Nev

In a cap world, letting Hudler go was not a mistake, it was precisely the right thing to do. And in a cap world, letting Filpulla go is also absolutely the right thing to do. Flip is now an UFA, and UFAs are overpaid, because desperate GMs sign them to desperate contracts, driving up the price of UFAs everywhere. Over-paying for role/depth players is the cardinal sin of the cap world. I like Flip, I've always liked him, and I've always defended him. He's been a good player for us, but now is the right time to let him go. He's going to get $4-5M a year from some GM, and with our pipeline of good, young, CHEAP, prospects we can afford to let him go.

It already came back and haunted them when they missed the playoffs. Honestly, all the Wings fans who want to fire Holland + Babs, who want to trade/waive/buyout everyone who isn't' Pav or Hank, who want to sign every FA under the sun - take a looong hard look at Philly (and NYR). Throwing players at the wall and seeing who sticks just doesn't work. Philly management, fans and media have yet to work that out. No roster stability or continuity, a couple of random playoff runs and 20 years of underachievement.

10 mins of 4on4 first please.

Just awesome. What a great experience for our young guys.

Oh there will be. When he goes through a slump. If he gets injured for any length of time. If he slows down even a fraction in 2 or 3 years time. Then the moaners will be out in force. In the meantime I'm happy to have 4 more years of Pav, and happy that this almost certainly means #13 to the rafters, and Pav in the HHOF.

Gotta be Hells Bells by AC/DC. Whenever that is played late in a game either defensive face-off with a 1-goal lead, or an offensive face-off with a 1-goal deficit, I get goosebumps Hopefully no-one will come along and go "I really used to like that Gary Glitter song, why don't they play that any more?"

3 years $18M would be nice

Boston have 18 players signed for next year with only $4M cap space. Rask is an RFA, and 2/3 of their line-up have NTCs . They're going to have to do some major roster surgery to sign Rask AND Horton AND fill out their roster.

Eddie O describing the Bruins winner is hilarious, he sounds like someone shot his dog

Eugene "Doc" Roe

Brilliant! Evans looks eerily like Captain Speirs!

And he said he'd stop watching hockey altogether if Cleary was re-signed. C'mon Kenny, get it done!

1) Tootoo wore out his welcome in Nashville also. Gotta think that if Babcock and Trotz, two of the best, most respected coaches in the NHL are benching him, maybe they know something we don't? 2) We can't use a compliance buyout on him as he makes less than $3M. We could use a regular buyout on him, but I don't the point for a guy who's only got 2 years left at $1.8M

Why? Because he was 2nd in points in the playoffs? Because he's an absolute warrior? A veteran leader on the bench and in the locker room on an increasingly young team? Said it before, as a 13th forward, playing ~40 games, <10min per game I'd be more than happy to re-sign Cleary. Emmerton is expendable. With a healthy Helm he's 5th on the depth chart at centre, and if we get injuries, Franzen and Abdelkader can centre top-six/bottom-six respectively. Not to mention we might want to give guys like Sheahan a few games when we get injuries. Emmerton can be waived/sent down/traded for no loss. We got too many bodies pushing for a spot, and Emmerton just ain't good enough to cut the mustard. Sorry kid.

Great signing, nothing not to like. In other news: Valterri Filpulla's days as a Red Wing continue to count down.

The people who were giving the cup to the Pens were fools who are ignorant of the history of hockey. They were one of the favourites for sure, but thats all you can do as a GM - make your team a contender. Then as you say, injuries, goalies and fluke goals have their say on your outcome. Nevertheless, the best way to build a team in this cap world, is a strong core of stars surrounded by scrubs, retreads and kids who are cheap AND good. Just like Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh and LA have... Unfortunately, we woke Chicago up. They sleepwalked through their first 7 games. They've gone 8-1 since they were 3 games to 1 down.

Get it done guys!

I mentioned in a another thread, good teams are going to go in cycles. They'll maintain their core of stars, but around them will be a cast of scrubs, retreads and youngsters. They'll be real good for a couple of years when those guys are cheap and work out, but then those guys will leave for more money elsewhere and the process will start again. Crymson has already brought up the Hawks record, and this playoff run their depth has been almost as important as their core, and this post-season and next summer, they're going to lose a lot of that depth. So are Boston.

$9.5M caphit, whats the spread on how long before someone says he's overpaid? But buh-bye to your depth Penguins. You've got $30m to sign 17 players in 2014

All this talk of $1.5-2M, its no wonder people slag off KH so much when they have such unrealistic expectations. He is an UNRESTRICTED free agent. Y'know, those guys that desperate GMs give huge contracts to? If we can get him for $2.5M that would be amazeballs.

OK, here's my attempt G: Howard - obvious RB: Eaves - shortage of rightys, but works hard and good defensively CB: Ericsson - Vidic stlye stopper centre-half CB: Dekeyser - Ferdinand style ball playing centre-half LB: Kronwall - Big shot and big hits, a Stuart Pearce style left back DMC: Andersson - sits in front of the back 4 and protects them. MC: Nyquist - more of winger in a 4-4-2 formation, but has the skills to succeed in centre mid. MC: Helm - energiser bunny. Harries the opposition, wins the ball, and gives it to Hank;) MC: Zetterberg - hard working, defensively responsible, and skilled to boot. The ideal central midfielder AMC: Datsyuk. He is Messi on skates, right? CF: Bertuzzi. Great for holding the ball up, bringing others into the play.

Its odd because eastern europeans - Poles, Russians etc - normally struggle with English (the slavic languages), whereas northern Europeans are usually the ones with excellent English - Germans, Dutch, the Scandanavians. I would say its because of the our common language heritage, but only 1/3 of English is old english, which is saxon in origin. The other 2/3 is a mixture of French and Latin.

Are you kidding? The tone of this place went up 1000% when we got in the playoffs and started winning a couple of games. Sure you get those who predict we're going to lose the series after we lose 1 game, but we get that every post-season. Hell, this board was in meltdown when Dallas won game 4 in 2008 to bring it back to 3-1!

Trust me, lack of pace is the least of our concerns! The inability to pass, control and hold onto that white round thing are far bigger problems. The one player we produced in 20 years who could do that on a world class level (Scholes) we played as an occasional left winger, so he just jacked in international football. Anyway, On-Topic. I imagine Lids + Kronner as a Free Safety/Strong Safety combo. Lids playing the perfect positional game snuffing out every pass, Kronner laying the big hits up the middle.

Nice car Didn't realise his English was that good either.