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"Class" is way overused. I think what people really mean is respect - you can respect the guy you're trying to make a permanent part of the boards by making a clean, hard hit and not trying to take his head off, or not attempting to render him unable to reproduce. Mr. Hockey was the toughest SOB of his time, but he had respect for the game and those that played it. I think that's the big thing that's lacking now. The retirement of players like Sakic and Yzerman has leeched that element from the game.

I've been a 'Wings fan for 33years. The Red Wings have played with class, dignity and style for so many years, and it makes me proud to be a wings fan! Watching this year's playoffs has been disgusting, from Duncan Keith's "wakey, wakey" taunting of the obviously concussed David Backes, after two, vicious, non called slashes, one of them on Backes(probably having him hear"footsteps", setting up Seabrook), and Matt Cooke, not much needs to be said there, how about Marchand and his "which leg did I hurt?" moment. There is no point to a regular season if it is no holds barred in the post season. I'd rather watch my team get bounced in the first round, than watch them play with no class and make it to the finals. Detroit has won championships by staying classy, and I'm OK waiting until they can win with class, not the garbage that Boston and Chicago feel fits their fans! I grew up in Ken Holland's hometown, my Dad was close with his Dad, all class acts, there is pride in winning with integrity, pride is nonexistent without integrity! STAY CLASSY DETROIT!!

The playoff streak is incredible and I, for one am glad they traded for Legrand to keep it alive. I know everyone here wants to compete for the cup every year but with 29 other teams vying for the same thing it just is not realistic. The Wings need to go through their down years just like everyone else. If they can "rebuild" on the fly and continue to make the playoffs throughout, all the better.

Trade Franzen and our 1st to Edmonton for their first, then draft McDavid. Everyone wins. Except Edmonton but who cares.

Sent! Hopefully next year costs us a lot more!

I think I only got to $3. Pretty sad. I sent $15 instead, hopefully next year is a big one!

Great defense. This shouldn't really be up for debate.

Lots of talk throughout this thread of the needed right handed shooter who can rip it from the circle. If only the Wings had someone who can blast it like this:

Yeah, what a meltdown for NBC that would be. WHEW THEY DODGED A BULLET!

In his case yes. He's going on 35, with 5 more years on his contract. He's declining, and will continue to do so, plain, and simple. Will he be worth 4 million per year at 38-40 years old? Highly doubt it. If you're lucky you may get one more 50 point season out of him. Keep in mind he's never had more than 59 points in a season. He's also had quite a few injuries over the last few years, including concussions. Besides the reasons I've listed above, he is lazy, and unreliable. Tell me, if you were the GM of another team, what would you give up to get Franzen?

(Spoiler alert: I'm going to talk about James Wisniewski a lot in this post. I'm not pining for him, or lamenting any past decisions. I'm just using him as an example to explain why we should pursue Niskanen. If your response to the post is, "Wisniewski suckz!" you missed the point). I don't want to get into the weeds too much on this issue (that's what this summer is for), but I do think we should sign Matt Niskanen. Sure you'd have to overpay (a little) for him, but we've got the money and he fills a TON of needs. He's an up an coming young, right handed, top four, puck mover, who's very good on the pp. He's also coming into the age were d-men finally hit their stride. All summer everyone will nitpick and find reasons to not like this move, just like they did back when we were all debating about whether to acquire Wisniewski a couple years ago. They'll say the contract is bad, they'll say it's an overpayment, they'll put a microscope on each and every one of his shortcomings. But at the end of the day, the amount you'll overpay will less than what you'll pay all the scrubs you'll bring in trying to find a cheap alternative. Think about it this way, using Wisniewski as an example. Let's say he's getting paid a million more than he's worth (he'd be worth every penny of 4.5 million for his pts., aggressiveness, and pp shot alone). Over the life of his contract you overpaid him by six million dollars. How much did we pay Commodore, White, and Colaiacovo total? A good bit more and got worse players. At the very least the 51 extra points and physicality might have been nice this season.

You don't have to take me serious. I know how much I know about hockey and ultimately that's good enough for me. This is a ******* online forum. Chill out dude. (No you chill out, you just said the f-word). Fine you don't want +/-, fine. What do you want? Every game in the playoffs Kronwall wasn't our best player. Wasn't our best defenseman. He said so himself. He is better against the other team's second line. PERIOD. GIRL TIME. BLOOD.

Watching the wings tank would slowly kill my soul.

Right now, Jarnkrok is just a prospect and he did look good in 12 games with Nashville. To call this trade a success or failure will be judged in a few years. Either you have faith that he will be a guaranteed stud, or you think he will be somewhere in the middle, or you don't believe he will be good at all. Right now, I believe that some Wings fans are going over the top by saying he is a future star in the league. I don't know what his future is going to be so I won't speculate. I will agree with you on this point. If they don't retain Legwand, then it really was flipping him for nothing in which case I will be disappointed. If Legwand signs, then it was a worthwhile trade. BTW, who listens to what Pierre Mcguire has to say anyway? When Mcguire gushes about anyone, it usually gets a lot of scorn from Wings fans.

First off...how can a team have a record longer than games played? If we arbitrarily change it to include October and November (27 games) it becomes: 13-10-4, where OT losses count as real losses, and the third column is only shootout losses. That's a Wings team where Bertuzzi and Cleary were in the lineup, Tatar had limited minutes, Nyquist hadn't been called up, and Weiss was playing injured and Alfredsson was learning a new system. Oh, and Franzen was having whatever secretive issues plagued him. We were hardly healthy, just not as injured as we would become. I separated the shootouts because those can't really indicate the success or failure of a team. It's more like pure dumb luck on a given night for an individual player. In other words, the Wings got points in 20 games of 27. That's pretty remarkable considering all the dead weight on the team. If we look at a record as showing games where points were earned they were 20-7 in the first two months. Consider that any of those games could've been victories with a lucky bounce here and there. Now we have the kid line and Nyquist. Smith is coming on and hopefully won't pull a Kindl, Zetterberg will be healthier than he's been in years, it's really not as bleak, at least for the regular season. We still have to change as a team to be built for a playoff run, but I'm not worried about the regular season, even if we iced the same team we did this year (God forbid).

No to mention the Wings have Dats, Zetterburg, Weiss, Helm and at this rate possibly Legwand signed up for at least 2 years and in most cases more, With sheahan, athanaseau & Janmark in the pipeline. The team's need for a centre at the deadline is greater than their need over the next two years, which was Jarnkrok's window to make the team. The very fact that people are ambivalent about re-signing a proven veteran 40-55 point centre from the local area, suggest that CJ would have had a struggle to get much time going forwards without a sudden explosion in output.

Not true. We've just gotten used to his lazy floating. Early on he was a solid more of a solid two-way forward. He's better than average at D when he wants to be. He used to be on the second PK unit with Cleary. From 2005, and a reminder how he got his nickname: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2005-11-06/sports/0511060037_1_kirk-maltby-johan-franzen-mule tireless work ethic? Goes over the top of you? I kind of remember a guy who would play like that, but haven't seen him in several years. Franzen never goes around leveling guys, but he used to go to the hard areas of the ice. Yzerman dubbed Franzen "The Mule" because of he was big, strong, and worked really hard. Not because he was an unremarkable player with a good wrist shot. Several people have mentioned how we need big strong physical forwards to contend with teams like Boston. What's sad is we already have one, he just doesn't play like it anymore.

Defens wins championships and you build from the net out, therefore average forwards/great defense

rumor of Salavet Yulaev Ufa putting in an offer to Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg for his services. I get the feeling this might be to see if the Redwings are really interested in him. From what i've seen of him he is worth a gamble on a 1 year contract, solid 2 way player who has represented Russia this year and looks like making the worlds roster too. ps, yes that is him in my profile pic #98

Those are great teams-in both ends. But which is more important? if you win a game say 4-1, what was the reason you won? the fact that you scored 4 goals or the fact that you gave up 1? yes tall grass stuff I understand. But there is a reason why in most sports people will tell you "defense wins championships".

Jarnkrok was not our best prospect...Mantha is our best prospect.

I like how Jarnkrok is already being called the next Zetterberg after 12 games in the NHL.

I don't drink your Franzen hater kool aid usually but he was hot garbage. Just a waste of space to be honest. If he made anymore than the 3.9 he makes it would hurt even worse but that contract isn't that bad. Can we buy Weiss out? if so we don't have any other bad contracts...Bert, Cleary, Sammy, Alfie, Quincey off the books should give us a lot of room to make some moves..and cmon let's be honest our young guys were terrific this year even though they were invisible in the playoffs. Future is bright from where I sit. Clearly he's a total chump..he's never done anything in this league...oh wait he did get a squad of half ahl'ers to the playoffs.

Mitchell Callahan would do nicely and throw Abdelkader on the other wing and you have an energy line that hits like the grind line of old.

We need a legitimate enforcer and a scoring powerforward imo. A powerforward is virtually impossible but I would settle for a skilled hard working guy like Callahan, Dubinsky or Matthias. The latter is perhaps a possibility as he seems to struggle a bit lately.