VM1138

I forgot about Ray Whitney, and that wasn't even that long ago. Wow. And someone mentioned Pat Verbeek. I have a very vivid memory of him that really put him into my Hall of Favorites. It must have been around 2000, 2001 and it was a faceoff at center ice. Tiny little Verbeek just hauls off and downs a guy twice his size before the play even starts. Anyone remember that?

Gotta give props to these guys: Duchesne, Olausson, Slegr. For soem reason, I always liked these guys and always forget about them. Not that they were great players necessarily, but for some reason, I got a little attached to them. EDIT: Holy cow! Jason Wooley, there's someone I've forgotten totally about.

The thing that makes me nervous is that he might be trade bait. Let's face it, with everyone underperforming we're not going to get anything for most of our players. Lilja being a player who is vastly improved and reliable now, he may be one of our few chances to get some player with motivation or some grit at the deadline.

Wow, I hope Bobbert is okay, that sounds painful.

So, let me get this straight. You want to abandon our two solid goalies and multiple high level goalie prospects late in the season to take a risk on a mediocre goalie with no long-term proven ability that puts him above any other mediocre goalie in the league? Sounds like a winning plan to me. :|

I understand your point of view, but look at it this way: 1) Our defense sucks. 2) Our defensive players are the best in the world. 3) The only change has been the addition of McCrimmon. It might not help to fire him, but it clearly wouldn't hurt and he may very well be the problem. He is the only change to our world class defense and thus should be the first major change.

Lilja is having a great season. I don't know if it's because he's better or because our defense is so much worse, but he's been great for us, I think.

Sounds like even if they don't develop as we hope, Abdelkader and Leino would be great NHL-level 3rd or 4th liners, which woul dgreatly help this team.

Put Maltby with a couple of kids and challenge him to keep up and he'll be back to being a great fourth liner. He's the best 4th liner we have right now, and you can't bring up a line of all AHLers. I say drop Kopecky, keep rotating Draper and Maltby to play with AHLers.

Reffing in this league is absolutely atrocious. What a joke.

Are you serious? Get rid of Kronwall? I can't believe so many on here want him gone. He's had a rough year, but every player has a rough year. We saw what he could be, and he IS better than many in the league. Truly great defenseman are so rare in the league today that I'd like to hang on to him in the high probability he becomes a great top 2 defenseman. Ozzie is still a solid backup. Flip is great trade bait, and Kopecky is useless™.

Aw man, I missed seeing Leino play finally? Damnit! Was he everything we hoped he'd be?

I think TFP got Z's contract wrong by two years and some odd millions, so it might be an indication, but hardly set in stone. I'd say with their 7 million expectation, he'd sign for anywhere between 6 and 8, probably for 6-8 years as well. Someone do the math and figure out how such a contract would work.

Not to bash Flip, he is solid enough, but sometimes you have to let talent go. I think it's a nobrainer to let Flip go in favor of Hudler, Franzen and Hossa. He may end up being a huge goal scorer for another team, but why should we take a risk when we have Hudler, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, and Hossa, all bonafide goal scorers already? I'd actually see Hudler leaving before Franzen, just because there's a chance he might not be as happy here as the others. I mean, Babcock would hardly ever play him despite his work ethic, maybe there's something going on between them we don't know about. Franzen, however, has been treated right from day one and would probably love to stay for a big discount. Hossa on the other hand...he'd be willing to take a discount but how much of one? He took one to come here, but he's still matching Lidstrom. I can't imagine him taking less. I wonder if they could persuade him to take a contract that matches Zetterberg by explaining the cap situation and that a Lidstrom-size pay day is a bad idea in today's league.

Honestly, if I were an athlete, I would. You can always be traded later, and if you make enough cash up front, you can do the team a favor by taking little later on and you'd still have an insane amount of cash saved up. I never understood why athletes always had to ahve that extra million when we're talking 6, 7, 8 million dollars for a contract. The more I think about this Zetterberg deal, the more I love it. It's win-win, apparently, and the author really made sense when he suggested that method of resigning both Hossa and Franzen. The only issue with his plan is that it leaves us a little light on depth. I'm pretty sure getting rid of Sammy, Conklin, Filpulla, Kopecky, etc. to resign Hossa and Franzen and Hudler leaves us right up against the cap and lacking a second goalie and three forwards short.

It doesn't matter. We'll pick some random goalie up, and it won't matter. The only ones out there right now that are game-stealers and guaranteed, reliable netminders are Luongo, Brodeur and Nabakov.

This feels awfully suspicious, all these fight-related injuries/deaths lately, considering the lack of them for 20 years or so. It coincides perfectly with the sudden push to ban fighting.

We'll see as much experimentation with AHLers as we can with the Cap situation, and then come playoff time, if they are performing well, they replace the 4th line wholesale....well...except maybe Draper, because we need his speed and faceoffs. There are very few players on a Wings team I will join a bandwagon in bashing, but Maltby and Kopecky, for the good of the team, need to be sent down, if not let go completely. I'd like to see Draper replaced, but he still plays a strategic role for the team that no one else can fill. THat makes me sad, really, because these guys (except for Kopecky) are among my favorite Wings and I've always wanted to see them retire as Wings honorably.

I always hoped we could find a way to keep Val, but it is clear to me that if it's between Hossa, Hudler, Franzen and Flip, Flip is let go, no regrets. In fact, he's about all we can bargain with to get something of value in return.

Hate to say it guys, but we need more grit. It may just be the Cup hangover, but we have no energy. I am not advocating an enforcer so much as it has become clear to me now we need a repeat of last year. Sign a big defensively solid guy, and completely rebuild the checking line. That, to me, appears to be the only way to win the Cup this year. Our offense is fine and our goaltending is servicable, if not great with Conklin in net, I think it's painfully obvious defense is our weak spot. While we may have had the best in the world last year, we don't this year. The only ones that should have roster spots locked in should be Lidstrom, Rafalski, Stuart and Kronner. Out of curiosity, are there any big, physical defensemen who are excellent PKers and defensively minded that come cheap? Maybe even two signings on the back end. I'd also like to get some grit at forward, but something tells me that Drapes, Maltby, Helm, etc will all be back at the tops of their defensive games come playoffs.

This is all so very familiar.... Dare I say Ozzie is this season's Hasek?

I would imagine this would have something to do with it. We always ask these questions, maybe someone should find out exactly what demographic watches the Wings and if that demographic is being affected by loss of cable or perhaps going out to bars to watch games more often than sitting at home (thus reducing viewership?)

Never understood why people don't like Europeans. A non-hockey fan would have as much trouble pronouncing Yzerman as they would a Markov or an Ovechkin or a Zetterberg. I hate that they use this excuse. I can't find any basis in fact for this other than people talking about it over and over. To not like someone because of their name is ridiculous. Look at every other sport. Half of those names I can't pronounce but I still know who they are. I can understand the lack of toughness, but I would imagine watching a team out-skill an opponent would be juts as much fun to watch. Althoguh I do get annoyed at how may times scrums are broken up before anything could get going. I'm not one of the Enforcer guys around here, but it wouldn't hurt for the league to allow players to fight once in a while, even if they're not designated thugs. They don't have to be massive, hall of fame fighters or fights. But to show enough passion to take a swing, even if it's a bad one, brings intensity.

Fire McCrimmon Make Conklin the starter until Ozzie starts picking up his play. Give Helm more playing time. Trade Lebda or Lilja or Kopecky (even though Lilja isn't as bad as he used to be and has impressed me this season) for a high energy defensive specialist and hope they click with whoever is left on the third pairing. Come playoff time, when waiver rules lift, play the hell out of Helm and Co. over Draper and Kopecky. Badabing.

Man, I lose my Internet connection for the week, miss a couple Wings games and it sounds like the team is falling apart. What is going on?