Frozen-Man

Way to dodge the actual information in my post. The posts weren't out of context they are how you always talk about all the guys on the Wings team, management, and coaching (if one was out of context no one could ever tell you always trash the Wings that way). Oh and how dare I not allow you to spew crap out of your mouth one day trashing a Wings player and then the next day spew the exact opposite praising a Pen's player. Wow, I ask for some consistency, you trash people for how they defend Lidstrom and then you defend Crosby in the EXACT same way the you trashed others for doing when they were defending Lids. Amazing how pissed you get when someone calls out your inconsistencies, you can't defend your contrary positions so you attempt to turn the focus of the matter and on to the person. Lids does get crap all the time, its just that you are usually the one dishing it out. You'd look pretty silly quickly coming to Lidstrom's defense when you were the one trashing him . . . but I guess that wouldn't be anything new.

Amazing as rich and sucessful as you claim to be you have never contributed to this site that you use so often. If you have so much cash and are so successful how about becoming a booster and helping fund this site. It cracks me up how you gush over a guy like Pronger who at 6'6" tries to fight a guy who he know is not a fighter and is half a foot shorter than him. Yeah he's the tough one and Homer is pathetic for not fighting him.

Funny, I never heard you slobber over Lidstrom last year and how "he lifted the Cup, that was something. He also captained his team to a Stanley Cup victory. No other Captain in the NHL is a current stanley Cup champion. Just [Lidstrom]. He's the only one. At the pinacle. All alone. Where everybody else wants to be. [Lidstrom]. Captain [Lidstrom]. Stanley Cup Champion [Lidstrom]. It just rolls off the lips so well. No other current Captain is Cahmpion [sic]. There are a few former-champs and also-rans out there, sure, but only one man at the top. [Lidstrom]. When it was the captain of the team you are supposedly a fan of you trashed the logic you just used to praise Crosby and said: According you when the Wings won the Cup it had nothing to do with Lidstrom being the captain and anyone who praised him for such was using an informal logical fallacy I guess when someone uses it about a Wings captain it is informal logical fallacy but when you use it about your girlfriend Cindy it is pure brilliance and truth . Here a just a few more quotes to compare how you feel about the Wings captain compared to the gushing you just did over the Pens captain

:hysterical: QFT :hysterical:

Don't know if this is true or not, I usually doubt most of what is in the Toronto Sun when it pertains to hockey but they are saying: Here is the link. Not sure if this is true or not, Stevie has earned the right and shown that he has the credentials (in my opinion) but it made me a little sick to my stomach.

QFT

From the official NHL rules . Yeah there is a lot of gray area, they designed it that way because it would absolutely impossible to have a bright line rule (as opposed to a rule like offsides) so they give the referee a lot of discretion to may judge the call.

I wonder what exactly this could mean for the Wings and whether they want a guy who wanted to go somewhere else? Probably not much will come of it but is is interesting nonetheless. Edit: Here is the link

Yeah that is what I was wondering, the restricted status makes it easier for the KHL to poach RFA players from good teams because they won't have to worry about a cap or about giving up compensatory picks. Teams are going to get pissed after a while, developing players and then losing them to a league that is not bound by the same restrictions they are. I mean just the tax free part alone makes it much easier to get some of these guys. Also, in my opinion, it is going to make the stock of Eastern Europeans drop in the draft because of the risk that the team develops them and then loses them for nothing.

First off the word is re-sign not resign (which means to quit a job or position), second the Blackhawks don't really want to lose Byfuglien and there is almost no way that they can get rid of Campbell - no one wants that albatross of a contract. Third, yeah there is something to sweat even though Kane, Toews, and Keith are all RFAs because some team will likely be able to offer much more than the Hawks can so the Hawks will have to shell out quite a bit to keep them.

Maybe you know something that the league and the GM's don't but that is not what is being said. The concern is not walk up tickets but corporate suites, season tickets, the amount spent on concessions and revenues, and advertising. The number of walk up tickets may have increased but the amount that those people are spending on beer, soda, food, and memorabilia is down. Additionally, the strengthening of the Canadian dollar had boosted the revenues but its recent fall is going to hurt revenues as well. From NHL.com From USA Today From the Boston Globe From the Minnesota Star Tribune And the articles keep going. I hope that you are right and that the cap will not fall or if it does it won't be too much but that is going against what the people who are in the know are saying.

The problem is that most advertising contracts, season tickets and season suites are bought almost a year in advance. The cap did not drop that much because the 2008-2009 major season revenues (advertising and season tickets/suites) were locked up during the first part of 2008 and the recession had not hit yet. The $2-2.5M cap drop (if not for the inflator) was largely because of single game tickets, parking, concession sales, and memorabilia but didn't really include the big ticket items I mentioned earlier. It is those big contract items that are likely to cause a large cap drop because the main selling times for those items ran concurrent with the (hopefully) low point of the recession. It is likely that the cap drop may be very large this next season.

There could be a couple of reasons, one (the one I think most likely) is that the 5% raise is for one year and there is no requirement (that I know of) that the contract be a one-way contract. Leino however, signed a two year, one-way contract. Perhaps it was worth a little less money to him to get a multi-year deal and a one-way contract. You have to consider more than just the amount that he is paid for a specific year.

Yeah, not that much difference but still any little bit will help. The difference in the salaries for the two years seem odd to me though, there is exactly $3,000 less the second year. I wonder why, $3,000 in the first year doesn't exactly seem like enough to consider it front loaded . I wonder what the different amounts, why not just split between the two years? Maybe to help find housing or something?

Great signing by Kenny. If you're interested in the exact numbers, according to MLive:

According to the Edmonton Journal: Here is the link I'm not sure if this is true but it wouldn't surprise me from this organization. Treat players great even when they know they can't re-sign them. I'm sure other players will remember this and it might be the push one of them needs in the future to agree to a deal similar to what Hossa did for the Wings this year.

QFT I'm not sure we could have gotten as much as Florida got for Boumeester because of our cap problem. Florida got the third and Leopold but Leopold was set to be a UFA so really what they got was the rights to negotiate with him before free agency. Basically they traded the rights to negotiate with Bouwmeester for a 3rd round pick and the rights to negotiate with Leopold (who Calgary wasn't going to keep so it was a throw away for them). That would have been of very little benefit to Detroit unless they had a $1-2M player that they really wanted badly. They just don't have the cap space to sign a new guy (especially assuming that they keep Huds and try to keep Sammy).

I see what you are saying but I think that Holland did come away with quite a bit. He might have been able to get a third round pick (at most I would think) if he had traded the rights to another team exclusively. This way however, he gave Hossa a reward, got to keep making his offer (who knows how close he was to staying), and most importantly I think that it builds up a lot of good will and impresses other players when they are free agents. If you know that the team is also looking out for your interests that is somewhere you want to play more than a team that doesn't give a rip about players. It is actions just like this that make the team a desirable place to play (lets be honest there are other cities that have a lot more to offer - climate, stores, beaches, etc.) and if their actions influence another player to take a "home town discount" or one year deal like Hossa did it is a huge win.

I don't know which is true but here is what the Edmonton Journal said: Slightly different story than the one the OP found. Here is the link

I was wondering about this, there has been no info (at least that I have seen) on if there is a NTC but surely there is for Hossa to take such a discount on the deal.

What I am saying is that you trade for the rights no so Detroit can't sign him (like you said most teams knew that they probably couldn't) but rather so that you get a chance to negotiate with Hossa before the other 28 teams. Take Bouwmeester for example, everyone knew that he wasn't going to re-sign with Florida but Calgary didn't wait until free agency (in fact they gave up a 3rd round pick and Leopold) so that they could exclusively negotiate with him before the other 28 teams could and so that they could in fact sign him to a contract before free agency starts. They did just that, they got his rights Saturday and negotiated with him until Tuesday when they signed him without any other teams getting to make offers. You trade for rights not to get the player away from the team he is on but to keep him from getting offers from the other 28 teams.

A player's rights are ONLY traded when the team feels that they can't resign the player (otherwise they wouldn't trade the rights). The reason that a team trades a pick for the rights to a player is so that they can negotiate with him before any other team can and hopefully lock him up before he hits free agency.

I agree, keeping those guys is what saves money on guys like Lids, Hank, Pav, and Mule. Everyone expects the players to do what is best for the team but the guys are much more willing to do that if they think at least to some degree the team cares what happens to them as well. Yeah we lose nothing except a roster player who can hold his own. What a great idea for a team that is already going to lose players because of the cap - cut guys from the team, keep paying them, and have the salary count against the cap. It irks me when people have unrealistic options. I think we should have resigned Hossa even at $6-7M and that we should have signed Bouwmeester as well and maybe gotten Heatley for a 4th round pick. . . . BUT those things are not going to happen so it makes no sense to discuss options that are not possible (or at least not feasible). Those guys are counting against the cap and have tons of experience and loyalty to the Wings. Taking care of them is part of the Wing's culture everyone brags about.

I agree about needing physicality on the bottom lines, I don't however, think that the guys that we had on the bottom lines this year are in any way fairly called prima donnas, they were just put onto lines and in positions that are not the type or style that they play. QFT - they are such a rare breed that they are priced out of a team like Detroit's range unless they give up pieces that they they won't give up making it unlikely that they will get one of the few guys even similar to Probert. Absolutely correct. Our fourth line has had lots of specialists who don't seem to make a good cohesive unit, however getting a guy who racks up a lot of fighting majors is not what this team needs they need a guy who isn't a liability and can drop them when needed and punish on the fore check the rest of the time.