Buppy

"Worth" is more than just a dollar per dollar comparison to other contracts. There are 21 teams with $20M+ in cap space, and there's not a whole lot to spend it on. Then factor in age, term, what the cap was when other players signed their deals, and that RFAs don't have as much bargaining power. Richards averages $9M over the first 6 years of his deal. The market determines worth more than other player's salaries. Suter isn't a big hitter at all, and doesn't have that great a shot. But he is a shut-down defender with solid offensive skills. With the loss of Nick and Stuart, we desperately need both. We have a ton of cap space, and few roster spots available. Is Suter "worth" $7-8M, compared to what Keith/Chara/etc. are making? Maybe not. But he'd certainly improve the Wings enough to be worth 25-30% of our available cap space, considering there aren't really any good alternatives. Though if we offer a deal that takes him near 40, I'd expect it to be at the low end of that range...$6.5ish. Parise isn't nearly as much of a need, but again we do have the space. Many, probably most, of the big names who will be in the final year of their current contracts will be resigned. No guarantees that any impact player will actually hit the market. With Pav, Hank, and Mule all over 30, Parise could be our best shot at a star to help bridge the gap to our next generation. Of our potential UFAs in the next few years, only Howard and Pav are really that important. Pav will be 36 and his hit won't likely go up. We can probably assume some inflation of the cap. We can likely count on a few young guys to make the team to open up more space. I think we can afford $8M (for short to mid-term, 3-5 years) for both without handcuffing ourselves in the future. Could likely do that, and sign another decent defenseman and still have ~$3M left under the cap. All of that pending what happens with the CBA. Obviously, that could change everything.

Wideman/Garrison in place of Nick/Stuie. Parenteau/Moen/Konopka or Prust in place of Hudler/Homer/two of Emmerton/Mursak/Miller/Eaves/Nyquist. Tougher maybe, but certainly not deeper. If we had to settle for that, I'd be ok with it, but I think we'd need to look at our trade options. At least for help on defense.

Not every player is Parise, and you can't have different rules for different players. If Parise, or anyone else, wants to know what other teams are willing to offer, then all he has to do is wait until the 1st and find out. While Parise specifically may know he'll have no shortage of offers, there are a lot of players who don't have that security. They have to choose between the security of getting a contract before there's extra competition from UFAs and possibly getting more money or a better opportunity on the open market. In my opinion, "we will not be outbid" is basically the same as throwing out a specific number. Worse even, since a specific number could be lower than what someone else offers. Now Parise knows he should talk to Minnesota after any offer, and he can use those comments to push for a higher salary from anyone who makes an offer. Things can move fast on UFA day. If the Wings want to be aggressive, they won't necessarily want to wait around while Parise gets a counter-offer from the Wild. Doing so could mean they miss out on other players. Would it have made any difference had the story not been released? Likely no one will ever know. But it's pretty simple rule: Don't talk about players under contract to other teams. It's not hard. And there's no reason for it other than to give yourself an advantage over all the teams who follow the rules. I agree with you in principle, but comparing this to rape makes you sound a little hysterical. I don't give a s*** if someone jaywalks. Doesn't mean I'm indifferent to every crime. Some things just aren't worth getting worked up over. This specific case, where the potential damage caused is likely somewhere between none and very little, and the potential for actually proving any wrongdoing is virtually nil, is I think one of those things. Certainly not worth the time and expense of a court proceeding. I don't think it would warrant anything more than a fine anyway, even if it was proven (as much as I would like to see Minnesota prohibited from signing Parise, I don't feel that would be justified).

If the comments reported were actually made by Leipold, then Bettman could decide it's tampering. While we all know the needs and cap space of different teams, and can assume who they'll be interested in, saying you'll match/beat any offer goes a lot farther. Too far, IMO. Main problem is there isn't likely any way to prove he really said it, unless he was dumb enough to mention Parise's name on tape/email/etc.

Yeah: QB, OL, RB, WR, TE, DL, LB, DB... hardly anyone. Football is really probably the toughest. Takes even more good players to build a championship football team, only 6 of 32 teams make the playoffs, and then one poor game (or even a poor half/quarter/series) could end your season. Maybe easier for an underdog team to ride a hot streak to a title, but I think harder overall. NHL though is certainly the biggest "grind", and likely the most physically demanding.

The cap number I used was with 12 players on the roster. So they only need 11 players. They also have 7 players they could sign for likely for around $1.5M on average, not including any cheap UFAs from other teams. My point was that you're not going to hurt them by trying to make them pay Weber a little more than they're hoping. Maybe it would hurt a little if you make them overpay a lot (like an offer sheet for 10+), but then you risk that backfiring, overpaying him yourself as well as giving up four 1st-rounders. There is absolutely nothing about the Weber situation right now that suggests an offer sheet would do anything good for us. Honestly, the best thing we could do is try to get him to sign a one year offer for cheap so they're sure to match. That would at least put him one step closer to UFA next summer. But if he wants out of Nashville, he'll do a one year anyway, so...

I'd be surprised if that was really a quote from anyone in the Minnesota organization. That would be tampering and could result in Minnesota actually being prohibited from signing Parise, as well as forfeiting draft picks and/or a fine up to $5M. In fact, if I was a GM right now, I'd already be writing up a complaint to the league, just to force someone from Minnesota to come out and deny they ever said it. And regardless what you think of Detroit's future, they do have nearly two decades history of icing a competetive team. Minnesota has 11 years of nothing, showing they don't really know how to build or maintain a team. And every ranking I've seen has the Wings' prospect pool rated higher than the Wild's. Granlund may be a "can't miss", but it seems they don't have much beyond him. Players like Parise and Suter aren't going to look for a team that will win for them. They know they will be key players in the plans of any team. Add them to the Wings and it solves most of the issues you think the Wings have. I know if I was Parise and worried about the future, I'd take a team that may, if our prospects don't work out, have to rebuild over a team that is already worse and in 10+ years still hasn't actually built anything in the first place. He goes to Minnesota he'll likely be traded in two years when they start their re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-build.

Um...that isn't Z-shaped.

The last three years the Preds have been $3.9M, 7.5M, and 3.4M over the floor. Next year, assuming the $70.3M cap figure and the floor rules stay in the new CBA, the floor would be $54.3M. That would put their expected internal cap right in the $55-60M range I mentioned in my post. Depending on their revenue figures for this year, and their recent taste of playoff success, they might even go higher. Just the fact that, as it stands now, they have to spend $22M should tell you they aren't going to skimp on their captain and the face of their franchise.

The Preds have $38M in cap space, a handful of decent roleplayers already signed for cheap, and a few more that should be cheap to re-sign. They are prefectly capable of paying Weber $10M+ and still filling out a decent roster in the $55-60M range. You're not going to hurt them by forcing them to pay a little more than they want. Giving up 4 firsts isn't just giving up 4 players we could protentially draft. It's also giving up the ability to trade those picks in the future. Between that and needing to significantly overpay to get him, you sacrifice a lot of flexibility. If he didn't mesh well with our system, or other holes in the lineup appear, we could still end up out of the playoffs...possibly giving up one or more top-10 picks. Maybe not likely, but it's a big risk to take for the right to overpay someone. I'll say again, the RFA system is designed to very heaviliy favor the team owning the RFA rights. It gives a little bargaining power to the player, but little risk of the team losing its young assets. Offer sheets are very, very rarely worth making. It would have to be a team unable to match a fair offer or a player that the owning team isn't interested in keeping.

1. At $5 million, the compensation is a 1st, 2nd, and a 3rd. 2. He is worth $5M, which is all the more reason Winnipeg would match. Hell, they might send us a card to thank us for not making them match $6M. I'd trade a decent amount for his rights, but I wouldn't bother with an offer sheet. The RFA system very heavily favors the team owning a players rights (obviously, that's what it's supposed to do). Unless the team is very tight to the cap and/or isn't interested in the player it isn't worth it. Maybe if I had a crystal ball and knew for sure he'd be the next Shanny/Iginla...

Laich is a bit better (and much more durable) version of Cleary. Green is very good offensively, not so on defense. He'll likely never have another 30g season, and has had a ton of injury problems the last two years. Giving up our best goal scorer (who does have a friendly cap hit, for now) and a sparkplug center who is the kind of cheap but invaluable role player that every team needs would be stupid. Yeah, we need a defenseman or two, but not at the cost of creating new holes in the lineup (plus Green doesn't even fill the defense part of our defenseman hole). Sure, it could work coupled with other moves/signings. But those same other moves also work by themselves.

The problem with RFAs, assuming one actually worth signing, is that you have to overpay pretty significantly to get them, then also have to pay the compensation picks. The Jets gave $4.4M to Ladd, 5.2M to Buffy, and they still need to spend $17.5M just to get to the cap floor (assuming the $70M cap stays). Maybe in wet-dream-land they'd let a not-quite-21 y.o. 30-goal scorer walk for that price, but realistically you'd probably have to offer up around $6M before they'd even think about not matching. At that, you're risking paying a guy a lot more than he's worth if he stagnates or backslides, as well as giving up a 1st (possibly even two!), a 2nd, and a 3rd. Same for any RFA really. You get them to sign at a fair price, the team that owns them will just match it. You're just doing their negotiating for them.

What exactly could have been done better? We still have a good team, a ton of cap space, and a pretty good prospect pool. What realistic moves could we have made to put us in a better position? Filling the void left by Nick was always going to be a huge problem. Nothing we could have done, except maybe tank a few seasons to stock up on lottery picks, would have changed that. It's not like there have been a bunch of future-HoF defensemen that we passed on as UFAs. At least now we have the cap space to offer Suter top dollar, with enough left over for other improvements. We are not at all "dependent" on signing Parise. We may not have a top sniper, but we still have a top offense. Only 3 teams scored significantly more than the Wings this season. Even if we miss out on Parise and get someone like Jones instead, or even just re-sign Hudler and promote Nyquist, we should still be a very good offense. Figure out how to get the PP working again and "very good" becomes "elite". The good news is we actually have the cap space to go aggressively after several of the best UFA options. And we do have a few tradeable assets if we miss out there. Realistically, for being as good as we have been for this long and still having any chance at all of still being an elite team next year speaks volumes about just how well Kenny has been preparing for this moment.

Lu for Bryz, straight up.

Suter is still under contract. Kenny can't say anything about him, or even hint too overtly, or it would be tampering.

Considering Ericsson has only played three full seasons, no. Neither I nor anyone else remembers that. Kindl wasn't really a rookie either. He played 48 games in 10-11. He's improved a bit, and will almost certainly improve further in the next few years. But he doesn't look like he'll ever be anything special. I don't think he's a whipping boy yet, just pretty irrelevant.

4 seasons actually. Iwasn't a member here at that time, but other boards were certainly full of the same negativity. But that just means it's time for Kenny to prove them wrong again.

So you're saying the Wings are a little too young? Looking at top 15 forwards, top 8 defensemen, and top 3 goalies in games played: 8 players 26 or under 12 players 27-32 6 players over 32 4 out of 6 optimal positions are 27-32 Taking out the injury replacements: 7 under 10 prime 6 over Prior to adding Quincey and moving Commodore, we were perfect though. Guess it's no wonder things went south right after that...

Boychuk and Beauchemin both signed extentions this year. Chris Stewart is RFA. If they were UFAs, they'd be right near the top of my list. My list: Parise Jones Parenteau Stoll Gaustad Doan Selanne Jagr Suter Carle Wideman

While there's always a few exceptions, this year is something of an anomoly. In recent seasons, teams that score well in the regular season do tend to have more playoff success, as well as a much better chance of making the playoffs in the first place. I'm sure Kenny is keeping his eye on the future, but I don't think he would (or should) pass up any of the few decent options this year unless the prices are crazy. (Which they easily could be.) Myself, if I couldn't land Parise I'd likely look into an older guy for a year (Selanne would be great. Jagr or Whitney could be realistic.) and hopefully add a second-tier guy like Jones or Parenteau for something decent (though it's probably even more likely that those two get overpaid).

That's far too mechanical. Team building has to be organic. Find your strengths and develop around that, from whatever resources are available at the time. Even starting from a blank slate, there's only going to be so many options. If you're trying to conform to some rigid price and experience structure, you're limiting your options too far. Your approach would only work in a hypothetical world where a good option that fit your model was always available. A general outline is fine, provided you're willing to be flexible when appropriate. Yours just goes way too far. A young skill-player or two A young grinder or two A young defenseman or two A handful of seasoned veterans All the above on cheap contracts, allowing exceptions for exceptional players. The rest of the roster in their 'prime' give or take a year or two. As many as possible below market value, limited long-term deals. Strong two-way centers, at least 3, but 4-5 if possible (as long as said players can adjust to the wing), a few snipers, a few playmakers. As many versatile players as possible. Lots of speed. A few high-energy guys, very good on defense, and physical. One of them a center with very good faceoff skills. 3-4 defenseman who can score but aren't liabilities on defense. A couple physical stay-at-home guys. A good goalie. Age/experience/cap hits to be determined by availablility, priority of need, and future options.

They are all 2012-13 UFAs. I think the OP is think of them as potential trade acquisitions, since they will be in the last year of their contracts. Most though I would say either won't be traded or would cost more than we could give and/or more than they're worth. As potential UFAs looking forward, I'd be interested in pretty much all of them, though I doubt even half of them will get there.

It bears mentioning that Stoll is also better than Abby. He had a terrible year offensively, though still only two fewer goals and one less point than Abby. Consistently one of the top faceoff men in the league. Very good on the PK. Typically good for 15+ goals and 40+ points. Same size and just as physical as Abby. I think he'd be a great addition to our bottom six. Gus-Stoll-Bert/Cleary Abby-Helm-Eaves/Miller/Mursak Some veteran savvy and offensive acumen for Gus to work with, without the pressure of high expectations and top pair opposition he'd get in the top 6. Perfect spot for him to transition to the NHL.