Shaman

I don't see Holland spending more that 4 million on the high end for Howard, his philosophy is not to overpay one goaltender, but to have an affordable tandem. As for Flip, its all dependent on this season, if last season was foreshadowing of whats to come, I can see 4-4.5, if he regresses this season, I could see a cap hit closer to Franzen's numbers. As for the CBA, I may not know, but the writing on the wall seems to point to a reduction in the cap limit. If you've read what ownership/the NHL wants (like reduction in the players share of revenue) its implausible to believe the cap wont drop by as much as 15% with 7-10% being a safe bet. As for Weber, thats simple, Nashville can't afford (financially) to lose him, I expect them to extend him for multiple years at a cap hit around 7.2 million to keep themselves near the cap floor.

You assume way too much: #1 The new CBA could give a much lower cap limit, so there is no way to know if the Wings will have 8 million dollars to spend on Weber. #2 Only 4 players in the NHL make over 8 million dollars per season, 3 are three of the top forwards in the world, the other is Eric Staal (go figure). Weber getting 8 million per season is pretty far fetched. #3 Way too much for Howard... anything over 4 million long term is an overpayment for a goaltender in the NHL. Flip may or may not be an overpayment, depends on the numbers he puts up next season.

1 out of 10 is not 'hardly any'. The Wings can not afford to lose Smith to a head injury like they lost Lilja, not with the defensive depth being so scant at this point.

I think if hes inserted as a top 4 this season the management and coaching will dissuade him from fighting a lot... with the rash of concussions and the uncertain make up of Detroit's depth at D will make it unlikely that Smith will drop the gloves on a regular basis.

That has to to be the dumbest thing I've heard on this board in a long time. Why? Holland could announce tomorrow he and Hudler have decided to sign him to a 3 year 9 million dollar contract. Meaning they have locked him up at a reasonable rate for a guy who can give you 20+ goals and 50+ points a season.

I hate conditional draft picks, I wish they would be more forth coming on what conditions are there and what they will mean.

Bring the plywood back boards that make the Joe famous.

Paul Coffey has himself a hand full of rings. So I don't feel bad for him in the slightest.

I disagree with the whole bold part of your post, A lot of the best seasons under 25 I can think of were from the 1980s when goal scoring was way up and by extension the players who were under 25 had inflated totals. If you set scoring equal over all seasons Joe Sakic's best season well when he was in his late 30s. Jagr and Thortons 2005-06 stats while not career years compared to the average goal per game of the league were among their best seasons of their careers. Just because you see the freaks (Orr, Gretzky, Lemieux) having their 'best seasons' before 25 take all factors into account. A short list of players who when adjusted to league averages had their best seasons at or after 25: Datsyuk Zetterberg Jagr Sakic Bertuzzi Lidstrom Naslund Howe Heatly I could go on forever but I think you get my point.

Seeing as you don't know anything about how HFboards prospect rankings work ill break it down for you: Each team has its own prospect reviewer, the reviewers for teams like Pittsburgh and St Louis have had some really liberal reviewers the last few seasons so their ranks are inflated compared to teams like Detroit who the last two years have had a guy who likes to be a lot more conservative on his projections. The people writing these projections tend not to be any more knowledgeable than your common HFboards posters, so I don't put much if any stock into the grades that they post. They do however write pretty good analysis of strengths and weaknesses.

If by tougher to play against you mean 'harder to knock off the puck/better at knocking the other team off the puck' I agree. If you mean 'fight, make big hits, take retaliatory penalties' I disagree.

For Ryan? Try Franzen, Nyquist, Kindl and 2nd+5th For Justin Schultz, Rights to Stuart.

Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Filppula, Abdelkader, Nyquist.... it seems the Red Wings are pretty deep up the middle. If they trade those two, they should get a couple draft picks, from Ottawa maybe that #15 overall and a third round/fourth rounder?

Not really... at forward the Wings are really deep. They are pretty deep at D and not deep at goalie.

There is a few key differences between Yzerman and Lidstrom: #1 Lidstrom was still a top D-man and would have been a top D-man next season had he come back. When Yzerman retired he was already showing signs of decline and was playing a reduced role on the team. His leadership was what was most missed. #2 At the time Yzerman retired the team already had Datsyuk and Zetterberg were at the beginning of their primes, having scored 87 and 85 points in the 2005-2006 season respectively. This time the Red Wings do not have a #1 D-man outside of Lidstrom, not offensively and not defensively. #3 Lidstrom is almost undeniably a more talented player than Yzerman, Yzerman is probably ~10th best forward ever to play, Lidstrom is arguably the second best D-man to ever play the game. #4 2005-06 NHL had a lot less parity, at least according to all I have read and heard from people who are involved with the League, today there is a lot less room for error. I want to end this with saying I am not saying that the Red Wings are screwed, because I know about as well as anyone on here what the prospect situation is, the Wings do have a great farm system, the only issues is that the best players are a couple years away from being NHL ready. It is my personal belief that replacing Lidstrom with Suter will make the transitional period the wings are in a lot smoother, and keep them as contenders.

Evander Kane is way too overpriced.

It's not impossible, but, it's extremely unlikely, defensive ability again is something learned.

So by your logic again Cody Franson is a better defender than Gardiner. And again you never addressed the original point: Offense is a natural gift, defense needs to be learned, a first year defender that isn't name Doughty, Keith, Lidstrom, etc aren't going to be great defender right off the bat at the NHL level.

Are you high? Honestly, have you ever watched Lidstrom? Puck possession wasn't what made Lidstrom great, it was perfect positioning in the defensive zone. Lidstrom had great offensive sense but, it was far outclassed by his ability to read other players and cancel them out before they could get a quality chance on net. As for Gardiner he had the 3rd most ice time and it wasn't by much that he wasn't second, and that still doesnt address the point that Toronto was TERRIBLE defensively. And by your logic Cody Franson 2011-2012>Lidstrom 2010-2011.

+/- is meaningless, its not an individual stat its a team stat. Next, hes played more games than most of those listed, and only out scored Liles by 3 points over almost 20 games difference. Also the Wings problem isn't puck moving D-men, Kronwall, White, and Kindl are all good puck movers they need a defenseman that is a top shut down guy, and that's the issue, offense because its more natural comes earlier in a D-man's career, the ability to be a top shut down guy takes years of experience. Add to that Toronto was 2nd worst in GA and 3rd worst in GF/GA differential doesn't really help your case.

Komisarek, Phaneuf, Schenn and Liles>>>>>Gardiner. And McDonagh is part of a very young defense on the Rangers which is carried by King Henrik. So they are poor examples, and I know some Ranger fans who think McDonagh was rushed to the NHL.

I never said he wasn't ready, I said his game needs to mature for him to reach his peak potential. He is NHL ready, but hes not ready to be a top pairing D-man. Why give Abby top 6 minutes and 3 minutes of power play time? There are 8 forwards on the team better than him offensively.

First preparing for the future usually implies that you don't have to throw big money at free agents to fill huge holes in the line up to stay competitive. Next you seemed to have implied that its myth or a conspiracy that the Wings may not be as good as we have come to expect of them next season. I sarcastically pointed out all the reasons why not filling the holes in the line up could come back and bite the Wings. Well, I tend to follow the Red Wings prospects pretty closely. So here's a quick rundown: Possible pure Goal scorers (high end projections of 30+ goals): Teemu Pulkkinen Tomas Jurco Marek Tvrdon Possible top D-men: Brendan Smith The rest of Detroit's prospect pool are full of boom or bust pass first forwards and borderline NHL energy guys, and second and third pairing D men. Of their last few first round selections only Smith is going to be a good NHL player, McCollum is trash, Riley Sheahan seems to have peaked as a borderline 3-4 liner. Now lets be really really optimistic and say that players like Jurco, Pulkkinen, Jarnkrok, Sproul, and Marchenko all make it to the NHL. Know when this is likely to happen? More than likely 2015-2016. So between then and now there's not much in Grand Rapids besides players like Nyquist and Tatar and Smith to fill the holes the wings have. Now lets take a look at them: Neither Nyquist nor Tatar are goal scorers, they are puck movers, so they don't fill the needs of the top 6 for a legit goal scorer. Now Brendan Smith: hes a blue chip D prospect, but his biggest hole is he is young and he has the offense first attitude. He has the abilities to become a really good top pairing D-man but he needs time to learn the NHL game and mature abit. So does he fill Lidstroms shoes? or even give Detroit a top 20 D man? The answer is no. So now this leaves one option to fill the glaring holes in the line up: Go outside the organization. There are two routes for this #1 Free agency, and their are 2 players on the market July first that fill the needs of the Wings' line up, Suter and Parise. If Detroit doesn't land these two players they can either pick up filler players like Semin and Wideman who both are not nearly as good as Suter and Parise or they can trade. The biggest problem with trading is other teams will want players back, the first players on the list will be Pulkkinen, Jarnkrok, Smith and Filppula, and on top of that they will probably also want some picks. This is bad for obvious reasons first Detroit's farm system is good but its not deep with blue chip talent, there is a lot of boom or bust guys, so trading the players who are most likely to make it in the NHL hurts the Wings in the future (short sighted). There is nothing in Abdelkader's past that points to him being 1/2 as good a goal scorer as Jokinen was. Remember kiddo that Jokinen has been close to 40 goals 3 different times with the Panthers.

Because the Red Wings can't suffer from the loss of a great defenseman and they will always be good no matter what Holland and Co do. And a team should never prepare for a future when their stars retire because that never happens ever. And when that never happens its okay because the Wings are incapable of not making the playoffs so they can just insert any player in to the #1 D position and they will magically become Lidstrom. And its not like their are 3 very good teams in the Central not to mention the good teams on the west coast, and the separation between playoff teams and non-playoff teams is over the last few season only 2-3 points. Nope it's nothing like this, its just like those internet myths, Y2k, Mayan Calender and the Detroit Red Wings missing the playoffs due to short sighted management and NHL parity. And if it happens to be true that the NHL is much more competitive and that Detroit needs a top 6 goal scoring winger and a #1 D-man to be able to be a contender for the Stanley Cup, then its wrong to point out these facts because it may piss off a guy with 300 posts.

This is the doomsday scenario that Holland has seemed to never planned for. The writing has been on the wall for the last 4 seasons that Lidstrom would be gone, and it's become painfully obvious none of Kindl, Kronwall, or Ericsson were going to be the next top D-man they were thought to be. In the mean time Detroit has also been deficient in the natural goal scorer area. Holland took a chance on Franzen, but he seems to have chosen wrong and Franzen has been nowhere near what hes been before his contract. Now Detroit has been bounced early in the playoffs, the holes in the line up are mounting and players like Carle and Widemann/Semin and Doan will not fill the holes to make this team as competitive that a team needs to be to be real contenders. The point of this is that Holland could have done a better job of transitioning the team so that they wouldn't be dependent on getting two top tier players thought FA in one offseason to stay where they have been the last 20 years.