conundrumed

Blockchain yeah, I'm jacked! It's our on year!!

I understand it in this context: Don't fight on concrete equivalent surfaces. Save it for behind the arena or the schoolyard where there are no adults present. In my sporting days, if it doesn't happen during the game, it's about 60-70% likely to happen elsewhere. For me, that encompassed hockey, football and basketball. But here's a funny story. At a tourney in Cleveland my kid scored early in his shift. Then the kid he lined up with waiting for the ref to come from the scorers bench started trash-talking him. He held his stick down, refs not back yet, and the kid was trying to lift it. We parents all knew it was trouble. So after the game, I obviously asked my kid what that kid was saying. And I quote: "He was really nice. He said it was a nice goal and was asking about how hard I hold my stick on the ice and was trying to lift it. He was funny". I was floored and relayed it to the other parents. They were floored. Our mindsets need to adjust.lol Kids are way better than we are. Times have progressed. Not one of us thought that that was a friendly exchange. Because the way we grew up, it couldn't have been. That's the opponent, treat them as enemies. I even see it on the shinny rinks here. The AA and AAA kids spend all of their talents trying to get the worst kid goals. Kids are literally showing us how to be better. But some adults still yell at them for results, as opposed to, oh I don't know, understanding them vs our own childhoods of expired mindsets.

<1 month from camp starts. Is everyone as excited as I am? I miss Flames camp being right there but I know a few people here will be there with bells on and I envy you. But I'll be able to attend a bit of the Wings camp. I wish the Young Stars tourney(Wings, CBJ, Leafs, Stars) was closer. Yes, Dallas.lol So it's clear, Jim Nill still keeps a heavy presence in Detroit. His Dallas success is largely because of it. I see Dallas scouts regularly when I'm at an event. Traverse City is in Michigan but a 4 hr drive easy. So that sucks. Lansing was only 2 and MSU campus so really fun. We've got lots of question marks, but that's all part of the fun. Can we contend for a Cup? Of course we can. Do we need a few adds maybe? Sure we do, just like every team. If my enjoyment of the sport has to rely on extremely favourable results, I'd spend a lot more time focusing on guitar, woodworking, reading, writing, cooking and my other hobbies. My gf would be over the moon.lol She's just ecstatic that I'm not an all-sport nut. My friends golf hardcore. I did when I was young but I'm occasional now. Their rig costs blow my mind. I can still beat them any given day in jean shorts and workboots.lol The "decorum" in golf is a massive turn off for me. Everyone acts like they're on the PGA. I had a very large man ask me if I was a pig farmer at an after-tourney party. I was confused. The host said, "because of your shirt". Which was actually quite a nice, comfortable dress shirt, just not a golf shirt because they're ugly af.lol It was best ball. I won the closest to the pin hole. We came in 2nd. His team was 1st and everyone knew they completely lied. How does this relate? Stop taking hockey and your team so seriously. Go watch midget hockey. They are kids vs your likely age. Now look around. You'll see fans having fun. You'll also see groups of generally older men taking it waaaay too personally and acting like the epitome of hockey expertise. They're miserable and do nothing but spit venom. Why? Because it makes them feel empowered vs insignificant. Alternative reality. Don't be that guy. Enjoy it for what it is. A game. No one has all of the answers, some are just so counterintuitive that it defies why they even bother watching. Let's email a volunteer Atom coach relentlessly about why a specific 10yo is getting much icetime, why isn't my kid out there more? Etc..etc...etc. With much stronger language. Then we see "toxicity in hockey culture" and blame the players, in complete denial of where it comes from. Camp is coming, have fun enjoying the game because you love it. Anything can happen. That's why it's fun.

If she's sitting on you with this look, you'll be wishing you couldn't count!

I'd choose MTL as a player and stay single the whole time.lol Actually no, just thinking about it makes me tired. I might be implying that french women are a little bit attractive.🤠

I have to laugh at a lot of the social media "hot takes". Yzerman has lost his luster, he only won in TBay because he was gifted Stamkos and Hedman etc etc.People saying, "have no idea what he's doing", "totally confused" yada yada. It's telling when it's only Detroit's fanbase not whining about it. The one's that follow them the most. "This is the best D we've had since Lidstrom left". Randos: "What? That D isn't in the top half of the league"! Response: "I didn't say that it was".lol Then the randos carry on, "They think they have a great D now because they added Holl, Ghost and Petry". Typical social media trolls. 7 dmen, 1 #1RD. The other 6 are generally 3-6 depth on every team. We're not even sure which one is going to be the 7th. This is hardly a solution, just another method of weaponizing for draft picks. 4 of these guys will be for sale eventually. Same as 1/4 of the forwards. Having said all of that, now the Wings will probably acquire Backlund and run a line of Copp-Backlund-Compher for all I know.lol Fun to watch this giant puzzle. How the lines/pairings shake down is anyone's guess. That's all a part of the fun: contract term in parenthesis Fabbri(2)-Larkin(8)-Raymond(1RFA) Rasmussen(1RFA)-Copp(4)-Debrincat(4) Berggren(1RFA)-Compher(5)-Perron(1) Kostin(2)-Veleno(current RFA)-Sprong(1) Fischer(1) Walman(3)-Seider(1RFA) Chiarot(3)-Holl(3) Maatta(2)-Gostisbehere(1)/Petry(2) Gost/Petry Husso(2) Reimer(1) Lyon(2) when Reimer gets injured In other words, I have no idea, but Gru is a solid coach, he'll figure it out.

His struggle is real. What an awful roster.

Have both Compher and Copp that match Backlund. I expect Yzerman's likely to shed those 3 dmen this year or next. We're a veritable meat grinder of placeholders.lol All 3 play RD, Chiarot both, top D prospects are LD, Wallinder plays both, Sandin-Pellikka will be a while. So it makes sense to grind RD vets out. Retaining on Petry again will be hilarious, 4 teams paying his salary. It's fun to watch, always doing something.

Aaaaaand,,,,Detroit adds Petry.rofl Seider-Walman Gostisbehere-Maatta Holl-Chiarot Petry Edvinsson, Johansson Hey, don't ask me to understand, I'm just enjoying the adventure. Petry(50% retained) for Gustav Lindstrom and the worst of Det-Bos 2025 4th rd pick. Lindstrom is a 6-7 at his very best. Petry is now at $2.344 for 2 years. Stay tuned for the Red Wings Annual Red Tag Sale. We've got it all folks, it's a warehouse sale, 2 for 1, smoked damaged furniture you can drive it away today. Everything the budget-savvy needs, scoop up the essentials, all work guaranteed. Snag up your favourites we've got your feel good deals they come in all colours and sizes and one size fits all. It's our biggest sale ever the mother of all discount savings watch for our free brochure. The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.

One of the things that got me was folks saying, "now that Karlsson is off the market...". Well, now it's a retained Petry. But the thing is, neither of those 2 are the same market as Hanifin. Add, Karlsson was always going to Pittsburgh. That was never in doubt and I doubt most teams even gave it a thought. I think Conroy needed to decide on the value of cap space if he wasn't winning a Hanifin trade. Just that cap gets you, say, Suter and Schenn for example. Maybe Mayfield? But if you don't look beyond return value as potential cap space to try to balance out your team, you're left waiting for something that may never come. You can't change the market. If you won't bother with it, well, you're options aren't great. Everybody knows that he wants out, so your return could potentially diminish further. I just get a little tired of doublespeak. "We only want guys that want to be here". Hanifin: I don't wanna be here. "Well, I don't like the return values". Don't let it get public then. Tell the player and agent, "if this gets public, I hope you like Arizona for a year for a bag of pucks. I'm sure that'll help your value next year. DON'T diminish how I can help you".

I'd go beyond a little.lol Even better news is that none of our 3 is due to that. I'm (still) a big Pelletier fan. From pick to prospect to NHLer, he's a really good player. Can't wait to see more. I can see him being a 20g, 60pts "book it" guy as early as this season. He's the epitome of the, "good at everything, not great at any one thing" player. The world needs more of them! I'd try Pelletier-Kadri-Coronato/Sharangovich personally. Pelletier's a really good puck-mover/distributor. On top of solid all over the ice.

I had no issue losing Valimaki for nothing. Most others didn't either. Revisionist history. Sure he can play for ARI, but he was barely a competitive AHL player with us. He didn't deserve a roster spot so was waived. He deserved to be waived and I'd do it again tomorrow. Team cap dump likes him so good for him. I want him to do well but he isn't a loss for us as he was never very good. Detroit isn't top 5. Take a look at their roster. Johansson is an NHL-ready Dman, Edvinsson is awfully close. Then you have Kasper and Mazur at C and wing. Where are those 4 slotting on that roster? Would you rather not have that problem of having to make roster moves for them rather than a "leap of faith"? All the while eschewing not wanting to "ruin development". Are we throwing caution to the wind on that now because we need them? There is a number of low-level contracts(<2mil per) on bonafide NHLers that have been inked this off-season. Us not even thinking about it...for me...I think that's worrisome. Nothing is looking proactive at all when you have so many players entering the last year of contracts. Are we still going to have reactionary mgmt? Because if we wanted change, that's the #1 thing that has to change imo. Conroy should've signed Suter even if it took 2x$2. Need a 4C. Need a PK C to relieve Lindholm and supplement Backlund. Need a supplemental defensive C so Backlund doesn't have to line-match with the McDavid's alllll game long. Need a stop gap in the case of Backlund leaving. Yes, Suter is good at all of those things as a 4C or any wing injury you need to cover. And he'll still chip in 15 with shorties. He's not the answer for offence, but he's a very suitable pressure-relief valve to keep your top 6 guys in offensive roles, which shouldn't include Lindholm out on the PK. Now he'll help a principal rival with that. And here we are again, not being proactive. I could be wrong as Conroy is quasi-new, but it's concerning. I didn't expect it would end at Oesterle as a 6-7D, which I'm fine with. Clearing out the pro-Sutter guys is fine, adding more pro scouts. But it's pretty clear that he's rolling the same roster back and crossing his fingers.

Nope. We're a re-signing Seider/Raymond/Jonny Burgers next year away from cap restraints. Hanifin would undoubtedly be a pure rental. There's enough dmen even without Edvinsson and Johansson, who will almost without question move to the big club at some point this year. And we'll see where Wallinder's at, but he may only be a year away at most. Good problems to have.

Are you sure? Because currently there is a world of question marks. Pelletier, I have zero concerns, he was always going to be a solid player, I've never wavered on that. Rooney, Ruzicka, Duehr, Zary. These are all pretty big question marks and 2 of them will make the current roster, full-time, whether or not they should. Lose Hanifin, if Kylington's play is weak, we're running band-aids in Oesterle and Gilbert. They're isn't enough competition for likely 3-4 spots. We NEED Duehr and Ruzicka to be consistent because the alternative doesn't really exist. We've been fortunate with injuries, can that continue? We don't really have much for depth. We're really relying on hope a lot more than I'd be comfortable with. I know the cap is keeping us stagnant, but we can't really afford to just stand still at any rate.

I think that falls on coaching/mgmt. I agree with you that our approach has been dicey in signing PTOs. I always treat PTO signings as desperation signings. But I'll add that this year might be different watching how the cap and high end values are leaving some good players on the outside. The system is looking fairly broken when managers are making the high end signings like the cap has already gone up. Serious implications for bottom 6 players. As a Detroit fan, I definitely see UFA signings that have the appearance of zero spots for the kids. Yzerman has gone out of his way to let everyone know that if any prospect convinces them otherwise throughout camp, "we'll make room, then just hope that they don't regress". He uses Lucas Raymond as an example. To paraphrase, "We had no idea what he'd be like because we only saw him in Sweden. He had a great rookie camp, rookie tournament and pro camp and left us no choice". They put him at 1RW with Larkin, which I'm certain was meant for the Perron signing. I always revert to what Yzerman's doing. His draft record in TBay was baaad, but his trades and signings were his strengths. And he is a completely wide open book in interviews. But his "nothing" signings/trade throw-ins like Maatta and Walman. Walman was a 7D in St. Loo, he is now the long game top pairing LD with Seider. He literally took it. Maatta nobody was interested in. Put him with Hronek and suddenly Hronek isn't the complete disaster that he'd been. Literally found money. All of the other 1-2 year signings are tryouts, basically. Recoup if it doesn't work, let him walk, waive him, whatever, doesn't matter. The goal is to make your team better. Some moves will be a disaster, some will be good. Law of averages say you've gotta try. My interest is completely piqued in how the Huska/Savard combo runs their camp. Sutter virtually isolated pros vs prospects. Initially I thought, "good, get the team gelling". But I think there is more downside in not letting any prospect play with NHL quality linemates. Long and short, and I hardly expect it, but if Backlund looks like your 5th best center in camp, he's your 13th fwd. If prospects regress, deal with it. Ice your best team, don't make "business decisions" due to waiver eligibility. Your job as GM is to figure it out, your job as a coach is to tell your GM that you don't give a f%#@ about that stuff, that guy has made my team over that guy. Contracts don't guarantee spots has to be the philosophy, and stick to it. Bad signing? Oh well, those happen. Deal with it. Forcing it becomes everyone's problem instead of just yours. It makes your team worse.

3 Flames make NHL Network's Top 50 Prospects, Wolf 29, Coronato 43 and Pelletier at 48. It's not all bad news.

But isn't that just a 180 of gifting spots to prospects also?

Maybe the right thread for this. I was surmising why Detroit took Cossa rather than Wallstedt. Then a thought occurred to me that I better consult google. So here's the list of Swedish goalies that have won the Stanley Cup as the starter: Yup. That's the list. Coincidence, circumstance or a trend of mental fortitude? Honest question. And of course, potentially the biggest upset in Olympic history vs one of the best Gs in the NHL at the time...

Likely true. He even seemed kind of put off with BT saying we'd prefer to find solutions from within. Then I found myself dissecting every Sutter mantra about needing someone that can score a big goal etc as under-handed jabs at BT obviously wanting prospects to have a shot. The Huby, "taking a Satoshi Nakamoto" and Pelletier 1st game comments I thought were giant nothingburgers that the media frothed over. Basically Sutter saying, "I don't talk about injuries", "don't fawn over my young players". I get that and hated how the media completely twisted it into a completely alternative agenda because he "offended" them. Like we should give 2 Blockchains about the sad state of media being offended. A big problem, huge in my mind, was the vets having to plead with Sutter to let Pelletier know if he'll play because his parents want to fly in for their kids 1st NHL game. You can't put perfume on that pig. This is likely where the toxicity came to a head. Every player in that room, rookie or 10 year vet, KNOWS that that was thee lifetime moment for them and their loved ones. First NHL game. EVERYTHING is wrapped up in that one moment of bliss. For Pelletier, Sutter was not giving a flying Blockchain about it. Players literally had to call him out. If they respected you, they truly don't anymore. That is borderline, if not flat out, dehumanizing Pelletier and his family. Could be the only magical moment for all of them and you made it all about stress and anxiety. Without question you know better. Or at least you used to. So we know the players can be united, now let's do it for the right reason. That episode, for me, is why you fire Sutter. A rookie in his 1st game with his parents there is a huge motivator for players, they want it to be awesome. Sutter tried to dismiss it. That's about as low as you go as a coach, you literally isolated yourself when you had a chance to be a positive influence. So now we're in what I'm going to call the post-Sutter era. And you can say it's unfair, but I'm going to go ahead and say the Sutter era was an era of sabotage. As much as everyone pins that Oilers series loss on Markstrom, what in the dying Blockchain was that coaching? Zero reacting and line-matching led to us getting spanked. Every good player we had or have going into mass exodus. That is sabotage. The coaches decision-making was highly questionable even to the casual fan. In particular, sabotaging your GM's efforts at every opportunity.

Can't run a team that way. Have to fill your spots and make prospects force their way, not hand it to them. If someone forces their way, then it's the GM's job to make adjustments. Not send the prospect down due to waiver eligibility, as I believe we've had the appearance of doing in the past. That part is a dumb mistake. Ice the best players, lose a player to waivers, well, he wasn't in your top 23 players, no big, move forward.

Add Brandt Clarke, Luke Hughes and potentially Simon Edvinsson and Jiricek. Maybe Devon Levi or Leo Carlsson. Just give it to Pelletier already=)

At $1.6, Suter would have been a good option to help solidify the bottom of the roster. He won't set the world on fire, but he's consistently dependable, even in top matchups he's effective as a shutdown.

Wow. As someone familiar with CBT (it can be extremely difficult to get past the initial stage) all that I can say is that I was too focused on his sweatshirt.lol I'm on a youth MH charity board and fairly active.*yeesh how I let CBT vs CBD sail right over my head. CBT is very difficult, particularly to trauma victims, to get forging ahead. Some just can't. My hat goes off to him. Thanks for clarifying correctly!

Currently Rooney or Zary. Suter’s great at PK too and can play anywhere adequately. Chip in 15 and PK scoring. Good add for Van.

pretty easy slot for 4C at great value. Bummer.