What do you think of the team?

[jkutswings]

i agree, but the assets you're willing to give up won't return the players you want them to

I won't dispute that we have underperformed in the 2nd round for a while, but you still need to find the right trade for the right player. I absolutely would not advocate moving the picks simply to move picks. Nor do I think we should be afraid to make them if we can't find a suitable trade. The further we get along in this rebuild, the more picks I expect to see moved so I do think you will get your wish at some point.

Nobody is asking to throw away picks or make trades just for the sake of it. But every year decent moves are made by other teams with manageable price tags.

DISCLAIMER: I am not advocating for ANY of the specific players listed below. This is just a sampling of the last 3 trade deadlines to indicate the ballpark of the TIER of player (bolded, talent level at the time of the trade) I would pursue, with actual price tags included in the trades made.

2021-22:
* Red Wings get Jake Walman, Oskar Sundqvist, and a 2nd rounder in 2023. Blues get Nick Leddy and Luke Witkowski.

2022-23:
* Bruins get Tyler Bertuzzi. Red Wings get a conditional 1st rounder in 2024 and a 4th rounder in 2025.
* Penguins get Mikael Granlund. Predators get a 2nd rounder in 2023.
* Senators get Jakob Chychrun. Coyotes get a 1st rounder in 2023, a 2nd rounder in 2024, and a 2nd rounder in 2026.

2023-24:
* Golden Knights get Tomas Hertl, a 3rd rounder in 2025, and a 3rd rounder in 2027. Sharks get David Edstrom and a 1st rounder in 2025.
* Hurricanes get Jake Guentzel and Ty Smith. Penguins get Michael Bunting, Vasily Ponomarev, Ville Koivunen, the rights to Cruz Lucius, a conditional 1st rounder in 2024 and a conditional 5th rounder in 2024.
* Golden Knights get Noah Hanifin. Flames get a 1st rounder in 2025, Daniil Miromanov, and a conditional 3rd rounder in 2025. Flyers get a 5th rounder in 2024.
* Canucks get Elias Lindholm. Flames get Andrei Kuzmenko, the rights to Hunter Brzustewicz and Joni Jurmo, a 1st rounder in 2024 and a conditional pick in 2024.

Plus Karlsson and Debrincat were traded during the previous off season (each a special case, but these things can and do happen when teams are hunting for it).

My point is that Detroit should be shopping for reasonable additions, and it is absolutely possible to go after a defenseman resembling a Hanifin or a Chychrun without emptying the cupboard. Same goes for a forward like a Lindholm or a Guentzel. (Yes, the younger the targeted player, the more the price will increase. But if Detroit finds a good but not elite player in their mid- to late-twenties, it's not going to cost either 5 first rounders or every single prospect we care about.)

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

Nobody is asking to throw away picks or make trades just for the sake of it. But every year decent moves are made by other teams with manageable price tags.

DISCLAIMER: I am not advocating for ANY of the specific players listed below. This is just a sampling of the last 3 trade deadlines to indicate the ballpark of the TIER of player (bolded, talent level at the time of the trade) I would pursue, with actual price tags included in the trades made.

2021-22:
* Red Wings get Jake Walman, Oskar Sundqvist, and a 2nd rounder in 2023. Blues get Nick Leddy and Luke Witkowski.

2022-23:
* Bruins get Tyler Bertuzzi. Red Wings get a conditional 1st rounder in 2024 and a 4th rounder in 2025.
* Penguins get Mikael Granlund. Predators get a 2nd rounder in 2023.
* Senators get Jakob Chychrun. Coyotes get a 1st rounder in 2023, a 2nd rounder in 2024, and a 2nd rounder in 2026.

2023-24:
* Golden Knights get Tomas Hertl, a 3rd rounder in 2025, and a 3rd rounder in 2027. Sharks get David Edstrom and a 1st rounder in 2025.
* Hurricanes get Jake Guentzel and Ty Smith. Penguins get Michael Bunting, Vasily Ponomarev, Ville Koivunen, the rights to Cruz Lucius, a conditional 1st rounder in 2024 and a conditional 5th rounder in 2024.
* Golden Knights get Noah Hanifin. Flames get a 1st rounder in 2025, Daniil Miromanov, and a conditional 3rd rounder in 2025. Flyers get a 5th rounder in 2024.
* Canucks get Elias Lindholm. Flames get Andrei Kuzmenko, the rights to Hunter Brzustewicz and Joni Jurmo, a 1st rounder in 2024 and a conditional pick in 2024.

Plus Karlsson and Debrincat were traded during the previous off season (each a special case, but these things can and do happen when teams are hunting for it).

My point is that Detroit should be shopping for reasonable additions, and it is absolutely possible to go after a defenseman resembling a Hanifin or a Chychrun without emptying the cupboard. Same goes for a forward like a Lindholm or a Guentzel. (Yes, the younger the targeted player, the more the price will increase. But if Detroit finds a good but not elite player in their mid- to late-twenties, it's not going to cost either 5 first rounders or every single prospect we care about.)

We should always be looking to improve the roster through trades. That is hardly a hot take. Unfortunately, most of those guys you listed were pending UFAs at the time of those trades. I don't think it is nearly as easy as you think it is.

 

[jkutswings]

We should always be looking to improve the roster through trades. That is hardly a hot take. Unfortunately, most of those guys you listed were pending UFAs at the time of those trades. I don't think it is nearly as easy as you think it is.

I said, "Detroit should be shopping for reasonable additions, and it is absolutely possible to go after a defenseman resembling a Hanifin or a Chychrun without emptying the cupboard. Same goes for a forward like a Lindholm or a Guentzel."

Should + absolutely possible <> easy.
But Yzerman isn't paid to do what's easy.

Barring something crazy - like multiple prospects in the minors hit another stratosphere in the next two months and look ready for the NHL next year - I think it's absolutely fair to consider it a disappointment if Yzerman does not land at least one quality long term player from outside the organization prior to the start of next season.

 

[Coach Reggie Dunlop]

I love the pieces we have in place, I still think we are one young dman and young forward trade away from being a wagon. We’ve got the supporting prospects, we have the high end talented budding superstars in Raymond seider and edvinsson, obviously I can be hard on guys like copp and Chiarot etc but they won’t be here long term and seem fine for now. As I said in the beginning of the season, this roster isn’t great, but it was no where near as bad as they were playing. It’s clear Lalonde had us going in the wrong direction for sure.

 

[norrisnick]

Yzerman probably wants to land one more piece more than anyone of us want to. The right opportunity doesn't always present itself. Trades made by other teams aren't always available for us. Remember when Columbus wanted Fippula+ for Fedorov in '08? Caps got him for Ted Ruth. Who you say? Exactly.

 

[Game suspension]

Team needs a big time shake up. And probably through new eyes. Why Raz and Valeno are still on the team is beyond me, They have chemistry with ?

The D is such a joke that getting Gus looks like a good free agent pick up lol.

Who is the goalie again ?

 

[Oddbob]

I feel the same about this team as I did at season start. Not enough talent to be an actual playoff team and the blueline is a major reason why. If the goalies aren't amazing, the non Seider blueliners make too many mistakes and/or suck completely. Ed is a rookie so that is ok if he makes mistakes, but the rest are simply not good enough for this to be a playoff defence.

Steve said if everything went right and everyone played to expectations, he expected to compete for a wildcard spot, but that seems like a silly and wrong expectation, as that is never going to be the case on any team. There will always be those who under perform, which can be overcome if you have alot of top tier talent to make up for it, or guys way over-performing, but we don't. All it takes is one Tank providing next to nothing and the offence is that much worse off, and Petry and Holl in particular at best were going to be meh and at worst a trainwreck over a full season. That doesn't even touch that of course injuries are going to come no matter who or when.

I legit think he expected Ed and AlJo to be the lone improvement on the blueline and that they would be able to carry more than they have and that guys like Veleno and Ras and Berg were going to replace the offence we lost.

I honestly think that anytime in the last month Steve should have improved the blueline, especially after bringing in the new coach and the team playing better. Imagine just getting Holl out of the everyday lineup for even just a solid replacement.

 

[Pavels Dog]

I legit think he expected Ed and AlJo to be the lone improvement on the blueline and that they would be able to carry more than they have and that guys like Veleno and Ras and Berg were going to replace the offence we lost.

He obviously targeted Trouba and Stamkos, we know that.

 

[Oddbob]

He obviously targeted Trouba and Stamkos, we know that.

Yes, but since the offseason he hasn't made any moves. He also didn't go after other better targets when those didn't work. Our blueline is a major hindrance to this team, as Petry should be like a 30-40 games at most 6th D and Holl should only play if other 6th D are hurt and yet they are both apart of our top 6 on a night to night basis. Also telling that none of the youngsters (Wallinder etc,) are replacing them which tells me they aren't that great either, as really it shouldn't be hard to be better than Petry or Holl. Gus is also a 3rd member of that top 6 and while he is playing better than his first 20 games or so, he is at best a 3rd pair guy who needs to be sheltered 5 on 5, which can't really happen here, when Chiarot is sadly our 3rd best blueliner. It also means Mo never gets any easy shifts like other top d get, because he has to cover all the tough challenges because there is no one else.

When we started playing better, to me that should have been incentive to add someone better if the goal is indeed trying to make the playoffs. Maybe he tried but I don't get the sense he did.

Now the honeymoon period is over with Todd and with Ott and Mtl kind of screwing us as they also got hot and now we are basically back where we were before the coaching change in the standings.

 

[jkutswings]

He obviously targeted Trouba and Stamkos, we know that.

Right. But there have been times that this franchise has had a very lofty Plan A (Suter and Parise, Stamkos, Stamkos Part 2) and seemingly no Plan B. There should be another handful of targets (free agents, possible trades, etc.) if and when the first option falls through.

I can ask the homecoming queen to the dance. But I should realize there's a chance she will say no, and my next thought shouldn't be, "Well I guess I'll just stay home then."

 

[19 for president]

While I am glad to see us with a coach that can evaluate and make adjustments we still have a pretty lousy D and a very flawed offense.

Seider- Top Pair dman, I'd argue top 15 in the league.
Ed- Top 4 dman 75% of the time. Other 25% of the time he is a rookie making rookie mistakes. He has played even better than expected.
Chiarot- Pretty much back to year 1 Chiarot. Playing him with Seider remains a bad option, but I get why it is happening with the D that has been constructed. Should be 3rd pairing
Aljo- Playing pretty solid with Ed now after not looking like an NHL dman under Lalonde. Curious to see if he can keep it up.
Petry, Gus, Holl- Trash

Seider needs a partner. Walman was our best internal chance for this season and he was traded. I don't have an issue with him being traded except we did nothing to replace him. If Ed were not massively over performing expectations for a rookie, we'd be complete trash as a defensive unit. Overall the unit still has too low of a panic threshold and has periods where they cannot execute a basic zone exit strategy.

Offensively we have some really solid parts in Larkin, Kasper, Ray, Kane (now that he cares again) and DBC. They aren't guys that are going to score a lot of dirty goals though outside of Kasper. This team's offensive strengths are the PP and scoring on breakout plays. We don't get a lot of breakout plays because of our D's inability to execute a simple breakout. Ras, Fisher, Veleno, Copp, Motte have almost zero offensive ability. Compher and Tank have some but have been largely ineffective. We don't get a lot of offensive help/ activation from our D either. Seider is trying but its hard to jump into the play and cover for Chia. Ed/Aljo is probably our best pair at this, but again 2 rookies. Without d activation and better board/ net play this team will continue to struggle 5 on 5 offensively.

Goaltending has been what I'd expect. Mostly decent, but certainly not going to consistently win you games. If we had a better defense Lyon/Talbot would be a fine platoon.

Priority for the near future should be finding a Seider a solid defensive partner. If Seider can start consistently jumping into players we'll start to see the Larkin/Ray and DBC/Kane pairs get a lot more odd man rushes. Getting a guy like ASP into the lineup next year, even as a 3rd pair guy should also really help or D activation. Puck movement is going to be key for this team go forward. Outside of like MBN we don't have a ton of big physical top 6 guys in the system, so we are going to largely have to rely on skating and passing for offense creation.