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I think I remember him being known for a lack of speed. When he played for the Wings, I was old enough to be a Red Wings "fan" because my dad was, but would rather watch cartoons than an actual hockey game. All I know is, I begged my parents to buy a German Shepherd so that I could name him Ray.

Omg the whining on here from veteran posters everytime some team gets a player is out of hand. Quit crying, if you cant tell yet yzerman doesnt plan for us to be good for 2 years. He signed all 1 and 2 year garbage players. Then most bad contracts will be off the books except dekeyser, nielson, and abby. Dont expect any big trades or free agents. We have to wait for contracts to expire and in the meantime we will tank for some top picks. 2 years from now we will have the makings of a potential dynasty. But hey we didnt get a guy who's never played an nhl game before.

Rags get top pair RHD (Trouba) Devs get top pair RHD (Subban) Rags get top 2 pick (Kakko) Devs get top 2 pick (Hughes) Rags get star Russian winger (Panarin) Devs get star Russian winger (Gusev) It's basically a nuclear arms race in the New York bay right now. Sure seems like Yzerman is 100% committed to the tank for now. Not adding the Gusevs of the world and keeping the Ericssons around will ensure that happens for the time being.

It's bait, and not even good bait at this point. Don't take it.

Sheppard, Andreychuk, and Robitaille. 3 guys who skated like crap but could absolutely bury it.

Considering future back scratches

Larkin is a beast. No denying that. Im just trying to say that Zadina's 18-19 year old season was pretty damn good. Nyquist and Tatar were 23-24 years old before they got to where Zadina is now. We should be excited.

No successful rebuild takes one off season. I wish we would've got Gusev too but we don't know any behind the scenes involvement. Daley and Ericsson should be off the team for sure. But they don't HAVE to be. We don't need the extra cap space yet and it's not worth giving up assets, in a trade or in future cap space because of a buyout, just to clear the roster spot for a young guy.. Which is all it would be doing. If a young guy earns the spot, he'll have it. In the long run, it's much more worth benching them and waiting out their contracts than getting rid of them right now.

Who would you say whined?

If you can add a good, young player for peanuts you should, if anything just for the extra asset to play with later. We also don't have to do anything, we have quite a bit of cap space IIRC. I'm not sure what mystical thing is going to happen once all those crappy contracts are off the books. Also tanking is stupid, as the last couple of years should've indicated to everyone, and just because that may be his plan it doesn't mean I agree with it, or the execution of it. You can spin it how you like, and I'm generally optimistic, but for better or worse the off season has been rather underwhelming. It all may be moot, as maybe Gusev had zero interest in being here in the first place. But hey, It's still probably nice to be a NJ fan right about now.

$9.5 million???? OK, he won the Vezina last season, but completely collapsed in the playoffs, where it counts. Regular season hardware increases contracts, but $9.5 million for 8 years? Considering what Bob got from Florida though, he probably used that to his advantage.

No kidding. Adding Subban/Hughes/Gusev in one off season is pretty heckin nice. Hall - Hischier - Palmieri Gusev - Hughes - Bratt Wood - Zajac - Simmonds Coleman - Zacha - Rooney Vatanen - Subban Butcher - Severson Mueller - Carrick Greene Schneider Blackwood That entire lineup looks really nice. The Rags and the Devs both got a lot better this offseason. Should be fun watching them play each other this year.