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on Scotty Bowman... You hated him for 364 days of the year, and on the 365th day you received your Stanley Cup Ring. Steve Shutt

Somebody hurry and rescue uk_redwing.

We need a suicide watch on uk_redwing STAT!! esteef

I have heard he expects a lot out of his players, but this is the NHL, not Peewee hockey on Saturday mornings. I have not heard that a lot of players badmouth him and refuse to play under him. In any event I think the point is moot. You know who else was described like that? Scotty Bowman.

How did I "lose" the argument? This isn't a competition, it's a discussion. Quite juvenile, young chap.

Meaner and didn't address their horrible PK. Hope Crawford enjoys facing 40 shots a night

...and hookers

I like this from Kenny. He did a good job at addressing our biggest need Defense. Money left to acquire a pretty good name at the trade deadline if needed. Wings have to stay healthy and I still think they will move Hudler for a bag of pucks. Lets be honest one of the biggest years in free agency will be next year. Currently scheduled for free agency next year include names like Patrick Sharp, Brad Stuart, Nick Kronwall, Ales Hemsky, Dustin Penner, Drew Doughty, Ryan Sutter, SHEA WEBBER, Pekka Rinne, ZACH PARISE, Keith Yandle, Bret Burns, Steven Stamkos, Mikeal Grabovski, Mikel Samuelsson, Alex Semin, Karl Alzner, Zach Bogosian. The point is there are a lot of big names next year on the market. The Wings are saving money because one of these names will be signed by the wings next off season. So just relax for now and enjoy the season. We still have the best Defenseman in hockey and two of the best forwards. We will be fine maybe even win the division.

http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2011/07/red_wings_sign_defensemen_garn.html DETROIT -- The Detroit Red Wings have signed a pair of defensemen, agreeing to one-year deals with unrestricted free-agent Garnet Exelby and their own restricted free agent, Logan Pyett. Both are slated to play for the Grand Rapids Griffins next season. Exelby, who turns 30 on Aug. 16, is a good-sized, scrappy defender (6-foot-1, 215 pounds) with 408 games of NHL experience with Atlanta and Toronto. He spent all of last season with the Rockford IceHogs (AHL), picking up three goals, 10 assists and 128 penalty minutes in 77 games. He played for the Maple Leafs in 2009-10, picking up a goal, three assists and 73 penalty minutes in 51 games. The 23-year-old Pyett (5-10, 200) has spent the past three seasons with Grand Rapids, where he's collected 21 goals, 45 assists and a minus-2 rating in 215 games.

How about a fun thread to take our minds off of free agency for a little bit? Just as a preface, Jedi (one of the LGW mods) gave me the green light to start this thread. Thanks Jedi, btw! So, hopefully it doesn't get moved out of the General Discussion. As part of the July 4th weekend celebration, my buddies and I along with our families blew up some fireworks (as well as 'sacrificed' a few old toys), had a few drinks and got into some random discussions. We're all hockey junkies and movie buffs and so eventually The Mighty Ducks movies came up in conversation and we wondered what the Mighty Ducks team would look like if those characters were in the NHL today based on their primary strengths/weaknesses. In terms of NHL comparisons, we decided to stick with players currently active in today's game. For example, which NHL player would be most comparable to Adam Banks? We all immediately and unequivocally declared that the most fitting or perhaps ideal comparison would be Sidney Crosby. Steve Stamkos came up a little bit but only as a 2nd option if we felt later on that the Crosby comparison is too ridiculous...

^ Tie!! esteef

Well considering Mayers was on the team that has beat the wings out 2 years in a row now, Carcillo and O'Donnel have been to the cup finals more recently than any redwings and Montador is a very solid player who is tough and can put up 30 points from the backend. I mean sure you might be one of those guys that has no clue and thinks physicality and meanness have no effect in the playoffs, but I'm not. Was Dallas Drake a washed up has been? Yup, but look what he did come playoff time.

This thread should be moved to rumor mill. There is no credibility here what-so-ever....

Exelby = insurance.

Not gettin' a toughness list. You've lost the privilege. I never said we couldn't beat the Hawks, I just said they're more physical, keep tryin tho

Lets see how Wiz feels after being with the Blue Jackets for the next six years...see if he still feels the same way about being a "good fit" for one of the most storied hockey franchises in history. See how life in a college football insane (only) town goes when no one in town could pick him out of a line-up. See how he feels when he tells locals that he plays for the Blue Jackets and they immediately ask "what is hockey??", tune out, and walk away mumbling something about the Buckeye's. See how he feels when he's consistently at his summer home in early April. Like it's been stated before, "nothing says hockey like the middle of Ohio" (not Ohio bashing, used to live there for many, many years...but it's the absolute truth about Columbus). Hope that few extra Mill on the contract goes a long way because he may just slowly slip away into non-existence from here on out. Maybe a change in perspective for him. Ask Mike Commodore (regarding statements he made about Bab's), things change real quck and burning the bridge of not just a coach, but an entire organziation...on top of that...his hometown team...THE Detroit Red Wings.... = not so smart. Thanks for the compliment Wiz and I hear soy sauce makes Crow taste a little better. May want to start acquiring that taste now.

What chips? Their farm rosters have been rushed to the NHL level, most of them have underachieved, then they signed players that other GMs didn't want. On top of that Chicago is starting to get a reputation of being a team that has buyers remorse, a couple more waiving or trading players they regret signing for more than they are worth they will become a team no one wants to play for. I don't see Chicago being a huge player at the deadline unless its trading Sharp.

Remember, a 1 year contract would actually be 7 in dog years & those pure breeds suffer from hip dysplasia a little too much for my liking.

Nuh uh, playing for Detroit automatically makes you a perfect fifth. Are you trying to say he's a diminished fifth?

It seems you're just determined to hate Holland, so I don't know why I'm wasting my time, and I hate to derail the thread... You can't really 'plan' to be this good for this long, especially with the veteran-heavy strategy that's been so successful. Low draft picks mean few top prospects. Older players mean fewer trade assets. Plus normal FA attrition. Plus losing Konstantinov and Fischer... It is nothing short of remarkable that we have remained a legit Cup contender every year of Holland's tenure. No other team in the league has even made the playoffs every year. Many haven't been a contender even one year. While of course much of that success is due to Nick, Pav, and Hank, much is also due to Holland carefully planning for both the present and the future at the same time. We are still a good team as we are. Good enough to win a Cup if we get hot at the right time. The Sharks got better on defense, but worse at forward. Vancouver and Chicago both lost a good defenseman without really replacing them. LA looks a lot better but they started behind us and we still have to see how they'll gel. Columbus got better but so what. Nashville is worse on defense and still doesn't have an offense. In the East Washington looks good, but still have that choker label to shed. Boston is about the same, Philly looks worse, TB still has work to do but doesn't look like they'll be any better, and Pittsburgh with a healthy Crosby may be the best team right now, assuming he doesn't disrupt the effort/chemistry they found without him. In short, I don't see any team that we aren't capable of beating. I'd say right now we're just outside the group of top contenders, and a bit ahead of the dark-horse range. In short, we are not in a position that we need to dismantle anything, or make desperate moves now just because it seems like a good idea or because 'well, we need to do something'. My point on Pav and Hank had nothing to do with them leaving as FAs. Pav is 33, we have maybe 3-5 years at most with him as a dominant player. Hank not much, if any, longer. It takes time for prospects to develop. Even if Jurco (who is 18 by the way) joined the team this year, and is a star in the making, he still might not be ready to take over for Pav in 3 years. Pulu and Jarnkrok are still in Europe. It's not a matter of 'picking and choosing' prospects, whatever that is even supposed to mean. It's that we don't have top 5 picks that are NHL ready on draft day. We draft guys that have a lot of upside, but also need a lot of development before they can play at this level. Pav and Hank both spent 3 years in Europe after we drafted them. Mule might have come straight over if not for the lockout, but he was also 24 when we drafted him. Guys make the team when they're ready (Helm and the stacked '09 team notwithstanding). This isn't a game where we can just do anything we want. Other teams aren't going to trade for our s*** just because we offer them a lot of it. And there are very few sure bets that even might be available. Yandle looks great, but he could also stagnate or even regress. Even Doughty isn't a sure thing. Making short-sighted moves now may pay off, or may leave us in the same situation but with fewer options. We have a good team. We have good enough pieces that it won't be the end of the world, even if Nick retires and we don't get an all-star to replace him. We have options at the deadline. We have another summer of free agency. We do not need to make a rash decision. If a good trade is there, great. If not, we need to be patient. Yeah, it sucks that none of the better defensemen made it to free agency. Sucks that the Sharks had the right parts to land Burns. But that does not mean we need to make dumb moves.

for a 1-1.5mil im totally down. could boost the hell out of the PK

You shouldn't really compare a defenseman's contract to forwards. Different roles, different teams, different market value. Ericsson was overpayment that hopefully he may earn one day soon, but there's plenty of examples of overpayment when you look at the UFA's that are defenseman.

How'd that work out in the playoffs though? A few injuries to regulars and we're done for. We used to have fantastic depth, now it's just alright. We could've used one extra scoring forward to round out the top 6, instead we re-sign both Eaves and Miller and now dont have any space.

followed by reading the subtitle and thinking.... yes.