Husso will get his 4th straight start and, to be fair, he’s played well enough that the losses after Lyon and Talbot were sidelined aren’t on the goalie. He remains winless on the year, Cossa remains stationary on the bench when in game AHL reps seem like they may be better for the Griffins call up. Husso’s winless streak includes a .920 sv% against the Avalanche while Detroit could only score once on 30 shots. You can see the lines were reshuffled yesterday. The breakdown isn’t going to be the stat lines. The breakdown is in itself the frustrated fan base.
In yesterday’s comments, a “rumor” regarding Larkin requesting a trade hit “X”. After reaching out to PHR, there were links citing that a source cited in one of the threads debunked the claim saying he’d never spoken to anyone about any rumor regarding the captain. You can dig through the muck of the 2 or 3 accounts that posted this. It oddly blends with two other stories, one very self serving.
I posted this video yesterday of a breakdown I did regarding NIL deals, how U of M used it to pull a player who committed to LSU in football, and how it could be used this coming spring through summer in collegiate hockey to potentially pull players from the CHL and even keep drafted players from leaving school for their ELC:
The football player, from Belleville Michigan, is getting 10.5m over 4 years in NIL and that is barely mentioned at the end of the article cited about the transfer. It’s not a small item. College sports have athletes change their mind on commitments, even before the new NIL era. What the NHL, and hockey at large is dealing with, is now being called “soft tampering”.
The Ottawa Senators have called a piece released by Larry Brooks regarding trade negotiations around Brady Tkachuk as being based in an “organizational leak” with the intent of trying to get something going. Ottawa insists there have not been talks and that Tkachuk is their hoped for cornerstone. There are 2 reasons I’m not dismissing this outright as “soft tampering”. (Which should just be called tampering if there’s any truth to it).
First is the Trouba situation. From the summer drama surrounding Detroit to the eventual move of the 8 million dollar man to Anaheim I’ve heard and read about 5 different versions. The Rangers have said that the move to Anaheim was done by showing Trouba the interested teams and he could pick the one he wanted the most. From the summer, one individual who has never steered me wrong and has good contacts said that the “closeness” of the deal was being wildly overblown. Then I was assured by another individual that it was close (meaning a deal had been hashed out and leaked on X before the player was ever approached who has an ability to assign a ‘no’ vote on 15 teams). This is the 1995 Yzerman to Ottawa trade rumor all over (in terms of Trouba to Detroit). Chris Chelios went on record that the trade was never close while a local sportscaster that had access to all events said Yzerman was sitting on a charter jet when Mike cancelled the deal. Big gap.
So the number of realities that ultimately saw no arrival of Trouba in Detroit had already soured me on what I call “balloons”. A company, team, individual will tweet a rumor to see how it’s received and there’s enough separation to shield the source from culpability if it’s not well received. “That was never going to happen”. Add to that something else in the PHR article linked above. This past summer’s free agency where contracts were announced well before the day officially started. Every team was sent a memo about tampering. I.E., that player wasn’t a free agent until the window opened. The contracts announced were ultimately correct, meaning they’d been negotiated and agreed upon while a player’s rights were still held by another team. There’s nothing soft about that. It’s tampering.
Larry Brook’s doesn’t have to tell anyone where he got his information. Ottawa isn’t happy. You have a newer owner who has finally gotten the commitment for a new arena and wants stability for an organization that has had unstable times. Without any proof, accusing the Rangers of leaking information (assuming there isn’t any) feels like libel. You’re now in a situation where someone has done something that skirts not just league rules but possibly legal issues.
The Larkin rumor could easily be someone just poking the bear to get a frustrated fan base even more frustrated. The interesting part is the number of “I don’t blame him” notes/comments/texts I saw afterward. Detroit has a fan base issue and it’s trending on social media. The club, if they are concerned about optics, needs to do something. Even a small change within some part of the organization, to address what is becoming online apathy/anger.
Let me know your thoughts. There’s a game tonight and there are fewer and fewer breakdowns ahead of time as fans seem to be “wait and see”. The viewing faithful are telling me, “i have it on in the background and can just shut it off if it goes south quick”. Finally, from online rumors about NHL negotiations to the ability of colleges to scout and compensate players is it just the Wild West for now until something finally goes way too far (whatever that looks like). Are you watching, tracking, or just catching up with the games on box scores? A lot going on, and a lot to consider.
Detroit Red Wings Blogger • 
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