Icesurfer

Luongo's next!

Only if Sundin wants to play for $1.00. Get real!

Nabokov or Brodeur were not on my fantasy team..... so I don't mind.

The whole point is that if the Wings were not close to the salary cap (i.e. if they had more space than they do) Leino would have been brought up already and be getting some valuable NHL playing time and planning for the future in terms of who stays and who goes. What a waste. All because Holland made the "Burke-blunder" of operating too close to the cap.

You can also go to hockeyfights.com and watch the video replay. On my HD telecast it looked like all swings missed. McCarty's quick left hooks fell short (short of May's face anyway) and May's fist flew past McCarty's nose and May pushed his arm into McCarty's face. No damage done. Can't expect much from Detroit's FIRST fight. Last team in the NHL to record one. But hey... at least it gets the teamed pumped up and the blood-a-boilin'.

Franzen to have tests done on Sunday.....X-ray and MRI. Click here On post-game interview Babcock said they won't call up anyone unless he goes on LTIR....out 10 games/24 days. Salary cap issues continue, although there is some space. So Mac and Maltby probably will be in the lineup on Monday. Leino not recalled....

If Leino comes up and does really well, ironically it will cause even more cap problems for the Wings next year.....especially if the cap stays the same or goes down. Leino is a restricted free agent next year and you know he will want more than 875,000.00.

If Leino impresses while he is here I imagine it will be very difficult to send him back down. Franzen's salary hit per day is 5,063.00 and Leino's is 4,679.00. So if Franzen is out 10 games/24 days it is basically a wash towards the salary cap. But when Cheli comes back in a few weeks McCarty will probably have to be sent down and if the Wings decide to keep Leino when Franzen comes back they will have to trade a forward..... so we will see how Sammy, Hudler and Maltby do. Depending on what Babcock does with the lines it may give us an indication what to expect..... i.e. if Leino plays on the second line or third line. Who plays in front of the net on the second PP unit? Cleary? I wonder how Leino would be at that?

OK.... so the Wings are considered one of the best two-way teams in the league. So I decided to rank the forwards based only on their defensive abilities. Some of the things to consider when looking at a forward’s defensive ability include: skating ability to get back on defense after playing offense, ability to recover from turning the puck over and getting it back, hitting, blocking shots, knocking players off the puck, causing a turnover by other means, takeaways, etc. Grant it that some of these are intangibles that can’t be measured in terms of statistics. These are the rankings based on the stats that are available which include hits, blocked shots and takeaways. These numbers are the rankings from last year where the top player in that category is given 12 points and the bottom player gets one point. Double-weight was given for blocked shots and takeaways and single-weight was given for hits because most but not all hits are delivered when you are playing defense. Pavel Datsyuk - 52 Johan Franzen - 45 Marian Hossa – 42 Valtteri Filppula - 41 Kris Draper - 38 Mikael Samuelsson – 33 Henrik Zetterberg – 30 Dan Cleary - 28 Kirk Maltby – 27 Tomas Kopecky – 26 Jiri Hudler – 17 Tomas Holmstrom - 11 I was surprised to see Zetterberg at only 30 and Cleary at only 28. Those two cleary (no pun intended) rank higher when you consider the intangibles. So I ranked them myself based on intangibles, double-weighted then value, and added them to the numbers above and this is what I got. Pavel Datsyuk - 76 Marian Hossa – 62 Johan Franzen - 59 Kris Draper - 54 Valtteri Filppula - 53 Henrik Zetterberg – 52 Dan Cleary - 46 Mikael Samuelsson – 37 Kirk Maltby – 33 Tomas Kopecky – 28 Jiri Hudler – 27 Tomas Holmstrom - 19 I was surprised to see Filppula ranked higher than Z or Cleary. I would like to see how others rank the forwards’ defensive ability. Remember to try to avoid considering their offensive skills. Hossa’s numbers came from the Pitts stats so keep that in mind.

Wow...... Did this thread get out of hand or what???? This thread is suppose to be about the forward's defensive ability and everyone is talking about goals!!!! HELLO! Anyway, I recalculated the list leaving out the HITS.... since hits may or may not play a role in a forward's defensive ability. So here is the new list. Datsyuk is still by far and away the best defensive forward on the team. And probably why he won the Selke. Pavel Datsyuk - 72 Marian Hossa – 56 Henrik Zetterberg - 50 Johan Franzen - 50 Valtteri Filppula - 50 Kris Draper - 44 Dan Cleary - 38 Mikael Samuelsson – 30 Jiri Hudler – 26 Kirk Maltby – 22 Tomas Kopecky – 16 Tomas Holmstrom - 14 So Zetterberg came up higher on the list but still is not as good as Datsyuk or Hossa especially when you are talking about takeaways and blocked shots. Most fans have not seen enough of Hossa to realize that he is also very good on defense. Maltby dropped lower on the list..... so if it wasn't for his PK ability he probably would have been gone. Hudler came up on the list because he does have takeaway ability. Homer is homer..... he does was he does..... he is our "rear-end" net crasher specialist and we all love him...... but now I know why Bowman had him on the fourth line and mostly got just PP time. Good thing Homer is paired with the 2 best defensive forwards on the team.....LOL.

Only 3 teams in the NHL have not recorded a fight ......Ottawa, St. Louis and our beloved Red Wings. Vancouver already has 9 fights and there are 122 fights already recorded...... I guess some of us should move to Vancouver......LOL BUT we play St. Louis next so maybe there is a scheduled fight.....LOL. What I see happening if the Wings decide not to have an enforcer is that if one of our forwards gets injured by a big hit and is out of the lineup for a significant amount of time then everyone will be pointing their fingers at Holland and then it will become an issue....... too late.

Datsyuk did win the Selke and he is on the top of the list by far...... even though people were split between Datsyuk and Z winning the award.

That is a very good analysis..... I was looking for the per 20 minute analysis and could only find the leaders at this website and not the complete league stats which would be nice. This website also shows how players do when they play with another player.... which is where I found that Z and Hudler do not play well together. http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/200708/playertakeaway.php or click ADJUSTED PLAYER STATS The biggest challenge is to try to measure the intangibles in terms of a number.....totally arbitrary...... which is why a player like Zetterberg may not be at the top of list but yet he wins the Conn Smythe. Fun to play with numbers when there is no game....LOL.

Sort of reminds me of that NHL commercial....."We will call our offense our defense and our defense our offense"..........That will totally confuse the other team......LOL..... That guy is absolutely hilarious.

When forwards are hitting they USUALLY, but not always, don't have the puck. ..... so they are "playing on defense". Occassionally a forward will hit when another forward has the puck in the offensive zone.....probably does not happen that often.

This post is about FORWARDS playing defensively. It is NOT about defensemen.

Just because McCarty was waived (if he is not claimed) does not mean he will automatically go down to Grand Rapids. I think the waiver is good for 30 days. So in the next 30 days they can move hiim up and down any number of times without additional waivers. Waiving him now is good also (besides cap reasons) because all teams are set with their tough guy and the only one out with an injury is Brashear for Washington and he is day-to-day. Apparently Babcock liked McCarty's play during the preseason. So the likelihood of McCarty being claimed is probably nil.

How about McCarty back in the lineup for Wed for a bout with DJ King?

Hudler's line was minus 3 Thursday and minus 2 Saturday. Let's face it. While Hudler may be good on th PP his two way play has something to be desired. Scoring goals is only one aspect of the game. When you take a look at players who should be on the roster next year....Leino, Helm and Abdelkader they all will probably be better two way players than Hudler and all have more upside. So playing the numbers game Hudler is probably one of the ones to go......especially since he is a restricted free agent at the end of the year and will want a raise. If the salary cap goes down or stays the same or goes up very little the Wings simply won't have enough cap space to re-sign Z, Franzen, Sammy AND Hudler. I have a feeling that Hudler was put on the second line to bring up his trade value. So actually I hope he does score 25 goals.....probably most on the PP...... but I can't see the Wings paying him $2-3 million next year.

Apparently, Hossa was put with Franzen and Filppula today. Posted on another forum. Let's see if it's true. Sounds good to me....

I know this is kind of vague but to me Hossa's skating "style" is more like that of Filppula and Franzen. Their professionals and they should be able to skate with anybody, but Zetterberg had a way of anticipating when Datsyuk would steal the puck. Datsyuk and Zetterberg together were like magic mind readers..... these are intagibles that can not be measured or show up on any stat chart. The other night when Datsyuk stole the puck at the opponent's blue line I saw that Hossa kept going the other way and was not even in the play. Hossa was completely fooled or he yet has to learn to be ready for Datsyuk's fabulous puck stealing ability. To me that tells me a little about Hossa's skating and worrying so much about covering defensively, which is not all bad. But it also proves that Z and Datsyuk are the best two way players in the league. Again, it is early and all that is just timing and getting comfortable with who you play with, so hopefully there will be improvement.

Because of the economic crisis it is very possible that the salary cap may decrease next year. CLICK HERE FOR STORY If the cap should decrease the Wings would still probably have enough room to use Hossa's salary to re-sign Z and Franzen. Hudler (although restricted FA) and Sammy may be SOL. Some of the older players like Draper, Maltby and Chelios would probably be gone and youngster like Leino, Helm, Abdelkader and Ericsson would probably be on the regular roster. And, of course, no chance to re-sign Hossa.

ME TOO! I miss the magic!

Article about Zetterberg resigning next year and following an unofficial maximum salary cap, Lidstrom's salary. Lidstrom Cap

I think I would rather see Z sit tomorrow and rest. Why take a chance early in the season? So if McCarty practiced he may be ready for Thursday otherwise it looks like Meech is the subsitute. Z took a couple of hard hits in Carolina game. I would hate to see Hordichuk hit Z......although unlikely.