2023 Offseason Thread

[mackel 737]

On 9/22/2023 at 10:52 PM, Barrie said:

I think the Wings are going to surprise a lot of people this year. The people I listen too, other than Damien Cox, no one is mentioning the Wings. All 4 forward lines, and 3 defensive lines are solid. With Boston, Tampa, and Toronto, all on the decline, the Wings will be fighting for a playoff spot.

If the Wings start out strong, you'll hear members of the media say, "Uh yeah, yeah, I knew the Wings improved in the offseason".

I like to talk about the Leafs, but even with a new GM, they still don't understand they need defensemen. They keep talking about grit, but with all that skill, they need another puck moving defenseman to get the puck to Matthews and Marner, and play big minutes. Bertuzzi and Domi aren't the answer. I don't know what fans are expecting from those two. They really aren't big guys.

Anyway it's better to not have attention going into the season. Buffalo and Ottawa have the pressure, the Wings can start the season loose, and ready.

Maybe I'm reading too much into preseason action... BUT I think you're onto something here.  The system and play looks "tight" I think the boys could really surprise.  I'm also hoping some younger guys get meaningful time in the NHL like Soda, Kasper, etc

[bIueadams 776]

1 hour ago, mackel said:

Maybe I'm reading too much into preseason action... BUT I think you're onto something here.  The system and play looks "tight" I think the boys could really surprise.  I'm also hoping some younger guys get meaningful time in the NHL like Soda, Kasper, etc

Its too bad we didnt get Elmers bro, the goalie for Chicago. He looks okay out there.

[kipwinger 8,675]

2 hours ago, mackel said:

Maybe I'm reading too much into preseason action... BUT I think you're onto something here.  The system and play looks "tight" I think the boys could really surprise.  I'm also hoping some younger guys get meaningful time in the NHL like Soda, Kasper, etc

We were on the cusp of the playoffs last season and we got better in every single area of the game via UFA/Trades. Plus we have younger players taking meaningful steps forward (Raymond, Ras, Seider, Berggren). Plus we have blue chip prospects knocking on the door and more coming behind them. Plus we have excellent cap structure.

The only people not seeing it for what it really is are those folks that think WHERE a guy was drafted matters more than what they've done since. This is going to be a really good team this year and I don't mind going out on a limb and saying we're going to beat the Floridas, Tampas, Bostons, and Torontos just as often as they're going to beat us.

[Akakabuto 1,831]

1 hour ago, kipwinger said:

The only people not seeing it for what it really is are those folks that think WHERE a guy was drafted matters more than what they've done since.

draft doomers gtfo

[Akakabuto 1,831]

Was running Vrana out of town a mistake? I wonder what he did to piss off mgmt so bad. The guy is looking hot in preseason fo the Blews. 

[diehardredwingsfan58 157]

Even Tage Thompson said look out for Detroit, He said they're going to be a real power house this year.

[bIueadams 776]

7 hours ago, Akakabuto said:

Was running Vrana out of town a mistake? I wonder what he did to piss off mgmt so bad. The guy is looking hot in preseason fo the Blews. 

Speculation on my part, but I think he spent the summer abusing drugs, came into the season out of shape, and then abused the player rehab program to remedy that. 

When I say he abused the rehab program i mean he spent way longer in it than he should have. Cause he did. Most players spend 30 days in the program. Vrana spent like 3 months in it. And his longtime gf was vacationing all over Europe throughout that 3 months... i highly doubt Vrana was not with her on those trips.

The wings stayed silent on this till december, when they finally released statement basically saying "we have no idea what TF is going on, where is this guy?" Then suddenly, like magic, Vrana promptly returned. 

TLDR: i think he was using rehab as a paid vacation, whether he needed it or not

[AtlantaHotWings 1,089]

Maybe based on being around during the Probie years Yzerguy saw what had happened in locker room etc. He didn't want the youngsters exposed? 
 

[LeftWinger 5,065]

Bizarre? Considering they could've kept a kid?

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by LeftWinger

[bIueadams 776]

1 hour ago, LeftWinger said:

Bizarre? Considering they could've kept a kid?

 

Its a GR signing and hes going on waivers today. But I can see ZAR being the #1 callup , so we can keep the kids down for the year.

That said, ive always liked Aston-Reese and im always surprised he doesnt find more work. Hes a solid hustle guy that grinds and hits like crazy. Excellent energy guy. I wouldve signed him over Fischer. 

[Jonas Mahonas 1,872]

On 10/8/2023 at 9:31 AM, LeftWinger said:

Bizarre? Considering they could've kept a kid?

 

not bizarre.  stupid

On 10/8/2023 at 10:35 AM, bIueadams said:

Its a GR signing and hes going on waivers today. But I can see ZAR being the #1 callup , so we can keep the kids down for the year.

That said, ive always liked Aston-Reese and im always surprised he doesnt find more work. Hes a solid hustle guy that grinds and hits like crazy. Excellent energy guy. I wouldve signed him over Fischer. 

he's on the roster

[bIueadams 776]

3 hours ago, Jonas Mahonas said:

not bizarre.  stupid

he's on the roster

He's on GR's roster super intelligent wise humble friend

[Dabura 12,228]

On 6/10/2023 at 8:51 PM, Dabura said:

I respect everyone's opinions on this.

But I'm prepared to throw down over this.

Or at least rant a bit.

My opinion: We need scoring punch in the worst way, and we've needed it in the worst way for the better part of a decade, and we've had all these draft picks and all these prospects and all these free agent opportunities and all these trade opportunities.........

.........yet somehow we still desperately need scoring punch.

I wanted Matthew Tkachuk.

"Too expensive," people said.

OK. Fair enough.

But if you want a bigger, grittier, more complete version of DeBrincat, you're basically looking for a unicorn - unless you want to pay out the ass, or unless you get really lucky in the draft.

I think the time's come for us to get serious about really, truly moving forward.

I love David Perron - but I hate that he's one of our top two wingers at this stage of the rebuild. It's unacceptable to me.

We've got a lot of good young players in our system right now, that's true. And that's good. And we'll need them to be good. And they probably will be good.

But there's no rule that says we can't trade for other teams' young players.

We can sit here and say "Nah, f*** this goal-scoring punk. If he REALLY wants to be a Wing, he'll sit out for a year and wait until free agency next summer."

And we can watch that ship sail away.

And that will be the 415th ship we've watched sail away since the start of this rebuild - because "Nah it just didn't make sense for us, given where we're at. I'd rather we do the other thing [which we won't end up doing]."

And we can spend another year losing close games because we can't score goals.

Or.........................

...............we can say "F*** the police" and grab the 25-year-old right-shooting goal-scoring winger right now and sign him to a big deal and take our chances with that investment.

"But do you really want to chance it?"

Yes, I do. We have all the cap flexibility an organization could ever want. All the money in the Bertuzzi fund can now be used for other stuff. All the money in the Vrana fund can now be used for other stuff.

And we also have draft capital.

"Yeah, but our young guys are going to start eating up cap space really quickly."

Maybe they will, maybe they won't. What I care about now is getting solid footing. Tangible things. Known things.

Alex DeBrincat has scored 40 goals twice. He's a natural scorer. He can and will put up points. These are known things.

I don't want to go through the motions for another 82 games and accept that we don't need to ice the best damned lineup we can ice "because it's just not time yet. I think we need at least one more really good draft."

We've been saying "We just need one more really good draft" for the past 500 years. Enough already!

If we can land DeBrincat without giving up our 1st, I think that's a major coup.

Pick a name out of a hat for that pick. Let's call it Nate Danielson.

If we land DeBrincat and Nate Danielson, I think that's bloody fantastic. All of a sudden we're talking about Larkin, Kasper, Danielson, Veleno down the middle. All of a sudden we're talking about flanking those guys with DeBrincat, Raymond, Mazur, et al.

I don't want to wait a second longer than we have to on taking the next step. I don't want to rush it, but I do want to push it. I don't want our young leaders to grow any more accustomed to losing than they already are.

We need to start winning games. We need to start doing that whole "winning culture" thing now - not two or three years from now.

So. Give me a proven scorer. Who's 25 years old. And who shoots right. And who's from Detroit.

[/rant]

I get lots of stuff wrong, so let me bask in the glow of having gotten this right.

[Jonas Mahonas 1,872]

2 hours ago, Dabura said:

I get lots of stuff wrong, so let me bask in the glow of having gotten this right.

NAILED IT!

[Axl Foley 320]

RIP GOAT

[kipwinger 8,675]

Looks like the Wings dodged a bullet with this one…

https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/leafs-tyler-bertuzzi-isnt-delivering-snot-or-scoring-punch-that-was-promised-175240156.html

[13dangledangle 968]

1 hour ago, kipwinger said:

Looks like the Wings dodged a bullet with this one…

https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/leafs-tyler-bertuzzi-isnt-delivering-snot-or-scoring-punch-that-was-promised-175240156.html

I'm surprised he isn't doing much better here.  I thought for sure he'd have a great year with the Leafs, season is young though but Toronto doesnt beat around the bush if players aren't performing-not sure if that will hinder Bert or wake him up.

[bIueadams 776]

3 hours ago, kipwinger said:

Looks like the Wings dodged a bullet with this one…

https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/leafs-tyler-bertuzzi-isnt-delivering-snot-or-scoring-punch-that-was-promised-175240156.html

This writer (and perhaps the Leafs org) doesn't understand Bertuzzi's game if this is what he/they are expecting.

Quote

Bertuzzi carved out a reputation as a 30-goal player while providing the requisite toughness

Bertuzzi isn't "tough" and never has been. He hardly ever hits and doesn't fight. He will go to the dirty areas, but that's about the most "toughness" anyone should expect.

Quote

Bertuzzi was expected to replace Michael Bunting, a player who could augment Matthews and Mitch Marner’s offense with excellent puck retrieval skills.

Bertuzzi isn't a "puck retriever" for superstars, and never has been. He's a high IQ offensive winger. If the Leafs are expecting him to be young Hyman or young Bunting, they have made a serious mistake. And they could have acquired a "designated puck retriever" for much less than what Bertuzzi cost them IMO.

 

Bert has shown what he can do post-redwings with the Bruins. And I feel their is still a serious lack of understanding of what Bertuzzi is as a player, even among wings fans. He gets the reputation of some gritty toothless powerforward, but he literally has never played like that at all. He's an average skilled player, who has swagger, but isn't really tougher than most average guys, and his main real upside is reading the game at a high level. He's much more of a cerebral player than anyone realizes... But he has long hair and is missing teeth so "he must be tough!".

I also love that the writer failed to disclose that Bertuzzi is playing injured right now.

Glad he's not helping the Leafs. And I hope bad media reporting like this leads him to move on from them.

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by bIueadams

[town123 212]

Tuz may be hurting, but his lack of defensive awareness it his biggest problem.   SY saw enough and was savvy enough to parlay him for DCat.   Same D, way better O.

 

Leafs suck and get what they deserve.   A couple of my Toronto friends are pissed that they (20/20 vision) signed Tuz and spit up such a huge deal for #34.   Feel free to send Matthews to us.

[kipwinger 8,675]

If I were Toronto I’d be less worried about his lack of grit and more concerned that he can’t execute a game plan. That’s a huge red flag for an average skilled guy who relies on his “smarts” to be effective. Sounds like he just doesn’t get it. 
 

In the interest of fairness this article addresses the injury issue: https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/toronto-maple-leafs/latest-news/we-had-a-very-simple-plan-and-he-failed-to-execute-that-maple-leafs-head-coach-sheldon-keefe-explains-tyler-bertuzzis-demotion-in-game-against-bruins

[bIueadams 776]

12 minutes ago, town123 said:

Tuz may be hurting, but his lack of defensive awareness it his biggest problem.   SY saw enough and was savvy enough to parlay him for DCat.   Same D, way better O.

 

Leafs suck and get what they deserve.   A couple of my Toronto friends are pissed that they (20/20 vision) signed Tuz and spit up such a huge deal for #34.   Feel free to send Matthews to us.

Bertuzzi isn't a defensive player. I don't think he's a seriously liability like say AA was, but this is a guy who you sign for your offense, and he will do enough on D to not be a problem

Fact of the matter is pretty much every single player Brad T signed for the Leafs hasn't worked out. Domi, Bertuzzi, Klingberg, etc etc. Is this because he just happened to sign all overrated players? Or maybe... just maybe, there's a serious problem with the leafs that no UFA signing is going to fix? I think you know where I stand on that one.

[kipwinger 8,675]

The aforementioned Hyman and Bunting didn't seem to have much of a problem scoring in Toronto's top six. Maybe Bert just doesn't like riding shotgun with better players. It's not like his bad attitude hasn't been well reported at this point.

Edited November 4, 2023 by kipwinger

[bIueadams 776]

1 minute ago, kipwinger said:

Maybe Bert just doesn't like riding shotgun with better players.

Yeah he hated riding shotgun with Pastrnak

2 minutes ago, kipwinger said:

It's not like his bad attitude hasn't been well reported at this point.

Explain

[kipwinger 8,675]

4 minutes ago, bIueadams said:

Yeah he hated riding shotgun with Pastrnak

Explain

Boston chose not to re-sign him so that should probably tell you something. As for the rest, I'm sure you know how to use Google.

[bIueadams 776]

3 minutes ago, kipwinger said:

Boston chose not to re-sign him so that should probably tell you something. As for the rest, I'm sure you know how to use Google.

A cap heavy team couldn't re-sign a TDL acquisition explains nothing. Either explain what you're getting at or STFU.