Speaker 1: Since twoenty seventeen, every team in the National Hockey League
Speaker 1: has made the damn playoffs at least one year except
Speaker 1: for two to see Trent and Buffalo. Holy crap. I
Speaker 1: was talking with somebody last night. My son coaches his
Speaker 1: old school's lacrosse team, all right, and they said, debt.
Speaker 1: He said, Debt, could you do the PA? I said, ah, sure,
Speaker 1: I'll do the PA. You know, go out there and
Speaker 1: you hear a lot of a lot of dads talk
Speaker 1: about various things that do in the PA. I went
Speaker 1: to the game earlier this week and one of these
Speaker 1: guys said, goal scored by number six. He's not on
Speaker 1: the roster, so good job to you, whoever you are.
Speaker 1: I mean, he had just had no idea who the
Speaker 1: kid was. I'm like, oh my god. These kids, you know,
Speaker 1: they're not going to get a chance to play at
Speaker 1: the collegiate level. In all likelihood, they'd love hearing their name, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I said, sure, you know, I make sure I
Speaker 1: got both rosters pronunciations, you know, just like you're getting
Speaker 1: ready for a game anyway. So this guy in between periods,
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking a little bit about sports in
Speaker 1: general and monitoring the Wings game, and I actually said,
Speaker 1: at the end of the first quarter, I said to you,
Speaker 1: the Red Wings are up, won nothing. Alex Dabrinka with
Speaker 1: his thirty six goal of the year. The guy's like, hey,
Speaker 1: thanks for that update. I appreciate it. He pulls out
Speaker 1: his laptop. He's watching the Frozen four. I'm I'm dvrd it.
Speaker 1: And so he's he's watching Western Michigan in Denver and
Speaker 1: double overtime. And we're kind of, you know, making sure
Speaker 1: we're keeping each other abreast of what's going on, because
Speaker 1: I got the Wings game on on my phone. And
Speaker 1: he says to me after the after the first quarter,
Speaker 1: after the early part of the Red Red Wings game,
Speaker 1: He's like, what's what's going on with this team? And
Speaker 1: I said, look, it'd be great to sign Mitch Marner.
Speaker 1: And everybody wants the big name free agent. We wanted
Speaker 1: him football, we wanted in baseball, Hi, Alex Bregman, we
Speaker 1: wanted in basketball, we wanted in every sport, the big
Speaker 1: name guy. Please come here, unless we're already sat. I mean,
Speaker 1: even with the Lions, even though they were already set,
Speaker 1: even though we thought they were a really good football team,
Speaker 1: you still would love to have a big name guy
Speaker 1: opposite Aiden Hodginson. If I tell you, hey, there's a
Speaker 1: chance they could get Michael Williams out of Georgia, you'd
Speaker 1: be like, uh, that's fine, I don't care. I want
Speaker 1: fill in the blank with a big name. Now he's
Speaker 1: not a free agent, but how many times have you
Speaker 1: had a conversation with a friend who said, I really
Speaker 1: wish they would have traded for Max Crosby. I wish
Speaker 1: they would have traded for Miles Garrett. I wish they
Speaker 1: would go get Trey Hendrickson. I wish we could get
Speaker 1: a guy like TJ Watt. And I understand it because
Speaker 1: I'm that guy too. So the big name we associate
Speaker 1: because the big name has production behind it. So when
Speaker 1: you're talking about the Red Wings and this offseason and
Speaker 1: you're going what do they need, you immediately think, well,
Speaker 1: Mitch Marner would be nice. Now, he's a right winger,
Speaker 1: he's not a center, but he leads Toronto in points
Speaker 1: with ninety seven, leads Toronto and assists with seventy two.
Speaker 1: He's a really good player. He's a plus thirteen as
Speaker 1: a forward, pretty damn good as well. He's a big
Speaker 1: reason why Toronto's had a nice year. Okay, last year
Speaker 1: people thought he disappeared in the playoffs. They were carried
Speaker 1: by Austin Matthews, William Nielander. Both those guys are pretty
Speaker 1: damn good. Mitch Marner is not necessarily that ultimate goal
Speaker 1: scorer for Toronto. That's Matthews primarily. But Marner is a
Speaker 1: very productive player, and at the age of twenty seven,
Speaker 1: you would get a guy still in his prime. He's
Speaker 1: never scored more than thirty five goals in a season,
Speaker 1: but that's pretty damn good. Okay. I mean Alex Stabrinkle's
Speaker 1: got thirty six. So he says, this guy says, what
Speaker 1: do you think their biggest problem is? I said, I
Speaker 1: think the problem is pretty obvious. I think the problem
Speaker 1: is their third and fourth line scoring. They don't get
Speaker 1: much production from those people. Lucas Raymonds got twenty six
Speaker 1: goals and leads the team in points with seventy five.
Speaker 1: Alex to Brinkett leads the team in goals with thirty six.
Speaker 1: Neither one is even close to being a plus player.
Speaker 1: Dylan Larkin's got twenty nine goals, Patrick King's got twenty
Speaker 1: Those are four of your top six forwards. Your third
Speaker 1: and your fourth lines are basically non existent. And that's
Speaker 1: the hard part. Losing Andrew Copp Surezell didn't help this team,
Speaker 1: especially when Tom McClellan came on board. When Tom McClellan
Speaker 1: came on board, Andrew Copp seemed to seem to get
Speaker 1: it a little bit. But you've got to have more
Speaker 1: scoring up and down, and especially your center positions. Now.
Speaker 1: I like Marco Casper, I think most people do. I
Speaker 1: don't know if Marco Casper is a first or a
Speaker 1: second line center. I don't. Andrew Kopp was playing the
Speaker 1: second line center and then he got hurt. Casper is
Speaker 1: a third line you know, a full season, because remember
Speaker 1: I mean he's a guy. I guess he's played pretty
Speaker 1: most of this season, right, seventy three games, so most
Speaker 1: of the season. Michael Rasmussen has had a bad year,
Speaker 1: not just because of the minus thirteen, but you're expected
Speaker 1: to score more than he has and he hasn't. So
Speaker 1: that's that's I think what this team needs. I think defensively,
Speaker 1: if you like most Cider, I do you like Simon
Speaker 1: Edmondson I do. I think both are good players. I
Speaker 1: think Ben Sharot's a decent player. I think he's a
Speaker 1: great player, but I think he's a decent player. I
Speaker 1: think Albert Johansson is going to be a really good player.
Speaker 1: I think you need some depth on your defense. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's young guys or a veteran to
Speaker 1: come in here. You know they tried that by signing
Speaker 1: Eric Gustafson, and all he is is a team worst
Speaker 1: minus nineteen getting sixteen minutes a game, So probably not
Speaker 1: the best move. Another bad move by Steve Eisaman. His
Speaker 1: draft picks have been really good, it's hard to deny that,
Speaker 1: but his free agent signings have been not good at all.
Speaker 1: As good as his draft picks have been, his free
Speaker 1: agent signings have been equally as bad. But I would
Speaker 1: love to see, and obviously it's not Mitch Marner because
Speaker 1: he's a right winger. I'd love to see them go
Speaker 1: out and get an ace center, like one of the
Speaker 1: best centers in the league. There's your first line center,
Speaker 1: Dylan Larkin becomes your second line center. It's not just
Speaker 1: the third and fourth lines that need to scoring. It's
Speaker 1: the fact that, to be honest with you, your first
Speaker 1: two lines you don't necessarily have legit first two line guys.
Speaker 1: I've said this for a while. It's not a knock
Speaker 1: on any one particular individual because I like them. I do.
Speaker 1: But some of those guys belong on second lines, and
Speaker 1: they're on Detroit's first line. It's going to be a
Speaker 1: tough challenge for Steve Eisman to try and fix the
Speaker 1: situation that they have right now.