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Letting Filppula walk was a mistake, though.

I agree. Tatar is not a game changer for this team. He scores goals, usually off of amazing Zetterberg (and previously Datsyuk) assists. I'm not sure if making him close to the highest paid player on the team is the right thing to do. AA scored 18 goals in 20 less games than Tatar. Except AA can also kill penalties and is super fast. Of course AA gets sheltered minutes too but his linemates aren't as good as Tatar's. I just don't think losing Tatar is going to hurt us as much as others might think, we have plenty of young guys coming through that will more than make up for his 25 goals. Additionally, last season Tatar wasn't really that much better than others at goal scoring. All of AA, Mantha and Tatar scored at about the same rate. The only difference is Tatar got to play 20+ more games than both of them. The year before last year, Larkin outscored Tatar. And he's supposed to be more of a set-up guy. I think people see the "25 goal" mark from last season and are automatically assuming "great" goal scorer. But if you look at the full context, all of AA, Mantha, Tatar, Larkin, Vanek are one in the same in the goals department. AA and Mantha are probably better actually and they're not even close to their primes yet, while Tatar probably is in his prime. So why give him 7 years when you have younger players already producing at the same rate? I say Holland sticks to his offer and if Tatar doesn't want it then flip him for a nice trade. This is a win-win situation for Holland and the Red Wings imo. If Tatar takes the cheaper offer, great, if not, then we get something back and we have plenty of players to replace him. I can see a nice Mantha - Zetterberg - AA line after this season.

Salajko talks about all three goalies. Says Mrazek has started to mature and digging in and working hard. Knows it's a contract season for him. Good stuff! https://www.nhl.com/redwings/news/wings-jeff-salajko-mrazek-maturing-could-bounce-back-like-howard-did/c-290388348 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It tastes like chicken

After his 9 goals and 8 assists in 41 games he should have been too embarrassed to come back anyways. What makes you sure we wouldn't have bought out Filpula? His last stint with the Wings was terrible. He then went to a much better team and did okay.

That's suspension worthy, we should report Jonas for citing incorrectlly.

Yeah, He just wanted to check out free agency and talk to other teams to see what options are out there. This is why it's so good that there's now that period before free agency when players get to talk to all teams before committing. If that was around then, we'd have Filppula, we wouldn't have signed Weiss - therefor we wouldn't have that buyout penalty for the next few years. And we probably wouldn't have signed Neilson, so we'd be in a better position with the cap.

From what I've heard he did want to come back. He came back and asked hill and for the deal he was originally offered. Holland declined, as he already spent the money on Weiss.

All the more reason to tell Tatar peace out if he wants more.