I try very hard to share enough of subscriber-only articles to give you a sense of what’s going on without simply dumping the entire content thereof on the blog. It’s a delicate balance, because I want to reveal what’s “behind the curtain,” but I can’t share everything, because I don’t want to get sued.
In this case, a picture “is worth a thousand words” regarding The Athletic’s take on where Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond, Moritz Seider, Alex DeBrincat and Patrick Kane belong in terms of “player tiers,” per Dom Luszczyszyn, Sean Gentille and Shayna Goldman:
Continued (paywall) with more analysis; yes, they criticize Seider’s capability to handle the difficult match-ups which he faces, and they wonder whether Dylan Larkin has “plateaued.”
As per usual for the Red Wings, the praise machine involves skating “uphill both ways,” especially when it comes to The Athletic’s relationship with Seider. It is what it is.
Take the critiques for what you will. Some will say they’re too harsh, some will say that they’re too lenient, and in either case, we’ll talk about them, which is more or less the point of the expansive article.
Yeah, the Seider thing is over and over again. I am not overly enthralled with their views. I stopped my subscription, but for other reasons.
My problem with The Athletic is that the writers are excellent, but they also let us know at every opportunity how excellent they are. It’s a self-congratulatory place, where Luszczyszyn and Pronman and Wheeler are treated like know-it-all royalty, among others.
Exactly. A good bit of the reason I left.