UKWING

moen would not be a replacement for hudler - i would see him as a belated replacement for dallas drake. leino would replace hudler and helm will replace samuelsson and they should have some space left to sign someone at the deadline if need be. the wings do not have the space to replace hossa but they should not need to; they won the cup without hossa the previous year and they can do it again.

you read his stats wrong. he has played 362 regular season NHL games. in the playoffs he has played 42 games in the last 4 seasons registering 9 goals and 6 assists. he was a big part of the ducks success in 07 when he played on their shutdown line with pahlsson and neidermayer. he is big, physical, he fights and is pretty solid defensively. he did not have a very good year last season but at anything under $1.5m he would be a great addition IMO.

depends how much he wants. if it is around $1m then he would be worth a go. but he earned $1.775m last year so will probably be looking for $2m+.

do you honestly think that rafalski is better defensively than regehr?

i like rafalski and overall he is an excellent player but defensively he is average.

i never said the defence was not good; i said it is not the best in the league. you are entitled to your opinion, but IMO kronwall, stuart and rafalski are not as good defensively as regehr, sarich and bouwmeester.

rafalski is one of the best offensive d-men in the league yes - but defensively he is average at best. ericsson has potential but to say he could be one of the league's best in a few years is pretty hopeful. he was awful after the ducks series and stuart and kronwall were far from stellar too. defensively, lilja is the wings 2nd best defenseman behind lidstrom IMO. as i have already said - the wings have the best offensive D corps in the league; but they are not the best defensively.

i would love beauchemin but the wings are set on D already so i said hudler for part 1. travis moen would be a perfect fit on the 3rd line

more thanks to our excellent defensive forwards than our D. be honest - aside from lidstrom, how good defensively are the rest of the wings d corps?

phaneuf has certainly stagnated the past couple of years but i disagree about regehr - IMO he is very under-rated and is one of the best shutdown d-men in the league. sarich is a very good player too. whilst detroit's d corps is the best in the league offensively, they are not the best defensively. and as bad as calgary's defence was last year, they only conceded 4 goals more than the wings last season - and now they have added bouwmeester.

they will certainly be good again and their young guys should only get better. however, hossa is not much of an upgrade over a healthy havlat and madden is a downgrade from pahlsson. plus, their goaltending has got worse and they still need to sign barker and versteeg with very little cap space left. calgary - who now have the best shutdown D in the league - scare me more than chicago.

yeah you are probably right - i was just listing a couple of big name guys who could become UFAs next year to show how much cap space the wings would have. whomever they sign though - it will be impossible to replace lidstrom.

helm is unlikely to put up huge numbers this year and so should not command too high of a salary and abdelkader is likely to play in grand rapids and so is unlikely to warrant much of a raise. it should only cost about $1-1.5m extra to re-sign the 2 of them. so the wings should have a few million spare. and if lidstrom retires then they will have a lot of room to work with and could make a push for kovalchuk or nash etc. but if he decides to play another year then the need to have a lot of cap room diminishes as we will still have the best d-man in the league.

he has also never had a big pay-day before. if he stays with the wings he will earn $1.5m per year max; elsewhere he could probably get $2m or more. i would not blame for taking the money.

very under-rated player - especially in this thread. he makes an enormous difference to the flames when he is healthy and IMO they would have made the WCF had he been available in this years playoffs - there is no way would they have kept throwing away leads like they did against the hawks with regehr back there.

regehr is far better than kronwall IMO.

exactly what i was thinking they will get to see a whole lot of pronger in the regular season too!!

surely that roster would be over the cap? even assuming that hossa takes $4m, you would still need hudler to take around $1.5m and kopecky and leino to be content not to get a raise. i would love to keep hudler but he deserves at least $2.5m and i would not be surprised to see another team give him an offer sheet for around that amount knowing that the wings could not afford to match it.

i do expect them to consistently make the playoffs and be one of the best teams from the east each year, but i don't think there is any chance of them emulating the oilers or islanders - not in the cap era. they will lose a number of key players this summer and it will be very difficult to replace them. they also won't have the same level of hunger next year. i don't think this will be their last cup by any means - but winning year after year? no chance.

word

if lilja is healthy then i fully agree that stuart is the most expendable player on the wings roster. however, hudler will probably command a salary of around $2.5m per year and i would rather have flip for $3m per year. so i would like to see the following roster: Forwards: Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Hossa, Franzen, Filppula, Cleary, Holmstrom, Leino, Helm, Kopecky, Draper, Maltby Defensemen: Lidstrom, Rafalski, Kronwall, Ericsson, Lilja, Lebda, Meech Goaltenders: Osgood, Howard EDIT: actually i would like the wings to try and add a guy like travis moen for the 3rd line and have leino start the year in grand rapids.

that will not free up enough space to sign hossa - even at $4m per year. if hossa re-signs then the wings have to let all the guys you mention walk and trade someone

well the wings are trying to re-sign hossa and they cannot do that without trading ~$3m worth of salary away - presumably that would mean flip, stuart, kronwall or rafalski.

i think that roster is over the cap by about 3m - if hossa re-signs then one of flip, kronwall, stuart or rafalski will have to be traded.

thanks for all the hard work mac 5th place ain't too bad