Dabura

I just realized we don't have a general rumors thread. (Well, not on the front page.) So here's a general rumors thread.

Injury-prone; missed at least 30 games in each of the past three seasons. And he's just not an Yzerman-type defenseman (e.g. Trouba).

We don't - and almost certainly won't - have any generational talent. I've long since accepted that. It is what it is. My thing is this: If we're gonna do the win-by-committee approach...and we're eyeing the playoffs...and we don't have a particularly deep team (the kind of team that can do the win-by-committee thing)...then we need to load up on really good talent from outside the system. That'll make us competitive now, and foster a winning culture for the young guns, and keep pressure off said young guns. The key is...you have to actually do it. You have to lean into it. If you half-ass a win-by-committee approach, the team will suck and everyone's time and money is wasted. You always need to be on the ball. There's no "Well, maybe we take a step back this year, but it'd be worth it in the long run, because we have some good-not-great prospects coming in four years." That's dumb. I get frustrated when I feel like Yzerman's taking his foot off the gas in that regard. I know that sounds like I'm just an instant gratification junkie (guilty as charged, I suppose), but it really is more than that. I really don't think treading water is an option, if win-by-committee is the model. If we had two Raymonds and two Seiders and a 2C who's better than Compher, that'd be one thing. But, well, we don't. Tarasenko's a good add. If we add a really good defenseman, I'm happy. Fingers crossed.

The rebuild is in a bad, bad place right now.

Me getting excited about the rebuild every few months:

Yes, Elliotte Friedman just confirmed. Wow!

Dare we dream?????

Well, yeah. I heard MBN banged Corey Perry's mom. All he does is win. It's incredible.

The HYPE! rises.

https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/619176/michael-brandsegg-nygard

I don't wanna HYPE! this kid up TOO much and I know I'm really banging this drum here...but it's wild how much hate I'm seeing for this pick. And 99% of it's because we didn't take Eiserman. Maybe Eiserman's the better prospect. Maybe he's gonna be the better player. I don't know. No one does. What I do know is there's risk with players like Eiserman. He was available at 15 because lots of other people passed on him. And they passed on him because of the risk. I actually don't feel like finding pure scorers is a huge concern for us. Larkin scores. Raymond just put up 72 points. There's always trades and free agents. We pulled Kane out of our ass and he scored at a point-per-game clip. I think players like the player MBN has the potential to be are arguably harder to find and arguably more valuable than the player Eiserman could be. Like I said a few posts back, it's rare to find a two-way power forward with a lethal shot. How many of those can you even name off the top of your head? So in that sense, I kinda feel like MBN is a bigger "swing for the fences" pick than Eiserman would've been. I'm not one of those "TRUST THE YZERPLAN" bros. They annoy me. I just think most of the people complaining about this pick haven't actually researched the player. Because, again, he's pretty much the player they want.

Compher but with Sprong's shot.

Need

Imagine being upset with this pick lol https://dobberprospects.com/player/michael-brandsegg-nygard/

Having Kane AND Stamkos would be pure unadulterated chaos on so many levels. The final scores of all our games would be, like, 10-9. It'd be antithetical to everything Yzerman and Lalonde have preached (re: needing to improve defensively), but it'd be so much fun lol

It's rare that a hard-nosed, 200-pound, 200-foot player can shoot the puck like this kid can. It's exciting because a hard-nosed, 200-pound, 200-foot player should have no problem putting himself in a position to score. Usually it's "He can shoot, but he's soft, so he isn't getting to the prime scoring areas" or "He lives in the prime scoring areas, but he's a grinder, so he can't convert."

We stan a beautiful African-Norwegian kween. Yaaaaaas

Agreed. Playoffs are the expectation now. Rookies can play, but they won't be asked to shoulder the burden of those expectations. Problem is, we discovered this team lives and dies based on one single veteran leader (Larkin). So that has to be addressed. And it seems Yzermanager's pretty hellbent on doing just that. Which makes me happy. Goaltending's also crucial, but maybe not as important as giving this team some more leadership and steadiness and confidence and swagger. (Though, I guess that and goaltending aren't exactly mutually exclusive.) I mean, sure - ideally we have a superstar prospect kicking down the door and/or we add Guentzel and Roy. But we don't have the former, and I don't get the sense that we've become a realistic destination for non-flawed marquee UFAs. So we have to work with what's actually available. And, with the collapse at the front of our minds, that means (flawed) leaders like the captain of the Rangers and the captain of the Lightning. Does Trouba suck? Yeah, kinda. Is Stamkos - at this stage of his career - a power play specialist who's gonna take exactly zero reps at center because he can't play defense? Yeah, I suppose. But there's a human element to this. We saw it in small bursts with Kane. If you put *STEVEN STAMKOS* in our top 6 (which means no Kane, realistically), that's what I call "introducing exotic energy" - and I'd expect the team to respond in a positive way, like with Kane. Even if all he's doing is helping the power play, that could be enough to get us into the playoffs. We're not getting into the playoffs without solid special teams. Trouba's big and physical and dirty. This sounds like cope, but, honestly, we could use some big and physical and dirty. He's not gonna beat you into a pulp, but I'd like to think there's a bit of a Kronwall factor where players don't feel 100% comfortable crossing our blue line or going into our corners because there's a possibility you'll catch a cement elbow from a psychopath (or his 6'6 D partner will sit on you). I know "being hard to play against" in "the new NHL" means you have real good fancy stats - but there's still a place for "Hey, my teammate just leveled that guy who took a shot at our captain and now I wanna level someone too. Let's f***ing go, I'm scoring the OT winner!" Hockey is still a game of momentum swings. Little things still matter. In the age of parity, I'd argue they matter as much as they ever have. (See: missing out on the playoffs because of a tiebreaker.) tl;dr F*** this league, we're gonna do a sequel to the 2002 team one way or another. F***ing candy-ass cap league.

People are saying MBN's another safe, underwhelming, high-floor-low-ceiling Euro and that Yzerman needs to cut it out with this crap. I get the frustration, but, to me, MBN's actually pretty close to what these people are clamoring for. Good size (not very tall, but he's got meat on his bones). Plays big boy pants North American hockey. Good at both ends of the ice. Can play in all situations (PK). Lethal shot. So basically: a modern power forward who probably won't take the usual 20 years to break into the NHL, given the selling points I just highlighted.

Bronze egg n-word.

Hearing the Wings are looking at bringing back Teemu Pulkkinen. Could be risky, but Elliotte Freidman noted that Pulkkinen has put on 400 lbs, so he may be better equipped to handle the rough stuff than he was before. 9 yrs x $4 billion should get it done. Mike Grindline McAllister Timbits Ciravelli (TSNCNBCESPN Ontario) believes the Wings have expressed interest in legendary basketball player Michael Jordan. Though Jordan has never played hockey, he is quite tall. Could be a good add, given Husso's injury problems, though Yzerman has said he expects Husso to be fully healthy come training camp.

It's possible - perhaps even likely - that there are unspoken agreements about such matters. That is: There's some dirty laundry you don't air (if only for legal reasons). ALRIGHT JAKE GIVE IT UP I KNOW IT'S YOU. WHAT ARE YOU DOING POSTING ON LGW.COM?

OK, you're right, Walman is in very good standing with everyone in the league and that's why we traded Walman and a 2nd for future considerations. It makes much more sense that this is 4D chess and that Grier is going to do us a super-big solid on the d-low. Sarcasm aside, I'm not saying the 4D chess angle is totally unreasonable. I just think the damaged goods angle fits perfectly. And I think it's borderline-incredible that so many people aren't even considering it as a possible explanation.

No one came out and said Vrana had a drug problem...and then it was announced that he had a drug problem. It's entirely possible I'm wrong and Walman isn't damaged goods. But if he's damaged goods and Yzerman was desperate to unload him and he knew GMs wouldn't take him for free...this is exactly what that'd look like.