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