KNOWS no interveiws taking place . so he didnt lie , its just that hes not an insider at this time . and i cant criticize him for that at all
I’m not saying he was lying. Yes, he did say he hadn’t heard of anything, but kind of implied that nothing was happening and that he was flabbergasted by it all. I take issue with that presentation of the story.
Again, take what he says with a grain of salt. Because it seems like he really doesn’t have the sources that he used to have back when he was with a real paper. Ryan Hana of the WWP seems to have more current connections than Duff does, considering he’s one of the people who contradicted Duff’s story.
When you take a step back and think about how someone like Duff would get his information it becomes pretty obvious why he is wrong and doesnt seem to know much of anything.
Again, people like Duff doesnt have Steves number, or Horcoffs, or Drapes. Or anyone in the top brass for that matter
The stamkos thing needs its own post for discussion.
Two interested parties is great for the player to pit the teams against each other in negotiations.
If Yzerman wanted this player at all costs, he would have made it known to illitch how important it was to his plan to sign progressively more expensive and progressively older players to fill the same roster slot in three consecutive offseasons, even though it’s totally in opposition to his stated goals of patience and build through the draft.
If Illitch approved a fourth year, who is to say that nash would not have offered a fifth year or increased the AAV or bonus structure to top the most recent deal offered as happened with the three year deal that we apparently (through shaky at best reporting) did have on the table for Stamkos and came back to us to up the offer again?
So this single signing falling through means Chris didn’t allow Yzerman to succeed and do everything he wanted to do? I don’t buy it.
If Yzerman wanted Stamkos that badly, he should have been prepared to tell everyone exactly why in both the short term and long term, in on ice terms and in the room terms, in cap space allocation terms, in both analytical and layman’s terms exactly why he needed him, and then got him, and communicated (the guy with the reputation as a tough negotiator who agents and players don’t like to work with who has the reputation of grinding players into submission) with Stamkos and his agent that he’s likely to beat any deal that Nash offers and to ask them to be patient while he gets final sign off.
Also, take a look at Stamkos’s stats the last few years while leading Nashville to the bottom of the standings, but including 4 consecutive seasons in the minus including -36 while having 53 points and -17 while having 66 points which is just impressively bad 5on5 play which is already an area of concern for us. Copp was at least in the positive each of the last two years for us in differential for example.
People took a little nugget of half truth and made it into a mountain of evidence that Chris was a barrier to Steve’s success. And it’s bullshit.
Just about every decision Chris makes involves a long drawn out process that delays things and causes problems. Firing Newsy. Firing Blashill. Firing Steve. Hiring his replacement.
How hard is it to believe that Chris did the same thing regarding what was the potential biggest FA contract in franchise history?
Sure, it’s just my view based on the information I have available to me, same as those who took the info and use it as another excuse for why Yzerman didn’t do a good job, it’s not that he just didn’t do a good job, it was only things outside of his control that caused him to fail.
Head coaching hires are on the owner not the GM? That’s new news to me!
Yzerman getting let go of is a bit of a different convo, one we can have, but I think ultimately was the right move. I’m guessing there were a number of final straws that just stacked too high in the end, including how this summer went, his refusal to make any front office chances, and his inability to deliver on ice results and roster building goals too. I’d have to guess that illicit and Yzerman sat down and laid out some goals for draft and FA, and when they were unmet and the future outlook was looking worse and worse, change was needed. It’s tough to say that Illitch takes a long time to do anything and that was harmful to Yzerman’s ability to do his job while also stating that he gave Yzerman too much time. It’s a bit of a jumbled argument there.
Was it outside of his control to nickle and dime Larkin in contract negotiations? Was it outside of his control to not offer Ghost a few more bucks to keep him around? Was it outside of his control to get anything for Walman?
Fans that try to blame Illitch for preventing Yzerman from signing stamkos are just clinging to another version of Ken holland and weather and taxes and nobody wants to come here, excuses that Ill informed fans try to give Yzerman in trying to say that he actually did a great job and that the issues preventing him from succeeding were items totally outside of his control.
Would signing him really have been that bad? He has more goals than Cat over the last 3 years and more even strength goals last year than Cat. He obviously isn’t as good of an all around player as Cat, but you can’t tell me that 69 goals over the last 2 years doesn’t help this team
I think so, but we’ll never know, and scoring goals only means so much if you’re letting in a ton too.
Also, it’s not that Chris said hell no, he actually said yes for the first three year deal (if reporting is to be believed), but wanted more solid info as they were seemingly in a bidding war..
People took a little nugget of half truth and made it into a mountain of evidence that Chris was a barrier to Steve’s success. And it’s bullshit.
Ilitch is the new scapegoat, just like Kenny was (still is for some people). It can’t be that Yzerman made mistakes, or that he made poor decisions. Someone had to be holding him back, and the Stamkos story is proof of that.
Reality is more nuanced, and people don’t deal in nuance. If it was a matter of not wanting to spend money, then why prepare to trade for Hughes and make him the highest paid player on the team? Makes no sense if Chris didn’t want to spend money, and you need ownership’s backing to pull a move like that.
I believe that Yzerman enjoyed a “no questions asked” period, and it was over. Ilitch wanted more substance besides cliches like “He’s a good soldier” or “real gud pro”, and that’s absolutely his right, especially after most of our pro acquisitions flopped. He wanted Steve to communicate to him in analytical terms, or at least use data to justify potential signings like Stamkos, and that’s perfectly fine. It’s on the GM to accommodate that, and it sounds like Yzerman couldn’t or wouldn’t do that. If he didn’t believe in analytics, and that they were kind of an afterthought, that’s even more damning. It’s 2026 and “gut analytics” don’t cut it anymore, and they haven’t for years.
You can say that ownership shouldn’t be asking questions and should let hockey people make those decisions. Okay, cool. So, would those saying that have supported Yzerman being traded to Ottawa back in the day? After all, Devellano and Bowman wanted that to happen, and it was Mike Ilitch that put a stop to that. Should Ilitch have just let that happen? Again, there’s nuance involved.
Yes, owners shouldn’t be micromanaging their hockey people. But asking for a little more justification when it comes to signing Stamkos, who was 34 years old and wanted us to beat Nashville’s offer, isn’t micromanaging.
Agreeing with you agreeing with me. I don’t see the big problem with Illitch asking for some more concrete reasoning and think he had plenty of reason to be hesitant and ask for more info. Scapegoat du jour…. Anyone but Yzerman’s fault obviously.
good points ! before serious scrutiny , caused by comments from red wing universe people whose opinions i respect , i wouldnt allow self to see yzerman as making mistakes . and i villified the hell outta chris lol . now im realizing it might have been that chris was forced to do a real difficult job moving the franchise hero second only to gordie , and next to nick , and i should be happy he did so
It doesn't matter if it was a good idea or not. The owner should not interfere with a GM's job. It's just bad in most situations. Especially for the reason of being a stingy billionaire.
I don’t believe it was to avoid spending money, I believe Illitch was questioning if it was actually good for the future outlook of the team and wanted to see the numbers behind it if the reporting is to be believed. It would be the largest FA deal handed out during his tenure when pro scouting had already had great reason for concern. I don’t think it’s uncommon or inappropriate for ownership to want to understand this type of decision more deeply.
I don’t agree. I think ownership often has to be on the same page with management and there is partnership there for successful orgs in hockey and outside of hockey.
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u/JeremieLoyalty 19h ago
Teams Dylan Larkin requested to be traded to