stevkrause

my thoughts exactly, Ericsson is a future top 2 D man and it can do nothing but benefit him to play with someone like Chelios... as a side note, I know Chelios has made it very clear that he wants to play again next year, even with another team, and not to hate on McCrimmon, but I would love to see the Wings try and convince him to retire and come on board as an assistant coach, being the D coach...

Just bought my tickets and booked a hotel to make a weekend out of it, the Wings are off that night, so it works out perfect... this will be my first time seeing GR in person, so it'll be nice to see some of those prospects first hand

I think this is almost a definite, with Howard getting every chance possible to upseat Ozzie as the #1 starter going into the beginning of the year... if Howard faulters, you can guarantee that you will see Ozzie as starter again for next year, with a GOOD possibility that Larsson actually sees some regular season time to see where he's at... In the event that Howard shines, he will be starter and Ozzie backup for the duration of the contract... Howard faulters and you can GUARANTEE he will be dealt and someone else brought in by the deadline to backstop us, with Ozzie still being backup... all and all, I see Ozzie as a backup one way or another next year and Howard or someone else as starter

my thoughts exactly, when I was a teen I took an aluminum stick cross-check to the side of my exposed head (helmets were dropped to fight) during a line brawl and got a compound concussion - lights out.... my headaches only lasted for a little over a week... SEE SOMEONE LILS!

this is a joke, right?

exactly, and he wouldn't be ok with it. He flat out said in interviews that the reason for re-signing here, was that he wanted to be somewhere where he could set some roots and stay there for awhile and was sick of moving. He cannot and will not be traded.

Stuart has a NTC - and it would KILL you for future free agents to mess with that - you don't sign a guy to a long term deal and then try and trade him 1 year into it. period.

I agree, it sucks and I'd love to see him stay here, I just don't see how it's responsible to re-sign him at that cap number - when you want a well rounded roster... although Hossa is a better player than Franzen, Franzen is home grown and will be cheaper and has shown a capability of putting up a pt per game clip... not to mention playoffs... sucks, but it's the way it is...

actually, we have 48,250,000 committed to salaries already for next season. Out of that, we need to sign a backup goaltender and 4 roster players (when I say "sign" this also means any promotions from the AHL.) This leaves us approximately 7.15 mil to fill these spots This also excludes any trades which may add a little cap relief... All things aside, I see absolutely no way that we can re-sign both Franzen and Hossa, let alone all 3 and still fill out a roster... In my perfect scenario (all rounded): re-sign Franzen for a 3.2 hit re-sign Hudler for a 1.2 hit re-sign Kopecky at a .5 hit play Leino all year at a .9 hit play Helm all year at a .6 hit play Howard all year at a .8 hit play Ericsson all year at a .9 hit then trade away Lebda and free up an additional .7 hit I hate to say it, but let Hossa walk (unless he's willing to sign for WAY lower than he could get elsewhere, like a 5 mil cap hit a year) say bye to Cheli say bye to Samuelsson Under this scenario, we have a VERY well rounded roster, depth at forward and defense AND a VERY IMPORTANT, cap wiggle in the event of injury, trade deadline deal... this leaves us a little more than a .5 space and if Maltby does the right thing and hangs them up at years end, that frees up another .9 to re-sign Hossa and Franzen, be prepared to say goodbye to at LEAST 2 current roster players... we won the cup last year and are looking good this year - if it isn't broke, don't fix it... Franzen-Zetterberg-Cleary Leino-Datsyuk-Holmstrom Hulder-Filpulla-Kopecky Draper-Helm-Malby? (Or Abdelkader) Meech Lidstrom-Rafalski Stuart-Kronwall Ericsson-Lilja Meech Osgood Howard looks pretty good to me...

it was one hell of a game and we had a blast, bounced around town a bit afterward as well, all and all it was a great time and I think we're gonna try to make it an annual thing after this year

If the NHL switched to a soft cap situation like the NBA, it would benefit everyone... Set a hard cap floor and a soft cap ceiling, allowing teams to exceed the salary cap, but then being required to pay a luxury tax to the league, which would then be redistributed to the other 29 teams around the league as revenue sharing. This would allow larger markets to keep players THEY develop, plus a few free-agents and would give some of those smaller market teams some MUCH needed revenue... Seems so obvious, it will never happen, because Bettman is a f***tard

Mr. Hockey! the only thing that bothered me, is that Nascar drivers are NOT athletes... other than that, pretty good list

Zetterberg-Datsyk-Holmstrom Franzen-Filpulla-Hossa Hudler-Draper-Cleary Leino-Helm-Samuelsson Kopecky Maltby Meech Lidstrom-Rafalski Stuart-Kronwall Lilja-Ericsson Chelios Lebda Meech Conklin Osgood

Art Ross Trophy - this one really isn't an opinion, since it goes to who amasses the most points, but if I had to guess who will have the most points at season's end, I would guess - Evgeni Malkin, PIT Lester B. Pearson Award - Pavel Datsyuk, DET Hart Trophy - Zdeno Chara, BOS (even though I think Pavel deserves this one as well) Venzina Trophy - Tim Thomas, BOS Norris Trophy - Mike Green, WSH (even though I don't think he deserves it) Calder Trophy - Steve Mason, NSH Lady Byng Trophy - Loui Eriksson, DAL Frank Selke Trophy - Travis Zajac, NJ Jack Adams - Ken Hitchcock, CBJ Maurice "Rocket" Richard - Alexander Ovechkin, WSH

I couldn't agree more... I'm all for fighting and never want to see it go and also think the automatic instigator in the last 2 minutes rule is BS - but this is where it is needed, there is absolutely NO reason that you can't throw a good, clean hit on a guy without having to fight immediately after - this is where the rule works.

Not only that, but that's a real good way to never land an UFA again - sign them to a 4 year deal and then trade them the VERY next off season, after they signed long term at a cheaper tag SPECIFICALLY to root their family...

I feel this is probably 100% based on $$ - more timeouts = more advertising revenue = more lucrative TV contracts

it's a shame he hurt he's knee while skating away, it kinda takes away from the domination of the fight... I loved that fight the first time I saw it

well I'll be... thanks for straightening that out... for some reason, I thought the 4th for Stuart was in 2010...

I'm sorry, I know these are all opinion and I don't mean to demean yours, but Helm is not a 2nd line center... I can see an argument for him centering the 3rd line, but come on...

We have not traded any of this years picks, or acquired any for this upcoming draft, so we have all 7 rounds picks in the order we place in... the order will not be determined until the end of the playoffs, but you can bet we'll be in the bottom 4-6 picks. (pick 24-30 of each round) picks 1-26 go according to standings at the end of the season (pick 1 goes to the worst team, pick 2, second worst team and so on)... then picks 27-30 are awarded depending on the results of the conference finals - pick 30, Stanley cup champs pick 29, Stanley cup runner up Pick 28 and 27 go to the losers of the conference finals - pick 27 going to the team with the poorer standings from the regular season hope this helps

We only have so much money and I'd much rather see us re-sign Hossa and Hudler and have a little bit of wiggle room for a deadline deal, or call-ups without having to LTIR someone... I hate them being right up against the cap all year...

I'm a little nervous too, but I think once everyone is back and healthy and we're rounded out in the playoffs, I think we will do fine... my only real concern is how well Conklin will hold up as the main guy, as I'm all but positive that he will be our starter come playoffs...

I think they really showed it in their shalacking of the Sharks earlier this year... they almost look bored out there this year, definitely a lack of urgency in a lot of their play, almost like they're like "is this regular season over yet, so we can get to the playoffs?"

^ :beerbuddy: