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I guess the collective owners, a group of (mostly) successful business people, feels it's better for their long term NHL related revenues to miss out on current revenues in order to secure more favourable terms in the CBA. If they are right, it is better for the players as well. A folded team hires no players, vendors, staff etc. A team bleeding money generally has less to spend on player contracts, staff, and attracts less vendors. On the other hand, a team making money can afford to pay players more, attracts vendors, and generally employ more people. In this light, perhaps you should support the owners... that is, if your goal is for players to get more money, and concern for the vendors is sincere.

Of course he did. Where else would he keep Smith's ID?

If this happens, I'm going to throw my name into the free agent pool. Maybe I'll get signed during the intial mass chaos.

After playing a whole game, and an overtime. A long skate from center ice to the goal might be too much work for him.

he knew.

And to that end they...lock the players out, kill league operations, kick off "negotiations" with one of the oldest underhanded negotiating tricks in the book, single-mindedly endeavor to destroy Donald Fehr, etc. And all of this is costing them how much $$$ every day? And it's driving away how many fans, how many potential patrons? And it's wrecking how many oh-so-lowly livelihoods (e.g. vendors)? And it's doing how much damage to the NHL (hot on the heels of last season's record revenue)? Just saying.

Given Huds' tendecy to find the logo more often than not, could his best "replacement" be Samuelsson?

Exploiting?!?! Please. That's a stretch. It's not as if every single hockey player in the NHL wasn't making far more than the average Joe. I have a very difficult time feeling much sympathy for either the players or the owners.

Riley Sheahan. I would guess theres never been a player in the history of the game who recovered from being caught wearing a Tinky Winky costume.

And if he would of came out and just flat said "Yeah probably not gonna have a season this year" you and a bunch of others on here would of blown up and came up with a bunch of other silly names for "Buttman" because WE ALL know that its Bettmans fault and only his fault.I mean really...what the heck would you rather him say!?!

Patrick Eaves

McCollum is crap.

I do not disagree on revenue sharing. Rich teams do need opponents to generate their large revenues so they might as well share the proceeds. And fans probably do want to see their team beat up on poor southern cousins once in a while.

While Zetterberg's offensive production has been declining, he is a part of our core. He is solid defensively. I'd definitely have him back. He can still put up respectable numbers. I believe he re-signed here for a bit of a discount a few years back. If I'm the GM of the Detroit Red Wings, Henrik Zetterberg is coming back here. He's shown devotion to the team, and the favor needs to be returned. Again, this whole "All players are UFAs" deal is all hypothetical, but I'd have Z back, despite his declining production. I'd take the following back here: Pavel Datsyuk Henrik Zetterberg Valtteri Filppula Darren Helm Jordin Tootoo Niklas Kronwall Brendan Smith I wouldn't mind Ian White and Drew Miller back either.

Arguments on the other thread aside, I honestly think Andersson will play more games for the Wings than Tatar will. I just don't know where Tatar fits in. He's too unfinished to beat out Nyquist or Brunner, and by the time he gets a shot guys like Jarnkrok, Jurco, Tvardon, and Frk might be ready to go ahead of him. I think he'll get traded sooner rather than later.

Filpulla... shoulda always been Fil over Hudler anyways.

The point is, only three UFA's were acquired in 2001 for that season, Hull was the only one with more than 10 playoff points and he didn't sign until August 2001 and had plaenty of offers worth MORE money. Robitaille was signed to replace Lapointe and again, he chose Detroit when LA didn't want him, Illitch did not have to outbid anyone for him and nobody even remembered Olausson when Detroit signed him in May of 01....the rest of the team was either already there for years or acquired by trades, which in no way equals buying a Cup by signing all the top UFA's in one year to win a Cup... if you are basing your opinion that way for the 2002 Cup, then Illitch must have bought all his Cups because he added pieces each of those years as well via UFA...if that is the case then every team buys the Cup every year...in 2001-2002 Illitch didn't even come near what Minnesota did last July and what Illitch tried to do himself...The core of 2002 was built via the draft and trades and were all there in 97 and 98...but I guess since Holland happened to draft tons of future HOF's and gave up valuable assests for missing pieces and happened to be the destination of players who wanted to win, I guess they never really earned it then.... also, those three UFA's accounted for 33 playoff points, 18 from Hull. That is only 17% of the playoff scoring...77% of the playoff scoring (minus the other UFA's) were from drafted and acquired players....Unfortunate for your argument, the Wings more than likely still win the Cup without the 33 points from those three UFA's....

Here we go..... Steve Yzerman - draft pick Brendan Shanahan - acquired for Paul Coffey and Keith Primeau Oct. 1996 Sergei Fedorov - draft pick Brett Hull - signed as UFA August 22, 2001 WELL after 29 other teams could have offered him a contract. Nick Lidstrom - draft pick Chris Chelios - acquired for Ander Eriksson and TWO 1st round draft picks March 1999 Tomas Holmstrom - draft pick Igor Larionov - acquired for Ray Sheppard Oct. 1995 - re-acquired for Yan Golubovsky Dec. 2000 Luc Robitalle - signed as UFA July 5th 2001 for his beloved LA Kings didn't even want him back that year... Darren McCarty - draft pick Pavel Datsyuk - draft pick Kirk Maltby - acquired for Dan McGillis March 1996 Boyd Devereaux - signed as UFA August 23rd 2000, well after 29 other could have offered him a contract... Frederick Olausson - signed as UFA May 2001 out of Swiss League (who else wanted him? Noone.) Steve Duschesne - signed as UFA Sept. 1999 well after 29 other teams had a chance to offer a contract... Kris Draper - acquired for $1 (CAN) and future considerations June 1993 Mathieu Dandenault - draft pick Dom Hasek - acquired for Slava Kozlov and a 1st round pick July 2001 Uwe Krupp - signed as UFA July 1998 Manny Legace - signed as UFA August 1999, claimed off waivers from VAN Oct. 1999 Jiri Slegr - acqured for Yuri Butsayev and a 3rd round draft pick Jason Williams - signed as an undrafted UFA in Sept 2000.... that is the playoff roster, so show me exactly where Illtich BOUGHT the Cup...I see a team built through drafting, trading assests for assests and acquiring UFA's that everyone passed on, with the exception of MAYBE Robitaille and he didn't have to outbid ANY of the other teams for ANY of the UFA's he signed...and remember they had justlost LaPointe to UFA so they needed to replace his production and they did so 4 days after 29 other teams could have thrown big bucks as Luc.... anyone who says Illitch bought that 02 Cup hasn't paid any attention to how the Yankees or Heat operate....If somehow the Wild pull off a Cup win this year (or when they come back) you can accuse them of buying a Cup...

Congratulations to Shannon on being recipient number 2 of FanAid. Stopped by Cobo Joe's today, had a quick cocktail and some fun conversation. She is awesome! I highly recommend going down there and saying hi. They are not open at night unless there's a concert or some other function happening at the Joe, but they're open til at least 4 during the day.

PROTECT THE SHIELD!!! This doesn't really fit here, but I just felt like yelling it out.

http://business.time.com/2012/12/19/hockeys-wealth-redistribution-problem-whats-really-behind-the-nhl-lockout/ An interesting read...

I hear everyone's wife wants to live in St. Paul.

It would be like the all-star game, only... interesting

Not sure if this was posted. But was reading local website here in Toronto and seen this article with Mike Babcock. http://www.torontosun.com/2012/12/18/red-wings-coach-mike-babcock-nhl-could-end-up-like-bowling He's absolutely right. It took them soo long just to build it to what it was, now they are dropping back 5 steps to where they were before.

Thank goodness for the Sony Playstation Network! It helped restore a bit of my sanity during this lockout. I just downloaded and watched the December 2, 1995 Detroit-Montreal game, where we chased Roy outta the net and outta Montreal in a 12-1 blowout.