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Our desire for new toys doesn't negate the fact that the loyalty we show is very appealing to players. We don't treat our players like video game characters or trading cards and that makes us look very good. We take care of our guys.

If these are what we are considering mistakes then I'm pretty sure I won't lose any sleep tonight over them. Been a fan for 20 years and we have won 4 cups in that time and we are questioning the over protective loyalty of this franchise? Loyalty of any sort is almost impossible to find these days..maybe we need more of it?

Hindsight's 20/20 on the first two. If you combine the regular season and playoffs, Franzen and Hossa had the same number of goals that season. Franzen seemed to be on the upswing, and he came cheaper. Retaining Hossa would've meant dumping another player as well. Since the Wings were in a cap crunch, retaining Franzen made sense. The Quincey trade made sense to help alleviate the loss of atleast Stuart. He wasn't that great at the end of last season, but he has been coming around as of late. Can't really dog the re-signing of Samuelsson yet because he's only played two games... And finally, other than Osgood's last couple of years, I can't think of any veteran players that were ever a liability to the team. Did we hang on to Lidstrom too long? I'm going to come way out of left field with mine.... I'm not going to say it was a mistake, but I always thought Holland should have signed Belfour instead of Cujo in the summer of 2002.

"Paging Mr. Burke. Mr. Brian Burke, please pick up the white courtesy phone." Knew this had to happen sooner or later. However, without being able to open up the coffers, I'm not sure how much difference it might make.

detroit can win a cup with jimmy in net

I don't like that sentiment. "Our guys" have been handsomely paid for their services in Hockeytown, as well as rewarded with big games in important playoff moments. Not like these guys were interns all this time working for free. This organization doesn't owe these guys anything. Veterans should be kept around if they can still play better than the younger guys. Players like Bertuzzi and Cleary don't deserve a permanent place in the lineup with total immunity. Yet, that appears to be what they have.

Multiple cups? I doubt it highly. Franzen or Hossa.... Well Hossa wanted a ton of money for a pisspoor playoff, while Franzen just scores around 10 goals durring a playoff run.

I've heard that argument before about not getting Roy cost us extra Cups. Remember Roy only won 2 cups with Colorado, on a team that was very similar to the Wings, and on paper had better goaltending. I highly doubt we would have won anymore than 3 with Roy. As great as Roy was, his big ego and taking things to personal, cost the Avs extra championships. In certain situations, Roy couldn't handle the pressure. He had some big loses, three from us (1995, 1997, and 2002). Add to that, I don't think he could handle being the Red Wings goalie, as we're historically tough on our goalies. He's a big baby, just imagine how he'd react if he started booing him. Ozzie with his level head and mental toughness was a perfect goalie for this market. If the original offer for Roy would have cost us Osgood and Fedorov, maybe we only would have won 2 Cups with Roy, or only 1. Imagine our run from 1997-2002 without Fedorov? Fedorov was excellent for us in the playoffs.

I wouldn't say signing Krupp was a mistake. A 6'6" Dman who could play in both ends of the ice that had won a cup with Colorado. He was supposed to fill the void left by Konstantinov. Bowman loved the guy, having drafted him in Buffalo. I don't think the Red Wings anticipated that he was going to get hurt and then go dog sledding while he was supposed to be healing. However, without that little debacle the Wings would have had no need to trade for Chelios later that season. The mistake was lifting his suspension and letting him play the last year of his contract. He only played a handful of games before shutting it down for the regular season. Bowman decided to put him in the line up in Olausson's place at the start of the playoffs, and we lost thefirst 2 games to Vancouver. Krupp was like a -4 over both games. After that, he was done. Thank god we won that series and eventually the cup...

The loyalty argument is pretty hard to quantify in terms of effects. While it's easy to say that loyalty cost us when talking about Hossa, or whomever, it's a lot harder to say how much good it did in determining Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Lidstrom, etc. decisions to take less than market value on their new contracts. Like everything else, the effects of the Wings loyalty are not really all that black and white. Which is a tough pill to swallow for those attempting to find a problem to point at.

I hope they hire Burke. Let them be even more trash.

I still think there was much more to the Colorado/Montreal trade than anyone involved let on. I don't think we would've gotten him, he'd made up his mind that he was going to Colorado before we shelled him. The rumor anyway was Ozzie and Fedorov. Sorry, no thanks.

waste the last couple of years of the greatest d-man of this generation with a middling roster.

Why all the hate for Joe Buck? He helps me fall asleep.

YO DOG I HEARD YOU LIKE DOG IN YO DOG, SO WE PUT DOG IN YO DOG SO NOW YOU CAN DOG WHILE YOU DOG word

IF everyone's healthy, I suspect we'll see this: Bertdog - Datsdog - Flippdog Broondog - Zdog - Muledog Newfdog - Helmdog - Samdog Drewdog- Abdog - Tootdog EmdogTM Krondog - Rigdog Smithdog - Whitedog Huskydog - Qdog Coladog Jimdog Monsterdog

I agree that Abdog hasn't elevated his game.... but Emdog has?

Our 2011 Draft is looking amazing at this point, especially on D. Sproul is looking like the best defenseman in the entire CHL(wonder where he'd be if not for a broken arm at the start of the season). Ouellette looks like an extremely gifted player on both ends of the ice. Backman and Marchenko are both looking like late round steals, and even Nedomlel is rounding into a nice, more physical, Lilja type defenseman. Jurco could end up being a stud, Quine has looked unstoppable since being traded to Belleville, and if Tvrdon could get healthy, he might be a force as well. Very promising bunch.

wish we could say the same for you here....

Oh yes, I understand all that. If the sides are as deadlocked as they seemingly are, an offersheet is just what O'Reilly or the 'lanche may be looking for. Someone else to force their hand into making a deal. Which is why I find the idea of an offer sheet for O'Reilly to be amusing. If you're truly interested in him on your roster, you don't offersheet him. You pry his rights from Avalanche for a younger roster player and/or a decent prospect and/or a 2nd or 3rd round pick. (Depending on how you value him) Then you offer O'Reilly a serious wake up call of a deal. He's turned down both deals the Avalanche have offered: 2 years at $7million (3.5 cap hit) and 5 years at $17million (3.4 cap hit.) He wants 5 years/ $25million I don't think O'Reilly is worth $5 million/year. It's a shame that Colorado signed David Jones to $4/yr -- he's healthier than Jones... and yeah, he was only drafted 30 spots lower than Duchene in the same draft, but he's no Matt Duchene. (Who will be looking for a new contract very soon) EDIT: I thought Duchene's contract was up this year. If he's looking around the league at other contracts... Well, he's no Jamie Benn either, which is what he think's he's worth. He's gotta look at the bridge deals that Del Zotto and Subban got and seriously understand that with the new CBA and lower cap next year it is going to ensure that sane GMs don't overspend on solid, but yet unproven talent. Take that bridge contract and play your guts out for that next contract.

Fair, but I lumped them together because im talking generally about " letsgowings" . there are some pretty smart people on here but in the last fews years the "intelligents" of the board has took a swing for the worst

That is both hilarious and great analysis of defensive breakdowns. It looks like on that play Suter was being lazy and was just hoping to circle around in coverage instead of having to stop and start to stay with his man. The announcers were talking about that for Jagr during the latest Stars game. Apparently the coaches were pointing out how he was circling too much in his own end, trying to save energy, instead of stopping and staying with his man. To his credit, Jagr apparently worked on it and joked about it being hard to break 20 years of bad habits. I love this one as well. "Analysis: maybe don't defend like this" http://blogs.thescore.com/nhl/2013/02/05/backhand-shelfs-shortest-systems-analyst-post-ever/

Is that you kenny? I thought we discussed drinking at work.

Man, now the owner of Cobo Joes is really going to be all over you!

fans are so fickle and hypocritical. i hate tootoo, but i loved avery. if tootoo were a red wing, you'd all love him.