stormboy

i would have preferred that we didn't resign lilja, keep cheli for one more year as we train the younger guys, then next year let ericcson/meech/quincey fill out the d. but we have lilja. and i would really hate to see one of our young d-men be dealt/lost on waivers so that chelios can play one more so-so year. as many have said, i love the guy, and my opinion is in no way a bash to cheli. but there will be a day, some years down the road, when i say that pavel datsyuk is no longer worth keeping in the system. (this assumes, of course, that pasha doesn't retire at the peak of his career.) the point is, it may be time to move on. i hate to say it. if chelios were still a powerhouse on defense, i might say that it's worth risking some of our future for one more great chance at a cup. but, from where i sit, keeping chelios does not significantly increase our chances to win the cup next year...at least not so much that it is worth either losing a defensive prospect or impeding any of their development. my opinion: don't sign him. but, then again, maybe there is something to be said for giving a hall of fame d-man another year against all odds. *shrug* we shall see. either way, we're still in good shape.

i was about to post the same video. i've been making ty conklin jokes since that very day. now he's on our team. i think he'll play well, but i just can't get the memory of that goal out of my head...

i'd have a hard time calling the penguin's last season a "losing" one.

a lot of people were picking the rangers last year...maybe not as a "lock" to win the stanley cup, but to do amazing things. they were okay. obviously, there's no universe in which a franzen-flipper-hossa line is worse than a franzen-flipper-sammy line, but, you never know. franzen cools off. hossa can't find his groove. lids starts showing signs of age. osgood comes off the huge high he was on all of last year. *shrug* i don't EXPECT any of these things to happen, but hockey games--and championships--are won on the ice and not on paper. now, of course, when i'm talking to my buddies, it's all "can you say 'repeat,'" but obviously no one knows. the thing is, how much more will it suck if we get ousted in the first round this year? and imagine how much fun the critics are going to have if we do ANYTHING but win the stanley cup? i prefer to fly under the radar rather than have everyone picking us from july 1 on. (not that we've necessarily "flown under the radar" in recent years, but everyone underestimated us. no one will this year. if anything, we will be over estimated, and everyone will bring their a+ game to play the wings.) that being said, this signing is amazing and our team looks incredible. but, only time will tell. can't wait for october!!!!

quote from a pens board: what? that makes no sense. if he left for tons of money, you'd be saying he was an *******. look, the wings have more than a "slightly" better chance to win the cup. now, obviously, stacked teams don't equal cups. everyone expected the NYR offense to do amazing things last year, and the chemistry just wasn't there. maybe it won't with hossa. but the fact of the matter is, the wings have, if anything, gotten BETTER this offseason (pre-hossa signing), while the penguins have been losing players. while some of their players (namely malkin) proved to NOT be clutch in the finals, our best players excelled. and just for the record, i don't how how bad our record is at the trade deadline, unless we're dealing with serious injuries...NO ONE, and i mean no one, is allowed to betch about holland making moves at the deadline. last year, we wanted hossa and a d-man. this year we have stuart and hossa AT THE BE BEGINNING OF THE SEASON. anything else will be absolute gravy at this point. so, yeah, i don't want to put the cart before the mule, but god damn, things are looking good this season. another note from the pens board: they clearly don't understand the salary cap. everyone's like "oh, looks like zetterberg won't be getting that huge extension" or "i guess they can kiss zetterberg goodbye." really? c'mon, guys. do a little homework.

basically, we should have about 8 million of cap space left after plugging the holes from free agency, according to my (probably flawed) analysis. this doesn't include the fact that we might sign another goalie and assumes that brad stuart will leave and not be replaced (other than by moving up AHL defensemen). it also assume that we will retain filppula and not have to match a big offer sheet. if this is accurate, there's the option of making a one-year signing of an impact player or saving money for a big deadline deal. additionally, this will give us money to re-sign zetterberg and franzen next season. cliffnotes for the cliffnotes: we're in pretty good shape, in my opinion.

alright...so i just want to talk this out a little bit...and this thread seemed as good as any. just for my own (and possibly anyone else's) edification. 56.3 million. right now, our cap hit for next year is 39.532, according to the salary chart on lets go wings. that's a gap of about 16.8 million. the following players from last year are UFA's. Dallas Drake (this year payed 0.550 million) Mark Hartigan (0.550) Darren McCarty (0.535) Aaron Downey (0.525) Brad Stuart (3.5) Andreas Lilja (1) Chris Chelios (.850) Dominik Hasek (2.050) RFA's. Valtteri Filppula (0.850) Jonathan Erricson (0.475) [these are listed as inactive on letsgowings salary chart, but may play in detroit next season, so i'll include them] Kyle Quincy (.535) Jimmy Howard (.850) * * * So, first of all, who DOESN'T get resigned? Hasek is retiring. Dallas Drake will most likely not sign. Conventional wisdom is probably that McCarty will not resign. I see no reason for us to keep Mark Hartigan. Who will for sure get resigned next year? For me, all four of the RFA's are shoe-ins. The others I'll discuss next under the "maybes." So, how much will these characters all get paid? Let's start with Filppula. His points more than doubled from last year (goals nearly doubled, assists more than did), his +/- went up significantly, and though his ATOI increased from 11:16 to nearly 17:00, his increase in points outpaces his increase in ice time. He had 11 points in 22 playoff games last year, maintaining his regular-season pace of about half a point per game. We've all discussed our feelings about his inconsistency. The question seems to be, how much can/will he develop? On this answer (most likely) rests the decision of how much Val will make next year (assuming another GM doesn't offer a ridiculously inflated offer sheet). So what do other young forwards who score about .5 PPG? Well, he had less points in more games than Dan Cleary did last year, who just got signed for 2.8 million. Also, he arguably has less grit and less strength on the puck, things that both factor in to Cleary's salary. Jarret Stoll had similar numbers to Valterri last year, but has had MUCH better number in previous years, and is on the tail end of a 2.2 million contract. Final analysis: In my opinion, Flippula should get between 2-2.25 million, maybe for three years, to be resigned to a bigger contract if he continues to improve. Will others offer him more? Possibly. Should we pay him more than 3 million? Doubtful. So, let's say, for the sake of argument, that Val gets 2.5 million next year. Next up, we've got Erricson and Quincey. Depending on what happens with our other D-men, they both may or may not get Detroit minutes next year, with Erricson being particularly in doubt. I could be way off here, but I see both of them getting signed for around 0.850. We want to keep both of them in our system, but they're not going to be top-4 defensmen. The one that I'm really unsure about is Howard, in terms of money. Is going from starter in AHL to back up in NHL (assuming that's what happens) worth a big raise? Osgood made 0.800 this season. Granted, he got a nice raise, but there's no way that Howard makes more than a million next year, right? Stop me if I'm wrong, but I just don't see that happening. Finally, who MIGHT get resigned? You could maybe put McCarty here because, as far as I know, there's no information saying that he WON'T play for sure next season. If he does resign, it'll likely be for around the 0.550 mark. Other than that, you've got Downey. Like to see him back as a part-time enforcer. Probable, but not guaranteed at this point, as far as I know. Again, don't see him getting much above the 0.550 mark if he stays. Then you've got Stuart, Chilios, Lilja. As armchair GM, I don't resign Chelios or Lilja and bring up Quincey and Ericcson. (Lids, Raf, Kron, ?*, Quincey/Ericcson, Lebda) ?* = Stuart. This is the big maybe here. For the sake of my little (/big) write-up here, we're going to assume that Stuart does NOT resign, citing family / living reasons for departure. Then, if we don't have Cheli or Lilja, some combination of Q/E/L becomes our bottom-three guys. Now, defensmen combinations are something we can talk endlessly about, but it's not really the point of this. The point is salary cap. If Lilja and Chelios re-sign, I can't see them getting much more than what they got this year, each. Meaning, their total salary should be less than two million. If neither re-sign, and Quincey and Ericcson are our guys (or maybe Meech is---we'll see. either way it's one of last year's AHL guys) their total salaries will be 1.5 million on the high side. Leaving only a variance of about half a million. For the sake of ease, we'll just call it a wash and say that whatever happens with Chilios/Lilja/Quincy/Meech/Ericcson, not much will change salary-wise. The big question is Stuart, but again, let's just pretend that he leaves. So now, then. Current cap hit total. Total: 39.523 My predictions. Flipper: 2.5 Dwny/DMac?: (1.5) Howard: 1.0 D-Men 5 & 6: 2.0 (See above. This is some combo of Cheli, Lils, Quin, Ericc, Meech.) New total: 45.023 (46.523 with Downey and Dmac--for the remainder, we'll assume they don't resign) At this stage in the game, we have a few holes left from free agency. We'll say the D is wrapped up (maybe a little more to come about that in the final section), and assuming we go with Osgood-Howard (again, more about that at the bottom), we've only got our forwards to take care of. (These line arrangments are just my opinions, and the specific combinations are not ALL that important--the point is simply to see where on the depth chart we've got holes.) Line 1: ZDH: Signed, at least through next year. Line 2: Flipper-Cleary-Sammy/Franzen: Assuming we retain Valterri, that line is also signed. Line 3: Maltby-Draper-?: No Dallas Drake here. That's a hole. McCarty or Downey would likely not fit on this line even if they re-signed. Line 4: Helm-Hudler-?: This line was juggled quite a lot during the season and playoffs. Assuming Kopecky is healthy next season, one sees him getting fourth line minutes. I myself see no reason to get rid of Hudler or Helm; Helm-Hudler-Kopy seems like an alright fourth line. This line was good with H-H-Mac during the playoffs, and Kopy (ideally) brings some of the hitting/grit of McCarty with a bit more energy/stamina and a *small* degree more of offensive upside. So, we need someone for line three. (This assumes Helm has earned full-time duty in Detroit, which I believe he has.) We've maybe got Downey and possibly McCarty floating in the wings in case of injury/need to fight. You've also got Abdelkader ready to come up in times of need. Draper gets less than 2 million; Maltby gets less than 1. Who would you like to see on that line? At this point, we've got slightly more than ten million in cap space; Holland will surely want to save some of that for the trade deadline/injury insurance. The question is, do you get a Drake-style player who brings a bit of grit and leadership in, or do you go for someone in a 2.5-3 million range with a little more offensive upside (with Draper, they could produce SOME goals) and a bit more speed? Not that I'd necessarily want him, but a Sean Avery-type player, 2-3 million range, can score, agitates, etc. John Madden still has one year left on his contract in Jersey, and it's doubtful the Devils let a Selke candidate slip away, but imagine Madden playing alone side Maltby and Draper. He's about a 3 million dollar player. Or, again, a guy from the Devils who's a UFA this year: Jay Pandolfo. He's about a 1 million dollar player who never really found his offensive potential, but has grit and solid defensive skills. Or, barring injury, Cleary moves to the third line and Franzen and Sammy stay on the second. (I'd rather see Cleary with Flipper and Franzen, but given Cleary's style of play, he fits in better with Draper and Malts than does Sammy.) But given the fact of injury, it's somewhat likely that one of our top six forwards will be injured at some point, moving Franzen, Cleary or Filppula to the top line and leaving a hole on our third. Enough talk about that. Let's say that we get a third line player for 2.5 million. New Total: 47.523 million. Still almost nine million. Do we sign a big free agent to a one year deal (I know, easier said than done) just to give us that edge this year then rearrange the lines (putting Helm, Hudler or Kopecky likely out of a job) or just sit on the money to make a big deadline deal and make damn sure that Franzen and Hank get re-signed next year? That's the question, I guess. **Wildcards. Here are some random things that I could see happening that change quite a bit in this analysis. 1a. Brad Stuart re-signs. Assuming Cheli and Lilja DON'T re-sign, this is less of a big deal because we can easily keep Ericcson down in Grand Rapids for another year (correct me if I'm wrong here). But, alternatively, assuming they BOTH re-sign, then we're back to Lids-Raf, Kron-Stu, Lils/Lebs/Cheli, which isn't my ideal, but is tolerable. However, the Stuart signing will push of over 50 million. This isn't really a problem, as we would still have room for a deadline deal, but it would pretty much eliminate a huge one-year signing. 1b. Stuart leaves, but Holland deems it necessary to sign another veteran D-Man. This would more likely happen (in my opinion) if Cheli (and, to a lesser degree, Lilja) depart. The situation would essentially be the same as 1a, but with a different name. 2. We sign a goalie. I know there has been talk of Ryan Miller; if this talk has any logical foundation whatsoever, I'm not sure. Still, it's possible that we could make a non-Ryan Miller signing to either be our number one or to back up Ozzie while Howard plays more in GR. At this point, I don't see us signing a back up for Ozzie; if we sign someone, it will be a starter for Ozzie to back up/tandem with. This means we're looking at someone probably well over 2 million. However, if Howard stayed in GR, his salary of (what I have guessed to be) about a million won't count against us. Signing a goalie of this caliber wouldn't necessarily preclude us from signing Stuart (or equivalent), but would then push our payroll withing 3 or 4 million of the cap. 3. The Flippula signing costs a lot more. Is 2.5 million a pipe dream for Filppula? I don't think so, though some might. However, there's the distinct possibility that someone offers him a sheet of a lot more. How high do we go for Filppula? 3 million? Maybe. 3.5? That's tough. 4? No chance, in my opinion. This contingency raises two possibilities: One, if we re-sign Filppula for a higher figure, we've got less money to do other things with. We could still probably get a goalie and a D-man, but we'd be really pushing the cap at that point, leaving less and less room for a deadline deal. Two, if we can't keep him, that means we've lost of secondary scoring. In theory, we have two top lines with Franzen, Cleary and Sammy making up the second line. Hudler COULD move up to those lines if there's injury, but that takes the teeth out of our fourth line. More importantly, we've got power play problems. The loss of Filppula would most likely necessitate a signing of at least moderate importance. In theory, if we lose Filppula, we'd have lots of room to offer Hossa a big deal for one year hoping that Helm/Hudler/Abdelkader could step up next year after we sign Z and Franzen. . . . So I doubt anyone will actually read this, but it's a lazy Sunday afternoon and I miss hockey already. At least thinking and writing about it makes me feel better.

i've always been a big val supporter. sure, there were times late in the season where he really needed to step up, but i think he's shown his merit. i'm really glad we didn't give him up for hossa...sure, hossa had better numbers in the playoffs, but we obviously didn't need those extra points to win. and we get to (hopefully) keep val around for a long time, rather than being left with nothing after this season. i think it'll be fun to watch this kid develop.

Link. this is an interesting thread to read through. no comments that i would really call people out for, but the consensus seemed to be that if we had to get rid of franzen, hudler, flipper, or cleary that franzen would be the one to go. obviously no one could have seen his current performance coming, but it's interesting to see people's thoughts on franzen back in january.

it would be sweet if babs started that line. let 'em play one shift and then not play together the rest of the night...but that would just be a sweet way to start the game. good for the fans.

the only thing that mac fighting laraque would accomplish would be a momentum shift for the other team. like others have said, it's great to see mac's comeback, but with the amount of penalties he's been taking, and his slow speed, i'd say he's got to go. malts can kill penalties, and helm's just fast. so if mac's out, who gets bumped to his spot? Z-D-H Mule-Flipper-Sammy Cleary-Maltby-Draper Hudler-Drake-Helm ??? or do you put drake with malts and draper for the sort of "grit" line and then hope that hudler-cleary-helm can generate some offense?

right. putting the best possible team on the ice in the stanley cup finals is a real dick move.

15th'd. love chris. really sucked it up last round. IMO, pens > stars, particularly in terms of offensive speed and skill. not that lilja's a speedster, but, as others have said, cheilos has been, in a word, brutal.

obvious homers are obvious.

grade school conversation: little jones: my daddy just got a promotion! little draper: my daddy won the stanley cup when i was two weeks old. STFU!

great news about both. i'm hoping this means cleary's game goes up just a notch or two...what i'm really hoping for is one big game (a 2 goal and/or 3 point night) out of him. i don't expect him to get a point per game this series, but one huge night (hopefully a night when ZDH is being contained/not playing their game) could make a huge difference this series. oh, god, i'm just thinking back to the days about halfway through this season when everyone was just ragging on franzen like there was no tomorrow. i wish i could compile all the posts from GDTs and other franzen-hating threads when he wasn't scoring. now his coming back is like christ's second coming. if franzen and cleary start playing well, we're going to have a hell of a lineup. go wings!

silly thread is silly. it's a fine system that, to my limited knowledge, is roughly similar in most other major sports. and it's not as if the draft pick order is the singularly most important thing in hockey. look at where most of our stars came in the draft. and to say that the penguins organization deserves no credit is silly. just because you have high draft picks doesn't mean that you'll actually draft the right people. they've built a relatively complete team over the last few years with a good goalie, good forwards (obviously), some guys that can move the puck on d and some hitters. they've also got some tough guys. they deserve credit for building a team that isn't just all snipers.

unfortunately i think that's pretty true. imagine though, if you're that ref, knowing what hell was raised when home WAS in the crease and a goal WAS allowed, the kind of eternal torment you'd go through allowing ANOTHER one a few games later. the reality is, the kind of play that homer is best at invites a lot of close calls that the refs have to make, and it's not like was that hooking/wasn't that hooking, which, sure, just as easily may have an effect on the game...but with homer, two inches automatically makes the difference of a goal or no goal. i think so many goalies and coaches have bitched about homer that especially after the incident a few games earlier the refs are really really going to be on his ass. which is too bad. maybe i feel this way just 'cause he's our guy, but i'd rather have people go out there and play, not checking what inch their skates are on constantly. yeah, if it's flagrant and the guys way in the crease and obviously interfering call it off. if not, that's part of the game. but then again i guess they have to make it as black and white as possible. in the crease = no goal.

calm down with the "haha," guys.

it looks like turco is trying to climb into his hobbit hole.

is the idea with the more ridged nets that now the puck can go off the back of them and allow play to continue when pucks are being chopped at behind the goal? i didn't watch hockey when they had looser nets, so i can't really say, though i think it would be better to see the net move. plus, for some reason it's less satisfying to me (though not much less) when the puck bounces right back out after a goal. i'd much rather have the opposing goalie have to dig the puck out from behind his own goal line.

i mean, i guess melrose's comments were a bit obvious. it's true, though: the disallowed goal did more than take a tick off the score sheet. even if dallas does score that goal at the end of the first, it's just tied up and then we score right back. they're still chasing us most of the game. plus, if the goal counts, you've got to be thinking that dallas has a hard time shaking it off. down early AGAIN, still not having the lead in the series, still chasing the wings in a desperate attempt to not get eliminated. but, yeah. it's over. karma's a *****.

crap. i'd still rather win in five, but it'd be nice if the east series goes to six or seven games. assuming we get to the finals (which isn't a HUGE assumption, but obviously still not to be taken for granted) it'd be great to have fanzen back. maybe not bad for this team to deal with a little adversity. so far it's been ZDH, franzen, and our d-men carrying our offense. a few guys (cleary, flipper) really need to step up in franzen's absence. if those guys get rolling, then we get franzen back and advance to the finals, we'll be real hard team to beat. pick up the slack, fellas!

i like how edzo is right on the money when he's calling other teams out. ... i seem to remember extensive discussion of this rule in the threads pertaining to the notorious disallowed goal in the 3-2 anaheim game. i remember at the time being pissed b/c if it's goalie interference, i thought, there should be a penalty. turns out it's actually in the rules that the ref can disallow the goal without calling a 2-minute minor. homer's (or any other player's) infraction wouldn't have to amount to the usual penalty call's worth of interference to disallow the goal. it just has to impede the attempts of the goalie to make the save in the paint. in the case of the stars goal when their skater was in the paint, he wasn't impeding ozzie's movement. if ozzie had tried to get to that part of the crease to make a save before the stars player had the puck in the crease, it would have been disallowed (theoretically). but it wasn't. i agree that it was a totally blown call. but, it is within the rules to disallow a goal due to goalie interference without calling a penalty. it seems counter-intuitive, but them's the rules.

agreed. even if that goal counts we only would have scored two, well below average for us in these playoffs. and it's not like we didn't have powerplays. frankly, our power play looked like s*** tonight. when the best player in the league can't put a puck into an open net 6-on-3 you know we're not firing on all cylinders. now i'm not getting too down on the wings here--you're going to lose some games on the way to the cup, and it's not as if WE were the one's facing elimination at home. you have to know how desperate the stars were. i'm not too concerned about this game. saturday's game, much more so. yeah, the call was absolutely absurd, but we still could have won 4-3 if we'd scored some more goals. *shrug* either way, we'll get 'em in five. there's no shame in that.