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Overall talent is not not down, the average athlete in 2017 is stronger, faster, bigger etc. compared to the average athletes of previous generations. Go watch a game from the early 90's, its a lot slower then the game now a days. The big difference is parity, you have a system set up now where it is very hard to have many elite players on one team, and you dont have many teams that are awful. This in addition to larger goalie equipment, more of an emphasis on D, and many other factors are the reason why guys are not scoring like that anymore. Just one example, look at Mark Messier. As a kid, I can remember him always scoring that wrist shot while coming down the right side (at least that's what I remember). I feel that now a days that shot would never go in.

Only 7 players put up 80 pts or more lasr year. 4 of which were Centers. So...by your view there would only be 4 1Cs in the entire league: Crosby, McDavid, Backstrom, and Schiefele. To me, that shows your standard is unrealistic.

Oops - just my brain checking out for a moment there. Maybe just the effect of a late night post, haha. That's not exactly true. If you look at the conditions of his NTC, the NTC can be voided in the last 2 years if he's not top 9 for TOI or if we don't make the playoffs. And if you're interested, so far this year, he's 7th in forwards for ice time - with AA, Frk and Nielsen below. If he plays himself below these 3 (i know, I know some will say he should already be there) or any newcomers: Ras, Svech, Tavaras(haha) then he won't have a NTC. Or if we're still out of the playoffs.

Ok, so I said we should try to trade Ericsson to a team by retaining salary and adding some other form of asset. You counter that by saying, little to no teams will be interested in trading for Ericsson, unless we retain salary and give up some sort of asset. Got it. Makes so much sense now...

Trading Green won’t be a problem. NTC won’t be an issue for any deadline trades whatsoever. Unless some player is actually dumb enough to deny going to a contender.

https://www.capfriendly.com/teams/redwings Capfriendly has this info if you hover over the "NTC" or "NMC" indication. Green's is a straight NTC, but I'm sure he'd waive that at the trade deadline for the opportunity of going to a contender to try to win a cup. P.S. forgot that we have 5 out of 7 d men with a NTC.

That may be true, but that means your standards should change to reflect that reality. Only 9 different centers have hit 80 points in the last 4 seasons. Only Crosby has done it more than once. By your standard, Crosby is the only consistent 1C in the league over the last 4 years. In today's game, high 60's makes you a pretty good 1C. Point-per-game/80+ puts you among the most elite.

Reality has a different standard, lol. In the last 4 full seasons, a listed center has hit 80 points only 12 times, and 4 of those were Crosby. An average of 21.5 per year hit 60, 64 hit 40. (And many of those may be centers playing on the wing on a higher line.) Your standard is something only the elite players at those levels will hit. That said, Nielsen maybe is more of a 3rd center at this point. But he's not really playing great. Slightly worse, point-wise, than he was last year (though he started pretty slow last year too). Better only relative to what you might expect, given the role.

I don't think it's worth it to trade Ericsson if we have to "pay" someone to take him. A middle round pick and retained salary for someone to take Ericsson off our hands? Gee... wonder what the return on that would actually be? A slightly higher, middling pick and a defensive prospect that probably isn't much better than what we've already got. It certainly wouldn't set us back but ultimately, you're looking at a deal that is essentially: "What else can we give you to essentially get nothing of worth back?" We either need to suck it up and deal with the last of his contract, OR if we really need the cap space; buy him out.

you're still on time to make a quick B double-E double-R U N... right @Hockeymom1960?