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Its crystal clear you hate the Helm contract with your constant comments, but lets not paint Helm out to be a piece of garbage. The guy can more then handle himself on the third line. There is a reason other teams were in the running for him at the same price or higher then what we gave him. Top 6 player....no. Does he have bad hands at times....yes. Is he a good third liner.....yes he is.

Helm.. .it's the meth-stache.

One of the best bottom 6 players in the league. One of the best penalty killers in the league. One of the fastest skaters in the league. One of the most tenacious forecheckers in the league. Good top 6 forward? No. Good bottom 6 forward? See above... Slightly overpaid? Yes. Way overpaid? Hell No. But keep trying to create the narrative that "Helm sucks"...

AA, Helm and Vanek. AA is the type of player that will hang on to the puck and has amazing hands. Helm is the type of player that would be involved in corner battles and probably get to the corners before most players would. Vanek would be the net front presence. What's not to like about the line again? Isn't this exactly Babcock/Canadian style of coaching we saw for years? It beats having a third line of Andersson, AA and (insert whatever winger you want because it doesn't matter since Andersson is on this line).

The chance of Vanek ever scoring 30+ goals again is slim to none. But to put him in the best position to do that again, would be to play him on the 2nd or 3rd line and give him plenty of power-play time (which I'm sure he will get). Vanek should play on a line with fast skaters that can make up for his lack of speed. Helm and Athanasiou are two of our fastest skaters (along with Larkin) and in a support role, against lesser competition, he should be able to put up solid numbers...

i hope thats not the lineup. IMO you HAVE to give vanek a chance. a guy who use to have great hands cannot be on a 3rd line before giving him a legitimate chance of seeing what he can do with top players. who knows he could be a 30+ goal scorer.

Now, see, I would protect Z, just becuase I can protect 7 fwds. Disregarding my dislike of Helm, I would think he may be safe with that long of deal, plus nearly $4M for a bottom 6'er. I absolutely would be livid if we lost Sheahan to expansion. On, D, with the current D we have, I chose DD, Marchy and XO. I still don't think someone would chose a broken down Kronwall, especially with younger, more prospective D-men available. If I'm looking at Detroit and I see Kronwall, Ericsson, Green, Sproul, Jensen available, I'm taking Sproul. Not unless they would look for more leadership qyualities, but still, I'd much rather take a young player with tons of potential over a half crippled Kronwall. I chose XO because he has the most NHL experience of the 3 kids in GR. I really agree that of the players being left exposed, Jurco, Pulkkinen or Sproul may be the ones most apt to be picked. I think we're stuck with Howard and he will have to be bought out next summer, Vegas will not pick him with the prospective talent that may be available at G. Of course all this will change if Holland gets D. Lets say he trades Nyquist or Tatar for a D-man, then of course that D man will be protected and XO is not, and then we can put Helm on the protected list as the 7th fwd. I'd love for Jurco to bust out this season and earn a protection, but with the plethora of fwds, he might see 25 games.

And what baffles me is we've basically never seen that line put together again for some apparent reason. Those 3 were very good and they were playing against 2nd pairing defenseman at the time due to all injurie. With the depth we have now they would play against 3rd pairs. If I'm Blashill I definitely try that line again

I hate the Helm contract but the guy is a good bottom 6 player and his speed is very useful at times. He's also our best PKer. There's literally nothing we can do to change the contract lol. Accept it and roll my eyes and sigh million times is what I'll be doing.

Well for your first point, consider that most teams will expose their backup rather than their starter. We're "lucky" (but also unlucky) to have 2 starters. I know Howard isn't Petr Mrazek but come on lol give the guy some credit, he's a pretty good goalie lol. The second point. I agree we should leave those guys unprotected because I doubt Vegas team would want older guys. But at the same time, "if" there is a reason the Wings protect Zetterberg it would probably because the organization wouldn't want to risk losing the team captain to an expansion draft (that's a bit embarassing). It could set a bad precedent for the future players. And to be honest it might be pretty disrespectful to Z, who signed his life to this team. It would be that sentimental/ loyalty story we hear about. On the other hand, Kronwall doesn't have the same "prestige" as Z does so I can see them being more open to leaving him exposed. Plus his contract is up in a couple years anyway and with the knee issues I've been reading about - his chance of playing beyond age 38 seems slim. Back to that loyalty crap (and back to reality) though. Probably will keep both them protected.

Anderson got 5 million in TO for 5 years. I could see that being a comparable. Anderson was 22-9-7 with a 2.30 GAA and 91.9 Save %. Mrazek was 27-16-5 with a 2.33 GAA and 92.1 Save %

Smith is a ufa, no need to waste a protect on him. He won't get claimed being that he would possibly leave your team 10 days later. Don't waste it on a pending ufa. That would be stupid. I agree on Sheahan and Kronwall though. Protect Riley instead. And protect marchenko, Nobody is going to pick a broken down Kronwall and if so, then good.

Helm will botch that line up. No hands, fumbles the puck to much.

Because when looking at the 60 or so goalies in the league, he couldn't crack the top 40. Every team will have to expose a goalie. No chance in hell Howard gets picked. We'd have a better chance losing Ericsson in an expansion draft. Agreed. Although I do think it would be a mistake to protect Hank and Kronwall. Building a new franchise, I'd choose Sheahan or Smith over Kronwall or Hank. Why protect guys who will be lucky to have a couple decent years of hockey left in them?

AA won't even be up unless it's an injury recall. Too many Helms... Now, a line of Mantha - AA - Vanek would be fun to watch!

Helm's stone hands would kill that line's production. Of course, they'll kill any line's production.

I don't know, the speed of Helm and AA with Vanek at net front could be a line that gives defenders fits. It would be a pretty vicious third line (maybe even a 2B line) if they click. They'd likely draw more 2nd and 3rd pair defensive matchups if they are slotted as a third line.

To be honest, I'd pick Bishop or Varlamov first and then Howard as top 3 choices. Riemer is not very good, Fleury is good but sort of a choker and Miller is going to be 38 by the team expansion draft hits. But I get a feeling if Bishop is not going to be a Lightning it will be a trade (a Vezina finalist, I'd assume Stevie is going to want something for this guy). So the next two best goalies on the list to me would be Varlamov and Howard. Howard has the better playoff experience. It really is a toss up. The other thing is that the Vegas team will likely want to hit the cap floor. No team is going to give away their expensive superstar contracts. Goalies will likely be their best way to reach cap floor. Also, Howard's contract is only till 2019 so they would get him for about 2 years and the 2nd goalie they pick up could be someone like Subban (basically could be their future goalie).

The only way Helm gets protected over Sheahan is if he has a NMC. if not, and Helm gets protected over Sheahan? Something is more than wrong...but Helm shouldn't have been re-signed anyhow. Has NTC not a NMC. He doesn't have to be protected.

I don't think this team is coasting because they are content in just making the playoffs every year. I believe they are trying to make the playoffs every year, while they're waiting for the next wave of kids to become impact players. The next wave will include some variation of Larkin, Athanasiou, Mantha, Bertuzzi, Ouellet, Sproul, etc. and I believe they're almost ready. When they are, that is when this team will become competitive again. Missing or making the playoffs will have no barring on the direction this team is headed in my opinion...

I suppose that makes this play interference, too. Zebras missed it, and during OT no less. Stupid idiots. https://streamable.com/hz30 Pavel did this all the time, the difference was most guys had a better grip on their stick when it happened. Players attempt it all the time when they see a guy with one hand on his stick. Both Eriksson and Sadowy had a poor grip on their stick when it went flying. Sure, Bert's has more force on it, but it's still more of a stick lift than a slash. At the end of the day, it's more amusing than anything. It happened during a scrimmage in the month of July, and Sadowy's going to tighten his grip in the future. I feel as if this team is stressing you out this summer. Breathe, man. Just breeeathe

I don't care if Datsyuk moved FARTHER away from his family or is living in the same house with them. Dude signed a contract, didn't fulfill it, and left the team in a pickle. Did Holland make the best of the situation? Probably, unless that 16 pick turns out to be an absolute stud.

#1 - He signed a 3 year contract with this team, tries to leave after the first year - and then puts out an article (right before the start of the playoffs) letting everyone know he's leaving after the second year to "gives back to the Russia people". I guess that wasn't much of an untimely distraction? #2 - He predictably takes a step back from that stance, and says he didn't make any decision yet (although it was obvious he did) - but if he does leave, it's actually because he wants to see his daughter more... Because who could argue with that? #3 - He ultimately (to no surprise) leaves, and costs us Jacob Chychrun. #4 - He then signs with the best team in the KHL, which is a 30 hour drive from his daughter. If any other long term Red Wing handled their departure worse than he did, please let me know. If not, then no - I don't think I'm overstating a little.

Ozzie definitely belons in the HOF and his # retired. Bottom line, he won the 08 Cup for us. He should've be awarded the Con Smythe that year as well. He also had a Con Smythe 09 Cup run, if it werent for a little help from Uncle Gary, he would've won another Cup that season. Where are all the corsi/stat guys here? They want to use stats to justify wasting a roster spot on a bottom line player, but where are they to defend why Ozzie deserves HHOF and both he an Sergei deserve their numbers retired. If they reitre #13 before #91, then there is a travesty going on...at least #91 honored his contract(s) even when he was only making $2M when he was the best player in the NHL. He honored that contract, then got screwed by Holland. Holland offer him 5 yrs $55M-ish and Sergei asked to wait until after he settled his divorce and found his new agent...when all that was over, he wanted to sign the deal, but that deal was pulled and Holland only offered him 4 yrs $44M-ish. I don't blame him one bit for leaving, and knowing now what UFA's think about Holland, its no wonder players don't want to come here...

Here is a goalie's career stats. 401 Wins, 50 shutouts, 2.49 GAA, .905 save pct in the regular season In the playoffs, 74 wins, 15 shutouts, .916 save pct, 2.09 GAA. 11th all time wins, 27th all time shutouts, 2 all-star appearances, three Stanley cups, two Jennings awards. Just looking at those stats, compared to players already in the hall, is he deserving? If you didn't know that was Osgood, would it sway you? Here is an article that has some career stat comparisons between Osgood, Roy, Hasek and Brodeur. http://thehockeywriters.com/making-the-hall-of-fame-case-for-chris-osgood/ Source for stats I listed: http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/o/osgooch01.html