Red Wings WAR Analysis featuring @JFreshHockey

Hi everybody and welcome to Episode 4 of Season 2 of Red Wings Rant hosted by the Brothers of Discussion and brought to you by the Hockey Podcast Network.  Where tirades and impassioned pleas about your Detroit Red Wings, finally, have a home.

Let’s talk about Red Wing’s analytics! We have Jack from @JFreshHockey this week. As one of the top analytical minds in the hockey world, Jack has created his own Wins Above Replacement Models that did predict another (close to) last-place finish for the Red Wings. 

We are also continuing our Rochester Mills 12 Days of Christmas sampling with the Double Chocolate Stout, ‘Paul Woods’ returns to play Who is That Pokemon, and play Be the GM by analyzing what Jonathan Bernier could land in a trade.

Rochester Mills 12 Days of Christmas - Double Chocolate

The Brothers of Discussion are excited and proud to present their first beer tasting of the network. We’re going festive for the holiday season and decided to sample Rochester Mills’ 12 Days of Christmas Beer Package. The Brothers will be tasting the beers for a flavor match to the beer’s name, drinkability, the packaging, and provide an overall score (weighted by the drinkability).

Rochester Mills is a Michigan Brewery, famous in the state for its 12 Days of Christmas Box Set. Release on an annual basis, the brewery tinkers with the list of 12 beers, but always follows through with a smooth, milk-like base. 

Double Chocolate Milkshake Stout

On top of the Milkshake feel is a new list of twelve beers.

Interview with Jack from JFresh Hockey

While the last-place finish wouldn’t be a shock, Jack, from J Fresh Hockey, and I discuss the hope exuding from the smart offseason moves Steve Yzerman made: Bringing in Greiss, signing Bobby Ryan, Vladislav Namistnikov, Troy Stetcher, & Jon Merrill to short term deals, and weaponizing the cap to bring in more draft picks. All of this points to an eventual winner.

I think it is important to continue to recognize the struggle still in front of us, too. Now that we know the NHL’s next season will be underway on January 13th, we can reprogram our brains to look for different things when we see the WInged Wheel hit the ice.

And don’t mistake that notion for complacency. You can get tired of losing, don’t get me wrong. But the state that this team was in when it was adopted by Steve Yzerman’s loving embrace, was far worse than we even thought. 

But regardless of how bad it is, we needed to see improvement and I think it’s easy to see the improvement already. With the likes of Trevor Daley and Justin Abdelkader gone, their contracts and regressed level of play with stop hurting this team’s development. And more importantly, Steve made sure that who he replaced those names with were cheap, flexible, movable upgrades.

Listen to the rest of the interview to get more thoughtful insight from Jack, of JFresh Hockey, and hear who he believes Red Wings fans could have a good time watching this year. That and much more!