Wow.  Longest spam ever!

I love how he just says “Datsyuk looked brilliant.” No further explanation needed.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 09/15/07 at 08:47 PM ET

Mark Hartigan is a much better player than Igor Grigorenko right now. That could obviously change soon, but right now, I would be more confident with Mark Hartigan in the lineup than Dregs.

Posted by Thomas on 09/16/07 at 01:15 AM ET

Did you write that one, Thomas?  I like it.  That Chelsea, she’s got so much time on her hands…

There’s an entry coming, so this spoils the surprise, but I have one and only one overriding logical observation to make about Igor Grigorenko as of September 16, 2007 at 6:10 AM: It’s early.

So he stank at prospect camp.  So he’s probably 220 or so, maybe even 225 (Us “built like a fireplug” guys know these things, so he can’t speak the language any better than Mike Babcock, and he’s obviously struggled in adjusting to the geometry of the North American rink and the speed of the NHL game, especially in a camp where your reputation as a skilled player means jack and poop when ten guys who were invited as “courtesy calls” from AA hockey teams can out-hustle you for your job.

The season doesn’t start for another two-and-a-half weeks, and there are two more days in Traverse City, a visit to Grand Rapids, nine exhibition games, and daily practices when the Wings move to the Joe on Thursday in which Grigorenko can turn things around and smash those initial impressions--and even if everything goes wrong for Grigorenko, if he’s willing to spend a month in Grand Rapids and tears the AHL up, he can still force the hands of the Wings’ brass.

I never heard of =75590"]Neil Clark before the Wings invited him to camp, but he has just as good a chance of unseating Grigorenko as anybody else right now.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 09/16/07 at 05:08 AM ET

I wasn’t joking about Hartigan. I had him in a fantasy keeper league years back. I took a flyer on him because he had a ton of skill and played really well in college and the AHL, he just never got much of a shot in the NHL.

He works hard, scores goals, has a good attitude, and would be more than willing to play a 3rd or 4th line role in the NHL. Dregs doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t and wouldn’t. On top of that, Dregs wouldn’t be effective in a 3rd or 4th line role in the NHL. If he’s not on a scoring line, he wouldn’t be the slightest bit effective.

Posted by Thomas on 09/16/07 at 06:39 AM ET

I’m not questioning Hartgian’s chances by any means--he’s a very solid player, and he and Ellis probably have the most realistic chances of unseating Grigorenko--just noting that it’s still early.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 09/16/07 at 07:17 AM ET

I remember a time in ages long past when I was jealous of the young talent the Dive had. Drury, Heidjuk (sp?), and a few others were still rising even while Sakic and Peter the Injured ruled the roost. I remember especially liking Drury because he skated and moved with the flair of Russian players.

Now...the Empire has struck back. If MacLeod and Georgeums are to be believed, which they should, we have an amazing pool of young talent coming up.

I’m not saying anything particularly insightful I know, but I’m warm and fuzzy all over.... and hungry for skewered Duck…

Posted by srt on 09/16/07 at 08:25 AM ET

If MacLeod and Georgeums are to be believed, which they should, we have an amazing pool of young talent coming up.

Wow, that isn’t even remotely accurate.

The Wings’ prospect pool is bad. Amongst the worst in the league. Bottom 10 for sure.

Posted by Thomas on 09/16/07 at 12:26 PM ET

Thom, is that based on your 2003 Draft Analysis you mentioned over at Paul’s site? You know, the one you called the most exhaustive report ever done on that subject?  You may have missed my response to that asking if we could get a look at it.

Posted by IwoCPO from Washington, DC on 09/16/07 at 12:59 PM ET

A 2003 Draft analysis is more useful for long-term trends and not a current prospect pool.

We’re talking “x was y% successful at drafting NHL players in the 3rd round between the years of a and b” vs. “the Isles have weak prospect depth”.

Make sense?

Me saying that the Wings’ prospect system is weak is based on the players they currently retain the rights to, not on their historical draft success.

Posted by Thomas on 09/16/07 at 01:51 PM ET

Sure it makes sense. I guess we won’t be seeing that.

Posted by IwoCPO from Washington, DC on 09/16/07 at 02:09 PM ET

Our pool of prospects is hardly star-studded, but it’s not bad by any means.  We’re where we usually are--in the middle of the pack. 

We’ve been a “middle of the pack” team in terms of prospect depth and prospect talent for ages, at least ten years or so (during the Cup years, our team’s prospect ranking was near the bottom of the league), but we’ve done just fine because the team’s scouting staff and braintrust do a good job of accentuating their talent pool by signing young free agents (Lebda, Ellis, Cleary) and getting tons of mileage from the older players they acquire.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 09/16/07 at 04:43 PM ET

I yield the subjectivity of my comment and accept it as the consequence of ‘homerish’ provinciality. i.e. I’m feeling good relative to other years *and* compared to my jealousy of Avs years back.

2) An objective measure of draft success, it seems to me, should also take into account team success during that same period. Relative to other *consistent* cup contenders and perennial division/ conference champs, where does our draft success stand. To point out that a team that regularly blows but has developed NHL players from high draft picks doesn’t say much. That we continue to develop prospects--albeit in the middle of the pack level--from low draft picks and contend every year says a lot more. IMHO

Posted by srt on 09/16/07 at 07:12 PM ET

Regular-season and playoff success are definitely indicative of long-term draft and free agent strategy successes, so...I mean, you look at Nick Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov, Dallas Drake, and you see perhaps one of the NHL’s best draft classes ever in the Wings’ 89 draft still producing, you look at the miles the Wings have gotten out of plucking young, talented grinders out of other organizations in Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby, the team’s ability to leverage first-round picks that ended up not panning out for other teams, or at least not making the impact of the players the Wings received…

The Wings’ scouting staff is sound, extremely sound, and while we may not draft a Milan Hedjuk every year, over the last seven years--especially, since Nill, Andersson, Havluj, McConnell, and Howe have formed the core thereof--and you cannot deny the Wings’ consistent ability to find two solid NHL-level players (or players who project to be solid NHL’ers) out of seven to nine picks each and every season. 

If you can find a Kronwall, Kopecky, Hudler, Filppula, and Franzen in seven years, even assuming that only one or two of Howard, Meech, Quincey, Grigorenko, Ericsson, McGrath, Kindl, Abdelkader, Helm, Ryno, Emmerton, Mursak, and Pyett will have any NHL impact whatsoever, and you’re able to keep up with the Joneses in re-stocking your roster in such a way as to sustain a certain level of wins and points per season. 

Oy, that’s a long-winded way of saying, “Yuppers,” isn’t it?

I’m not a critic of Holland, though I think that the Robert Lang trade, which resulted in a solid NHL defenceman in Mike Green and a possible star forward in Tomas Fleischmann going to Washington via the 2 1st-rounders and Fleischmann himself, was horrific…

But I think our scouting staff is tremendously solid, and that extends to their ability to sign young free agents, because guys like Lebda and Ellis may not be superstars, nor are Lilja or Samuelsson ever going to be confused with Zetterberg or Datsyuk, but being able to sign solid “sleeper” free agents to fill in those gaps that the draft picks and trades don’t fill, in my opinion, can separate the Red Wings and Devils of the world from the Panthers and Coyotes.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 09/16/07 at 11:46 PM ET

Our pool of prospects is hardly star-studded, but it’s not bad by any means.

No, it’s bad. You have a couple good prospects (Kindl, and maybe Howard), half a dozen guys who could be NHL regulars, and the rest are guys you’d hope you’d never have to use. That’s not good.

We’ve been a “middle of the pack” team in terms of prospect depth and prospect talent for ages,

No, you haven’t. The Wings have been near the bottom of the league in both prospect depth and prospect talent since the Fedorovs, Lidstroms, Konstantinovs, etc. graduated to the NHL. Once those guys made the league, the Wings’ prospect system has been putrid.

There’s been a bit of an uptick recently, but nothing special. Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Fischer are the only players in recent history who have been impact players by any stretch (and Fischer was never an impact player). There has been the occasional scrub who got some playing time (Filppula) and made the best of it, but there has been no quality prospect depth in the Wings’ system since the aforementioned fall of the iron curtain.

but we’ve done just fine because the team’s scouting staff and braintrust do a good job of accentuating their talent pool by signing young free agents

There is no prospect talent pool to accentuate, and the scouts have nothing to do with it. The team brings in other teams’ draft busts, signs them, and they work out sometimes (Cleary), and don’t work other times (Kolanos).

I’m feeling good relative to other years *and* compared to my jealousy of Avs years back.

The Avs’ prospect pool is better now than it was then. The headliner (Tanguay back then) is not there, but overall talent is much better, and the depth is astounding.

An objective measure of draft success, it seems to me, should also take into account team success during that same period.

No. It shouldn’t.

An objective measure of draft success is nothing more than a facts-based analysis of what percentage of picks used became players of whatever statistical benchmark you choose.

To factor in team success is to immediately discard any notion of objectivity. The whole point of doing an objective analysis is to factor out bullshit, not add it in.

Relative to other *consistent* cup contenders and perennial division/ conference champs, where does our draft success stand.

Well, over the past 10 to 12 years, you’re talking about going up against Colorado, New Jersey and Dallas. Detroit can’t even begin to compete with Dallas over that span when it comes to graduating prospects, much less New Jersey and Colorado (who, with Ottawa, are the three best teams over the last 12 years with regards to success in the Draft).

To point out that a team that regularly blows but has developed NHL players from high draft picks doesn’t say much.

Nobody is saying that.

Dude, you *do* realize that my research was sponsored, right? And that it took place at one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the world, right? And that to get said sponsorship, I had to pitch a proposal that addressed any foreseeable concern that might be placed in front of me, right? You don’t think I thought of the notion that a higher pick should yield a better player?

That we continue to develop prospects--albeit in the middle of the pack level--from low draft picks and contend every year says a lot more.

If that were true, then it would. But it’s not, so it doesn’t.

Detroit doesn’t “continue to develop prospects.” Detroit hasn’t developed a prospect who had any kind of impact since Zetterberg. That’s an AWFUL track record.

I think your problem is that you think that guys like Hudler, Grigorenko, Filppula, Franzen, etc are somehow examples of your team developing prospects. None of them have done anything at any level to suggest that they might eventually be significant players in the NHL. Hudler and Grigorenko are likely just good AHL players who can play an NHL role in a pinch, but you hope it never comes to that. Filppula and Franzen are nothing more than role players.

Every team in the NHL has guys like those. Every team. Most NHL teams have more of those kind of guys than the Wings do. Most NHL teams have actually developed a significant prospect in the last five years.

It appears that you don’t understand just how poorly your team has drafted over the past fifteen or so years.

Posted by Thomas on 09/17/07 at 12:11 AM ET

I don’t happen to give a rat’s butt if Jeebus himself sponsored your research at every single academic institution in the world at the same time.

I simply disagree, and it’s my subjective opinion.

Honestly, Thomas, I don’t understand this preoccupation with this, “I must beat you over the head with the only opinion that is or has ever been right until you are Enlightened” thing. 

Professional hockey writers ask for my informed opinion on occasion, because they think I know my stuff that well. 

So what? 

Congratulations on your funding and your research and your paper.  I still disagree.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 09/17/07 at 12:29 AM ET

Regular-season and playoff success are definitely indicative of long-term draft and free agent strategy successes,

No, they aren’t. A GM can take over a team with a stockpile of NHL-level talent and no prospect depth, and supplement that talent through free agency to sustain success without having any sort of prospect system. That’s what Ken Holland did.

On-ice success can and does occur without the need for a prospect system.

On-ice success can and does occur without the need for free agent acquisitions.

I mean, you look at Nick Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov, Dallas Drake, and you see perhaps one of the NHL’s best draft classes ever in the Wings’ 89 draft still producing,

That was eighteen years ago. Ken Holland was not the GM eighteen years ago. That was, what? Two GMs ago? You can’t judge the present administration’s ability by the drafting of two administrations ago.

The Wings’ scouting staff is sound, extremely sound, and while we may not draft a Milan Hedjuk every year, over the last seven years--especially, since Nill, Andersson, Havluj, McConnell, and Howe have formed the core thereof--and you cannot deny the Wings’ consistent ability to find two solid NHL-level players (or players who project to be solid NHL’ers) out of seven to nine picks each and every season.

Um, yes, I can.

1997 - No solid NHL players.
1998 - Fischer and Datsyuk
1999 - Zetterberg
2000 - No solid NHL players as of yet - Kronwall projects, but he hasn’t proven it yet.
2001 - No solid NHL players. Small chance of Grigorenko becoming one.
2002 - Filppula (arguably)
2003 - Howard
2004 - No solid NHL players.
2005 - Kindl
2006 - No solid NHL players (Mursak has an outside chance)
2007 - No solid NHL players

So, in the ten years that Ken Holland has been GM, there has been ONE season in which the Wings drafted two players who either are or reasonably project to be solid NHL players.

If you can find a Kronwall, Kopecky, Hudler, Filppula, and Franzen in seven years,

Every team in the NHL found five or more role players in the draft over the past seven years.

And neither Kopecky nor Hudler have proven that they are even NHL-caliber in the first place, so don’t argue as if they are draft hits. They aren’t. Not yet, anyway.

even assuming that only one or two of Howard, Meech, Quincey, Grigorenko, Ericsson, McGrath, Kindl, Abdelkader, Helm, Ryno, Emmerton, Mursak, and Pyett will have any NHL impact whatsoever,

That’s a pretty safe assumption. One or two of those guys will make it as solid NHL players, in all likelihood.

I’m not a critic of Holland,

Understatement of the year.

and a possible star forward in Tomas Fleischmann

So it’s not just Wings prospects that you ridiculously overrate, but former Wings prospects as well?

Fleischmann a possible “star”? I mean, Franzen will score 40 goals before Fleischmann becomes a star in the NHL. The kid had the talent, but he was saddled by being forced into two organizations that don’t know how to develop talent. It’s too late for him now.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, he could smoke-and-mirrors his way into being a productive NHL player one day, ala Dan Cleary. But it’s too late for him to develop into a star.

But I think our scouting staff is tremendously solid, and that extends to their ability to sign young free agents, because guys like Lebda and Ellis may not be superstars, nor are Lilja or Samuelsson ever going to be confused with Zetterberg or Datsyuk, but being able to sign solid “sleeper” free agents to fill in those gaps that the draft picks and trades don’t fill, in my opinion, can separate the Red Wings and Devils of the world from the Panthers and Coyotes.

You act as if amateur scouting and pro scouting are the same thing. They aren’t. The ability to identify potential free agent signees and the ability to identify potential draft successes are two completely different things and almost always done by two completely different departments.

To make an analogy, a collision shop and a mechanic both “fix” your car. But you don’t take your car to a collision shop when it needs transmission work.

Posted by Thomas on 09/17/07 at 12:38 AM ET

I don’t happen to give a rat’s butt if Jeebus himself sponsored your research at every single academic institution in the world at the same time.

I simply disagree, and it’s my subjective opinion.

It’s not a matter of agreement and disagreement.

You saying you disagree with the results of my statistical analysis is essentially saying that you disagree that two times two is four.

By any objective standard you choose, the Wings are one of the bottom five or six teams in the league in draft success over the last fifteen years, or pretty much any contrived time period within that frame.

Honestly, Thomas, I don’t understand this preoccupation with this, “I must beat you over the head with the only opinion that is or has ever been right until you are Enlightened” thing.

In this particular case, opinion doesn’t even enter the equation.

Professional hockey writers ask for my informed opinion on occasion, because they think I know my stuff that well.

That’s great. I was a scout, then a professional hockey writer, and that got me into school, got me a full ride, got me on the floor for two NHL Drafts. My ability to understand ways to implement statistics in analysis of draft success is what got my research sponsored.

And it’s not a “paper”.

Posted by Thomas on 09/17/07 at 12:44 AM ET

Again, congratulations.

I have always believed that math is subjective, and I am particularly critical of “objective” statistical analyses.  It’s not personal.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 09/17/07 at 01:07 AM ET

You know, I’m pissed off.  I really don’t think that it’s very mature for someone to get their rocks off pouncing upon any opinion that deviates from their own with some sort of magical overwhelming statistical evidence to the contrary.  It’s silly, it’s juvenile, and it’s plain old dumb. 

People who claim to have accomplished far less--and much more--are far less insecure and subject to assail and attempt to systematically de-construct what are nothing more or less than observations and opinions.  Enlightenment generally does not carry such an acute burden, and the level, intensity, and exquisite detail involved in expending so much energy to repeat, “You’re wrong, and I shall repeatedly explain while you’re wrong until I’m blue in the face” don’t speak well of the person saying those things.

There are some who choose not to be convinced of a vast number of assertions, and that’s true across the entire spectrum of human thought.  Those who predate upon the unconvinced draw the same question from their “subjects"--why the heck does someone feel the need to assert their self-importance?

I don’t care if you’re a Hockey Hall of Fame-honouree, if you’re a former NHL GM, a Nobel Laureate, or you’re the Ubermensch, and I don’t care how many people you’re willing to claim worship you as God. 

People have subjective opinions, and whether subjective opinions are “right” or “wrong,” they are all valid and merit respect, unless we’re talking about the proffering of an abhorrent moral belief, like the right to kill and eat babies. 

As far as I’m concerned, my opinion is as valid as yours, Bill’s, or anyone else’s, and if it’s so damn important that you’re regarded as absolutely and innately more correct, more articulate, and, at least from what I can observe as something that seems to be important to you, more special, start your own website, go talk to your worshippers on usenet, or do better and work on two things: 1. developing a sense of humour and 2. getting over yourself. 

Insisting upon making so much of what’s said taken upon oneself as a personal affront is like becoming the essence of the boy who cried wolf, and, in that sense, sentencing oneself to becoming nothing more than persistent background noise.

Honestly, there is only one way I can accurately express my measured frustration with your insistence upon proving your “betterness,” and it’s not in English, nor does it consist of my own words, but, instead, those of Bertholdt Brecht:

Wenn Herr Keuner einen Menschen liebte

“Was tun Sie”, wurde Herr K. gefragt, “wenn Sie einen Menschen lieben?”

“Ich mache einen Entwurf von ihm”, sagte Herr K., “und sorge, daß er ihm ähnlich wird.”

“Wer? Der Entwurf?”

“Nein”, sagte Herr K., “Der Mensch.”

Es gibt keine moeglichkeit, dass Sie alle, die sie kennen learnen werden, Ihre Entwuerfen machen.  Wenn nicht, und Sie muessten noch es machen, wenn du auf dem Kopf stellst, und du kannst mich mal.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 09/17/07 at 03:11 AM ET

ohhhh....snap!!! He pulls out Nietzsche, Brecht and a full German paragraph in one post; you, Gorgeums, have officially gotten my vote as “the *#$%@& man!”

As for you Thomas, I actually find some of what you say reasonable and a worthy of consideration. The mode of delivery, however, is lacking--as several others including yourself have noted (you said something about sounding angry or ‘direct’ all the time). I, like the Chief, am still interested in seeing the final analysis whenever you can make that available.

Anyway, should we take this to a purely academic level we can but this is where I go to get away from academia. Opinions, BJ jokes and irrational (read: affective ties that go beyond the progressive teleology of the Enlightenment narrative) love of cheddar abound....

Posted by srt on 09/17/07 at 06:52 AM ET

I don’t particularly want to make this personal, nor did I really have any intent of challenging Thomas’s assertions, but when you’re talking to someone else entirely, and your opinions are assailed anyway, the whole, “I am the blog bully, and I’m going to point both barrels at any opinion I disagree with” dynamic comes into play, and I believe that such occasions merit a response. 

In other words, if you’re skating along into the opposition zone, and somebody starts hacking and whacking at you “just because you’re there,” you have every right to tell the guy to cut it out, and then whack right back. 

What, you’re not a fan of a little Nietzschean existentialism, some Brechtian “morality plays,” and quotes from Goethe on a hockey blog?  Awwww...come on, man…

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 09/17/07 at 04:00 PM ET