Buppy

Yes, actually the difference between even a late first and an early second is pretty substantial. Though I'm not sure why you'd assume it would be a late 1st and early 2nd. I'd expect both the Wings and Blues will pick in around the same spot. 16-20 or so. Even if you assume the Blues win the Cup and the Wings go 15th, it's still half a round of highly-scouted players you miss a chance on. And a player on a crap contract who's been under-performing for years definitely isn't worth a top prospect and a first.

Assuming Quincey is actually close to returning, and Cola doesn't break himself in the next 36 hours, I'd agree. I'd give up any one of those three. Cola being the first choice (though he probably doesn't have any value), but White's a close second.

Not usually how deadline deals work. It's typically picks/prospects for players. 1st and a 3rd seems about right for Flip. Certainly tempting, and I can definitely understand those who want to do it, but I'm not sure it's worth hurting our playoff chances and our center depth. If it looks like we won't be able to sign him, we could likely still get some value for his rights at the draft, especially if he starts scoring again.

Unless there's a buyout or trade of a roster player, we won't have the roster room to add anyone, or even have all the kids on the roster. Obvisouly, any talk of additions to the roster implies some kind of subtraction to make room. Wouldn't have been too hard to make room for JBo. Even so, I wouldn't have given a 1st for him. Good chance that pick will be in the 16-20 range. Don't think he's worth that and the extra cap burden, even with the junk prospects. Make it a 2nd and I would, but that would probably be a deal breaker for the Flames even with better prospects.

Sammy's not hurt. Or maybe you're just expecting him to be hurt by the end of the year... For the cap to go up from $64.3M, league-wide revenue would have to be over $3.7B. That's a fairly large increase even if the lockout didn't do any damage. It's certainly possible it could happen, but I wouldn't count on it. Either way, a possible cap increase in the future won't help anyone next year.

Carolina, Boston, San Jose, and Tampa Bay all have just around $1M / roster spot to fill (going by rosters listed on Capgeek). Most have all their key spots filled, but still candidates to dump salary.

I think even with a scoring winger, we could still miss the playoffs. There's a chance that pick could be first overall. Gaborik might be worth that small risk, depending on what else we had to give up. I don't see why the Rangers would be particularly desperate to move him, so I assume it'd be quite a bit more. I can't think of anyone else rumored to be available that would be worth if. Maybe Vanek if we didn't have to give up any top prospects.

That's just the thing, from all reports they did talk to Iggy and he did imply his consent to any of the four teams on his list. Of course, none of us really know how it went. For all we know Iggy may have made it clear that Pittsburgh was his preference. Feaster obviously isn't the smartest GM, so I have to assume the mess was at least partially his fault, but I think Iggy probably deserves some blame as well.

According to what I've read, the cap hit is in fact retained along with the salary.

According to NHL.com, he has to re-sign with Philly before Oct. 1st. Though it's a 7th-round pick, so really nothing to get excited about anyway...

Cleared waivers during the season, when any team claiming him would have to move someone else off their roster, when he hadn't played much the last two years. If he finishes the year strong, I'd expect someone will invite him to a camp next summer. If he still wants to try for the NHL I wouldn't be surprised if he makes it. (Just not in Detroit.) Bet Stevie would give him a tryout. Though if I had to bet on it, I'd say he'll go over to Europe.

By "every deadline" you mean "last year", when practically nothing was available. Prior to that, the only year we had any significant cap space was the year we won the Cup. I think you too are letting past seasons blur together rather than accurately remembering the situation. The only top-end talents we've lost since winning the Cup were Hossa, Rafi, and Nick. You say "preceding years" but you're mostly talking about the last two summers. Yes, we had to scramble for bargains the two years prior to that, and almost all of them have worked out well. Bert, Eaves, Miller, almost all the kids we've promoted. You can nitpick a few ways in hindsight that may have let us keep Hossa instead of Franzen or Flip, but I think that pretty dramatically overstates any potential improvement Hossa would bring. Chicago found plenty of ways to struggle the past two years, even with loads of talent. Furthermore, you could say it has everything to do with Suter and Parise. In a sense, losing out on them is in large part what dropped us from among the elite. As good as we've been without them, I don't think it's a stretch to say we'd be at least on the heels of the top contenders with them, depending on who we get rid of to make room. Something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you assume they didn't sign with us because we were no longer a top team (though I don't think that had anything to do with it). Having Hossa and Wisniewski instead of Franzen and White isn't really that much of a difference. Less so looking at it on paper (as a UFA would do when evaluating how the team looks) considering the extra salary we'd have to cut to leave the same room for Parise and Suter.

Yeah, he's hurt. He'd fit right in.

Ilses are the Guinness of the NHL. Looks and smells like dirty brake fluid, no way you want to try it, but after the first pint you realize it wont kill you and you'll let someone pay you a few million dollars to drink another.

Fairly certain it will count as a year regardless. Slide rules only apply to ELCs signed by 18 or 19 year-olds. I don't believe anything changed in the new CBA, but I could be wrong.

You're very obviously nowhere close to "fine" with struggling. Being a weaker team is typically how you land those better players. Getting superstars to build around typically requires being very bad for a time. It's not that Holland is content or doesn't want to change anything. It's that you can't spin straw into gold. He could spin some straw into some different straw, and maybe that would make you happy as it would at least be something to talk about, but it wouldn't make any real difference. Yes, when Rafalski retired we got some cap space, after having none for two years. In hindsight, Holland might have given up a pick for a chance to talk to Wisniewski or Ehrhoff. Would either really make us any better? Make the future any brighter? Knowing he wouldn't get Suter, he probably goes harder after other options. Would Wideman or Carle really make that much difference? To build, you need something to build on. The struggles we're having now and will likely have in the near future is how we'll find that foundation.

That is a ridiculous standard, and if you were to apply it to any other GM in the history of any sport you're not going to find even one you think is adequate. In the span of a few seasons we lost Yzerman, Shanahan, Hull, Robitaille, Fischer, Larionov, Hasek, among others, plus maybe the best coach of all time. Chelios went from a Norris candidate to depth player, Draper and Maltby from invaluable role-players to guys filling out the roster. We'd lost in the first round, second round, and first round. We had a lot of good prospects and could afford to lose some. Plus we made the transition to the cap era. Holland made some moves, some were decent, some not so much. We signed some cast-offs that no one else wanted, brought up some young guys, signed one big UFA. It worked and we won a Cup. It wasn't luck that we had a bunch of cheap guys. It's what you have to do in the cap era. Then we had to start paying guys and trying to fill the rest of the roster with bargains. Some of those guys were decent, some not so much. It's just not reasonable to expect that we should have had a replacement for Lidstrom before he left. The only way to get that is to get lucky, either with a prospect or someone else's cast off. If you want someone already proven, you would have had to give up a lot to get them, and we couldn't have fit them under the cap. We would have had to make the team worse in previous years. Maybe in hindsight you can say they should have, because we haven't done much in the playoffs anyway, but really you all would have just been bitching about mismanagement back then. Some people are completely backward in thinking that the biggest needs, the biggest losses, should be the easiest to fill. Fact is, those holes have the fewest available options and the least margin for error. That's why almost no one, in any sport, in any era in history, has much success filling them without a hitch. Nothing Holland could have done would have been better than landing Suter and Parise (particularly since we wouldn't have had to give up anything), and he put us in position to make a strong play for both of them. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. But we're still in a good position to add more, and we still have a well stocked prospect pool. Maybe, probably even, things will get worse before they get better. That's the nature of the beast. We need stars and those almost always come through the draft. Once we have our next generation of stars, then will come the time to start making trades and looking for a good UFA or two to put us over the top. Hopefully at that time, some of the young prospects we have now will emerge to fill some roles at bargain prices. Sure, we could make a move or two now and it might work out. Or not. Look at the Rangers, Philly, San Jose... Maybe Holland could have done better. But who actually has? Pittsburgh? Cup winner, last three years lost in the 2nd, 1st, and 1st round. Found some nice fits at forwards, including one absolute steal of a trade, wrecked their defense. Looking good this year, maybe they'll go somewhere, maybe not. Their best players can't stay healthy, probably going to have cap troubles again in a couple years. Chicago? Cup winner, sat watching the TV hoping for Dallas to lose to put them in the playoffs the following year. Two first round losses. Looking good this year... Likely cap trouble again next year. Boston? Cup winner, lost in the first round last year. Looking good... maybe some cap trouble next year. LA? Cup winner, had to fight down to the wire to make the playoffs, likely the same this year. About $15M to fill almost half their roster next year... Anaheim? Doing great this year after plenty of struggles since their Cup win. Big commitments to their stars likely to create some cap issues down the road... Anyone else... Pretty much all that separates us from any of them is they have young stars while ours are aging. Most of them were irrelevent not long ago, and will likely end up back there before too long. Come back when their stars are aging and see how much better they do than Holland. I bet none of them do half so well. What Holland has already done proves that he's a great GM. He's had some luck, and a great staff to work with, but he's still been great. No matter how successfully we make it through our current transition or the next.

Not really far more often. We've been playing him 4 times a year, it would be 5 or 6 if he re-signs. If he re-signs, it would probably be in place of Horton, so there's a good chance one of them would be available as a UFA. Though they may end up doing something with Savard to create some space.

Cup finals will still be East vs West. The two 8-team divisions are the Eastern Conference, the two 7-teams are the Western. I haven't seen it anywhere, but I assume teams will be reseeded for the second round, as it's possible to have 3 winners from one division and just 1 from the other. Based on the standings now, the playoffs would be: East Pittsburgh vs Detroit Montreal vs Toronto Boston vs Ottawa New Jersey vs Carolina West Chicago vs Dallas Anaheim vs San Jose Minnesota vs St.Louis Vancouver vs LA

Quincey is out basically for the rest of the regular season. I don't think it would take much to put DD ahead of White, Cola, and Huskins (and possibly Lashoff). And while Smith hasn't been scoring, he should be, and Kindl has decent offensive skills.

I have, and it looks like it catches his visor... Regardless, the fact is he was penalized for high-sticking, rather than for the hit. You might argue that the refs were just looking for a penalty because of the hit, but that's just baseless speculation.

Not really. Stepan, Hagelin, and Callahan are still contributing at a similar rate. Nash produces as much as Anisimov and Dubinsky did. The difference between last year and this is almost entirely from Richards and Gaborik. Losing Fedotenko, and Boyle not producing also hurts, but if Richards and Gaborik were producing better, they'd be a much better team.

Don't want to get in to the rest of your post, but I've seen a few people mention this, so I feel I should point out that Kronwall was penalized for high-sticking, not for the hit. His stick certainly was high, and did seem to catch Coyle in the visor...

And the problem with your line of thinking is you're basing it off an estimated 55 point threshhold. (You also failed to consider the loser points, but that's a marginal difference.) We're actually on pace for 51.8 points. Of the seven teams currently out of the playoffs, none of them is on pace for even 49 points. While we may need to be better than we have been, so does everyone else.

Abby. It was only two games, right at the end of the year when we already had the President's Trophy locked up, but I think he stayed on as black ace for the Cup run.