mjlegend

In before "Hudler, Kindl and a first; Get it done Kenny!" DO not want healthy scratches for the top four.

Come on Kenny: Hudler, Kindl and a first round pick for Purcell. It would improve our second line and allow Cleary to talk to someone in his own language.

Someone who's younger than anyone mentioned except Larsson: Robert. M-f'n. Esche. Beware the neck beard\!!!!!!!!!

He's said he's always wanted to be part of a jury in Michigan. #actuallyno #notlikeitmakesadifferencetohisjobwhereheisacitizen

Hudler, Kindl and a first to Washington for Vokoun.

Who's the official rum of the NHL? This is where Appleton's can really start hitting the Captain Morgan audience.

I'm hoping that when the case was thrown out, Al Sobotka picked it up and twirled it around his head before leaving the courthouse.

Might be a good investment if he moves the Blues to Hamilton.

Gordon Bombay. Flying V power play. Make it happen, Kenny!

Why do I get the feeling "Off the map" may mean two Swedish guys who are in HockeyAllsvenskan and have never seen the NHL?

The Wings haven't won the Stanley Cup since Lebda left.

And I thought we had the anti-murderers row with White, Commodore and Exelby. Good luck fighting with Edmonton for 15th in the conference.

They forgot "Connolly and Lombardi on the IR", but you can only fit so many words into a headline.

So Jiri Hudler goes from being a healthy scratch in an elimination game against the Sharks, and was used only because of injuries in the last two games, to being our undisputed second line winger? Cool.

Larry Murphy and Bob Rouse.

I loled at the phrase "potential buyers of the Coyotes." Who's left who wants to keep them in AZ anyway?

How does Miller give us a chance to do anything? We have younger, better versions of him throughout the lineup. He doesn't do anything special. Konopka is one of the best FO percentage guys in the league, can drop the mitts and has two 50-point seasons in his last two years in the AHL. Perfect fourth line centre.

You're happy with second round playoff losses? Based on the personnel decisions so far (re-signing everybody under 38), I can only assume Kenny is. Konopka just went to Ottawa for $700,000. Some old Wings assistant named Paul MacLean coaches there. Tell me we couldn't have used Konopka in Miller's spot, even giving him Miller money ($837,000/ two years) to take on that role. Kenny has been a very good general manager, but this off-season and last off-season hasn't yielded anything that would lead me to think he's serious about changing the makeup of a team that has gotten older and softer. I want this team to win, and failign so, I want them to compete hard. I'm sorry some of you don't feel the same way.

Is this why we've signed two mid-rate UFAs and an RFA third/fourth string goaltender in the first four days of free agency? You're right, though, it is important to get depth within the organization. That's why it's good that there are only six or seven contracts left the Wings can actually sign players to - it means you don't have many contracts like Pearce's distracting from the pursuit of excellence for the big club. If he spent more than 10 minutes on negotiating this contract in the last four days, I'd be disappointed. But when the big club has some glaring holes at backup GA and a spot for a top-six forward (when Hudler is pushed off a cliff), it's probably a good idea to focus 100 per cent on that first.

If this is true, this will really help the next time Sundin decides to push the Griffins around.

Such negativity.

If Kenny doesn't want Smith to rot as a #7, then he probably won't want Kindl to do the same thing also. If he were comfortable giving Smith the #6 role this year, he wouldn't have signed Commodore. So you either trade Kindl to make room for Smith as a six and put in Commodore, or else you have two 21-24 year-old sixth/seventh D, which is a huge waste of the time spent into developing both of them. Or else you do something completely out of left field and deal Ericsson and his now-untradable contract. The above reasoning is why I think Smith stays in GR unless there are injuries. And with Ericsson/Commodore, there likely will be. I might pencil him in for 15 games this year to give him a taste but have him spend most of his time in GR.

After 25 years, I don't think I can do it. The Kool-Aid has got to be pretty yummy, because for me it seems like the Wings' window to win a cup is finally closing after all these years. I'm sorry if I demand a better team than you do. What's the point of losing in the second round every year now? The Red Wings need more than a tweaking to get better. They need creativity and thinking outside the box. The Sharks didn't even need Heatley to beat us and now they have a better playoff performer in his position. Getting rid of Heatley is adding through subtraction. I'm not saying we should have gotten Havlat or Heatley, but the team right now isn't good enough to win a round in the playoffs. Doug Wilson knows his team isn't good enough as it is either, and that's why he pulled the deal. We have added Ian White and Mike Commodore to replace Rafalski and Salei. That's barely a sideways transaction. After defending Kenny for a long while on the whole "Kenny's got a masterplan" idea, I'm finally sick of it. I don't see the masterplan. I don't even see an assistant coach to replace either MacLean or McCrimmon. Do you think the Wings have improved after two consecutive second round losses? I don't. It used to be the power play was the enforcer. Now, without Rafalski and with Lidstrom a year older, I'm not sure that it will be. I don't see the succession plan that gave us Yzerman-Shanahan-Fedorov to Lidstrom-Datsyuk-Zetterberg. Either through the draft or through trade, we haven't added a single elite player close to his prime since Hossa left. When Lidstrom retires after this year, are we really comfortable with Kronwall-White-Kindl-Stuart-Ericsson-Smith/Commodore? The 1998-2002 Grind line would crush the s*** out of us, and it wasn't because they were highly paid or locked in to long-term deals, or were superstar goaltender's brothers. It because they were mean bastards who would outwork and outskate you. There was also an element of "I don't want to go into the corner against that guy" with McCarty. We have none of that right now. We have guys who skate fast and have fewer hits than they did the year before. Wow, how intimidating. The bottom line is that top to bottom, this might be the worst Wings team to take to the ice since 1991. And with proper foreplanning, it didn't have to be this way. I miscounted, like Kenny when giving out Doug Janik's 'young' age.

Disappointment in the off-season wheeling and dealing in haiku form. A rival gets better The Sharks, I mean, not Minny I miss contending.

Thank God we got our third/fourth stringer RFA locked up until 2013. There are bigger fish to fry in the goaltending department.