StormJH1

He's absolutely not "done" in the NHL at age 24. Goaltending doesn't work like that. http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=96573 He has 15 minutes in the NHL. Granted, they were 15 horrible minutes against the Blues, and it certainly would have helped if he looked as good as Mrazek did as a 20-year old. But the AHL track record has been pretty encouraging since then, and that was basically his team in GR last year. I'm not saying Tom McCollum is an NHL goaltender. I'm saying that it's dumb to assume that he isn't based on one terrible performance where he didn't even play a full period, let alone a full game. One of my favorite Twitter things ever, however, was the day it was reported that he was being released by the Wings, so all the bloggers opened the floodgates with every terrible Tom McCollum story they hadn't reported before, and then he was re-signed a few hours later. Haha.

Too bad - I was just thinking during the game how well he was playing and how my dislike of the Gustavsson signing was misplaced - but he does just find a way to get injured for multiple stretches during the year. We're fortunate Mrazek has been as competent as he has been at a young age to cover it up.

I guess I didn't realize that a groin injury could be the type of career-ender like a disc problem in your back or a severely arthritic knee (a la Pavel Bure; Bobby Orr). Nobody was more prone to groin injuries than Marian Gaborik, and yet that guy continues to play in his mid-30's and was a pretty big contributor for LA last year. So as obvious as it was in retrospect that Weiss was damaged goods and that the writing was on the wall, I'm not sure I can flame the front office to quite THAT degree based on this type of injury. What's really unfortunate for Weiss is that he literally did nothing prior to getting hurt. Even a 20-game stretch with a bunch of assists might have shown Wings fans that there was some upside here, and kept him out of Uwe Krupp's pariah-land.

Yeah, that was pretty much exactly the rationale that was floated for trading him. Perhaps it was leaked by the Wings to lessen the blow, or maybe it was an honest perception. The Legwand/Jarnkrok thing bothered me a bit at the time, but not much since. First, I thought we got pretty much what we should have expected in Legwand. People think of the guy as the #2 overall pick behind Lecavlier and the face of the Preds for their early years, but he was never a top line talent. He broke 20 goals exactly twice despite being somewhat durable, and even 30 assists was a bit of a reach for him. Detroit was desperate for C depth at that time, and he provided some. Jarnkrok has shown absolutely no signs of being a future star, or even putting up a serviceable career like Legwand's. He still could, of course, or he could be in Europe next year.

I'm just old enough to have watched both players for the entirety of their careers (probably missed some of the really early Fedorov stuff). I think Fedorov was a special athlete, while Datsyuk is a special intellect/talent. But as differently as I think about those two guys, the end result for both of them was an immensely productive player who happened to be one of the best defensive players in the game - but maybe could have put up even higher offensive numbers if they treated the game the way an Ovechkin or Gaborik does. In terms of Hall credentials, I think the two of them may end up being almost equal. Datsyuk's later years will end up being more productive, which balances out the fact that he wasn't as dynamic at his best as Fedorov was around 94/95. But it's telling that they could end up with somewhat equal track records, and Fedorov won 3 Cups as an elite player, while Datsyuk won us 1.5 (he was basically a 4th liner on that '02 team), and yet the people on this board would automatically retire #13, but largely take a pass on the #91.

The Marian Hossa who almost single-handedly blocked us from the '08 Cup for a few games while Sidney Crosby's face was being printed on a milk carton? The Marian Hossa who carried Detroit through the 08-09 regular season, and then managed 6 G and 9 A in the '09 Playoffs with his shoulder torn off? While an also-injured Pavel Datsyuk scored one goal in 16 games in those same '09 Playoffs? Oh. The "clutch" thing is basically impossible to gauge because even the best NHL scorers aren't going to score a goal in most of the games they play. Franzen's 13 goals in 16 playoff games in 2008 (and great 2009 performance) are what got him paid. Still, anyone who's watched him mope around the ice for long stretches at a time would laugh if you called him clutch. Tatar is a good offensive hockey player. I can't say we're a perennial threat in the playoffs 3 years from now if Nyquist and Tatar are our two best players. Mantha and Nyquist, maybe. But I still view Tatar as a bit of a lottery ticket, and not that expensive of one at 2.75 milion AAV

Think about how this compares to Damien Brunner - Brunner was a horribly one-dimensional player with little NHL track record but already in his mid-20's, and there were those that pissed (at the time) that the Wings wouldn't go to 2.5 or 3 million per on a 2 or 3-yr deal. Tatar posted a 19-goal season in really his first full season (on a team decimated by injuries and surrounded by other young players). To get him on a 3-year evaluation period AND he's still an RFA at the end of the deal is terrific. It benefits Tatar, too, but it's a good signing for the organization, nonetheless. UPDATE: And I see that it's $2.75 per now. You can see from my posts that I was preparing the mob for this I think it's perfectly valued. Maybe he's worth just shy of $2 million now, but if he progresses at all, he's easily a $4 million player in year 3. And if he doesn't pan out, qualify him conservatively or cut him loose.

It may only be retaining a player we certainly should have retained, but this is still very good news. It's easy to forget the time when Tatar was buried in GR and getting frustrated. He's a talented young scorer that we have locked up for 3 years of what will be his peak physical ability. And if he becomes a perennial 25 or possibly 30-goal scorer, he'll be worth well in excess of $3 million per year by the end of this deal, so I won't lose too much sleep over whether or not this feels like an "overpay" when the cap hit comes out.

Amen. If I really want to buy official Wings stuff, some sporting good stores will have it or you can go online (but you'll pay full price). What sucks about being an out-of-market fan is that the Meijer or even grocery stores tend to carry shirts and other decently priced items that you obviously won't find out-of-state. And I'm weird about Wings gear because the red and white colors can be hard to make look good - they can get pretty "loud" or amateur looking if done wrong.

I feel like both Tatar and DeKe are worth close to $2 million per on a short-term deal, and with these two players, it feels like the longer the deal, the more it favors the Red Wings. That was not the case with someone like Damien Brunner, where one or two years at $2.5 to $3 million per seemed okay, but more money or more commitment felt like a massive risk, and that was essentially proven correct last year. Tatar feels like a 30-goal scorer to me at some point in the near future. He's not as valuable of an all-around player as Nyquist (who will be an insane deal for this year), but he's a legit scorer that seems like he has even more upside than he's shown. DeKeyser, I don't know. We got him basically for free out of college, and all indications are that he can stick as a Top 4 NHL defenseman. But the type of player he is will be more difficult to evaluate. His stat lines already look better than Jonathan Ericsson's, but if he turned out to be a more durable version of Ericsson at a decent cap hit, I'd consider that a win for us. He's from here and wants to play here, and at age 24, maybe they look to get him signed longer-term earlier than they will with some of these other kids.

Wow, this article really opened my eyes to some things I hadn't thought about in detail. To be fair, I don't live in Detroit anymore, so I had always assumed that there were sources of Red Wings access that I hadn't discovered. I got on Twitter around 2010-ish and tried to figure out who all the good "follows" were. There really weren't any. Helene St. James does a decent job, but isn't much of a Twitter presence. Ansar Khan is probably the closest thing people identified as a "beat writer" in the last few years, but he works for a publication that is barely a "publication", and he wasn't even on Twitter for years (and only sparingly now). And when these people do report information (as the article said), it's generally the type of stuff you would see on the Wings' own site or NHL.com anyway. Sports radio basically refuses to cover the team like they would cover football and baseball, but for that, they blame the fans ("the phone lines go dead as soon as we start a hockey topic"). The papers are either broke, or too cozy with the organization to call out the front office on anything. It's made it really frustrating to be an out-of-market fan. The national media perspective on the Wings is some kind of hybrid between "San Antonio Spurs" and "Notre Dame". In other words, there's still a general reverence and respect for the history of the team and how they've stayed competitive at the same time...but at the same time, they're talked about derisively as this relic of a former era that has yet to come to terms with its current mediocrity. Mike Russo of Star Tribune here in Minnesota is an AWESOME beat writer. He has full access to the entire team (including the coaches, GM, and owner), a constant Twitter/blog presence, and yet will rip them as hard as anyone (directly or overtly) when the Wild make questionable moves or are playing poorly. And this is NOT a market known for having a tough sports media. I can't help but feel that the absence of strong, passionate media figures (and especially those tied to the major networks and papers) has really been a detriment to the fan experience since late last decade, and probably earlier.

The guy is an amazing talent - some of his stickhandling (at least in theory) is Datsyuk level stuff. But he didn't look quite ready for the NHL last year. 8 goals in 36 games is absolutely acceptable, but he just a bit lost at times. Certainly not a guy I would "give away" for a warm body defenseman in a trade, but I'm anxious to see if he can take another step next year, just as Nyquist and Tatar in what was their "3rd" (but more like 2nd) seasons last year.

I'm sure this question has been asked many times in varying ways here (sorry, I took a bit of a hiatus from the forum), but what is the end game with Petr Mrazek. Yes, he's played all of 11 games in the NHL. But the returns everywhere have been great. He's consistently at a .920 or better SV % whether he's in the NHL or AHL (and it's not like this is the shutdown Red Wings defense of old in front of him). He won an AHL championship at having barely turned 21 years old. I'm still a Jimmy Howard fan. Some fans may come to hate that deal in years to come, but try finding a long-term contract for a starting NHL goalie that worked out as planned - it almost never happens. But it's very clear that Howard, if healthy, is going to have first shot at that starting job for longer than Mrazek is going to be prepared to wait. I believe that Mrazek is good enough now to be an NHL backup or platoon starter. But it's also true that goaltenders need game experience and are almost never handed starting NHL jobs before they are at least 23 years old. With all that in mind, would you have resigned Monster and kept Mrazek in the AHL to get more playing time? Or would you have preferred to have him in Detroit in something of a 65/35 split that would keep Jimmy healthy and get Mrazek enough game experience to continue his development. Or is all of this a moot point because of Jimmy and Gustavsson's durability issues, and we're basically looking at a 3-goalie situation anyway?

This situation feels like a Jonathan Bernier situation to me - 20-year old goalie shows up for a few games and looks nearly NHL ready, but is blocked on the Kings and left to over-ripen in the minors. He eventually gets traded. I don't feel a trade is imminent, but with people bending over backwards to trade Tatar, it's funny Mrazek never comes up in trade discussions. Tom McCollum is another complicating factor here because he turns 25 in December, and actually was pretty good last year. There was a pretty comical moment where all the bloggers/reports started to report that the organization was going to let him go - it was about a 90-minute free-for-all of bloggers and beat reporters tweeting out every negative comment they'd sat on about McCollum for a few seasons...and then he was re-signed. But McCollum, apparently, is an asset too, so you have assume that's approximately a 50/50 playing time share in Grand Rapids. Mrazek played 32 games for GR and 9 for Detroit last season (41 total). So, realistically, I'm not sure I buy the argument that he's getting significantly more game time for the Griffins than he would as a full-time backup on the Red Wings, where he could play maybe 25-35 games (figuring in likely injuries to Howie and Gustavsson). I'm not saying it's "wrong" that he's in Grand Rapids, I get why they're doing it, but the playing time issue is worth pointing out.

I don't like the Mike Green thing for a number of reasons. The first time I put serious though into it was when Yzerman and Babcock left him off 2010 Team Canada despite the fact he was basically the leading scoring defenseman at that time. Feel free to peruse these numbers - two things stand out: http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=58069 First, the durability is a major concern. Everyone keeps saying "this is David Legwand" all over again because of the rental aspect, but it also may be Stephen Weiss. He has knee problems and played 3 straight years without making 50 games (okay, so one was a lockout year, but you get my point). Second, his playoff numbers are crap. That would concern me less except for the fact that the offensive production is the whole POINT to a Mike Green, as nobody seems to think he's actually good at defense. I'll buy the whole "puck possession = defense" argument, but that's a systemic problem, and Green is prone to getting caught and making horrible mental errors. Finally, I just don't agree with the strategy of acquiring him. Even if his rental status lowers the price, this team is not "one Mike Green" away from a Cup. Maybe there's name like Jeff Petry out there who will help rebuild this core without necessarily being a "Top 2" defenseman (and won't cost a top prospect). I know that Tatar is not a surefire "star", but other than Anthony Mantha, we're unlikely to luck into a ringer. We're going to need a depth of quality players that can score a bit, and a one-year patch on defense doesn't address the longer-term issue.

I agree with all that in terms of evaluating Holland's "grade" for the trade deadline. A scoring line center suddenly became a desperately needed commodity on this team. This team doesn't make the playoffs unless they get hot, and there's no way that happens if you have 3rd and 4th line centers anchoring the top lines. Not that Legwand is the greatest either, but he could theoretically do what Weiss was supposed to be doing right now. At the same time, it's a sad day to me. Calle Jarnkrok was pointed at as possibly our best prospect last year (before Mantha, etc.), and now he's gone. The fact that he would have possibly left for Sweden, in and of itself, would also have been a devastating revelation to me, so whether he blows up in the NHL or bolts, it's still a loss for the future.

Amen. Don't get me wrong, I'm very discouraged that our new FA signing with a prior injury history has been either pretty terrible, hurt, or both at virtually all points this year. But his injury suggests that he was "healthy" for all of, what, 10-15 games before the groin acted up? Just dropping him into an established system with aging, slower wingers on his flank and expecting him to run the show immediately - it's a nice idea, but not very realistic. Weiss is better than he has shown, and even if he turns out to be an awful signing, he isn't getting traded, waived, bought out, or any of the above any time soon. The "blessing in disguise" is that all of these injuries are forcing guys like Sheahan, Tatar, Nyquist, etc. into the lineup and they actually look like they belong in the NHL. Jurco...he may need a little more ripening, but the talent is obviously there. If everyone were healthy, these guys would be scratched or in GR much of the time in favor of Sammy, Cleary, Eaves, etc., instead of playing alongside them and being asked to be the catalysts. This is the exact reason the Wings "overpeformed" last postseason - they surged late to get into the playoffs and damn near knocked off the SC champion in 7. And it happened because by the time the key players got healthy, the young players had played critical minutes down the stretch and became seasoned pros.

I watched most of the episode on DVR this morning (was out of town). I'd have to rewatch to be sure, but I'm about 90% sure that DeKeyser is staying in the Lakeshore Towers in Grosse Pointe Shores (and was eating on Mack Avenue). Pretty cool since it's like minutes from where I grew up. I mean, given that I've been anticipating these episodes for almost two years (or whenever they announced the original Winter Classic for the lockout season), a let-down of some degree was inevitable. George Malik of Kukla's site wrote a lengthy article ripping the series a new one. But I think there are reasons we are (and aren't) seeing what we're seeing. You can't tell me that HBO went into this thing planning to focus on guys like Smith, Deke, and Abdelkader at the expense of Datsyuk and Kronwall. I think there are limitations to what they are able to get. Keep in mind the following, also: Datsyuk was concussed/recovering for much of late November/early December, which certainly limited the access they would have to jam a camera in his face and interview him all day. The strongest "narrative" episode of 24/7 is always the first one (This was true for Bryzgalov, Boudreau, etc.), since they have the most time to plan out what they want to do. The later episodes have a few family visits and a bunch of game clips thrown in. If both Babcock and Carlyle can toss cameras out of their locker room, I find it hard to believe that the teams/players don't have other methods of restricting access to players Some of the most fascinating stories on the Wings side are ones that HBO isn't willing to tell. Most notably, Marek/Wyshinski's idea after the Bert/Corona screen shot that the series could look at the Steve Moore incident and his reinvention/redemption as a tough-but-subtle veteran who has avoided discipline issues (obvious PR/legal issues with showing that). My point is, there ARE great stories to be told on the Wings side, HBO just can't tell them. The failure to get Datsyuk in front of a camera a la Bryzgalov for more than a few minutes and just see what he'd say is still pretty baffling to me in the past two episodes. All in all, it's still an enjoyable product and a unique opportunity paired with the Winter Classic, but it's taken a step back this year.

I also oppose fighting, so this is kind of friendly fire, but I disagree that an incident like the Flyers linebrawl and Emery/Holtby in particular aren't related to the broader culture of allowing fighting in hockey. The obvious comeback to that is that if you didn't allow fighting at all (by punishing it so severely as to effectively eradicated it from the sport), "assaults" like this one wouldn't be possible. Yes, you still get Ron Artest vs. the Pistons (and fans) once in awhile, no matter what the rules. But those are extreme, and extremely rare examples. But the more subtle reason why I think the discussions are linked is that the actions of everyone in this thing flow directly from the idea that fighting is a chivalrous, honorable, and noble tradition of the game... The linesman standing and watching Holtby get his head bashed in from behind isn't intervening because he's been conditioned to believe this is normal. Emery wouldn't have had the thought of approaching Holtby except that he has illusions of being a boxer and plays in the sport where the only punishment for that is a 5-minute major in garbage time. And unlike a baseball player, soccer player, or virtually any other athlete, Holtby only feels the obligation to try and fight Emery because fighting is still an accepted and celebrated part of the game, and you aren't really a man if you aren't up to the challenge of a fight. This is the reason Sidney Crosby was fighting in the Playoffs only months after missing a year with a concussion.

I don't know how I feel about the deal. I kind of had it in the back of my mind that they'd be Wings someday because, well, Sweden. But while it's easy to look at them and call them "soft" or whatever (don't tell Torts), the fact remains that they've been the one constant in Vancouver over what has been a pretty consistently successful period of hockey for them. They bridge gap from Trevor Linden to Bertuzzi to Naslund to Ryan Kesler, and without their steady production, that'd be like replacing an entire scoring line. Then again, with the money they now make, Vancouver could afford to do it! It's funny how the one Hart season (2009-10) for Henrik seemed to have leveled off the debate over which of them is more valuable. Both of them have been pretty durable, especially Henrik, who I don't think has missed a game post-2005 lockout. But although Henrik is elite as a setup man, Daniel's 6-straight seasons (interrupted only by the last lockout) of 29 goals or more, plus a ton of assists, probably still make him the better of the two.

I'm probably biased to start with because I always liked Osgood as a goaltender and person when he was a player, but I have mostly neutral-to-good impressions of him from what I've heard thus far. Ken Daniels has enough energy and verbiage to carry most color man, but yeah, obviously Ken and Mickey back in the day are the preferred tandem. I guess I just don't expect that much from the color announcer on a local broadcast, let alone one in his first year of media. He's been at least passable, and being a goaltender offers a perspective that many "hockey guys" don't have.

The criticisms of Franzen are totally fair, so I get it. But the reality is that while his contract isn't a good contract, it also a manageable enough cap hit to avoid it being a total disaster. The other thing about Franzen is that he's going to have knee problems because he already has and because of how he's built. If he played like Ryan Kesler, would he be capable of banging his way to a 30-goal pace every year? Very possibly. But I also think he'd average about 25-40 games missed from injury every year. The thing that irks Wings fans about Franzen is what people call "work rate" in soccer. But there are some good strikers in soccer that have notoriously poor work rates, yet still put the ball in the net. That's what Franzen is, or at least what he's supposed to be, in a streaky fashion. He sticks out like sore thumb on a team on a team full of defensive minded forwards, but as great as 13 and 40 are, you will see them disappear for weeks at a time from the scoresheet. That was made Marian Hossa (IMO) such a great Red Wing during the '09 season, he carried that team for weeks in the regular season when nobody else was scoring. Then his shoulder tore apart in the Playoffs and he skated in circles. But Franzen was never as good as Hossa, nor was he ever as expensive. He literally cost almost half the price from a cap standpoint, so the comparison is ridiculous. Also, if he just has a TERRIBLE year (which I don't think he will), isn't compliance buyout still an option after 2014? Provided of course he isn't on the IR. My opinion remains that I'm not going to dwell on him until that window has closed. I think fans are right to worry about what's ahead, but the contract is what it is, and it's not killing us right now.

Agreed. But it's also a bad feeling when a goal is scored and you start looking around hoping that Weiss had something to do with it. My initial impression of Stephen Weiss was that he wasn't good enough to be a 2nd line center in the NHL, but I heard enough people say good things about him (and the numbers looked good enough) that I was talked into it, and totally on board with the signing. It's too soon to form any meaningful conclusion. At this point last year, Ryan Suter was a mess in Minnesota, and then he damn near won the Norris by the end of the year.

I'll respond to the general question by saying, "Sure, why not". I don't have an opinion on the proposed trade yet because we don't know what BUF will look like in January yet, even though they'll probably be sellers. For all we know, BUF uses that abundance of cap room to overpay Moulson, and he extends there making this a moot point. That probably WON'T happen, but we don't know. Hypothetical trades like that one presume that teams with cap room want to spend it on all the overpriced crap we have and want to get a rid of. BUF was smart enough to get a 1st and a 2nd without even losing much production for the remainder of the year. Sammy, Eaves, and Tootoo are not players that do anything for BUF. Of course, if the Wings were to trade a decent prospect, then yes, that's always on the table. I wonder if signing Ville Leino, however, has them feeling a little burned (even though he went through PHI). My concern about signing Moulson is that it's kind of like doing a more extreme version of the Franzen deal all over again. I don't know anything about Moulson's defensive game, but I'd have to think we're looking at a $6 million AAV player on the open market, at least. Does he keep up this scoring for several years, or is he Mark Parrish? People bemoan the Franzen contract, maybe unfairly so, but that's a $3.9 mil. AAV deal.

Interesting theory. I guess the counter to that is that both teams already had a guy (Vanek or Moulson) that could have been flipped at the deadline, as I really don't think either team is going to the Playoffs. NYI is hanging in there now, but to finish top 3 in the Metropolitan division is going to pretty tough with that squad. BUF absolutely fleeced them. Look at it this way: Could BUF had gotten a 1st, or possibly even a 1st and a 2nd just as a rental player in January? Almost certainly yes. So how does it make sense that they sold off Vanek as an early rental (which increased the return in picks), AND were able to get a replacement player for Vanek who is also a 30-goal scoring winger for the remainder of the season. Crap, if that's how rentals work, EVERYONE would do rental trades. It's probably most likely that both of these guys test the market, especially Vanek, who everyone in Minnesota assumes is coming here next year (here we go again...). But Tavares and Moulson were really good together - I just don't understand what the end game is here for the Islanders. The Sabres have Ryan Miller in net, and Thomas Vanek couldn't help them be competitive on his own. If the Islanders and a 2nd "stud" youngster to go with Tavares, maybe they could be trading picks. But you don't ship out your 2nd best player along with the picks for a rental.