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Deflection + Excuse! At least when Hoss wasn't scoring he still gave his all and played great defensively. If Mule isn't scoring he is a waste of quality ice time. If he wants to have more fun show him clips of past Wings teams winning the Cup!

yeah sutter is pretty set in carolina

Since LGW is likely to be pretty slow until the end of June, I figured I'd throw together a little idea I had for what I thought our WC jerseys could look like. A couple pieces of history here and there (inverted logo, Detroit Cougars "D" on the shoulder), as well as a little deeper red trim for a vintage-ish look. Anyway, let me know what you think. I have the PSD file, so I can edit it as much as I want, so suggestions are welcome and I'd be willing to attempt any other mock-ups anyone might like to see (within my abilities).

40 goals for a $3.9 million cap hit?

I agree with what franzen said. He's been too inconsistent and needs to work on that but he isn't lazy. The wings have seemed to professional this season l. If they lighten up a bit they will have a lot more success

Johan Franzen is a good complimentary goal scorer. He shouldn't be relied upon to carry the offensive load for any team. This year and last year he was expected to do that and he obviously can't be that guy. But with a 4 million cap hit and the numbers he puts up, I'm happy for him to be out there for forward scoring depth. Bring in Parise and Franzen gets less defensive pressure and the offense returns, it's really that simple. Anybody else notice that Franzen's career regular and post season's came when Hossa was drawing the tougher defensive assignments? Again, COMPLIMENTARY.

So you want to replace a 25-30 goals corer with a prospect or a third liner?

Franzen was a third liner who was just coming into the league in his first two years. Not sure why you mention those. Also, from that same article: The coach who was brutally honest about what he wants out of Ken Holland now decides to defend Franzen? Let's be honest here. Franzen is an easy scapegoat (how can you not be when your quotes are changed up purposefully to bring a more negative story?) when the entire team was flat, unprepared, and outmatched by a better opponent. He isn't complaining to the media here. He is pointing out a reasonable fact regarding the team. They were slow, unmotivated, and didn't seem to have much faith in themselves. Also, Lang's last year with Detroit saw him not even score 20 goals. Yay.

I don't like quote re-invention. He said what he said and you shown what you heard (or rather, want to hear). Mule has right to be negative, he never excluded himself from being part of team lost in first round. This team need a shakeup, real good one. And a shake up is not always a rid of a player or two, or bunch. When a team member goes and speak it up, it might be a shake up too. That said, Mule is a one who needs to change his game and attitude to the game to be able to have more fun. If he understands and acts accordingly, i'm all in for him to be on this team... it's been good, when Mule is good...

Franzen managing to say the absolute wrong thing for how he's viewed here. Winning is fun. Scoring goals is fun. Try working harder every day, every game, every shift, and you'll probably win more games and score more goals and have more fun.

Maybe he can have more fun on another team. esteef

I just want him to show up and score some goals, for the impressive contract.

You guys are really late to the party with the Ericsson bashing. He was good all season and one of our best D-men in the playoffs.

Sorry but IMO Luongo is an Overrated Goalie. Granted he is good and has been stellar at times but he hasn't lived up to all the hype I've heard about him. Granted he's had a few injuries and that has held him back a bet but he's still a quality and high caliber goaltender and hopefully whereever he does go he can help that team.

Ken Holland should come visit the boards here and magically consolidate all 20 of the "Whats happening this offseason" threads into one.

Hudler re-signs for 5 years, 25 mil. Samuelsson and Kopecky are signed as UFAs. Quincey is re-signed as well. Holmstrom signs for 2 more years. Lidstrom retires. Stuart is gone. Kenny says he loves our depth and that the UFA prices were just way too high. Says he had interest in 4 or 5 players but they were too rich for his blood. Kenny says the Wings are not that far away from winning the Cup as they lost to the Cup champion Nashville Preds. Says he will wait until the trade deadline with all the Cap space available. Deadline will come and Kenny will trade for Ville Leino saying he is the missing piece and they never should have traded him in the first place. Wings lose in the first round to Nashville again. Rinse and repeat. Ok so this is the nagging voice in my head which I keep trying to block out. I will not mention it anymore! Here is what Kenny will do...Sign Parise and Suter. Nick comes back. Homer retires and gets a job as Haakan Andersson's assistant as swedish scout. Quincey is traded to the Oilers for a 2nd round pick. Nyquist and Smith make the team. Stuart leaves for Cali. Emmerton is waived and is picked up by Stevie in Tampa. Moen is signed to play with Eaves and Abby on the 4th line. Parise-Datsyuk-Nyquist Filppula-Zetterberg-Franzen Cleary-Helm-Bertuzzi Moen-Abdelkader-Eaves Miller, Mursak Lidstrom-Suter Kronwall-White Ericsson-Smith Kindl Howard-MacDonald

We love ya Blue, but not another "REALIST" thread. We already have someone telling us how our scenarios are junk and we don't do homework. He was so passionate about how much of a realist he is that he started his own thread. It seems that changes to this team are just all junk to him. He will come in here, pick apart your ideas, call it fantasy, explain why the Wings in it current status is great, Franzenlina is still the best sniper in the league and that nobody can take his place. All the while ignoring the fact that everyone is mentioning Parise, then bringing up Parise like he was the only "realist" to suggest Zach become a Red Wing.... Also, you mention Hudler will be re-signed, but at $3M+ it wold better to let him walk. It would be a mistake if he did re-sign here. Also, if you watched the same Lidstrom we all watched, then you should agree that he needs to retire. If he cannot heal correctly and it affects his game that much, then he is done. No offense to him, not being negative, but we don't need a Lidstrom that isn't even playing like he is a human, let alone super-human... I also think Cleary and Mursak (if not Emmerton too) should be shopped around. But that is just my opinion and there are some good arguments for trading them and keeping them. Also, you say Mursak and Emmerton will start in GR, they'd have to pass through waivers to do so, may as well try to get a couple of draft picks for them...BTW Olie would be bad here...

Hopefully less line threads

I'm looking forward to a happy Administration day Say No to NewCo!

Feel I need to be clear here. The OP is about what I think Holland is going to do. If you want to know what I think he should do... #1) Players to let go: -A) Brad Stuart. Sounds like we don't have a choice. -B) Kyle Quincey. Stupid/sucks that we gave up a 1st rd. pick for him. Not good enough to be worth 3 and a half mil a season. -C) Jiri Hudler. Not talented enough for the top six. Too expensive for the third line. -D) Tomas Holmstrom. If I could fit him in I would have. -E) Justin Abdelkader. Similar situation to Eaves. Would like to have him back, but couldn't squeeze him in. #2) Players to send down: -A) Riley Sheahan. Not ready. #3) Players to trade (for picks, prospects, nothing, whatever...place on waivers and send to GR if necessary): -A) Dan Cleary. He has no offensive skill, never has, never will. He's a third/fourth line winger. He's not physical. He's losing speed with age and injuries. 2.8 mil is way too much to pay him when a guy like Jan Mursak can give you essentially the same thing for 0.6 mil. Great guy, but this is a business. -B) Todd Bertuzzi. Not talented enough offensively for our top six. Not talented enough defensively for our bottom six. He doesn't fit in, at any price. Resigning him was a mistake. No need to live with it. -C) Patrick Eaves. Like him. Good player. Good price. Just didn't fit into my plan. Sorry. -D) Jakub Kindl. Simply not an NHL-level player. #4) Players to call up: -A) Brendan Smith. Ready. -B) Tomas Tatar. Hopefully ready, need a third scoring line. -C) Jan Mursak. Fine as a 4th liner. #5) Players to sign: -A) Zach Parise. 7.0 mil. No explanation needed. -B) Ryan Suter. 6.0 mil. No explanation needed. -C) Nick Lidstrom. 6.0 mil. Hope he takes less, not expecting him to. -D) Alexander Semin. 5.0 mil. I don't care that he's a *****, our whole team is *******, that's not our style. I don't care if he slacks in the regular season. I just need him to play hard in the playoffs. This team needs guys that can put the puck in the net, period. Semin is one of the top 5 most talented players in the game. I'll take the risk, gladly. -E) Darren Helm. 1.4 mil. Gave him a 0.5 mil raise. -F) Chris Conner. 0.5 mil. 13th forward. -G) Doug Janik. 0.5 mil. 7th defenseman. It works cap-wise: CAPGEEK.COM CAP CALCULATOR ROSTER My Custom Lineup FORWARDS Henrik Zetterberg ($6.083m) / Pavel Datsyuk ($6.700m) / Zach Parise ($7.000m) Alexander Semin ($5.000m) / Valtteri Filppula ($3.000m) / Johan Franzen ($3.955m) Gustav Nyquist ($0.875m) / Darren Helm ($1.400m) / Tomas Tatar ($0.840m) Jan Mursak ($0.550m) / Cory Emmerton ($0.533m) / Drew Miller ($0.838m) Chris Conner ($0.500m) / DEFENSEMEN Niklas Kronwall ($4.750m) / Ryan Suter ($6.000m) Nicklas Lidstrom ($5.900m) / Jonathan Ericsson ($3.250m) Brendan Smith ($0.875m) / Ian White ($2.875m) Doug Janik ($0.500m) / GOALTENDERS Jimmy Howard ($2.250m) Joey MacDonald ($0.550m) ------ CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter) (these totals are compiled without the bonus cushion) SALARY CAP: $64,300,000; CAP PAYROLL: $64,223,712; BONUSES: $247,500 CAP SPACE (22-man roster): $76,288

Detroit...

Ooh, aren't you cute. Lemme get you a cookie. I've been to Boston. More times than I can count. To see several different sporting events from several different sports. I have family living there. I know people from there that live here, and have lived elsewhere that I have lived. It's a racist city. I've heard it described as a Southern city in the Northeast. I was at a Dunkin Donuts near Fenway Park once, not long before a Yankees/Red Sox game, and heard not one but three people refer to black players on the Yankees as "n-words." As in, "I hope we beat those n-words" and "f*** those n-words." This is Boston circa 2009, not Atlanta circa 1949. To take sports out of the equation entirely, I was visiting a friend who attended Boston College and overheard someone refer to a black woman who got off the T as a "******* darkie." Again, this is in the last few years, not 60 years ago. To say that I'm not surprised about the comments directed toward that black hockey player is to say I'm not ******* surprised, considering the source. The same would be true if I was talking about Klansmen referring to the President. There's a reason many black athletes have said they hate playing in Boston, especially as visiting players, because of the racial hostility coming from the fans. I'm not pulling this s*** out of my ass, here. This is stuff I've seen with my own four eyes (I wear glasses) and my own two ears. Go mess with someone else. Surely there's a clone of mindfly s***ting on the Red Wings around here somewhere.

To be honest, i think he might be right. One thing our offense seemed to lack against nashville was creativity. We tried the same narrow minded, "shoot and go to the net" strategy over and over again instead of trying to go east to west and set up some plays to get the goalie moving. I think if people enjoythings more, they will be less stressed, more apt to try new things, and ultimately more motivated to make them happen.

looks like we have a new whipping boy. As happened with Hudler, I'm expecting a bounce-back season from Mule. Sure he looked un-motivated this year and did nothing in the playoffs but everybody can have a bad year. And before anybody says it, Franzen was playing hurt in last years playoffs. Go back and look at his numbers in playoffs prior to last year. I'll give the man a pass. By the way, you guys do realize that he lead the team in scoring this year don't you. But don't let that fact get in the way of the whipping....

Trade Franzen please