“He let despicable me coach 35 games!”

“You traded Walman to the sharks who got a 1st for him”

“His pro trades have been ABYSMAL”

Kinda feels cathartic to have a scapegoat, but how many of you are feeling like you’re losing faith in the Yzerplan?

Honestly I was enjoying hearing someone yell at the organization on public airwaves, cause I’m frustrated too. When the 3 other Detroit teams have turned full 180s in half the time it’s hard to keep coming up with excuses for the Wings.

The first one got taken down for breaking rule 3 so i guess I’ll add more information. This is mostly here to prove I’m right in the future. Loved what I saw this year from Kasper, Edvinsson, AlJo, Berggren, Söderblom, this was the first year we saw many of them in the NHL together. Todd knows how to utilize the young guys (can’t believe lalonde was keeping Kasper 3rd and 4th not even trying new stuff) and I’m exited to see what he does next season. Obviously I can’t see into the future but why should I not think that they will all continue on a good development path? Same with Seider and Raymond entering primes in 5 years. Cossa and likely Augustine will be NHL ready in 5 years (again why should I not think they will pan out)

For the people that wanted Steve to come in and turn us into a playoff team within 6 years…he could have done that, any GM could do that, but they wouldn’t be contenders. Steve is building a long term cup contender and that is going to take another few years. Sorry if your grandpa wanted to see one last championship but it takes time to build a dynasty.

I saw one guy ask me to define a contender. The Detroit Red Wings will be in the Eastern Conference finals in 5 years.

I know the deadline has closed, but just wanted to know if anyone had already received theirs? If so, show me what you were sent! 😃😃

• I am awaiting 2 Kane pucks myself!

Hi. It's been a while since I've made a relevant post on this sub, but after a recent post, I'd like to address something I mentioned in a comment on that thread. My username will check out.

I believe the issue we have comes back to our scouting department. We can split hairs and include development as an issue as well, but my focus is primarily on the stark contrast between games played by players in rounds 2-7 (IE "trust your scouts" picks) and the 1st rounders.

Before I get into all this, I just want to add that I am not inherently against the Yzerplan, nor do I exclusively blame him for our current state. I think there's a problem with the people scouting within our organization and I'd like to point out where I believe the brunt of the problem to stem from.

To start, I'd like to be clear that there are some drafts that are all together too early to tell. Of Yzerman's drafts (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024), I think it's unreasonable to address 23 and 24 as far too early to tell. It's possible that the solution is already here, and I sincerely hope that's the case. I want the team I love to do well. If we're going to use data to make this argument, I would like to add a caveat that the 22 draft is also probably too early to tell, but there are examples to use that are relevant, so I'd like to include them, even if they're taken with a grain of salt. Also, I want to set a baseline. It's a bit much to say we expect big goal scorers and shut down defensemen to provide the same value, so I'd like to look at games played. People who have made it to the league, been in the dressing room, and have time on NHL ice. This eliminates the conversation about positional value, inherent skill differences on lines, and sets a standard of guys who are deemed NHL quality by people in the NHL. Fair?

I want to keep this relevant to teams in a similar trajectory to us (i.e. similar rebuild timeline) and similar draft pick totals. It would be useless to compare Boston to Detroit, given where each team has been for the last 6 years, but I think Montreal and Ottawa are a good place to start. They're in our division, so these are out direct competition, if nothing else. It matters where we are in comparison to them. From the 2019 draft through the 2022 draft, each of these 3 teams had similar numbers of draft picks selected. Well, mostly, Ottawa had some absurd luck that I would like to note, but I suppose that's where we'll start.

We had more picks than either team in the 4-year stretch that we're going to look at. For the table below, I'm going to include how many players drafted played games in the NHL (even just 1) and how many total games were played by each class.

What can we infer from this data? Well obviously it's more likely to have a higher number of games played the further away we are, but some of it is dumb luck. You're telling me Ottawa hit on 100% of their picks to make the NHL in 2019, then 80% the next year? It's silly. Unreasonable. And yet... the games played total in 2019 evened out. It certainly didn't in the 2020 draft, but it's clearly an anomaly. 21 and 22 are a bit more of a regression to the mean, though we see another oddity in Montreal's. All that to say, let's peel back another layer and take out the 1st rounders. We know we've had good first rounders, so let's look at 2-7.

That... hurts. In rounds 2-7 over 4 years, we drafted 5 players that contributed a whopping 108 games played. 103 of them have been from Johannson and Soderblom. In that same time frame, Montreal and Ottawa have approximately doubled the total player count and made a significant increase in the games played, indicating real quality made the roster.

For years, our plan was to stock GR with talent and make them fight for an NHL roster spot. We have been told repeatedly that we are building through the draft, and I believe that to be true, but the success has not matched what we've put in, especially in comparison to other teams around us, in particular the ones we have to compete against to get a playoff spot. Yes, Ottawa getting in now is on the back of their ridiculously strong drafts in 19 and 20. Montreal making it this year is a reflection of consistency and a general average performance in that time. Unfortunately, we have not been anywhere near an acceptable range. Our 1sts have been solid, and I do believe that's a reflection of Yzerman's decision making, but having a systematic failure at this level is not an accident.

I don't think this indicates one person's decision making is at fault. Perhaps we could say it's exclusively on him for being too patient or not making a change in the scouting department sooner. Perhaps it's on him because he isn't letting the kids play, but I don't know if that's a fair criticism. The youth movement we have needed to make the NHL roster just hasn't shown up. Hell, 2 of the games the Wings get credit for from the 2020 draft are Donovan Sobrango, who got both of his NHL games playing for Ottawa and the other 2 are from Chase Bradley, who got them for Colorado. It's not like there's been a glutton of talent blocking them either, when we're running Holl, Gustafsson, and Petry for significant minutes every night. Even if we only look at the forwards, Kasper and Raymond are both looking great, but it's been pulling teeth to find anyone to make an NHL roster, even in a bottom 6 role.

If we give the benefit of the doubt and say William Wallinder or Antti Tuomisto absolutely, 100% makes the NHL team in the fall and plays all 82 games, that still doesn't change how poor it's been. I've got hope for a few of them, Lombardi and Buchelnikov in particular, but we need something more. There's a whole discussion to be had around how you plug those holes, cap management, asset management, etc... but for now, I'd like to stick to a conversation about the scouting department. I'm open to being wrong, but I'd like to open it up to all of you. Do you think there's a problem here? Is it not as much of an issue as I believe, or maybe it's worse? Is it an issue with who we draft, what we look for when we draft, or is it some mix of mismanagement? I'll open the floor to all of you.

TL;DR - Wheel team not good at drafting in rounds 2-7. It has cost us time on our rebuild where it has sped up our competitors. Even being average in this field would probably have gotten us into a playoff position by now.

18x24 Digital Illustration done in Photoshop CC. Final Composition.

I would love forever if Buch came over and is better than the lord and savior of the Canadians Demidov 😂 but soon Ottawa, Detroit and Montreal will be battling for Atlantic crown.

Now, you might ask yourself, what about Compher or Copp? Mediocre. Disappointing. Tarasenko's been terrible. None, however, have actively worsened the opportunity to win like Justin Holl though.

You might ask yourself, why am I pulling from Friday's game now? Because now that my father in law has pulled through his health scare I can start to think about the future.

The sequence on Friday against Carolina brought a perfect example of how Holl needs to no longer be playing professional hockey at any level and should be evaluated for (probably post-concussive) brain damage.

We're a little less than two minutes into the second period. Syncing up the youtube video at 4:09 with the game clock at 18:15, we have the following sequence.

18:14 - Carolina lobs a pass from deep in their own zone towards the neutral zone. Pretty standard stuff, and I've noticed the last few years a greater emphasis on moving the puck through the air as a way of bypassing the forecheck.

18:13 - Puck lands in the neutral zone and Carolina swats it deep into the offensive zone in a beer-league-clumsy dump and chase.

18:11 - Holl, being the near defenseman, goes back to retrieve the puck, at the top of the faceoff circle.

18:10 + 18:09 - Holl gathers the puck and turns up-ice to see what his options are. He's got Cat along the left faceoff circle and Larkin along the right circle, with Gustafsson theoretically covering the Carolina forechecker at the top of the crease.

18:07 - Carolina forechecker puts his stick in the passing lane to Gustafsson I stand corrected, this is AlJo, who shouldn't be getting the pass anyway for multiple reasons. For one thing, you've got the two forwards as mentioned earlier who have at least ten feet of open ice. For another thing, there are children under the age of 10 who know you don't make a contested defensive zone pass up the middle.

18:06 - Not only does Holl try to make the pass anyway but Gustafsson still AlJo, sorry, proceeds to audition for the part of Logan Couture in an upcoming Pavel Datsyuk biopic. He won't get the part, didn't actually fall down, but now instead of running interference on the Carolina forecheck he's going full comedy-of-errors.

18:05 - Holl has realized he's made an error and is adjusting to the puck. Does he follow it to smash the oncoming forward? No. Does he drop to block the shot or extend his stick to disrupt the oncoming forward? No. Any of these is acceptable, so of course he does none of them and simply stands like a pylon, simply wincing back and giving way to the oncoming player as though he's afraid of contact.

18:04 - Low slot uncontested shot, possibly partially screened by Holl. Is it any wonder this one went in when D1 doesn't know how to make an outlet pass or contest a slot rush and D2 is looking like Three Stooges On Ice?

Talk about anything your heart desires. Be polite and upvote everything!

All rules (except #1 and #2) are not applied here. Feel free to post memes, things not related to the Wings, or anything else!

Because we had an extra few copies of our son’s birth announcement, I decided to send the Wings a copy. Received this letter back today with some stickers! This will definitely be going in his baby book.

Second picture was the one of the photos we included! Crocheted newborn outfit is from RaqsArt on Etsy!

Title. I’d love to see us bring up a few more of the prospects and ‘try’ to dump a bad contract or two but genuinely curious who the fan base wants to go after this off season?

I got a Facebook reminder today about the time I went to a Red Wings game around the height of the pandemic. I now live west coast and have been to about double the number of Wings games in San Jose as I've been to in Detroit -- but I was in town in April 2021, and I knew this would be a one-in-a-lifetime experience (or so we all hope!), so my dad and I went to the April 8, 2021 Red Wings-Predators game.

It was a bit of a rainy day and downtown was pretty quiet. I don't remember many people at all outside walking around at the time. We parked a couple blocks away in a separate parking garage -- easy in, no line or anything. (Also easy out at end, absolutely zero wait to exit the garage. Things that never happen normally!) The line to get in at doors-open time, at the one open entrance, just barely reached around the adjacent corner. I haven't been to a game at LCA since (it's the only LCA game I've ever been to, the other two games were at the Joe), but surely the place would be surrounded by crowds for a game any other time.

To get in, we had to complete/fill out some sort of health disclosure form saying we didn't have cold symptoms etc. I think we had to fill it out in advance online, then bring a printed copy with us to be scanned. While inside we had to wear masks of one kind or another, other than when actively eating at our seats.

Once inside -- with ultimately 748 of our closest distanced friends, although the event summary doesn't note Michigan's upper-limit number -- the concourse was almost empty. We had plenty of time to walk the perimeter and see the place (the Howe/Lindsay/Delvecchio statues are all particularly incredible), with as little crowd as you'll ever see in it. Most of the concessions (that were open) were right near the entrance -- we got food during one of the intermissions, and I think we had a craft beer or two at some point. A friend was in the production crew at the time, and I'd messaged him pre-event to say we'd be there and would try to say hi if he was -- he literally ran into us on the concourse as we were walking around (somewhat impressively, as I hadn't seen him in maybe 15 years and we were all masked!) and apologized that he understandably couldn't offer us a behind-the-scenes tour. (I do some fairly lightweight, shoestring-budget live stream production for my church now, and I'm even more interested in this kind of behind-the-scenes stuff now than I would have been then.) I also briefly noticed at one point, as we were walking through the place, Larry Murphy walking from the concourse into the bowl, I assume toward the gondola or so for pregame show.

Seating was as sparse as you'd expect for only 750 people in a venue admitting 19000+ people. Each set of occupied seats was a little cluster, separated by however much distance from nearby clusters. Yes, it was indoors, yes, air flows around, yes to all the ways this wasn't completely risk-free -- but under the circumstances the risks seemed as minimized as feasible while having any audience at all. For my risk tolerance being young and healthy (albeit not yet vaccinated, because availability was nonexistent in the Bay Area unless you jumped through extraordinary hoops I was unable to jump through) it was well more than worth it.

Pregame involved much of what I presume is the usual pregame lights and smoke and pyrotechnics and so on. I've seen uncounted many national anthems on TV broadcasts; this was the first time I got to experience the in-person version. They had a really impressive lighting display running during the national anthem, the vast majority of which (the flag underside the lighting grid is especially cool!) never appears in a broadcast. (I have a representative picture in the attached photos, which might also be the featured post photo depending how Reddit displays it.)

The game itself was pretty even in the first period (I thought maybe slightly tilted in the Wings' favor) after which the game was scoreless, but things fell off a cliff in second and third periods and they ended up losing 7-1. As was normal at the time, the game had artificial pumped-in crowd noise, uncannily delayed from when a real crowd would ooh/aah because some dude somewhere was pushing a button to trigger it.

All in all, game result aside (it's worth noting in the game summary that, if I'm not mistaken, exactly two players on ice that day are still playing with the Wings! our roster is drastically different now from then), it was an incredible experience totally unlike what I'll ever enjoy at a game again. I would recommend everyone try it out if they get the chance, but, well, you know...

I typically wear a medium jersey (23-24 inches pit to pit), but I just came across this $52 Indo-Edge Datsyuk Winter Classic jersey, it’s such a steal, I’m seriously tempted! The problem is, I can’t seem to find a reliable Reebok size chart for it. Every source I check gives a different measurement for XL. Should I grab it anyway and get it tailored to fit?