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I encourage you to jump in on the Artificial Intelligence discussion if you’re curious or have your own take. The comments can be found in my previous article as I discuss a new deal the associated press made with a specific AI program to create specific types of content.
Today, we’re going to talk a little bit about building a championship team. In hindsight, you can look at a Stanley Cup winning team and see which transactions took a particular franchise forward. In Detroit’s case, Brendan Shanahan was credited as an important part of the 1997 and 1998 cup wins. The addition of Russian players previously unavailable and strategies by Scotty Bowman are also (rightly) credited with success.
When you’re looking forward, it is very difficult to know if you’ve created the right vehicle. You don’t know if you have a championship team until, well, they win a championship. You can see teams with championship caliber players and pieces, but to get the names on Lord Stanley’s cup is the ultimate justification for the engineers and creators of the teams. The old saying, “the proof is in the pudding… is actually a misnomer. The saying started out as, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating…. Meaning, that’s when you find out if something good was created. The proof of the champion is in the winning, right?
This took me back to an even more basic study. In the first years of my head injury, I couldn’t sleep. For much of the time, I couldn’t read either. However, at night and with indirect lighting it became possible. I started to look for answers I hadn’t really thought of. The big one, how did we know we split the atom? It is said to have happened February 11th, 1939. Madame Curie’s daughter along with scientists including Lise Meitner had discovered something, but didn’t know what. They created a neutron accelerator and bombarded Uranium for an extended period of time. At some point, the Uranium was crumbled into powder and no longer tested as Uranium. Instead, Krypton and Barium were discovered to be in its place. Their atomic weights collectively came close to matching the weight of Uranium (the heaviest element). The proof of the split was two new elements separate from the one original.
A good version of this is on theworld.com. You will find arguments regarding who was involved. Meitner was only recently posthumously credited as she was a Jewish scientist conducting the experiment in Germany but successfully fled the country. She wrote shortly after, “this experiment should not be used in any type of weaponization as the resulting energy released could be catastrophic. Obviously, the words went unheeded.
So, to bring it all back, Yzerman has been making steps forward. An 80 point season with a team more in the mix than it had been in a few years but ultimately fell short of the post season. The additions (Debrincat, Ghostisbere, etc) will tell us whether the team is closer, essentially the same, or further away when the season wraps up. An entrance to the post season would certainly be a welcome step. An increase in goal scoring would be as well. This is not (as most of you have concluded) a championship caliber team. It will be interesting to see what improvements are being made through drafted personnel, trades, and free agent signings.
Just to the north in Toronto is a team that continues to tweak and look for the formula that will push the team past the 2nd round and into the finals. That’s just not where Detroit is at. By April of 2024 we should have an idea of how much closer to that conversation the Red Wings have gotten. There are things to look forward to, and there may still be a move or two left to be made. Grand Rapids has a new staff and it will be interesting to see how they fare this coming season. Here’s to hoping for forward motion within the franchises.