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Elliotte FriedmanVerified account ‏@FriedgeHNIC 8m8 minutes ago Mrazek has signed a two year deal. $3.85 and $4.15 Very respectable deal!

Nielsen and Vanek are here to play. They are legit top 6 guys who can and will make our team better and harder to beat. Hopefully when Mrazek gets his contract he finds a way to rekindle that vezina couple of months. If Holland manages to upgrade our D, this team will be better than last year. I'd also love to see AA and Mantha play, but they aren't 4th liners and there really isn't any room in the top 9 for them bArring a trade of one or two forwards from the nhl roster...

Developing young players by giving mediocre vets long term deals and keeping them from making the NHL when they deserve a legit shot?

What are you takling about? In his two years here during the playoffs he had a GAA of 1.75 and a save % of .928. Top multi year playoff numbers for any Wings goalie since his time here. Not to mention he handled the Hasek s***show of 03 pretty darn well.

Rosemary Grace was born at 9:10am this morning, 8lbs 8oz and 20 inches long. She's absolutely perfect. Mommy and baby are both doing well!

Dekeyser deal was great. He's not replaceable within the system. Same with Mrazek. And that's why Nielsen's deal is justified, we had no 1st/2nd line center and needed one. There's some players where you really can't pass up. DK, Mrazek are those players. You have to do what you can to keep them. If there's a player replaceable, signing them again will definitely be heavily analyzed over the years. Because if they turn out to be a bust or the contract is unmovable, or if they're blocking a player from playing, that's when the whole "Well you didn't have to sign them to begin with" narrative starts. Even if DK turns out to be a bust, the justification to the anyone bitching about it will be "well he was a good signing at the time and it would have been stupid not to". I say that even now about Ericsson. Holland is in no way at fault for signing Ericsson. He was a promising top 4 defenseman and him and Kronwall we're really good together in 2013, there was absolutely no reason not to sign him. It just looks bad in hindsight. Same with Howard's contract. We didn't have any goalie to replace Howard. But we can definitely garner up players to replace, Miller, Ott, Glendening and even Helm.

Good deal. $4 million called it.

Helm isn't 27 though he's 29, which is exactly what Ericsson was then he signed. At least when we signed Ericsson we had just lost in game 7 to Chicago in the playoffs 2nd round. The year before that we had gotten eliminated by Nashville in 5 games so it seemed to be an upward trend to try and sign your players. It made sense. Right now we're handing out questionable contracts this summer to a team of players that backed into the playoffs. And has gotten outperformed in the playoffs 3 years in a row. And it's not the top 6. It's the bottom forwards. These are guys you generally don't sign long term and are supposed to be replaceable. These players are what allows management to have flexibility in their cap since the top 6 usually get locked up. Let me ask you a question. Why 5 years for Glendening? Why not sign him for a 2 year extension and see how things are maybe 2 years from now and give another extension if we don't have a good replacement? Why the heck would you give a 4th liner the contract length of a 1st line centerman and lock him up? The only explanation I have for this is this. Panic. We're not attracting the best players. The NHL FA is a s***hole, it's become a retainment strategy. Is it the right strategy? Who knows. Maybe Holland is a genius and knows something we don't. Unfortunately we're heading into an area where we are losing cap flexibility all across the board. 2015 we were probably one of the more cap friendly teams. 2016 and beyond we're probably up there with Chicago in the contracts we're bound to. This is what we have and this is what we're going to have to win with. There's not going to be much changes possible from here on out. Especially after Tatar and Smith are locked in this coming year. My whole thing is this. If you are a contender like Chicago, LA, Pittsburgh, you do all you can to sign that cup winning team long term. But if you're a team getting backed into the playoffs. You should be very cautious in retaining the same team. This is the first year I've questioned the contracts given out by management. So what does that tell you lol.

Are the Red Wings the ‘new Canucks’? For the record I like the DeKeyser signing.

Probably the highlight of the 2013 playoffs.

Holland has never truly admitted that a trade has to happen. He's been saying the same "Y'know, we'd like to make a trade, BUT..." crap since Rafalski retired. The problem is not that trading is hard. The problem is, in a word, Holland. He doesn't do impact trades. He doesn't have any real interest in shaking things up. Again I say: The Wings have made less than 25 trades since 2005. That's far and away the fewest of any team. The Devils are second from the bottom with 50 trades. Ken Holland does not care about solving real problems and making meaningful changes and meaningful improvements and icing a truly solid team. Ken Holland cares about maintaining the status quo. AA and Mantha could be fourth-liners. We could roll four scoring lines. But, instead, our fourth line is going to be Miller-Glendening-Ott. Because the Wings are run by assholes.

A catch-22 is a paradoxical situation from which an individual cannot escape because of contradictory rules. An example would be: To apply for a job, you need to have a few years of experience. But in order to gain experience, you need to get a job first.

Okay, so you just didn't like the Helm or Neilson signings. I'm wary of the Nielson deal, but I don't know much about him so I'm waiting to see. I think Nielson is a definitely a possibility to a block against young players because I think AA could be a 2nd line center in a couple years. Helm I think will just be push down the lineup if Mantha or Jurco come in and grab a spot. I just disagree with the narrative I've seen around that Helm, Glendening are blocking the kids. They're 29 and 27 - I think they're good pieces and they can be part of a contending team in a few years. I think Miller, Ott, Vanek, are signings that won't be part of that future and take roster spots away from Jurco, Pulkkinen Mantha(should start in GR) I do think E is a longterm contract that has blocked some worthy young players.

You're acting as though it's simple. It's not that easy. The Red Wings aren't the type of franchise to bury their veterans in favor of kids even if the kids play well. The only time a kid got into the line up straight from training camp was when there was an empty slot available. That was Larkin. Larkin didn't take away a spot from a veteran, he just filled an empty one. Besides, you don't sign Vanek to bench him. That's absolutely terrible managing and wouldn't happen. Vanek isn't Commodore. Grand Rapids players have a bigger uphill battle than most minor league affiliated teams in the NHL do. It's obvious that a trade has to happen, Holland himself has admitted it. The problem is it's hard. And the other problem will be the log jam, which they'll have to deal with one way or another. I'm actually looking forward to seeing how Kenny handles the situation. Somehow he always pulls it off or someone gets injured

With all the contracts that are "just a little too much" the team has about $6 mil+ in wasted money. Minimum.

Exactly what I'm thinking. He'll likely continue to improve, but he's not #1 material. I don't mind the deal. Maybe a little more than I would have wanted in terms of salary, but I can live with it. However, we still need significant help on defense.

I think these coming years, with a new coach, young hyped prospects coming to the team and the core of our past team slowly fading away, Holland is more focused on developing our young players and being patient. Stockpile as much young talent as possible and make decisions on who can lead this team going forward. I think after he struck out with Stamkos he decided to stay the course and develop talent the Red Wings way even though many find it infuriating. The logjam of forwards and defense is annoying but honestly if these young guys come out and take these vets spots than more power to them. It will be better for them in the long run. The decision to keep going with the streak instead of a tank job is not soley Holland's decision. He has a boss too

Darren Helm third line center is solid, but overpaid by close to a million a year. Darren Helm scoring line winger sucks.

Sproul >>> Wisniewski

Are they getting a new GM? Because Holland doesn't do that trading thing

Gotta imagine a lot of these second pairing dmen making under 5 mil are probably on a contract signed when they had a lot of RFA years left. Complete speculation of course, but this was the deal to prevent him from going UFA next summer. He'd have made at least 5 mil had he hit the open market next summer.

Unfortunately a large portion of the Red Wings fanbase have become insufferable. There is literally nothing to complain about with this deal at all. 5 million per season for a dman of his calibre coming into his prime is as ideal as it gets. Some ***** at the term, but he'll be only 32 when the deal is up. I see no issue.

It's true LeftWinger - I didn't necessarily like the 5 year term either, but Darren Helm is an extremely valuable forward that creates roster flexibility unlike anyone else. He is our best penalty killer plus our best (or second best) forechecker. He has been useful on the first line, and he's obviously been great on the 4th line. Having forwards like this is invaluable, especially in the playoffs when you win or lose games after you win or lose individual matchups. This undeniably happened against Tampa Bay in 2015 (who went to game 6 of the Finals) when Luke Glendenning got hurt and missed the last two periods of game 4, after completely suppressing the "kid line" to that point entirely. I truly believe the legend of Tyler Johnson may have never been a thing if not for that injury. Daren Helm has that ability plus more to offer offensively. Would I like him more at $2,950,000? Of course. But that isn't the math or the question that matters... It was widely reported that he took a hometown discount and had offers over $4,000,000 to leave - so we made it up on term. If the question to me is you can have Helm at $3.85 or no Helm, I take what I know considering I just lost my best player who was also a Center. So if the "number" everyone seems comfortable with (which basically equates to the difference of a league min contract) isn't that big a deal - I can't really accept that one guy is preventing all of Jurco, Mantha, Anthanasiou and Bertuzzi from a job in the NHL.

As mentioned earlier, historically with the Wings, the arbitration was to prevent tendering of an offer sheet. Personally, I think DDK signs before, and if Kenny wants to gamble for a short term bridge deal it goes to arbitration. I think Mrazek has said he wants either two or four years previously.n I wouldn't be surprised if he got it done before the hearing as well.