Yawn. I love the focus on Wallinder. They also took Niederbach and Cross Hanas in round 2. Both before Lohrei, Cuylle. But OK. Let's just be patient and see if Wallinder develops into a better player than Faber. Sounds familiar. Like how Cholowski, Lindstrom, Saarijarvi just needed more time. And before them it was Jurco, Pulkkinen, Frk, Ouellet, and Sproul who just needed more time to marinate.
- HockeyBuzzed

So your whole premise is you believe Lohrei & Cuylle are gonna turn the franchise around because they’ve played some games? Seriously, they’re just depth players at this point. You’re impatient and you want results, now, I get it, I guess.

You’re not gonna get it, you’re gonna have to be patient. The alternative is you can go cheer for a present successful team that’s already went through the pain the Wings are experiencing, and bypass the whole process they had to go through to get there.

Yes there’s been mistakes, there always is, no one has a perfect record with this sort of thing. But five years without a top three pick isn’t going to win you much without extreme amounts of luck, no matter how many depth guys you draft.

So your whole premise is you believe Lohrei & Cuylle are gonna turn the franchise around because they’ve played some games? Seriously, they’re just depth players at this point. You’re impatient and you want results, now, I get it, I guess.

You’re not gonna get it, you’re gonna have to be patient. The alternative is you can go cheer for a present successful team that’s already went through the pain the Wings are experiencing, and bypass the whole process they had to go through to get there.

Yes there’s been mistakes, there always is, no one has a perfect record with this sort of thing. But five years without a top three pick isn’t going to win you much without extreme amounts of luck, no matter how many depth guys you draft.
- DraftandDestroy

Never said these guys were difference makers. But they are legit NHL players, on cheap contracts. There is a cascade effect. Like if you draft Wyatt Johnson and Brock Faber, then you aren't wasting cap space on Copp and Holl. If you add a Lohrei or Cuylle then you don't waste assets acquiring Petry or signing Tarasenko. And maybe with some actual young talent on the roster, you can use some draft capital to maybe acquire a Logan Thompson in net, instead of 37-year old Cam Talbot. Maybe instead of wasting a trio of 2nd round picks you move up into the 1st round and find another difference maker. But when you accumulate all of this extra draft capital and then basically miss on all of it, you find yourself where we are now. Full of bad contracts. No 1C anywhere in the system. No cap space to the point that we're wasting 2nd round picks to move contracts out. But hey, you sound pleased with our direction. I'm spoiled and impatient. Got it.

Never said these guys were difference makers. But they are legit NHL players, on cheap contracts. There is a cascade effect. Like if you draft Wyatt Johnson and Brock Faber, then you aren't wasting cap space on Copp and Holl. If you add a Lohrei or Cuylle then you don't waste assets acquiring Petry or signing Tarasenko. And maybe with some actual young talent on the roster, you can use some draft capital to maybe acquire a Logan Thompson in net, instead of 37-year old Cam Talbot. Maybe instead of wasting a trio of 2nd round picks you move up into the 1st round and find another difference maker. But when you accumulate all of this extra draft capital and then basically miss on all of it, you find yourself where we are now. Full of bad contracts. No 1C anywhere in the system. No cap space to the point that we're wasting 2nd round picks to move contracts out. But hey, you sound pleased with our direction. I'm spoiled and impatient. Got it.
- HockeyBuzzed

Your expectations are unrealistic, no one is perfect at a draft, if you hit on two kids who make the NHL as full time NHL players you're considered to have a good draft. How many teams teams passed on Wyatt Johnston? He didn't even play hockey in his draft year, like a lot of other CHL kids because Covid shutdown the leagues. He was coming off a 30 point year, it was complete luck on their part.

They probably wouldn't have allowed Faber to make the team until next year so again, your point is lost. Cap space is only good if you're weaponizing it to take on bad contracts, other than that, who cares if they spend to the cap, it's not coming out of your pocket and they clearly value vets to insulate what kids are on the team, simply a stop-gap model. They aren't there so they can win a cup.

Never said these guys were difference makers. But they are legit NHL players, on cheap contracts. There is a cascade effect. Like if you draft Wyatt Johnson and Brock Faber, then you aren't wasting cap space on Copp and Holl. If you add a Lohrei or Cuylle then you don't waste assets acquiring Petry or signing Tarasenko. And maybe with some actual young talent on the roster, you can use some draft capital to maybe acquire a Logan Thompson in net, instead of 37-year old Cam Talbot. Maybe instead of wasting a trio of 2nd round picks you move up into the 1st round and find another difference maker. But when you accumulate all of this extra draft capital and then basically miss on all of it, you find yourself where we are now. Full of bad contracts. No 1C anywhere in the system. No cap space to the point that we're wasting 2nd round picks to move contracts out. But hey, you sound pleased with our direction. I'm spoiled and impatient. Got it.
- HockeyBuzzed

By the way, you are spoiled and impatient, they were NEVER going to turn the Wings into a contender five years into a rebuild. Simply unrealistic!! How many NHL teams have hired you for your expert opinion?

I'm not telling them, or you, what I think they should do, I'm telling you what I see them doing. I don't mind their patience at all. To me it looks like they're building from the blueline out, just look who they're drafting with high picks in rounds 1-2 and one 3rd from 2019 to 2023, it's mostly been big and or mobile defensemen with a sprinkle of Kasper, Danielson and Nygard as best player available.

2nd rnd Albert Johansson Defense -- shoots L 6.00 - 168
2nd rnd Antti Tuomisto Defense shoots R 6.05 - 210
1st rnd Moritz Seider Defense shoots R 6.03 - 205
2nd rnd William Wallinder Defense shoots L 6.04 - 205
3rd rnd Donovan Sebrango Defense shoots L 6.01 - 221
1st rnd Simon Edvinsson Defense -- shoots L 6.06 - 209
2nd rnd Shai Buium Defense -- shoots L 6.03 - 209
1st rnd Axel Sandin-Pellika Defense -- shoots R 5.11 - 176
2nd rnd Andrew Gibson Defense -- shoots R 6.03 - 210

By the way, you are spoiled and impatient, they were NEVER going to turn the Wings into a contender five years into a rebuild. Simply unrealistic!! How many NHL teams have hired you for your expert opinion?

I'm not telling them, or you, what I think they should do, I'm telling you what I see them doing. I don't mind their patience at all. To me it looks like they're building from the blueline out, just look who they're drafting with high picks in rounds 1-2 and one 3rd from 2019 to 2023, it's mostly been big and or mobile defensemen with a sprinkle of Kasper, Danielson and Nygard as best player available.

2nd rnd Albert Johansson Defense -- shoots L 6.00 - 168
2nd rnd Antti Tuomisto Defense shoots R 6.05 - 210
1st rnd Moritz Seider Defense shoots R 6.03 - 205
2nd rnd William Wallinder Defense shoots L 6.04 - 205
3rd rnd Donovan Sebrango Defense shoots L 6.01 - 221
1st rnd Simon Edvinsson Defense -- shoots L 6.06 - 209
2nd rnd Shai Buium Defense -- shoots L 6.03 - 209
1st rnd Axel Sandin-Pellika Defense -- shoots R 5.11 - 176
2nd rnd Andrew Gibson Defense -- shoots R 6.03 - 210
- DraftandDestroy

Nowhere did I say we should be a contender right now. On the contrary, I wish we were worse. Adding all of these overpriced vets just led us to be drafting 6th instead of 2nd, 8th instead of 3rd, 9th instead of 5th, 15th instead of 10th. We should be emerging from the rebuild now with 2 or 3 elite prospects - like a Fantilli, Michkov, etc...

Also, saying that if the Wings drafted Faber he still wouldn't be in the NHL is a way to lose a fair amount of credibility. He'd be on our top pair right now.

Finally, your list of d-men seems impressive, bit not to me. Sebrango and Gibson aren't even in the organization anymore. Tuomisto, Buium, Wallinder all showed promise but have regressed in my view. Fringe players at best. Johansson seems to be in the same camp. So we have Seider and Edvinsson, again, not hard to hit at #6. ASP is a nice asset. I like swinging for skill like that.

Overall, this rebuild has been botched and we likely need to bottom out again. Larkin will be 35+ when we contender again.

By the way, you are spoiled and impatient, they were NEVER going to turn the Wings into a contender five years into a rebuild. Simply unrealistic!! How many NHL teams have hired you for your expert opinion?

I'm not telling them, or you, what I think they should do, I'm telling you what I see them doing. I don't mind their patience at all. To me it looks like they're building from the blueline out, just look who they're drafting with high picks in rounds 1-2 and one 3rd from 2019 to 2023, it's mostly been big and or mobile defensemen with a sprinkle of Kasper, Danielson and Nygard as best player available.

2nd rnd Albert Johansson Defense -- shoots L 6.00 - 168
2nd rnd Antti Tuomisto Defense shoots R 6.05 - 210
1st rnd Moritz Seider Defense shoots R 6.03 - 205
2nd rnd William Wallinder Defense shoots L 6.04 - 205
3rd rnd Donovan Sebrango Defense shoots L 6.01 - 221
1st rnd Simon Edvinsson Defense -- shoots L 6.06 - 209
2nd rnd Shai Buium Defense -- shoots L 6.03 - 209
1st rnd Axel Sandin-Pellika Defense -- shoots R 5.11 - 176
2nd rnd Andrew Gibson Defense -- shoots R 6.03 - 210
- DraftandDestroy

you are sipping some serious Yzerman kool-aid.
The only blue chip prospect you have left in that group is Axel Sandin-Pellika now that Seider and Edvinsson are graduated.
Yzerman in 6 years has done a horrible job building this team, you can justify it all you want. This is the state of the roster after 6 years...Name one thing this team does well?

For me Yzerman has shown himself to be overrated. There's no Stamkos, Kucherov, etc. on this team which is what he walked into in Tampa.

It's been 6 years of this rebuild. But, I'm sure by your statements here you won't mind waiting another 6 maybe 10 years for this team to get out of the rebuild.