Wing Across The Pond

Is the only reason to shop him purely that contract then? Is there any scenario where it's worth having them both?

Obvs no one knows for sure, but I think the rules state only 1 goalie can be protected. Consensus seems to be that with the other goalies on offer, and with the other pieces that we'll have to expose, Howard isn't the option to go for. But we don't know how the Vegas team will value him. Just read another breakdown which suggests Howard also still has a NMC. Is that right? EDIT: Modified NMC with a 10-team 'no-trade' list

Been looking at these Expansion Draft mock-ups, and I'm wondering how Holland's moves this year shape that. Currently 'thehockeywriters.com' (not sure how good a site that is) have us losing Sheahan. No chance Howard (someone mentioned earlier about him being the starter in Vegas) gets picked, it just won't happen unless we trade before the draft, but with a lot of other goalies/prospects on the books for the draft, Howard isn't even a factor at the moment; Dallas will have to expose a keeper, Subban at Boston, Bishop most likely at Tampa, etc, etc (of course unless things change throughout the year). The other thing I noticed from the article (posted below), is that we seem to be in one of the better positions with who we protect - Tampa for one are pretty screwed in that guys like Filppula have a NTC/NMC and have to be protected, same with Pitts and Fluery (who will have to waive it at some point or he'll be crucified - if he doesn't Murray is exposed to the draft). Chicago can only protect one player since they have 8 NTC/NMC on their books. We have one, Nielsen. Using that, what can Holland do, and if he sat pat with the team we have now until the trade deadline/draft when he knows teams will have to move players to keep others safe, would people still wanting him to do something now? LINK: http://thehockeywriters.com/mock-expansion-draft-las-vegas-lineup-better-than-expected/

Abby and DK with As, Larkin with the C eventually. Basically just the Yzerman-Draper-Lidstrom dynamic; forward who leads by example to captain the team, two-way player who is a locker-room voice to do all the inspiring, defenceman who leads by example to keep it tight at the back. That seems to me to be the Red Wings way, only problem is with our current set-up none of the three (Z, Dats, Kronner) are really talkers and all try to lead by example, which doesn't always work when they have to do everything. Probably why performance has dropped off with each. If he could actually play hockey any more I'd also throw in Franzen. Has more experience out of anyone left really, and can do everything required - play well and chirp when needed. But that point is moot. EDIT: Also worked as the Z-Draper-Lidstrom dynamic too.

Florida also ahead of Tampa, with an extra game to play. If they get in a battle with each other or Tampa look at it being "5 teams ahead of us" rather than looking at points, a distraction like that could make 2nd very achievable for us. Bear in mind Montreal have lost 2 straight as well, so catching them isn't impossible - they also have the WC to prepare for, which is always a tad of a distraction.

Why are we wearing red? In both WCs we wore white, then red, in accordance with today's "red=home, white=road" system, now suddenly it's changed? Also Chicago and Montreal are both in white as road teams?

Signed in specifically to like this. But yeah probs just advanced scouting... although a couple of games in a row is weird, unless they just REALLY don't want to lose to Babs... EVER.

Yeah I'm with you, it's a great thing to do. The only thing I don't like about these sorts of things is that a celebrity/millionaire has to give money to help a hospital - it should be a given that hospitals and schools provide for everyone without philanthropic donations. Unfortunately that can't/doesn't happen. So props to him.

Went there in March. The investment in infrastructure is staggering. Arenas popping up all over, many of which, I imagine, will be multi-purpose. If anything the city is a perfect revenue spinner for any team that heads there. Imagine if the Yotes could just have Celine Dion have a few shows in their barn and take a cut of it. Money.

This. I think GMR said it best though, are we talking years of top play, or 'peak', as in each player at their very best? Think either way Z takes it. I reckon it would be concluded that Z is better. He's had injuries, especially with the back, and if it can be seen that he's over that and back to his best then him outscoring Toews would go a long was to help his argument. However I don't think scoring is everything. The PK would give Toews an edge, but having said that Z had 10 more blocked shots last year (26 to 16) and Miller lead the league in forwards - does that mean Drew is in the mix? Of course not. People bring different things and I think that's why it's been so difficult to separate these two. If they had the points you quoted, with similar ice-time, it still wouldn't be enough to draw much of a reasonable conclusion as, say, 25% of Toews ice time would be on the PK. 75% of Z's 80 points would be 60. So for his ES time Toews would be doing better. But hey, spreadsheets aren't everything (although I personally love them). EDIT: I thought I'd also say (and I may be the first person to say it) that Z is without doubt far better value for money. But that's very little to do with either player, just a factor in the case of "which would you pick?" Toews, I feel, would have accepted less than what he was offered, but when they offered Kane his contract, they felt they had to offer Toews the same. He'd be a moron if he said "nah, just give me $8m-per". Our front office has always been a bit clever with the cap.

I can't help feeling partly responsible for this thread :/ ^ I'd say they're probably pretty even in faceoffs you know. I swear this year I saw them doing more of a Draper with Z, getting him in for draws and then pulling him. ^ Doesn't Z hold the record for the most amount of consecutive 2-shot games? Went on for like 2 seasons? So I can see that. ^ Yeah my initial point in the Quick-on-snipers thread was that Toews wasn't overrated at all. Doesn't mean that Z wasn't unreal. For the record, I said Z prime, Toews currently.

I agree it never mentions Toews individually, but is it a way of saying Toews is integral to making Kane an elite sniper? I know in terms of this article it may be overrating him, but he's in no way an overrated player. Debatable. Z is still beast, but runs out of gas more and more. As has been said he is on a downward trend, yet I do still think he's a league leader. Also the two statements have nothing to do with one another. Even if it was unanimously agreed that Z was better that Toews, that in no way means Toews is overrated. He's still a damn fine player. He also scored an almost identical goal the next season if I remember?

Or is it really that he's a great player getting his props, and people are trashing him because they simply don't like him? It's not like one guy is constantly saying "Toews is amazing, top 5 player", it's pretty widespread that he's being praised, which makes me think it's most likely true. Especially when it's current players saying it.

Amazing to think how good Bert was as a replacement on that line for Homer. Obvs not got the net-front hands, but jeez he was better than I remembered him being lol (all from one highlight... yes)

Literally didn't need the "last" in there Richards can't skate anymore? Then don't cite Z as a replacement centre for Dats, because he's fast getting into that territory. I don't see it being that bad a deal for 1 yr, especially since you also mentioned Helm who gets wing time so isn't automatically a lock at C

Literally just came to post this. The Post can be taken with a pinch of salt... especially with no one really on record. But it starts a ball rolling. I mentioned in the Yotes jersey thread, I was in Vegas in May... lots of new arenas being built. I thought that the pro-sports leagues hated the whole legal gambling thing though? The NFL doesn't even let Vegas advertise during the Super Bowl

Biggest change is the black pants. I actually liked the matching jersey/pants combo. Was there in May, they're building a LOT of new multi-purpose arenas down the strip. At least 3 I saw. May actually happen.

As a British soccer fan, this is spurious. Most stadiums are new or developed. Places like Old Trafford, home of Manchester United, has had so many facelifts it's not the same stadium it once was, and even then the infrastructure in the concourses is dire. Utterly terrible. Like putting a 2015 body on a 1982 car. Also the older stadiums out there - my team, Brentford, has been at Griffin Park for over 100 years now - are dying. We're so optimistic for our new place opening sometime next year. Yes I have my entire childhood memories at that place but at the end of the day it's awful to stay there. We can't afford expenditure when we can only get 10,000 people through the gates. We have to move, or jack it in really. My childhood memories aren't as important as the future memories the club can make. The oldest ground in the world, Bramall Lane (build in 1855) isn't the same ground anymore. It was almost entirely rebuilt in the 60s, then had various stands build over the years (most recently in 2006). We can do this with open-air stadiums in decent spaces (unfortunately Brentford's Griffin Park is surrounded by residential land... and I mean literally surrounded. The walls are the back walls of people's yards) you can't do it as easily with an enclosed venue like a hockey rink.

I would motion for this suggestion to be filed under a human-rights violation - "The discrimination, for profit, of facially folically-endowed peoples; Subsection 1: Subjugation of peoples of Viking ancestry in promotion of 'Boy-Next-Door' types."

I thought the main characteristic had to be that you were shy and retiring and when your game was up you just... drifted into the background only to be seen every now and then. Think Lids and Stevie recently (before he stabbed us in the back the no good... ). For that reason, namely his terrible duet with Kenny Daniels during every ad break and his part in the 'Three Pieces of Wood' skit during every intermission, Ozzy hasn't kept quiet enough to have the number up. His portfolio is out on the desk at HQ and everything, grainy late-90s action photo and headshot being examined, then they switch on FSDetroit and it all goes in the shredder. With Stevie it was a case of "We want you to come and work for us, take over one day"... "Okay. I think I'll grab a chair towards the back"... "What a guy". With Lids it was "Nick, you've had one hell of a career, what will you do next?"... *LONG PAUSE.... MORE PAUSE* "I don't know. Take it easy I guess". [Five years later] "Has anyone seen Nick?" I'm surprised (although I don't agree) Fed's records haven't been expunged from all Wings history books at the request of lynch mobs. This whole post has been tongue in cheek, an honestly I was half debating whether the OP was since this sort of thing comes up every post-season and everyone always says "if there's a debate about it, it won't happen" which is why it won't happen. In fairness talking about jerseys and HOF are two different kettles of fish - you can take a guy's stats from club to club and put the very best in the HOF, even take guys who revolutionised the game (which is probably the only way Pav will get in TBH), but the jersey thing is the organisation's decision and they can base it on whatever criteria they like. Personally I see it being a guy who summed up everything about the organisation and the city, and that's why it's an exclusive club. Ozzy may qualify for that, but he wasn't really any different for this team than any other above-average player was for any team they were loyal to. Rose-tinted glasses and all that I guess. Or maybe I'm just a contemptible old man (I'm 25... pray for me).

A speck. The tiniest, teeniest, speckiest of specks. The last most speck of settled dust. The clock has ticked and ticked and ticked by, and along the rumblings of grapevines entwined with staff movements and acquisitions and rumour abound, gone is the distant cry that once rang... "We stink at the moment, seriously I'd throw Cleary in there. He would be better than what's out there at the moment". I believe I was a replier to say "Meh, I guess it couldn't hurt, anything to stop this run" so I'm no above reproach. In truth when we hit that inevitable point where maladies come out to play and our encouraging record goes down the toilet an unhealthy number of us look to Dan Cleary as someone who "will at least go and hit some people and actually really really try really hard to do things good". It's a bit like the end of A Few Good Men; Daniel Cleary's existence is grotesque and incomprehensible to us, yet there will be points in our lives, points when we never utter an audible sound, when we want him on that wall, when we need him on that wall. I'd just prefer it wasn't Cleary and was some other washed up old vet. Because seriously, any other washed up old vet is probably better than Cleary at the moment. EDIT: essentially a washed up old vet who didn't play an entire career in a style that destroyed his ability to continue a career.

Reading a book on sporting "Gold Mines" and reached a really good part where the Kenyan long-distance running school is discussed in detail. Now most of the people that are in the school, and indeed came out of it, aren't genetically any superior to non-Kenyans, they don't have the world's top training facilities or resources, yet when Moses Kiptanui crossed the line first as an unknown (not even a 'relatively' unknown - seriously people didn't even know he was in the race) in his first 3000m steeplechase he told people afterwards "I knew I would win". There is an incredible power behind the belief that you can achieve, and as has been mentioned, Chelios has that. I know he doesn't have any real experience (although it sounds like he's been working with the coaching crew a fair bit) but he sure as hell won't go out there, give it a shot and say "meh it's not going all that well..." he'll work his ass off and make sure everyone else is as well. I'd give him a shot.

This nonsense again? I bought tickets to Game 7 via Ticketmaster resale with a UK credit card. No issue but I probs wasn't in an area that I wasn't allowed in. However I do wonder what I would have done as I was with my partner and her dad (she's a Bolts fan). Would we have been separated? In short, I had no trouble from staff beyond a girl who wouldn't accept my ID for a beer and wanted a passport (although I had already bought a beer), just lots from fans around me who told me to "go home". He wasn't a nice man. He was an angry man. On a side note, in like, 2012 I went to the Bolts home opener in a Wings jersey (I bought the tickets the night before because they weren't selling - this was the days of Guy Boucher and his ultra-boring "trap" I believe. They went on to lose 7-4.) and the lady on the door said "Oh I don't know if you can come in wearing that." I laughed, it's a standard joke, I had Rays fans dissing my Tigers hat, that sort of thing happens, it's part of the inter-team camaraderie that you share as 'fans of sport'. I walked in. She didn't laugh however. She looked at me with serious intentions of asking me to leave. Once again it's lucky I was with my partner in full Bolts gear (well, not FULL gear, that would be silly. But tee and hat). In short (again), this doesn't seem to be a new policy, it's just they're in their first final since 04. Being there in the post-season, literally they seem to have everything riding on it this year - the city is buzzing with a real belief that they will win, billboards are changed seemingly daily (seriously they were all Stamkos, then suddenly Johnson, then "Bolts Win"), non-hockey fans (like my partner's cousin, uncle, and gramps) are keeping up with every game and even starting to become fans. I think they're doing everything to make sure it happens because if it doesn't, man that's going to be the biggest let down. The Hawks will move on, restock, go again next year, after all (kinda like us at the moment) it's not like they really need one. They've been pretty spoilt recently. Thinking of it, I hope Blash can get this sort of fire in us... just in a way that is everything opposite of Jon Cooper.

Ha can you imagine if he went then, then that trade happened. He'd kill someone.

Suspended 1 game. Boooo