StormJH1

This is such a broad topic, I'm not even sure where to start... I think there has to be significant discussions about both the structuring of contracts and the manner in which the salary cap is calculated. I disagree completely with your assertion that bonuses and contract structure aren't being used to circumvent the cap. What is the salary cap? Why does it exist? The whole reason the NHL installed a Cap was to narrow the significant financial gap between the haves and have-nots of the NHL. Prior to 2005, this was resulting in significant competitive disadvantages for cash-strapped teams. Players like Parise, Suter, and Weber are going to earn up to $26 million for a single year of hockey, due to front loading and bounses. But the Cap says that their value as a hockey player is closer to $7 or $8 million. If you are losing money as a hockey franchise, this is a big deal. The teams like Nashville and Phoenix that could barely afford to pay a player's cap number, let alone the actual value of his contract cannot retain or acquire elite-level talent, without asking them to take a significant pay cut over other options. We need to start viewing contracts in this sport more like the NFL than MLB. It really isn't in the sport's best interests to commit $100 million deals to players for 10 years or more. It will do nothing but add inflation to the sport, as we've already seen with long-term deals like Brian Campbell, DiPietro, and Luongo. If those players are still healthy and productive, there's no reason their value can't be reevaluated every 5-7 years, which means that the "monster" contracts might be around $50 million instead of $100 million

Excellent post. First, yes, I feel genuinely bad for the real Nashville fans. They may not be many in number, but it takes a lot more dedication to declare yourself a diehard hockey fan in a market like that compared to Detroit or Minnesota. The fans showed up in the Playoffs, they committed long-term to a star goaltender, and they absolutely cleaned our clocks. Now this happens... In August of 2010, Arbitrator Richard Bloch overruled the Kovalchuk contract, even though it didn't seem too fundamentally different from several other contracts that had been signed recently. The primary offender in that agreement was the payment beyond retirement age (thru age 44), but it was also heavily front-loaded and obviously designed to circumvent the Salary Cap. This Weber deal in the context of an RFA offer sheet really presents a whole new set of problems. In a situation where you have one strong financial team versus a vulnerable one (PHI vs. NAS), the stronger team can really exert extreme financial pressure on the weaker team with bonuses and front-loading. The question, however, is whether this is significantly different with "poison pill" clauses, and other tactics used to give one side an advantage within the rules. This just feels illegal to me. I'm not sure it will be overturned, since I didn't really feel there was any precedent to overturn the Kovalchuk deal in the first place. But there are other issues with this deal that take it above and beyond, and the structuring of deals has to be something they look at in a new CBA. You feel for him a bit, too. However, it was the responsibility of him and his agent to recognize that neither Weber nor Suter were signed to long-term deals, and that an expensive long-term deal for Rinne would actually make it less likely that NAS could afford to retain one or both of them. Rinne also GREATLY benefited from cashing in during a time where he had two of the NHL's best young defensemen playing in front of him. If he was on a crap team posting a 2.50 GAA, there's no way he gets that kind of deal.

Time will tell if he's that good, but unlike Karlsson, he has a real track record with multiple elite seasons, plus a prominent role for Team Canada in the 2010 Olympics. To put it in perspective, somebody like Zdeno Chara who was a late bloomer, had a 9-goal season on Ottawa when he was 26 years old. It really wasn't until post-lockout and into his early 30's that he became an elite force that made his team an instant Cup contender. If Nick Lidstrom had come into his prime in today's market as a 26-year old, he would've been worth $8 or $9 million against the Cap. I get your point, but that Nashville team had NOTHING offensively, and the combination of Weber and Suter (helping Rinne) made them a legitimate Cup threat this year. It's similar to the Joe Mauer effect here in Minnesota - this was a "perfect storm" of an elite athlete hitting free agency at the precise peak of his value. You know that it's virtually impossible he could be "worth" the full value of the contract, but the real question is "do I think the price is worth it to have him play for me instead of somebody else?" Ask yourself this question, if the Wings had signed that offer sheet, would you be mad right now? I wouldn't. I'd probably be ecstatic that they even tried it. Wow, I didn't realize that connection. Good post. Frightening tidbit from Wikipedia that expands on the Stevens angle a bit: Stevens' signing had far-reaching ramifications on player contracts in the NHL. At the time, the deal made him the highest-paid defenceman in the league.[14] In addition, the deal included a $1.4 million signing bonus.[2] Several defencemen considered superior players to Stevens, including Ray Bourque and Chris Chelios, were earning less money, and Capitals defenceman Kevin Hatcher held out until he received a contract similar to that of Stevens.[14] General managers worried that these players would begin demanding bigger contracts. The players did end up asking for more money, and this escalation was one of the factors in the 1994–95 NHL lockout several seasons later.[2][10]

...Or they could retire at 37 or 38. Or a concussion could force them to retire early. So many teams (Detroit included) have been willing to take that risk, because you're betting against a future where you don't know what the CBA/cap structure will be like then, nor do you know if the guy will still be in the league. And in the meantime, Parise, Suter, and Weber are basically $12 million to $14 million players only counted as about "half" of that as far as the cap is concerned.

The Salary Cap has essentially doubled since 2005, and Shea Weber is a 26-year old defenseman who essentially hit the free agency market coming into his prime. Can you name another defenseman with a better chance to win multiple Norris trophies over the next 10 years? Tough to predict, but Weber has to be at least "in that conversation". This WAS market value for Weber. First, can they even do that? I thought you had to match an offer sheet "as is", and that's the whole point of what a poison pill is. Nashville's financial problems and the fact that they screwed this up LAST summer with the arbitration thing were the reason I've been yelling at the sky for weeks that this situation is ripe for an offer sheet. If you're an elite team, your 1st round picks are not all that valuable. And if you can use bonus money to frontload the crap out of a contract, you can force a cash-strapped organization like NAS to go bankrupt if they match. Plus, with the loss of Suter and Weber's agent mouthing off at Nashville, should they even match if they could?

I have yet to hear a convincing reason why the salary cap figure is an AVERAGE over the life of the contract, as opposed to an accurate reflection of the salary paid in that year. If teams like Philadelphia and New Jersey want to front-load the crap out of contracts for Weber and Kovalchuk, let them. But if that's the case, the salary number should reflect what they actually are "worth". I suppose doing that could lead to other problems, like screwy contracts like: 8M, 2M, 8M, 2M...but what would that accomplish? In that scenario, you could go for expensive one-year deals on veteran players to match the "low salary" years in a star's contract. Another option would be to make rules against front-loading, or...(wait for it), have a maximum length of contract! Doesn't that exist in other sports, like the NBA? Does it really benefit anyone other than the particular player's bank account to have these guys signed for 10-15 years? Look at the DiPietro and Luongo situations. Heck, Luongo might even want to leave, but it's pretty hard to move contracts that are such long-term commitments (well, unless you play 39 games for Columbus like Jeff Carter did).

I was really bummed by this news, and I've been a little surprised by how little attention there was being paid to Weber on LGW, vis a vis the other options out there. I think a lot of people assumed that an offer sheet wasn't going to happen, but why not? Yes, 4 first rounders is a huge price to pay, but if you fashion yourself as an elite team...not as much as you think. Once you get in the back end of the 1st round, I'm not sure the odds of finding a "sleeper" are much stronger at that spot than they are in the late 2nd or 3rd rounds. And the odds of any of the next 4 picks turning out to be...Shea Weber...well, that's practically non-existent. As for the salary...sigh. As long as the CBA is going to allow deals to be structured like this, why not? Weber is a game changing defenseman who is not even 27 years old yet. He has one of the most dominant point shots from the game, and that will make him a power play asset even later into his career. Simply put, this is about as good of a defenseman as you will ever see moved through free agency or trade. Totally agree with poster Matt above - who cares about the way the Wings have normally done business? Show me what we do with our remaining 13 million in cap space, and I guarantee you it will have less of an impact than the Flyers' money for Weber.

This sucks. Sucks because PHI did what I said we should do all along, and sucks because it's at a number I'm not sure we would have even agreed to pay. I wanted Weber. Sent on iPhone using Tapatalk

They backed themselves into a corner on this one. This is the type of move nobody cares about when you're 16 million under the Cap, but if he were the last guy signed on a team just under the Cap, everybody hates the contract. But they obviously were going to resign him after moving a 1st on an RFA rental, plus they just don't have anybody else. Look, I'm giving Quincey a chance, but literally, I've never heard anyone come up with a justification for his game that doesn't assume he learned something from being in the "Detroit system" when he came up. Except he wasn't that great the first time around. He's not an exceptionally good puck mover and he's big but doesn't hit. He's not a PP quarterback, and he certainly wasn't considered as defensively responsible as guys like Kronwall and Stuart, yet he basically has the cap hit of Franzen for 2 years. So...what IS he, exactly? The brutal truth is that if this guy had started his career anywhere else and put up those numbers, Wings fans would think this was a terrible signing.

Age 32 IS around the time a player would start to decline. It's not fair to look at players for comparison that played over the 80's and 90's (like Yzerman) because the goaltending and defensive changes after around '91-'93 make those two eras statistically incomparable. But you'd be hard pressed to find a player (especially large, heavy power forwards) whose numbers didn't start to tail off around that age. Keith Tkachuk's did. So did John LeClair's. And Franzen has had significant knee issues in the past and it's not like those are just going to go away. I'm not saying Franzen is terrible and we should just cut him (Well, trade maybe). But he'll be 33 in December. And it's infinitely more likely he becomes a 25 goal scorer than we see him blow up for 35-40. Filppula is in the midst of his peak years, and I could see him improving as his role continues to grow. But ability-wise, I don't feel like there's a "next level" from him we haven't seen yet. If you think about players like Draper and Helm, people have always felt that they would improve later in their careers after their skills caught up to their pure athletic ability. But except for one or two years from Draper where he was briefly thought of as a Top 6 forward, that wasn't really the case.

This is a tough one. I'm not sure there's really a "right" answer to it. The fact is that both Datsyuk and Z are unselfish players who have the ability to create for others. Yes, when they play together, they create for one another, and it can be magical. But I don't think it's as important as "who do we pair with Joe Thornton" or somebody like that, where you have specific wingers that you're trying to have thrive with one of those guys at center. The one exception to this would be if we signed a guy like Semin, for whom the selling point would be to play with Datsyuk. I think Filppula has to be a 2nd line center for this team and effective in that role if we're going to do anything. Hopefully someone like Nyquist or Brunner can develop chemistry with him and get us another effective Top 6 forward. Injuries may necessitate that move anyway. I think the "magic" of the Euro Twins is a big overstated, because some of Datsyuk best moments have been on the ice next to very "unmagical" traffic cones such as Bert and Holmstrom. But since Flip is a center, and should be a pretty good one, I'm not opposed to #13 and #40 on the same line.

The Wings are not in a "rebuilding phase". I'm not saying it would be inconceivable that we might be rebuilding in a few years if the Euro Twins decline and we have failed to replace them with at least one elite Top 6 forward, but this team meets none of the criteria of a rebuilding team. They don't have the base of young (as in early 20's) talent to look to the future, and they aren't making moves for the future at the expense of today. The Tootoo and Sammy moves (like them or not) confirm that Holland is not in a rebuild mindset. I look at our forwards vs. defensemen debate in two ways: (1) The lack of another Top 4 defenseman is the biggest threat towards the Wings keeping the playoff streak alive. In other words, while the team is still good, if the bottom falls out for this team, it will almost certainly be because the defense suddenly became terrible without 28 minutes of Lidstrom and 25 minutes of Stuart every night. (2) On the other hand, the lack of 1 or 2 additional scoring forwards is probably the biggest limiting factor that has our potential maxed as a 1st or 2nd round playoff exit. In other words, the team is probably good enough to get there, but we lack the explosiveness on offense to overcome younger opponents dedicated to blocking shots and playing strong team defense in the playoffs. So they both needs, in my view. It's not like we have an open choice to pick one or the other. A forward move raises our ceiling without protecting the floor. A defenseman addition would improve my confidence that this team continues to play a Red Wings type of hockey, but doesn't fix the problems that have gotten us knocked out of the playoffs since '09.

I think that our perimeter offense has been the problem in the playoffs for years. Yes, puck control and a shot advantage are useful in the aggregate in generating success. But the biggest difference now versus even in 1997 is the increase in blocked shots. It isnt even the same game anymore. The Wings set everything up from the point, and in the Playoffs, teams are more organized and motivated to shut down those shots. Maybe the loss of Lidstrom will have force us to scheme around getting to the net instead of setting us up for failure. Sent on iPhone using Tapatalk

When it got to be July 9th and the Doan rumors picked up, I was opposed to it, but with so many other options apparently off the table, we might as well. He'll turn 36 when the season starts, but he could bring an edge to this team (kind of like a poor man's version of what Shanny did to the '97 team), and he's still been pretty productive. If we do that signing, however, I would there there'd HAVE to be some type of trade, even if it's just clearing out some of the lesser forwards for depth defensemen.

Which is funny you say that because back when Russians played as "Soviets", they were known for having superior chemistry and obsessive preparation stereotypical of a communist environment. There are stories about the KLM Line where they were placed together at a young age, always roomed together, and were inseparable. It seems like Russian players are either too unselfish ("Shoot Larionov! Shoot the puck! Shoot!" - Every Wings fan in the 90's) or they're selfish goal scorers like Bure, Kovalev, and Ovechkin who don't care about their teammates. I think it's B.S. There's years were Nash struggles to get 20 or 30 assists despite scoring 40 goals, but nobody ever calls him selfish for trying to skate through entire teams on defense. I think Red Wings fans have a much more evolved perspective on Russians because we had a whole decade of success with Russian players who were successful, likable (mostly) and team-oriented. Most NHL fans haven't had that experience with Russians - they treat them the way Detroit treats goalies. I remember 24/7 last year where they showed Ansimov on the Rangers doing the "sniper" thing with his stick. When I saw that as a highlight, I thought it was a total Richard move. But behind the scenes on 24/7, he explained that somebody told him to do it once in the KHL, and he really had no clue it was going to be a big deal or sign of disrespect. I think a lot of Russians are just misunderstood like that. Obviously, there are some with legitimate work ethic problems, but that's true of any nationality.

First, no, it's absolutely not true. But a lot of adult hockey fans in the 80's and 90's were bred with that Cold War mentality, and misinterpreted the playing styles of some of the Russians who defected at that time. Any stereotype based on an entire nationality of players is obviously unfair - Konstantinov and Darius Kasparatis were extremely rugged players who just happened to share the same nationality as guys like Alex Kovalev. But if you ever watch European soccer, there are just cultural difference in sport that Americans will not accept. For example, American athletes fully accept doing anything to gain an edge (bending the rules, steroids in baseball, trying to hurt opponents), yet diving or embellishing injury of any kind is a violation of the "man code" and completely dishonorable. In other countries, however, this is seen as a "trying to get an edge", really no different than stepping out of bounds but failing to correct a referee who doesn't make the call. Still, the "soft" or "lazy" accusation gets imputed to the whole when North American fans see something like this: I never though that Fedorov was "soft" or that Kozlov was "lazy", but I heard that all the time. There was a famous Sergei Fedorov quote where he said if his name were "Sam Jones", he would be considered a much bigger star than he was. There's been this tacit requirement that the bar for Russian players is much higher in the NHL (and still is). In other words, if you're Jordin Tootoo or Cal Clutterbuck and spend most of your time scrapping and running people in corners, North American players are romanticized for doing that, while a Russian who did that but couldn't score probably couldn't even stay in the NHL. I think it's getting noticeably worse for Russian players in the NHL, and the KHL is a prime reason for that. Nobody wants to make a long-term commitment to these guys when there's always the threat that they'll pull a Radulov or Hudler and end up back overseas. I think that's a legitimate concern for would-be employers, but we can do with out the Don Cherry-style xenophobia.

Wow. Totally with you on the "moving on from Homer" bit, but this is a "rebuilding year"? I know what you meant, but it was jarring to read that the Wings are "rebuilding" when they were the 2nd oldest team in the league last year (29.178), and the only significant changes are deleting Lidstrom and substituting guys like Stuart and Homer with guys like Samuelsson and Tootoo. Yes, there are some younger guys who will become starters (Nyquist, Smith) whereas they would have been blocked by veterans before. But that happens on every team. The Flyers gave significant time to Sean Coturerier last year (who was a teenager), but that's because he was good...they were not a "rebuild" either. A "rebuild" signifies one of two things: (1) The core of your team is shifted to a group of younger players who have not yet reached their potential, but could be elite someday; or (2) You are sacrificing short-term winning at the expense of evaluating a large volume of prospects on the NHL team, whether elite or not. Coincidentally, the Minnesota Wild were in Camp #2 until they signed Parise and Suter. I don't see the Red Wings in either camp. And if they were, they certainly wouldn't be looking to add someone like Shane Doan or, arguably, Alexander Semin. Due to draft position and trading away picks, the Wings lack the organizational firepower to do a full "rebuild". We are still a playoff team, and Holland is evaluating each move for how it can make us a more competitive team and go further in the playoffs.

I'm hearing he's not happy. What that means, who knows. Perhaps he's also willing to ride out whatever happens with another year in NAS, seeing these massive paydays. I was interested in this RFA topic so I did some research (Why is there no Shea Weber thread? I created one awhile ago, and it was quickly deleted. Can't fathom why Shea Weber is an inappropriate topic, but we need a thread for the Wojtek Wolski signing. Anyway...) These are the known offer sheets since the lockout: Ryan Kesler Sept 12, 2006 [4] 1 year, $1.9 million Vancouver Canucks Philadelphia Flyers Matched - Thomas Vanek July 6, 2007[22] 7 years, $50 million Buffalo Sabres Edmonton Oilers Matched - Dustin Penner July 26, 2007 5 years, $21.5 million Anaheim Ducks Edmonton Oilers Accepted 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round picks in 2008 David Backes July 1, 2008 3 years, $7.5 million St. Louis Blues Vancouver Canucks Matched - Steve Bernier July 8, 2008 1 year, $2.5 million Vancouver Canucks St. Louis Blues Matched - Niklas Hjalmarsson July 9, 2010 4 years, $14 million Chicago Blackhawks San Jose Sharks Matched - There is some sort of "taboo" culture against them in the NHL. I think part of it is the "gentleman's culture" and the fear of retribution, but as this HFBoards poster explains, there are other concerns: If the player, his agent, or one of the two GMs involved doesn't tell the media, no one knows. If an offer sheet goes unsigned, it does no one any good to let the media know, so outside of those 4 or so people, no one ever knows. The reason offer sheets aren't more frequently successful is that they're self defeating. If you offer sheet a player, their controlling team has the opportunity to match. That means if you want to sign the player away, you need to offer more money than the controlling team is willing to match. On top of this, you also have to give up draft picks (which you'd need to have the right ones in the first place) to acquire the asset. Most of the time it just works out better to try make a trade with the team for slightly greater than the offer sheet compensation so you can sign the player at a more reasonable salary. Okay, so let's sort this out - Weber is around $7.5 million averaged salary, so compensation would be two 1st's, a 2nd, and a 3rd rounder. I believe the Wings still have those 2013 picks, correct? The Wings offer some massive deal, say, 12 years/$105 million ($8.75 million cap hit) and front-load the crap out of it. If NAS could match that, wouldn't they already have offered it? Do we really care about losing those picks if the payoff is SHEA WEBER? And if Nashville did somehow match, we've really lost nothing except for the assumption that Weber might have signed with us next season anyway, instead of the 28 other teams. I think it would be pretty arrogant of Holland to just assume that Detroit is automatic destination that can lure anyone away from PIT, PHI, or any other decent up-and-coming team with cap room.

I fundamentally do not understand why we need a salary rollback when the cap itself has almost doubled over 8 seasons. It went from $39.0 million to $70.2 million. Heck, the salary FLOOR is significantly higher now than the Cap was in 2005-06...so how does it make any sense that we need to roll back player salaries? The problem is that the CBA was shoddily conceived and GM's found several ways to game the system. Since the cap hit is determined as an average of the salaries (not the actual salary for this year), you saw tons of long-term, front-loaded deals. Which means that while the Cap may be $70 million, teams may actually be paying $80 million, $90 million, whatever in salaries. Also, while the CBA might have envisioned salaries going down across the board, that isn't what happened. Top FA's were pursued as aggressively as ever, even pushing mid-tier guys like Mike Cammalieri into "star" value contracts. Also, the league became significantly younger, as teams compensated for this by filling out their rosters with entry-level contracts (see: Blackhawks, Chicago). I think a lot of the veterans lost money too (or were forced to Europe for more money) because of this approach to the Cap.

This. I can't believe that Bettman and Co. would proudly announce the cap going up...again, and then have to turn around in the same season and lower it because of the CBA. That would be supremely unfair to teams like Minnesota (and anyone else near the Cap) that operated under the assumption of the Cap being where it is.

If there were any level of certainty in signing Weber next year, I would be fine with just riding out 2012-13 with any small potatoes depth signings we used to patch up the back end of the defense. But look what happened this offseason - you can't predict or rely on free agency as a future strategy for team building. Nashville, after all, is $30 million under the cap, and Rinne/Erat/Gaustad are the only players signed to 3 years or more. The team may have financial problems, but if Weber finds a reason to stay, they should be able to figure out resigning him...and then what? If we have an opportunity to do an offer sheet, I don't see a better gamble out there than this one. And I've yet to hear a compelling reason as to why we shouldn't risk it. Draft picks? The Wings never have good ones anyway, and have proven time and time again they're willing to trade them away for the likes of Bertuzzi, Stuart, and Kyle freaking Quincey at the deadline anyway. Concerns about forcing the Predators' hand in matching Weber, rather than seeing him go to a division contender? Well, first, we have no idea if NAS will even be in our division after next year, and second, if they're willing to match our absurdly high offer, then they probably would've signed him anyway.

(First, serious props to ElCapitan for the Stevie Ray Vaughan guitar as an avatar - that's an iconic instrument) I think we need to calm down a little bit and actually read what Holland said. He said we don't need "a whole bunch of guys". He even confirmed that they're looking at perhaps one more. This team has 15 NHL forwards (not including Abdelkader) and 5 defenseman (not including Quincey) already under contract. I wouldn't be surprised if they signed a few depth defenseman, while still looking at a guy like Doan or Semin through FA. I know that fans are disappointed about Parise and Suter, but (a) that wasn't Kenny's fault, and (b) it's time to move on. The Shea Weber situation is still a dark horse out there. Perhaps there's some other trade where we swap out one or more forwards for a D (certainly would add more sense to the Tootoo and Sammy signings). If this team added Semin tomorrow and did nothing else, the sun would still come up tomorrow. Obviously I have concerns about the defensive corps, but if the options aren't there, you only exacerbate the problem by throwing absurd contracts at borderline players like Matt Carle.

I'm not listening to ANY rumors until Kypreos weighs in...

Anybody in this thread who said "Holland is sitting on his hands" because he didn't get _______ player is either ignorant or not a Wings fan that pays any attention. Do we fire every GM except for the one in Minnesota for not signing Suter and Parise, who obviously had made up their mind to play there irrespective of (more) money or franchise track record? Everybody take a deep breath, let this play out and evaluate by training camp. Seriously, free agency opened July 1st, but Doan, Semin, and other FA's aren't even signed yet, and a trade could happen at any time. Jeez, I know you're frustrated/worried, but the number of "smart" things Holland has done in the past 5 years WAY outweighs the number of failed/misguided moves during that time: Re-signing stars to manageable long-term deals Circumventing the cap and getting away with it before it became "illegal" Recycling useful veterans while other desparate teams Drafting, developing, and retaining a borderline elite goaltender (Howard) at about 1/3 of the cap hit of other "elite" goalies The Hossa 1-year deal (a low risk, high reward opportunity that got us all the way to Gm 7 of the Cup Finals) Despite terrible draft position for the past 20 years, finding guys like Brendan Smith (#27 pick), Tatar (#60), and Nyquist (#121) that look like potentially very good NHL players, especially for where they were drafted. Developing young role players (Helm, Abdelkader, Miller, etc.) that keep the Wings as one of the deeper teams in the league If we don't get Doan, I'm not going to burn down Joe Louis Arena. If we don't sign Semin or make a high impact trade, I will be more disappointed, but jeez, try not to be a spoiled brat - there are worse things than being a Red Wings fan in 2012-13.

Right, I think people are aware of that, it's just a question of "what do you do about it?!" The problem we have right now is that you can look at the entire roster, and the only two guys that come to mind as somewhat likely to take a big step forward in production are Nyquist and Brendan Smith. Seriously. I suppose Filppula could improve a little more, but not much more. And Brunner could be a stud, or he could be a fringe AHL player. The rest of the team has already peaked, and might even be on the way down, and that is SCARY. The point that we "need" defense yet mostly seem to talk about forwards is well-taken, except we've seen time after time how this team ends up lacking scoring when it counts the most, which is why a lot of people are interested in a Hossa-like addition to spark an already pretty full roster. I'm not really sure what the next move is, but if Flip and Mule and can be moved to acquire a Nash or Ryan type talent, that HAS to be explored. My gut, however, tells me that what will actually happen is that Holland will weigh the cost of that against keeping those players and adding something like Doan through FA, and favor the more conservative route. I just hate the feeling that Hockeytown is literally stalling until we can run into the next Datsyuk or Hank without using a high draft pick to find him, and that doesn't seem too likely to happen.