So? What's the goal next year? Finish 17th again? Pick 15th? Fuck the Rebuild Again?

[MDWingsFan]

I posted this in its own thread, but yeah many many questions. Mixed emotions on seeing the season end. On one hand they didn't really earn their way in, but at the same time neither did anyone else. Caps got a hot goalie at the right time, and it didn't hurt that Ovi remembered he was chasing something. The only thing that bums me out is that my 11yr old daughter who has recently taken a liking to all things sports related and gives me play by play was bummed this morning. As a dad, it stings a little more, however she's an athlete herself, and knows that missing cuts/playoffs comes with the game. Now, with that out of the way I'm ready to move on to next season. Looking at CapFriendly here's where the Wings stand roster wise.

Forwards:

UFA
Perron.
Kane
Sprong
Fischer

RFA
Ray
Veleno

Defense:
UFA
Gost

RFA
Mo

Goal:

UFA
Reimer

Of the above UFA's only Kane deserves to come back. Listening to his comments post game, there were some "us/we" comments, but mostly it was a lot of "they" comments. As much as I want him back he's likely getting bigger $$$ and term elsewhere. Copp needs to be a buyout casualty or a trade with salary retention.
Raymond earned and deserves a big raise, 7-8yrs x 8 Million.
Veleno should be fairly cheap 2yrs maybe X 1.5 Million.

The D needs SERIOUS work. Stevie really created a shit sandwich that he's going to have to eat here. Mo/Walman, and Eddy/Chiarot is tenable as a top 4. One can argue that if we can get a young up and coming RD to replace Chiarot that would be best. After that you've got to eat 2 yrs on Holl, and one on Petry. Maatta is serviceable on the 3rd pair but if we can dump him as well it would be for the best. Mo is getting 8x9 at least. In essence Stevie needs to use picks and prospects to sweeten deals to dump at minimum 2, and maybe 3 D men.

Goalie needs a revamp too. Husso is a hurt locker, and Reimer's gone. Lyon is a good ++ backup/spot starter, but needs a 1a to his 1b.


With the above changes it looks like we have a LOT of holes to fill:

Cat/Lark/Ray
X/JT/X
Fabbri/X/Ras
X/Veleno/X

That's 5 spots that need to be filled either internally or with UFA/Trades

Mo/Walman
Eddy/X
Chiarot/X

Two more spaces on D need to be filled.

X/Lyon/

And another spot in Goal.

What's waiting in the wings? Kasper, Danielson, Mazur, Elmer at F. Maybe Nate makes them say no, maybe Kasper can nail down 4C and move Veleno up to 3C? D wise is ASP ready, or maybe Wallinder or Johansson? My guess is that maybe 1-2 between F & D can take a spot. Still need a scoring winger if Kane goes. 4th liners are a dine a dozen, maybe you fill in those 2 with UFAs and go hunting for a scoring winger? Same goes for 3rd pari D. Maybe Maata gets the 3rd pair D with Chiarot and the promote a D from within. Goalie, its gotta be a trade, Cossa needs another year, maybe as 1A in GR/3rd Goalie in Detroit with Bednar as the backup there? DO they go hunting for Markstrom? Lots of questions...

[Zattaman]

The D needs SERIOUS work. Stevie really created a shit sandwich that he's going to have to eat here. Mo/Walman, and Eddy/Chiarot is tenable as a top 4. One can argue that if we can get a young up and coming RD to replace Chiarot that would be best. After that you've got to eat 2 yrs on Holl, and one on Petry. Maatta is serviceable on the 3rd pair but if we can dump him as well it would be for the best. Mo is getting 8x9 at least. In essence Stevie needs to use picks and prospects to sweeten deals to dump at minimum 2, and maybe 3 D men.

Disagree on a couple of points.

One: I don't like the idea of giving up picks/prospects to get rid of Maatta/Holl/Petry. Maybe if it's a 4th/5th rounder. But, it doesn't seem like good asset management.

Given that Petry and Maatta have only one year left on their contract, it'd make more sense to bury one in the AHL. Their cap hit is not that big.
Holl seems like a prime candidate for a buyout, given that he's got 2 years left.

Two: I'm over the Seider/Walman experiment. I don't think Walman belongs on the top pair -- if anything, I'd drop him down to the 3rd pair. Chiarot has been a much better player this year. Maybe he finally understands Boughner's system?

Seider/Chiarot pair we saw at the end of the season is the what we had hoped to see last year. Physical, hard to play against, good in transition.

[MDWingsFan]

The D needs SERIOUS work. Stevie really created a shit sandwich that he's going to have to eat here. Mo/Walman, and Eddy/Chiarot is tenable as a top 4. One can argue that if we can get a young up and coming RD to replace Chiarot that would be best. After that you've got to eat 2 yrs on Holl, and one on Petry. Maatta is serviceable on the 3rd pair but if we can dump him as well it would be for the best. Mo is getting 8x9 at least. In essence Stevie needs to use picks and prospects to sweeten deals to dump at minimum 2, and maybe 3 D men.

Disagree on a couple of points.

One: I don't like the idea of giving up picks/prospects to get rid of Maatta/Holl/Petry. Maybe if it's a 4th/5th rounder. But, it doesn't seem like good asset management.

Given that Petry and Maatta have only one year left on their contract, it'd make more sense to bury one in the AHL. Their cap hit is not that big.
Holl seems like a prime candidate for a buyout, given that he's got 2 years left.

Two: I'm over the Seider/Walman experiment. I don't think Walman belongs on the top pair -- if anything, I'd drop him down to the 3rd pair. Chiarot has been a much better player this year. Maybe he finally understands Boughner's system?

Seider/Chiarot pair we saw at the end of the season is the what we had hoped to see last year. Physical, hard to play against, good in transition.

There's lots of "moveable" pieces within the lineup. Could a 4th+ 50% retained on Holl be enough to get him to a cellar dweller? Could it be a a deal for future considerations to a team needing to make the floor? There's lots of ways to slice and dice to get both the roster and cap room to add scoring, etc. Time for Steve to earn his $$$.

[DelHowLich]

Nobody mentioned the elephant in the room, Berggren!!!!!!!

[Pop Zeus]

They really need some of the non-lottery picks to start carrying water next year for this thing to be viable. Figure out how to flip one of the goalie prospects and quality picks into a pro winger.

The bottom line has improved every year under the Yzerplan, but will any of us be alive when the dividend checks are cut?

Is this the Yzerplan?
Sprong? Perron? Kane? Debrincat? Chiarot? Petry? Husso>

Always seemed to me that the real Yzerplan was gonna be Seider, Raymond, Edvinsson, Wallinder, Cossa, Kasper, Danielson....

If the Red Wings stumble to another bubble spot and we get another mid-round first, do you think is a sustainable effort?
Or does this start to look like this?
image.png

Year over year results suggest the Wings will improve by X points next season and that should get them in the playoffs.

I believe this is sustainable, if Yzerman keeps hitting on first rounders, and later round picks like Mazur, Johannson and Lombardi start panning out for God's sake. His mid-level free agent signings have obviously been a mixed bag, but none of those contracts is prohibitive in the least.

They are obviously short on difference making forwards, that will need to be resolved before permanent stability can be achieived. Another couple years of hard core tanking might have resolved this, but I remain relatively cool with what Yzerman is up to.

Yzerman hasn't had a first rounder contribute since when?

[Wizard of Corsica]

Is this the Yzerplan?
Sprong? Perron? Kane? Debrincat? Chiarot? Petry? Husso>

Always seemed to me that the real Yzerplan was gonna be Seider, Raymond, Edvinsson, Wallinder, Cossa, Kasper, Danielson....

If the Red Wings stumble to another bubble spot and we get another mid-round first, do you think is a sustainable effort?
Or does this start to look like this?
image.png

Year over year results suggest the Wings will improve by X points next season and that should get them in the playoffs.

I believe this is sustainable, if Yzerman keeps hitting on first rounders, and later round picks like Mazur, Johannson and Lombardi start panning out for God's sake. His mid-level free agent signings have obviously been a mixed bag, but none of those contracts is prohibitive in the least.

They are obviously short on difference making forwards, that will need to be resolved before permanent stability can be achieived. Another couple years of hard core tanking might have resolved this, but I remain relatively cool with what Yzerman is up to.

Yzerman hasn't had a first rounder contribute since when?

Say what now? Seider, Raymond and Edvinnson are all contributors, with several more on track to be regulars at minimum?

[Pop Zeus]

Year over year results suggest the Wings will improve by X points next season and that should get them in the playoffs.

I believe this is sustainable, if Yzerman keeps hitting on first rounders, and later round picks like Mazur, Johannson and Lombardi start panning out for God's sake. His mid-level free agent signings have obviously been a mixed bag, but none of those contracts is prohibitive in the least.

They are obviously short on difference making forwards, that will need to be resolved before permanent stability can be achieived. Another couple years of hard core tanking might have resolved this, but I remain relatively cool with what Yzerman is up to.

Yzerman hasn't had a first rounder contribute since when?

Say what now? Seider, Raymond and Edvinnson are all contributors, with several more on track to be regulars at minimum?

Right.
No offense, but a 21-year old with 1-1-2 in 16 games is not exactly a contributor.

You're not supposed to get "contributors" in the top 10. You're supposed to get difference makers.

[Stevie_Wings]

Is a 30 point defensemen drafted top 5 with 2 years under his belt a legit difference maker or just a contributor?

[Wizard of Corsica]

Yzerman hasn't had a first rounder contribute since when?

Say what now? Seider, Raymond and Edvinnson are all contributors, with several more on track to be regulars at minimum?

Right.
No offense, but a 21-year old with 1-1-2 in 16 games is not exactly a contributor.

You're not supposed to get "contributors" in the top 10. You're supposed to get difference makers.

Oh my God with the semantics. Ed is a keeper. Yzerman has done a real good job in the first round, mince it however you want. There's plenty of other areas he needs to improve if you want to harp.

[Pop Zeus]

Say what now? Seider, Raymond and Edvinnson are all contributors, with several more on track to be regulars at minimum?

Right.
No offense, but a 21-year old with 1-1-2 in 16 games is not exactly a contributor.

You're not supposed to get "contributors" in the top 10. You're supposed to get difference makers.

Oh my God with the semantics. Ed is a keeper. Yzerman has done a real good job in the first round, mince it however you want. There's plenty of other areas he needs to improve if you want to harp.

Maybe he's a keeper. Or maybe he just never lives up to expectations and is traded around the league like Slater Koekok or Olli Jiolevi or Haydn Fluery or Griffin Reinhart or Derrick Poiliot or Dylan McIlrath etc etc.

Yzerman's first round is unproven.