This is our best top 6 (at forward) since.....?

[Gniwder]

Tarasenko is more of a 3rd liner at this stage so I’m not sure it’s as good as people think. I don’t think he’s much of an upgrade on Perron. We also lost depth scoring in Sprong and Fabbri and replaced that with Berggren and Watson, so IMO the forwards are a wash compared to last season.

Tank had 54 pts last (regular) season, more than Compher. On a deep team like FLA, he's a 3rd liner, but if you look at the league as a whole he's also a low end 2nd liner. He's not much of an upgrade, but at least he's faster than Perron, and he's only 32.

All in all, it's prob a wash like you said. Defense is probably a wash as well, slight upgrade with Talbot in goal.

 

[jkutswings]

Last year stats:

Perron 17-30-47 with a -12 and 55 PIM.
Tarasenko 23-32-55 with a +13 and 12 PIM.

Even if Tank drops in production, he will likely be caught out of position less often and take fewer penalties, so I still count him as an upgrade over Perron.

As for Detroit's top six overall, I'm whelmed. The entire second line are placeholders, so they'll do what they're supposed to and hold a place until the kids are ready to be even better.

 

[Pavels Dog]

I think some people are underestimating how long it's been since we actually had a really good top 6. Datsyuk & Z carried that group for a loooong time. So it's basically going back in time to a point where you think the quality of Dats+Z was still so good that it outweighs the fact that we are no longer putting players like Cleary, Abdelkader, Miller, Weiss or Nielsen in the top 6.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this might be the best top 6 we've had since 2008-09.

That year we had:

Datsyuk: 97 points
Zetterberg 73 points
Hossa: 71 points
Franzen: 59 points
Hudler: 57 points
Samuelsson/Cleary/Filppula: 40 points

This year I could see:

Raymond: 90 points
Larkin: 80 points
Debrincat: 73 points
Kane: 65 points
Tarasenko: 52 points
Compher: 45 points

It's not apples-to-apples but that was a year when we had a 40 goal scorer and 3 other guys over 30 goals. Would anyone be shocked if Debrincat pots 40 and Larkin+Raymond+Kane all get 30? A lot has to go right but we finally have that kind of potential.

 

[Henkka]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this might be the best top 6 we've had since 2008-09.

It's not apples-to-apples but that was a year when we had a 40 goal scorer and 3 other guys over 30 goals.

Would anyone be shocked if Debrincat pots 40 and Larkin+Raymond+Kane all get 30? A lot has to go right but we finally have that kind of potential.

It's possible but the scoring era was different. Nowadays points are much easier to score.

Put that 2008-09 team to 2024-25 season and Hossa will score 50 and those three 30-goal scorers will pot 35-40 goals.

 

[Pavels Dog]

It's possible but the scoring era was different. Nowadays points are much easier to score.

Put that 2008-09 team to 2024-25 season and Hossa will score 50 and those three 30-goal scorers will pot 35-40 goals.

I'm not saying it's on the 08-09 level, but the best since then.

 

[Oddbob]

Compher is a 3rd/4th line C playing a 2nd line role. If we had a good center there I would agree but that downgrades the line significantly

Compher is not even close 4th line player.

 

[Gniwder]

Compher is not even close 4th line player.

Yeah, not with Copp hanging around

 

[Axel Sandy Pelikan]

OK, normally I try to leave my questions til GDTs but...

Can someone HERE (i.e. not a copy-pasta from NHL.com) give me a quick explanation of the difference between wingers and center? I understand the positioning but hockey is so reactive I don't get the "he's the playmaker and they're the shooters" or whatever.

Thanks!

Centers take the majority of face offs and are responsible, usually for the middle of the ice. Between the circles in front of net on defense and cycling around the net on offense.

Wingers are on the flanks and usually are responsible defensively for guarding the point. Some different systems utilize them differently, but basically, split the zone into a pentagon on both ends and it’s a circle of responsibility at each end. Wings at the points, d in the corners, and c between circles on D and vice versa on O.

Playmaking vs sniper vs power forward is based upon the talents of the player. Igor Larionov was a playmaking C because his vision was outstanding. Kozlov a sniper because his shot was deadly. Fedorov a hybrid of it all because he was fast, big, had a wonderful shot and great hands.

 

[RedHawkDown]

Last year stats:

Perron 17-30-47 with a -12 and 55 PIM.
Tarasenko 23-32-55 with a +13 and 12 PIM.

Even if Tank drops in production, he will likely be caught out of position less often and take fewer penalties, so I still count him as an upgrade over Perron.

As for Detroit's top six overall, I'm whelmed. The entire second line are placeholders, so they'll do what they're supposed to and hold a place until the kids are ready to be even better.

Tarasenko was in far better teams

 

[jkutswings]

Tarasenko was in far better teams

He was plus zero for his time in Florida. All 13 of that positive differential came from his games with Ottawa, who finished with 13 fewer points than Detroit. And even if I extrapolate his 12 penalty minutes in 57 games with the Senators out to a full season, that's still a significantly lower rate than Perron had in Detroit.

I'm not saying Tank will be stellar here. I'm saying that even with him taking a step back, Perron set a low bar for overall play of a second line forward.