Smexy

Duthie called him "like Darren Helm, but with a better scoring touch." If that's true, I'm beyond stoked. Also was mentioned he's a fantastic leader.

Blessed with good wheels and engaging in a scrappy attack, Larkin forces the pace of the game to uncomfortable levels for opposing defenders. Playing in a north-south direction, Larkin battles hard and drives the net with a purpose bringing the same intensity shift after shift. At the next level, it appears he won’t be a top-line player but Larkin certainly projects as a two-way forward who can impact that game in all three zones.
Profile from: Brendan Ross of Dobber Prospects - Feb. 24th

@IssHockey - "Natural born leader at U18 4-Nations. Does what it takes to have upside in both ends." - Dec. 4th, 2013

So what do you guys think is going to happen in a years time?
The wings want mrazek to play AHL for 4th year bc they think hes better playing 65 games in AH than 15 in NHL.
So logic would dictate that the next year, they dont want him to play 15 in the NHL when he could be doing that this year.

Do you think an uncharacteristic Howard trade could happen based on mrazek's success?
Would it be like this:
This year is as described
The Next year, Howard and mrazek compete for first job while getting mrazek for a back up salary then if he takes it, he takes it?
Though that lowers Howard's trade stock so....

What an interesting situation.

Also- wings have 14.7M in cap space (ranked 12th) going in to July 1.
18 players under contract (11/5/2)

RFA: dekeysser, Sheahan, Tatar
Potential signings: Alfredsson, Cleary

Of course we all pray cleary's knee explodes this summer...

Wings looking at Boyle
I will be disappointed without a forward add too.
Reason being: we were not a defenseman away from a cup.
However injuries derailed the season. Imo thats only going to get worse with aging players.

I think they need to add a sexy defenseman (likely) and a sexy forward (unlikely) or else shed cap space, let the nyquists and tatars he better and trying to put a cup team on the ice in 2015.
However, you havealfredsson and pavel and need to win a cup with them on the roster or its a waste of time
Having said that- they gotta put a cup team on the ice this year.

Thats all to ask:
So will boyle be enough barring injuries?
Will boyle be enough if they land that classic red wings cap add at the deadline?

I agree that they would be fine with gustavsson and mrazek. But that still began the question of what to do with Howard.
Gus is a one year deal so you would think he's out and mrazek is in next year.
Ok now you have howard and mrazek but didn't want mrazek to play 15 this year so why would you want him to play 15 next year? So you do 50/30 split or something. Ok well now you are paying 5.3M for a split time goalie and mrazek's contract is coming up. Mrazek is also going to want starting job or walk at this point.

To me, that says trade Howard and get nearly the same quality starts for a fraction of the cost. Just seems unrealistic that the wings trade howard since they dont normally wheel guys under long term $$

I'd love to pick Holland's brain about this

Sign Mrazek for long term #1 goalie imo

The Kindl and Weiss contracts have to be addressed before anything else. Kindl's only 2.4m but he's playing like a 7th defenseman at best. I would like to see them do something about Franzen too, and get someone who's more reliable/consistent, but his trade stock is zero.

Howard is fine for 2 more years - let Mrazek play in the AHL this one, then sign him on a 2-3yr bridge and let him backup jimmy. 2-3 years out they'll compete for a starter job and Mrazek will probably win. I'm not confident enough in him to trade Howard on the hope Mrazek pans out playing 60 games.

I'm not loving the market out there for high level defensemen. It feels like last year with Weiss - there weren't a lot of 2Cs but that was a need so they settled for the best guy available, and we see how that turned out. I would rather make a trade with the copious amount of prospects, which they are losing daily with two of them signing overseas due to being so low on the depth chart despite having high potential. Niskanen/Boyle/Ehrhoff intrigue me but I don't see them solving the problem.

As for forwards, I'm not sure what can really be done there. If they want to compete this year then yeah, they should pick someone up. But the kid line, glendening, etc are only getting better by the day. Would hate to deny them a roster spot just to try and move up from 8th seed to 6th seed this year.

This post was edited by dxlightning on Jun 30 2014 09:05am

Mrazek is 22 and knows what standard practice is for bringing up goalies. If he's gonna leave because he has to wait til 23 or 24 to be a regular, then I don't want him.