They need a quality center....er...another center, any center???

- HenryHockey

We might be better than Chicago. Especially with Toews out. They still have Patty Kane though.

We might be better than Chicago. Especially with Toews out. They still have Patty Kane though.
- gergeswillems

We might be better than Chicago. Especially with Toews out. They still have Patty Kane though.
- gergeswillems

I think we’ll win the season series with Chicago 6-2. We’ll lose every other series but tie Nashville

I think we’ll win the season series with Chicago 6-2. We’ll lose every other series but tie Nashville
- Jeremy Laura

I could see that. We always seem to play well vs the Preds. I think we could challenge Florida too. I don't see what's so great about them.

We might be better than Chicago. Especially with Toews out. They still have Patty Kane though.
- gergeswillems

It'll be close-ish probably but I still think Chicago is the better team right now. Their big question mark is goaltending. If the Blackhawks get something approaching league average performance from Delia I think they are better than Detroit. If he's bad, though, things will be ugly.

I still expect Detroit to finish last in the division, but probably not last in the NHL. Ottawa is awful. So is LA. San Jose has not only not fixed their goaltending problem, but actually made it worse. I'd like to think that the Wings could overtake at least one of those squads to stay out of the basement.

It'll be close-ish probably but I still think Chicago is the better team right now. Their big question mark is goaltending. If the Blackhawks get something approaching league average performance from Delia I think they are better than Detroit. If he's bad, though, things will be ugly.

I still expect Detroit to finish last in the division, but probably not last in the NHL. Ottawa is awful. So is LA. San Jose has not only not fixed their goaltending problem, but actually made it worse. I'd like to think that the Wings could overtake at least one of those squads to stay out of the basement.
- Sven22

But...but...but...Owen Powers!!!!!

But...but...but...Owen Powers!!!!!

- HenryHockey

Will he fall to #4, G?

Will he fall to #4, G?

- HenryHockey

Shrugs

Probably not, but it doesn't seem like there's much of a consensus yet on how things will go and we may not get to one by the end of the season.

I don't see how Detroit isn't better than Chicago at the end of the year if both Toews and Dach miss considerable time.

As for Svech, he's 24 with 20 career NHL games. That is the 4th lowest of all the first round picks that year. 7/30 picks have played less than 100 games. Add in the 2nd round of the draft and he has the 14th least amount of games than the rest. I have zero issue leaving him in grand rapids. I'm rooting for the Dan Cleary path, but if it doesn't happen then who cares? Not like he is wasting cap space, he is a good team guy, and can be a good mentor for young guys.

It'll be close-ish probably but I still think Chicago is the better team right now. Their big question mark is goaltending. If the Blackhawks get something approaching league average performance from Delia I think they are better than Detroit. If he's bad, though, things will be ugly.

I still expect Detroit to finish last in the division, but probably not last in the NHL. Ottawa is awful. So is LA. San Jose has not only not fixed their goaltending problem, but actually made it worse. I'd like to think that the Wings could overtake at least one of those squads to stay out of the basement.
- Sven22

Every season prediction so far has the Wings dead last in the NHL, by at least 10 points.
They might not be historically bad as last year, but still pretty damn terrible.

Every season prediction so far has the Wings dead last in the NHL, by at least 10 points.
They might not be historically bad as last year, but still pretty damn terrible.
- StargateSG1

I don't think the national pundits are looking at how historically bad Howard was. Giving him the same poopty win percentage as Bernier, would bump the wings to 24.87 wins. So lets call it 25. That alone puts us on par with Ottawa, and just behind Buffalo, NJ, LA, SJS, and Anaheim.

Now add in the addition by subtract, what appears to be a decent second line. The wings could be much more in the bottom 6 rather than locked into the worst spot.


**EDIT** This also doesn't count the 4 god awful starts from Pickard and Comrie.

Every season prediction so far has the Wings dead last in the NHL, by at least 10 points.
They might not be historically bad as last year, but still pretty damn terrible.
- StargateSG1

Your first sentence is not true, although you're correct that they're still pretty damn terrible.

Dom Luszczyszyn/the Athletic has them 1 point ahead of Ottawa (49 to 48) and within 3 of NJ, ANA, and SJ.

Micah Blake McCurdy's projected points model gives Detroit the barest edge over SJ (54 vs 53.8) and puts them within 2 of OTT, NJ, and CHI.

Evolving Wild's model is less favorable (Detroit is easily in last) but only 6 points behind Ottawa and 7 behind a bunch of teams (BUF, NJ, LA, ANA)

All told I think in a vacuum Detroit is still probably the worst team in the NHL, but I would say they're only a plurality to actually wind up with the worst record in the NHL. There are enough really bad teams fairly close to one another that I don't think any one team is a heavy favorite.

I don't think the national pundits are looking at how historically bad Howard was. Giving him the same poopty win percentage as Bernier, would bump the wings to 24.87 wins. So lets call it 25. That alone puts us on par with Ottawa, and just behind Buffalo, NJ, LA, SJS, and Anaheim.

Now add in the addition by subtract, what appears to be a decent second line. The wings could be much more in the bottom 6 rather than locked into the worst spot.


**EDIT** This also doesn't count the 4 god awful starts from Pickard and Comrie.
- DRW1991

Historically bad Howard = historically bad finish, but having average G
just closes the margin a bit, but not by 25 points they were behind the rest.
Ryan is a reclamation project, Namestnikov is a journeyman forward and Merril and Stetcher are 3rd pairing Ds.
Staal is worthless and DeKeyser does not move the needle that much,
he is not a Top line D by any means.
With no top prospects making it (which is good), you still have Nielsen, LGD, Flippula, Erne and Helm, who contribute nothing.
They will still have trouble scoring, just like last year.

And with the exception of Chicago, due to injuries, every other team got better.

I personally think they lose at least 6 out of 8 against every team in Central, or worse.

Historically bad Howard = historically bad finish, but having average G
just closes the margin a bit, but not by 25 points they were behind the rest.
Ryan is a reclamation project, Namestnikov is a journeyman forward and Merril and Stetcher are 3rd pairing Ds.
Staal is worthless and DeKeyser does not move the needle that much,
he is not a Top line D by any means.
With no top prospects making it (which is good), you still have Nielsen, LGD, Flippula, Erne and Helm, who contribute nothing.
They will still have trouble scoring, just like last year.

And with the exception of Chicago, due to injuries, every other team got better.

I personally think they lose at least 6 out of 8 against every team in Central, or worse.
- StargateSG1

If you really don't think the additions made and getting rid of Green, Daley, Ericsson, AA, and Abby make the team 25pts better then you really think the team is heading nowhere.

Just moving into average goaltending adds 18 points. So the better defense, nobody is saying it is good but it will be way better than last year and a decent second line doesn't add the remaining 7 then I'm not sure what you expect.

Historically bad Howard = historically bad finish, but having average G
just closes the margin a bit, but not by 25 points they were behind the rest.
Ryan is a reclamation project, Namestnikov is a journeyman forward and Merril and Stetcher are 3rd pairing Ds.
Staal is worthless and DeKeyser does not move the needle that much,
he is not a Top line D by any means.
With no top prospects making it (which is good), you still have Nielsen, LGD, Flippula, Erne and Helm, who contribute nothing.
They will still have trouble scoring, just like last year.

And with the exception of Chicago, due to injuries, every other team got better.

I personally think they lose at least 6 out of 8 against every team in Central, or worse.
- StargateSG1

Almost everything you said in your reasoning is true, with a few minor quibbles, but I disagree with your conclusion.

I think what you’re discounting is that, compared to Abdelkader, Daley, Ericsson, Bowey, and Howard, even journeyman NHLers like Ryan, Namestnikov, DeKeyser, Stecher, Merrill, and Greiss represent a massive upgrade.

Out of those five ex-Red Wings I just listed, the best is probably Bowey and he is an AHL-quality defenseman. The other four guys, if not for their big guaranteed contracts and name recognition would probably have difficulty even making an AHL squad on a tryout. I am not exaggerating. They were all worse than replacement level, by a wide margin.

Even if all you do is improve the goaltending up to league average and change nothing else about the results, the Wings go from -122 last year to -79. That is still crazy crazy bad, obviously. But then consider you're replacing three "AHL or worse" quality defenders with a couple of third pairing guys and maybe a No. 4 (DeKeyser). The forward group is better too, with some ho-hum middle sixers (Ryan and Namestnikov) filling in for, say, Ehn (useless) and Abdelkader (much worse than useless). Zadina will be better and up all year. Hopefully Mantha stays healthy.

Will the Red Wings be bad this year? Yes, very! Literally no one is saying they will be good, or even close to good.

But I think they will be “ordinary very bad,” the kind of very bad you typically tend to see from at least 1-3 teams in a given season. Not “historically bad" like we got last year.

It's very typical to see at least a couple NHL teams put up somewhere around -50 to -70 per 82 games and I think that's where Detroit will be. Comfortably bottom five, quite possibly last, but they will have some company.

Almost everything you said in your reasoning is true, with a few minor quibbles, but I disagree with your conclusion.

I think what you’re discounting is that, compared to Abdelkader, Daley, Ericsson, Bowey, and Howard, even journeyman NHLers like Ryan, Namestnikov, DeKeyser, Stecher, Merrill, and Greiss represent a massive upgrade.

Out of those five ex-Red Wings I just listed, the best is probably Bowey and he is an AHL-quality defenseman. The other four guys, if not for their big guaranteed contracts and name recognition would probably have difficulty even making an AHL squad on a tryout. I am not exaggerating. They were all worse than replacement level, by a wide margin.

Even if all you do is improve the goaltending up to league average and change nothing else about the results, the Wings go from -122 last year to -79. That is still crazy crazy bad, obviously. But then consider you're replacing three "AHL or worse" quality defenders with a couple of third pairing guys and maybe a No. 4 (DeKeyser). The forward group is better too, with some ho-hum middle sixers (Ryan and Namestnikov) filling in for, say, Ehn (useless) and Abdelkader (much worse than useless). Zadina will be better and up all year. Hopefully Mantha stays healthy.

Will the Red Wings be bad this year? Yes, very! Literally no one is saying they will be good, or even close to good.

But I think they will be “ordinary very bad,” the kind of very bad you typically tend to see from at least 1-3 teams in a given season. Not “historically bad" like we got last year.

It's very typical to see at least a couple NHL teams put up somewhere around -50 to -70 per 82 games and I think that's where Detroit will be. Comfortably bottom five, quite possibly last, but they will have some company.
- Sven22

All valid thoughts, but I keep in mind that they will not be playing any other bad teams in the NHL, like LA, Ducks, Sharks, Ottawa, Jersey, Buffalo, they'll be playing all teams that either made the playoffs or play in round just a short 3 months ago.
The only Division like that out of 4, when all the teams but 1 played in the bubble.

All valid thoughts, but I keep in mind that they will not be playing any other bad teams in the NHL, like LA, Ducks, Sharks, Ottawa, Jersey, Buffalo, they'll be playing all teams that either made the playoffs or play in round just a short 3 months ago.
The only Division like that out of 4, when all the teams but 1 played in the bubble.
- StargateSG1

Quality of competition is certainly a bigger-than-normal factor this year; I agree with that. All the crappy California teams, in particular, will benefit from playing each other a lot.

That said, I don’t think Detroit’s divisional situation is materially worse than Ottawa’s. Chicago is pretty clearly, I think, the worst team in either division apart from those two. And Florida might be second worst.

Basically I think where we differ is on degree of confidence. I do think Detroit is probably still the least talented / worst team in the NHL. But especially in a short season weird stuff happens (never mind the fact that COVID can and probably will decimate some rosters unexpectedly), and still think there are enough teams in the neighborhood that variance alone is enough for me to take "the field" over "Detroit" if you're betting on who winds up in last. Kinda like how the team with the worst record has a better chance of drafting first than any one other specific team, but still has less than a 50% chance overall.

All valid thoughts, but I keep in mind that they will not be playing any other bad teams in the NHL, like LA, Ducks, Sharks, Ottawa, Jersey, Buffalo, they'll be playing all teams that either made the playoffs or play in round just a short 3 months ago.
The only Division like that out of 4, when all the teams but 1 played in the bubble.
- StargateSG1

I did not take into account the new divisions and how tough the central is. Valid point.

PLD WANTS OUT OF CBJ!!!!

I would give Fabbri, Veleno and a 2nd for him


Then hire Torts next year when Blash is let go!!!

PLD WANTS OUT OF CBJ!!!!

I would give Fabbri, Veleno and a 2nd for him


Then hire Torts next year when Blash is let go!!!
- HenryHockey

Jarmo would hang the phone up. Then he'd likely pi$$ himself after laughing for 10 minutes. Torts can only come here if Brooksie can replace HSJ.

https://youtu.be/AU8CJQiAycI

https://youtu.be/ARhVC8uEbQU