Frozen-Man

Again only posters that agree with you are respectable and intelligent. You tell other people not to treat you like a novice then never response to any substantive post that disagrees with you, never own up to that fallacy of a thread you started about Shelley, don't dispute what people who disagree with you say but rather only say that they are not respectable or intelligent posters, are chameleons and you know more because you have been to the Joe more often and have been watching hockey since the 80's.

Why not you talk to everyone else like they are (even Kenny Holland) unless they agree with everything you say.

How are you proved right? . . . They bring a guy up for a few games because there is a LTI to a regular player and when he is healed and the LTIR time is up he's back down. You find anything to act as if you are right - like last time you started a thread saying the Sharks organization and ESPN credited their winning to Shelley - - - only it turns out some guy who has no affiliation with anyone was just blogging his opinion in his spare time :hysterical: BUT YOU USED THAT TO SAY YOU WERE PROVED RIGHT THEN AS WELL. What a joke, I like Downey, he works hard, has a good attitude, and is willing to drop the gloves which is always great but you are by no means proved right - he is up because of injury not because they thought we had to have an enforcer, he is just a nice luxury for a while. The only reason that Downey needed to be called up is there was an injury to one of our players not because we had to have him in the line-up so we sent someone else packing - he is a fill-in but yeah pat yourself on the back you were proved right that when a player goes down with a long term injury we have to call someone up. . . Sheer brilliance.

And the one hit wonder returns . . . Yeah what an idiot that Holland is . . . I can't believe that guy he just doesn't get how to run a franchise . . . I can't believe the Wings haven't fired the bum and given you the job - you have a much more impressive resume and list of accomplishments - I mean you have gone to the Joe and watched tons of games what has that Holland guy done?

Like many others Ken Campbell of the Hockey news disagrees with you. Discussing trades the Wings might make he notes "Valtteri Filppula comes in at a very reasonable $3 million for the next four seasons after this one." I know you don't think he is worth much but once again that is not the view of the majority of people including people who are paid to know.

Awesome! I have been wanting to see Leino in with the big boys - I think he will add a lot of energy. And Downey is always great to have on the ice - really like the guy, his attitude and work ethic.

It is a very valuable asset to teams like the Wings and the Rangers - it is not so much a valuable asset for teams like the Kings and the Coyotes. Also, again you are one of he only ones that think other teams wouldn't want him. Check some other sites a lot of other fans would love him on their team - he is struggling because he is on the third line with no PP time. There are lots of teams that have tons of cap space and would love to have Flip and he would get tons of time on one of their top two lines. You refuse to acknowledge that Flip has trade value against what almost everyone else thinks and then say that other teams wouldn't even give up cap space even though several teams are struggling just to reach the floor of the cap. Flip is far from rotten tomatoes - he is a good player that lots of teams would want.

That's part of my point . . . it may be wishful thinking because Kenny may not want to trade him after signing him this summer but it is not just Wings fans that think he has value and could easily be traded . . . especially when what you want in return is mostly cap space.

Your missing the point - if there is a trade the goal for Kenny will be cap space and whatever draft picks/prospects will just be gravy. In fact, the trade might even be just for a player with and expiring contract, no draft picks at all just cap space at the end of the year. It's not a loophole its right there in the CBA and other teams do use it. Any player's salary that retires will not count against the cap unless the contract was signed by a player over 35. No loophole just the rule, for every team in every situation. What?????? So your saying that Hossa wanted more than $90M so he instead took a $7.45M deal. You are the first person I have ever heard say that Hossa rejected the $90M deal because he wanted more money. That makes no sense. $90M is not enough money so I'm going to take the $7.45M deal (which Kenny actually offered more with Lids approval and Hossa said not to worry about it). I have heard people say they thought Hossa was stupid for turning down the big guaranteed contract to chase the Cup (i.e. caring more about winning than money) but you are the only person that I have ever heard say that Hossa was actually being greedy and wanted more money. I don't understand your rationale there at all - - that is one of the biggest leaps of logic I have ever seen. From all accounts Hossa didn't care about the money he wanted to win. Again, you act as if what you do is healthy speculation but everyone else is just wishful thinking - was it wishful thinking to get Hossa on the team this year, was it wishful thinking to get Z locked up for a cap hit of $6.06M? Maybe so but if it was then healthy speculation was wrong and wishful thinking was right. Kenny has gotten players and contract people did not think he could get and so people have faith that he can accomplish more than most GM's. Look back - no one thought Hossa would be here this year but he is regardless of what healthy speculation (according to your terms) dictated.

Yes it is speculation but so is you saying that it is not going to happen, but your speculation is ok and everyone is dumb for speculating if it does agree with your speculation. No, the fact that Finger got $4M does not mean that a team would trade for Flip at $3M, but it does show that GM's are willing to more money for a player with less talent. You will be hard pressed to find many people that think that Kenny could not trade Flip away if he wanted/needed to (as I stated I don't think he will since he just signed him over the summer - but that doesn't change the fact that if he wanted to there would be takers). Not to mention that it would be good if we trade him to trade him for draft picks/prospects because what the Wings really want with the trade would be cap space which many other teams do not have a problem with and would like to add Flip to their roster for $3M. You won't find many that agree with you here because basically everyone thinks that Z took a hometown discount to stay here, most think that Z could have gotten $8-9M on the open market this summer. He will not make that much here. He might end up with the same total contract amount ($72M) with another team but it would be for substantially less years likely 8 years. That gives him much more money over a shorter term - this would give that team a cap hit of $9M per year which would hurt the Wings but be financially beneficial to Z. If you were told that you could make $500 for working 5 hours or $500 for working 10 hours you would be getting the same amount of money but one is a much better deal than the other. Concerning those final years you mention Z will only get paid $5M for the final three years which again goes to show you that getting more for working less years is better financially than what Z did in taking a true hometown discount. Most everyone agrees that a $6.06M a year cap hit for an assistant captain, future captain, selke finalist, Conn Smythe winner, Cup champion, and one of the top 10 two way players in the game is a great deal for the team as a result of the player taking a discount for the team. Also, contrary to your assertion, if Z retires before his contract is over his contract will NOT count against the cap. The only way a retiring player's contract counts against the cap is if he is over 35 when he signs the contract. Not many would agree that there is no such thing as a hometown discount many players take one - if a player takes less from the team than he could get on the open market it is a hometown discount, many players have done it before and Z took a huge one for the team and to remain a Wing. As for Hossa, no he doesn't owe the Wings anything but that isn't the only reason to take a smaller payday with one team rather than a larger one with another and Hossa taking a discount last year proves that. If owing the Wings is the only reason to take a discount then why did Hossa do it last year? Maybe because other things may matter to the player - maybe he wants to play on a winning team, maybe he likes the way that he has been treated and dealt with in Detroit, maybe he likes the city, maybe he likes the European style with puck control that the Wings play better than any other team, maybe he likes guys with great work ethic that play great two way hockey (2 of the 3 Selke finalists last year including the winner), maybe he doesn't want to move again. Who knows what Hossa will do - but you have not more ground to state that he won't take a discount to stay with the Wings than I do to say that he might take one (he has done it in the past when no one thought he would). In fact commenting on the Z contract Hossa's agent said "Marian likes Detroit; he's had a great time there and we've had discussions with Ken (Holland), but he wanted to get Henrik done first," said Winter. "One of his priorities with Marian is trying to figure out how he can stay there." If you don't think it is possible that is fine but others are not morons for thinking he might.

You just have to lay down the hammer And then instill the fear

If people want to speculate of ways to keep Hossa why do you care. There are plenty of teams that would want Flippula with the promise that he has shown and the price he is locked in for. Look at what teams paid for guys like Finger. The more likely reason that Flip might not be gone is that Holland won't want to trade him less than a year after signing him to a 5 year contract. As for there being no way that we keep Hossa - you like everyone else have no idea whether we will or not. No one thought we would get him this season especially considering his other offers and no one thought we would lock up Z for close to $6M a year cap hit but Kenny and Co. found a way to make both of those things work, perhaps it will with Hossa this time or perhaps it won't but people thinking that there is the possibility that it will in not unreasonable. Finally, you have no way of knowing if Hossa will take a "hometown discount" to stay with the Wings or not and it is silly of you to chastise others for thinking that he might especially in light of the fact that (as you stated in the preceding sentance) Hossa did just that to come play for the Wings this year. You might not like to call it a "hometown discount" because he did not play here before but the result is the same as is most of the rationale. Hossa wants to win a Cup and after years of being on teams that are not in contention for a Cup every year wanted to play for a team that could. Furthermore, there has been somewhat of a general consensus that Hossa has wanted to be a Wing for a while and based upon his actions last year it is not unreasonable to at least consider that Hossa might be willing to take less to continue to play for this team and this franchise. If you are going to have your "tolerance exceeded" for other people's opinions maybe you ought to consider your own.

The real value is not the inflationary aspect of having the money now but rather the time value of money. If Z gets an extra $2M in the first year of his 12 year contract (rather than getting that $2M in the last year of the contract) and invests it at 8% annually (which is not that high for that big of an investment) and does not touch it until the last year of the contract he will have $5,036,340 in the bank rather than just the $2M. That is why you are seeing so many front loaded contracts - the value of having money presently to invest or spend rather than not invest or borrow is a great asset and money producing tool for the player.

I think this is an awesome deal for both sides and shows the true character of Z. To the few people who don't like the deal, I was wondering what deal you think would be better that both sides would have agreed to. Finally, regarding the cap hit the last few years when Z is 39 and 40, I could be wrong but I doubt that the NHL will have the same CBA and cap structure that they have now but even if they do the cap should enough higher that Z's contract won't be near as high a percentage of the cap as it is now.

I don't think we should trade him but for $6M and $2.25M more than his next competition he should be the best next to Lidstrom. In fact he should be head and shoulders above the rest.

Not to mention when he started the argument all he said was that Z wouldn't be considered - that really doesn't even imply being a finalist - several guys are considered that aren't finalists.

So you would prefer having Franzen, Huds, and Sammy over Lidstrom? I mean if it's just 3 over 1 and what about 2 over 1? Lebda and Maltby over Lids?

That's silly, Madden who was runner up last year played 80 games had 20 goals and 43 points. How can you argue that Z won't be considered because of this offensive drop (even though it is a defensive award) when he would still end up with 50% more goals and almost twice as many points as the runner up. If Madden could be considered last year Z certainly can even with his lower numbers.

Of course there will be better offers from other teams there always will be for almost any player that stays with the team. As for the discussion of the economy and investing being pointless, that is ridiculous. All you have to do is look around the league and you will see many players who have taken frontloaded deals for a lower total contract price because they can invest the money if they have it now. From everything that I have read Z will get a long contract, it will be right about 7 to 7.1M average cap hit and it will be frontloaded to get the overall cap hit down. Z will almost definitely get this "privilege" (even though it is not a privilege but merely another term to be negotiated in the give and take just like amount, length, NTC, and other options) and he will get it because it allows the Wings to pay him less overall and thus lower the cap hit that the team will take. Its not about some special privilege that Z will get its about the team getting a lower cap hit in exchange for Z getting more money in the first few years.

There are still rules to the front loading, the biggest being that you can't drop more than 50% in salary in between the first and second years.

That is true but not the point they were trying to make. In fact, if it wasn't the average front loading the contract would be a horrible idea and really hurt the Wings. They have cap problems next year and front loading the contract would only make it worse unless you get to take the average. The reason that front loading is so good for teams is that you can sign them to a long contract and give the player 15M the first year and 8M then next year and and so on until they are paid very little (comparatively) the last few years. This gets the overall cap hit lower but gives the player the majority of the cash in the first few years. The time value of money makes 15M worth much more in year one than it does if the player doesn't get the money till year 9 or 10. If they invest the money getting an 8% return and reinvest they can double their money in 10 years. This gives the player a lot more overall cash if they are wise with the money (conversely it also costs the team a lot more money to front load the contract because that is cash that they could have held onto and used - but I think the Wings are willing to deal with that).

I agree and that is kind of my point - we can't have it all and we would have to get rid of a fair bit of talent to get a really good enforcer who can play like we had in the 80's.

Excellent point. I couldn't find the average ticket price in the 1980's. The best that I could find is that in 1994-95 the average ticket price to a Red Wings game was $32.61 and in 2004-05 it was $57.11. That is a huge increase and would definately hinder many blue-collar families from going to the game as often.

I don't discount the worth of those guys especially Drake and McCarty of old, and we will have a slightly different roster after the trade deadline, but none of those guys is a Proby and we still won. All I am saying is 20 years ago no would would have said we had much of an enforcer on our team last year and yet we still won. We will always have to have grit and I think we always will come playoff time but there is no denying that we won recent Cups with drastically less enforcement than we had in the 80's - hence we won with less enforcers not more.

And the facts are also that we did not win any Cups during those times. I don't remember them handing out trophies for the team with the best attendance otherwise Montreal would have won almost every Cup in the last decade and Toronto would always be one of the top teams. Oh that's right you get trophies for wins not attendance. I mean if attendance is the ultimate goal we should have the guys play football because average attendance for the Redskins last year was 88,604 but the Capitals only averaged 15,472 (or even baseball the Nationals averaged 29,005). Maybe it would be better if we just gave trophies to the team that wins the most. Your facts don't mean much when you argue that we go back to playing in a way that didn't win any Cups and ditch playing the way that did win us some Cups.