Detroit Red Wings

TEPID TAKE: The Best Possible Draft Lottery Outcome

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After having time to think about it– the mystery Team E winning the NHL Draft Lottery is the BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOME for the Qualifying Round of the playoff restart.

Yes, it sucks for teams like the Detroit Red Wings and Ottawa Senators to not get a top pick after being terrible this past season. That said, some might say that getting Alexis Lafreniere isn’t going to be the cure-all for those teams. It would be nice, sure, but at the same time– it may not address the needs those teams need in the long-run.

But with Team E winning the Draft Lottery, it will get more people into the Qualifying Round and to pay attention to those who get eliminated. If the NHL and NBC marketing teams were smart, they’d have a little side promotion about how even if you lose out– you might still win with the 1st overall pick in the Draft. It might hook on some people who may not watch the qualifying rounds because it’s teams just getting back going after four months of a layoff, but it adds another thing of weirdness to an already weird timeline we’re living in.

Granted, there’s going to be plenty of conspiracy theorist that the NHL rigged this for certain teams to get a chance should they be eliminated in that qualifier, especially if teams who are already loaded– like Pittsburgh and Edmonton– get the first pick through fate. Even so, though– it would be a nice little touch for teams that are hated because they have so much talent to get more and for fans around the league to have a black-hat villain to look towards.

While this wasn’t the most unconventional Draft Lottery– that is held by the 2005 Lottery– this is probably the most fun. I’m all for chaos and schadenfreude in the the NHL, it makes watching it fun for me. This was the best outcome for the league because of the fact they need all the attention they can get, especially with the pause of the season. To get eyes on the game because the qualifiers will help determine who gets the top prospect of the draft is an amazing gimmick.

It’s easy to understand why people are butt-hurt. It may have looked like a bad idea for the league to have a Draft Lottery with teams who haven’t lost yet getting the top pick, but in the grand schemes– this is the best possible outcome and may translate into more people paying attention to the qualifying rounds when they may not have.

Though, let’s be honest, it might not be a concern at all if the NHLPA doesn’t agree to the season ending or the qualifying round getting stopped due to sickness– but it’s still a nice thought to have that it becomes Mario Kart rules where even if you lose in the playoffs– you could possibly win the top overall pick in the Draft.

Following the Yzer-Manifesto

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There has to be a plan in place in Detroit, doesn’t there?? They were eliminated for what would seem eons ago and looked primed as the favorite for the top pick in the 2020 NHL Draft– should the lottery balls be in their favor.

But thus goes Steve Yzerman and what I can only assume is the plan he has called the Yzer-Manifesto.

With the talent they have offensively, the ability to score should be there with Anthony Mantha, Dylan Larkin, Filip Zadina, and the potential of Robby Fabbri are better than what they’ve put out there…at least some would hope. Maybe an addition here and there is needed, but it’s not much of an overhaul as it is developing together a bit more.

Yet, the biggest part of the Yzer-Manifesto should be working from the goal and work outward. Obviously Jimmy Howard isn’t the future of this team and Jonathan Bernier is the veteran back-up to move forward. There’s plenty of money to be had for the Red Wings, so the idea of bringing in Robin Lehner for big money and term isn’t the worst idea. Of course, Braden Holtby is out there– but his instability this season will make some shy away from signing him. Of course, this is all dependent upon how they feel Filip Larson is progressing or not to make a long-term offer to anyone.

Moving upward, building the defense around Moritz Seider– maybe not for 2020-21, but as a starting point for when Seider does get to the NHL full-time. Joe Hicketts will have his time to shine because he could be a now-or-never situation considering he’s wrapping up his fourth season in Grand Rapids.

The Red Wings are notorious for keeping their prospects down on the farm to really grow, but maybe a new point of the Yzer-Manifesto is to not let the prospects overripe in the AHL and give them a bigger stage to perform on. That could be a case for Seider and Jared McIssac to maybe break the cycle of prospects and only be in the AHL for a year, two years at most.

Defensively on the free agent market, the idea of Tyson Barrie is a nice one, especially in the cap crunch the Maple Leafs are in– though if it boosts up as much as they think it will– maybe that’ll be enough to get Barrie under the Leafs banner for years…but you never know in this crazy business.

It is just Steve Yzerman’s first year with a team who has been trending down for a few seasons. This being the rock bottom situation may allow him to sit back and write out his Yzer-Manifesto from atop the Little Caesars Arena, trying to make HockeyTown, USA a thing again and more than just a night for teams to start their back-up goalie against.

TEPID TAKE: Idiot Coaches

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Let’s start off by saying Mike Babcock and Bill Peters are scum as people. When you’re a head coach at any level, you’re job is to teach and nurture players to get better. While a little “tough love” may be needed, the psychological damage and utter disregard for players as humans is something that shouldn’t be tolerated under any guise.

As always, though, you’ll have people either try to defend them or say they didn’t see or hear anything like that when they were around them. I won’t call them enablers because there’s an off chance that they weren’t focused on anything aside from their goal.

That all said, though– let’s look deeper into the whole situation because there’s a lot of former players coming out and saying that players would go to the GM regularly to have said coach fired or their concerns were brought up to no change being made. This is where things get the murkiest for the higher ups for not doing their leg work on this. Carlo Colaiacovo said that some players from the Red Wings went to Ken Holland with concerns of Babcock only to be shuttered out. No word of if the Edmonton media has pressured Holland about this claim. Not only that, but then Carolina GM Ron Francis was made aware of the physical altercations between Peters and players. The result was a contract extension. Francis hasn’t made public comment yet, as he is currently at the helm of the Seattle franchise.

This is not to say that players should be in charge of who they want to coach, but if they’re coming to management with solid evidence of what’s going wrong and management doesn’t bat an eye to the situation– that’s just shitty management and shitty people in those management roles.

Both Babcock and Peters held significant roles with Hockey Canada, as well– Babcock coaching multiple Olympic teams, World Juniors, and World Championships, while Peters was a U18 Championships coach, a World Championship coach, and assistant for the World Cup of Hockey. Whether or not Hockey Canada will look into their dealing deeper, who knows if the short time those teams were together if anything happened or if because it’s a such a tight ship with people looking over the shoulder all the time, these guys actually had to act professional in that time span.

The era of recycling coaches will hopefully come in an end because of this, regardless of what “brilliance” may be provided. The recycling should have never happened either. There’s plenty of good coaches out there, but teams are too lazy to actually scout them or give them the chance in the “win now” mentality that is brought to them by ownership; so they go with the easy fix or a known commodity– due diligence be damned. With all of this coming to the surface– you can bet that the process of selecting a coach will be thorough as hell now, as it should have been already.

As far as these two are concerned, I could see Peters being without a job indefinitely…but it’s a harder sell for me on Babcock. Regardless of the mental trauma he put on players, Mike Keenan still got work well past his due date. That’s something that will always tell me to never say never when it comes to coaches being disgraced out of the business. Honestly, Babcock could land a job sooner rather than later because hockey is stupid and lazy like that.

Better Know An Affiliate: Detroit Red Wings

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AHL: Grand Rapids Griffins (38-27-7-4, 4th in Central, lost in first round)
TEAM LINEAGE: The Griffins have been the Red Wings’ affiliate for 17 years now, which is the second longest in Red Wings history– the first being the Adirondack Red Wings from 1979 until 1999. Oddly enough, between that 1999-2002 time, the Red Wings shared affiliation with other teams in the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks and Manitoba Moose. Prior to that– it was all over the place like the Kansas City Red Wings, Kansas City Blues, Tidewater Wings, Viriginia Wings, Baltimore Clippers, London (UK) Lions, San Diego Gulls, and Cleveland Barons to name a very few.
FREQUENT FLYER CANDIDATES: The Red Wings are very cautious with their prospects, but with a new GM in Steve Yzerman and a rebuild happening; maybe some of these guys will get moved up quicker. Filip Zadina could make the team out of camp, but if not– he will be the first call-up for any injury. Though he missed last season due to injury, Evgeny Svechnikov has some high upside to him, which may make him a desirable mark to shuttle to and from Detroit. The dark horse blue liner could be Vili Saarijarvi, who has taken a while to develop through the system and may get some looks this season.

ECHL: Toledo Walleye (40-23-6-3, 2nd in Central, lost in Kelly Cup final)
TEAM LINEAGE: It’ll be the 10th season of affiliation for the Walleye and Red Wings, which the Red Wings third time in the Toledo market, as they had the Storm as a secondary affiliate from 1991 until 1999 and then in 2000 until 2007. There were also stops with the Louisiana IceGators, Jacksonville Bullets, Detroit Falcons, Flint Spirits, and Johnstown Wings to name some of their stops.
NOTABLE GRADUATES: Among the graduates many would know, Luke Glendening was one of the bigger names to move onward, as is Petr Mrazek. Brian Lashoff and Tom McCollum also toiled through the system to get to the pros from Toledo, while players like TJ Hensick have used Toledo as a place to play at the sunset of their career.

2018-19 Preview….Kind Of: Eastern Conference Edition

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Okay– time to shake the dust off this thing and get into some NHL previewing. We’ve got 31 teams in four divisions, so the only way to do this right is to do it as half-assed as ever. If you’ve been following me for the last 17 years of writing– you know it’s the only way to go.

First, the Metropolitan Division; the division with the worst name, but boasting the last three Stanley Cup Champions. The Washington Capitals kept the band together, save for Philipp Grubauer. Other than that– the big concern here is the short off-season (which has been seen with the lack of Devante Smith-Pelly), but the hunger to keep the winning going could fuel this team. Alex Ovechkin is back in the best shape of his life part 2, while the rest of the team– despite a subpar preseason– will be looking to keep the good vibes going into this season.

It won’t be easy– the Penguins will want to get some revenge on the Caps since they won the Cup and rekindled a bit of the rivalry. With a longer time to rest, you can bet Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Phil Kessel will be ready– but will Matt Murray be durable or not?? The Columbus Blue Jackets will want revenge on the Caps, but their house is a mess with both Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky really not having a great off-season and signalling their tenure in C-bus may be soon over.

The New York/New Jersey area is full of “The hell??” vibes, especially with the Rangers retooling rather than rebuilding, the Islanders losing John Tavares, but gaining Lou Lamoriello, and the Devils being the best team out of the three since they made the playoffs last year. The Rangers will go as far as Henrik Lundqvist takes them, the Devils will have to rely heavily on Taylor Hall to keep his MVP form, while the Islanders will be…something. They at least have Barry Trotz and a whole slew of….oh, right they sent a lot of their prospects back to Bridgeport. Oh boy.

That leaves Philadelphia and Carolina. The biggest thing for the Flyers this offseason was the introduction of Gritty the Mascot. While James van Riemsdyk is back, that’s not really getting the juices flowing when you don’t know who will end up as your goalie by the Thanksgiving break. The Hurricanes have a revamped everything– new owner, GM, coaches…it’s a new team….minus the same Scott Darling, the same lack of depth scoring, the lack of stable defense. Maybe Dougie Hamilton can change that, but maybe not. A near-perfect preseason gives them some momentum…as much as you can with preseason results.

When you think of the Atlantic Division, you think of two tire-fires and a team who is planning the parade route thanks to a single signing of a local player. First, the Maple Leafs, who have already been given the Stanley Cup by their fans and some pundits due to the John Tavares signing….totally forgetting their defense is suspect at best and Freddy Andersen can only do so much with that suspect defense in front of him. But– it’s Toronto, so hype is always around.

The other Canadian teams in the division are just plain garbage. Ottawa is just bad news all around thanks to the Erik Karlsson deal– which sealed the summer of drama for the team– on top of Eugene Melnyk not getting out of his own way. Montreal, however, traded their captain and a young forward while also naming a guy who has been more injured than not during his Canadiens tenure the captain of the team. Wonder if Carey Price is regretting signing long-term or if he’s just getting his money and not caring about the outcome.

Looking around, the Buffalo Sabres are poised for either a break out year or another disappointing season looking towards the lottery. Rasmus Dahlin aside, the attitude of Jack Eichel seems to be about winning now, Carter Hutton could be a breakout start in a starters role, the the Sabres could just decided to say the hell with it and go balls to the wall in order to win. That or they’ll have to deal with a lot of injuries and then get frustrated and fold up into a shell again.

While Tampa Bay didn’t lose too many big names, the loss of Steve Yzerman could very well hurt in the long-run. Though, Julien BriseBois has been under Yzerman’s learning tree, the moves that Yzerman were able to get may just be the respect factor of the man who is revered in the hockey world. Yet, a team that was one win away from the Cup Final shouldn’t have to do much more than they did, especially in a weak division.

People sleep on Boston a little too much, especially when you think they have Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand on their offensive side. Tuukka Rask is due for a bounce-back year, though the defense will rely heavily on Charlie McAvoy, especially with Torey Krug out for the start of the season. It will be scoring by committee after the first line in Boston, but Bruce Cassidy seems like he can holster all the firepower he can in order to get this team back to the playoffs.

Florida and Detroit are also in this division. The Panthers keep getting closer and closer then further away, while the Red Wings could be in the midst of a long playoff drought in their new building. Of the two, MAYBE the Panthers could come close to being in the Wild Card discussion, but it’s a very long-shot at that.