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sure he is overpaid. sure he has not lived up to the hype in calgary. but answer me these: what defenders on our roster are better than bouwmeester? what other top pairing defenders are realistically available? to me the answers to those question are kronwall and probably no one. bouwmeester to me is a top pairing guy. sure everyone likes to complain that all he does is eat minutes. but when he is on the ice, so is the opponents top line. aside from this past year, he has had a decent plus minus, which means when he is on against those top lines, its an even matchup. to me thats saying something considering the bad teams he has played on. and while calgary is a quasi contender, do you have any idea who he has played with? this past year it was chris butler. i would imagine most have never really heard of him. he played a year with regehr who is at least decent, and his first year in calgary was with giordano who at the time was a nobody. it was the good year they had together that catapulted him into top 4 status. and if you really think what happened in florida is irrelevant, this conversation has zero value. those years provide context into what he is capable of. and if you can't recognize that, you have no interest in hearing anyones opinion but your own. everyone loves to talk about how players benefited over the years from playing with lidstrom; that fact gave context to the numbers players put up. its the same situation here. bottom line is that jay bouwmeester has spent the last 7 years playing top pairing minutes, usually putting up top end offensive numbers, and playing well enough defensively that he has had solid plus/minus numbers when he is normally without top quality linemates.

Just want to correct this notion on Quincey. He's more than a third pairing, he led his team in ice-team on the top pairing at 23:36 a night in 09-10, and 20+ each and every night since, he played more than Stuart last season, and just a minute behind Kronwall, and 4 minutes more than Ericsson. Quincey is also a productive offensive guy, even with how he struggled with us last season he still was well within top 60 defenseman in the league points-wise, so at the very least you are getting top 4 offensive numbers, and a decent size/skating ability player. Quincey was bad with us, but the potential is there for him to be a top pairing guy, don't forget he's still only 26, and has had a top .54 ppg(top 30) season in 70 games which was 08-09 with similar numbers to Letang, Burns, Edler and Pitkanen.

I get the arguments for not wanting Bouwmeester, but this is just silly. He's overpaid, hasn't been productive offensively and will likely cost a lot, but he's way better than everyone on that list with the exception of Kronwall. I have a lot of hope and confidence in Smith turning out to be very good, but Bouwmeester has already established a pretty solid NHL career. Kindl has hardly shown any development, Quincey/Ericsson have been mostly third pairing guys that are going to get tested especially this season in a much larger role. Bouwmeester has played top-pairing minutes for a long time. The Red Wings defense would be much better having Bouwmeester around next season. It's just a matter of whether the asking price is at all reasonable, which I highly doubt to be the case.

I dont mind the look of our Forwards at all...I have a lot of faith in Nyquist and Brunner. Franzen - Datsyuk - Brunner Filppula- Zetterberg - Nyquist Bertuzzi - Helm - Samuelsson Cleary - Abdelkader - Tootoo 13th/14th/15th -Mursak/Emmerton/Miller (someone needs to be traded) Eaves - LTIR I really like that lineup.

i dont think its a coincidence you had to totally change the point... its just luck. the reason the panthers didnt deal him at the deadline the year he left was because they were so close to making the playoffs. for several years they have been one of those young up and coming teams. but it really was tallon bringing in the variety of free agents the last year or two that allowed them to develop. so its not as if he was holding them back from making it while he was there. as i stated before, his numbers there were top notch in the 4 years after the lockout. conversely, calgary has been a team on the decline since their cup run in 04. they have never really been a legit contender and havent won a playoff series since the lockout regardless of whether they had bouwmeester. i still readily admit that bouwmeester has been disappointing for them, but to imply its his fault the flames missed the playoffs and the panthers made it, well thats as silly as suggested jakub kindl is as good as jay bouwmeester... keep going though, your absurdities are fun to read! i can't wait to see what your next totally unrelated counter point will be!

Zetterberg - Datsyuk - Brunner Nyquist - Filppula - Samuelsson Franzen - Helm - Cleary Bertuzzi - Abdelkader - Tootoo

This is one trade that we should most definitely not be overpaying on. JBo is solid but not elite and not worth overpayment. Id be happy to have him if it doesnt hurt the team bu acquiring him. Our top assets should only be used to acquire elite players as we dont exactly have a plethora of tradeable assets right now.

Bouwmeester is one of those defensemen who you wish you could get more out of. When he had his best season before he signed with Calgary, he got a great payday from the Flames. Now, the Flames are looking to unload him and with his salary, he is good trade bait. I still think that our young guns have more upside that Bouwmeester. Yes, they will make mistakes, but I don't think that Bouwmeester is the answer. He is good, but not a great or elite defenseman. IMHO, he isn't worth the trade.

It was proven last season that Cleary is no good unless he is on the 3rd line with Helm. He is NOT a top 6 forward!

I wasn't sold on that Brunner guy when we signed him, but after watching his highlight video the guy has a high end skill. I'd like to see Brunner-Datsyuk-Nyquist (Yepp, give Pavel two quick high skill guys and let him develop them) Filppula-Zetterberg-Franzen (Pretty much the top line, would be deadly. Franzen is better with Zetterberg I feel.) Cleary-Helm-Bertuzzi (Could be a pretty physical line with scoring potential if they stay healthy) Eaves-Abdelkader-Tootoo (Wrecking ball line, decent amount of offensive touch too) Then Miller, Emmerton, Mursak as the spare parts. Actually.. I guess I forgot Samuelsson. Yeah, we have too many forwards

That scares me

im sorry but you are just wrong. in the first 4 seasons after the lockout with florida, he was 23rd, 24th, 24th, and 21st in defenseman scoring. consistently being in the top 25 in the league in scoring is NOT below average. sure he has had lower totals with calgary, but who doesnt? just for transparencies sake, he dropped to 55, 69, and 45 with them. in his 7 seasons since the lockout, he was in the top 6 in scoring for his team 5 of those years. another year he was 8th. the only year he wasnt one of his teams top scorers was 10-11. i am not saying he will be our savior, replace lidstrom, or even get traded. but people are undervaluing him. 3 summers ago he was the ryan suter of his free agent class before calgary dealt for his rights just before july 1st.

We have Samuelsson. We're fine.