Thats the major problem with most of you, any criticism and you label that person a troll. I follow the team more closely than most, I go to games and have every game DVRed. And I certainly get my information from a broader spectrum, outside of Ken Daniels, which is more than I can say for most.
Calling me a troll deflects from my arguement because in fact you can't argue against it.
The cap is decreasing for next season, probably by $2 million.
Zetterberg is due, at least $4 million.
Hudler will at the very least get another million
Franzen will get another 3 million
Hossa will be gone purely for financial reasons -$7.5
Conklin will be resigned and Howard will be let go, so that evens out.
So right off the bat, thats $2.5 million dollars that the team needs to makeup for. Now that doesn't include Samuelsson.
So than the only options are:
Trade Flip
Trade Lilja
And if that happens, Ericcson or Helm will be called up and half of that salary gained, will be spent again. So in reality, you would have to move both Flip and Lilja to fit under the cap.
So in order to keep any depth on team WITH Zetterberg, you have to move a second line center and our best defensive defenseman.
The team would look like this:
Homer-Datsyuk-Franzen
Leino-Zetterberg-Hudler
Meech-Helm-Cleary
?-Draper-Maltby
Lidstrom-Rafalski
Stuart-Kronwall
Lebda - Ericsson
Conklin
Osgood
Thats a team that is right against the cap and has no less than three AHLers and up to 5.
All of that depth lost to keep Zetterberg.
In reality, with cutting Z lose you can have this roster:
Homer-Datsyuk-Franzen
Leino-Flip-Hudler
Sammy-Helm-Cleary
Kopecky-Draper-Maltby
Lidstrom-Rafalski
Kronwall-Staurt
Lilja-Lebda/Meech
Conklin
Osgood
Much more depth and the team wouldn't be right against the cap.
We're not "Losing" Hossa or Zetterberg. Hossa will not be coming back, its simple, its literally impossible. Saying that we're "Losing" Z implies that we get nothing in return. What we get in return is the potential to maintain a contending lineup. The potential to not rely on every player on the roster taking sizeable discounts in return for NTC/NMCs.
The only way keeping Z works is if he signs a short deal, for around Datsyuk money with the understanding that when Lidstrom retires he will see an increase. If that doesn't happen, than keeping Z does more harm than good.
The only way to free up enough capspace is by trading away Lilja, Flip, Stuart or Kronwall.
And the argument isn't Hudler, Sammy, Franzen > Hossa and Z.
Its team depth vs keeping one player, whether thats Z or Hossa.
The cap is going to decrease next season and moreso the season after that. Having so much money tied up into five players means that we're going to dwindle this team down to nothing trying to keep it under the cap.
We have two franchise players (Datsyuk and Lidstrom). Lidstrom could play for years more and Datsyuk is just entering his prime. Do we really need to gut the team to keep another?
Stop treating this as if its the pre-cap NHL. If the 2002 lineup was faced with the same cap problems we would be saying goodbye to both Shanahan and Fedorov in order to keep Yzerman, Lidstrom and some team depth.
