Opie

Unfortunately in Boston he will probably be on a scoring line. They will probably try to have him play a wing to Kessel's line. They need some one to replace Murray. Ryder will probably be on the second line with Kessel and Yelle, While the first line right now would have to be Bergeron Savard Lucic/Sturm, eewwwww Or maybe Ryder Savard Bergeron Sturm Kessel Lucic Yelle Axelson Kobasew Schaefer Krejci Nokelainen Reich and Thornton as extras, I know it looks like there are two centers on every line, well that is because the B's have 8 C's. The other problem would be if Kessel reverts back to mid season form and not post season form he could be on the 4th line or even benched again. *Wow putting together those lines was no where near as fun as putting Wings lines together. -- As much as we talk about the Wings signing Hossa as pissing off Pens fans, B's fans around here and the media for some reason thought they had a legit shot at Hossa, the Org must have too, otherwise why not go after a scoring forward until after Hossa made up his mind.

Puck Daddy Blog snowbirds ?

Because he was hampered by a lingering knee injury in which he had surgery in the offseason on that knee, but no that couldn't be a possibility it must be that he is old and can't hack it. I will admit he had a less than great post season, but the one glaring mistake is overtaking his above average play the rest of the time. People get hung up on the Dallas Game 5 (I think) line change gaffe that he made, just like they got hung up on the Lilja give away. Sure it was a big mistake that cost the Wings a game, BUT, it is not like every time he was on the ice he was making those plays. Is he the fastest guy, NO, is he the most Skilled, NO, can he get the job done on the PK, YES, for most of the 07-08 reg. season and Playoffs was he dependable, YES. I can not wait for the reg season so that every week it can be a different player who needs to step up or be benched or retire or be traded for a bag of pucks. Last year it was Lids, Dats, Kronwall, Cleary, Sammy, Ralf, Z, everyone except for Draper, that is the only person that this board didn't try to vilify, crucify or deep fry last season. Root for the logo not for or against the name on the back, trust me it will make the experience a lot less painful and a lot less stressful.

This post made me do some thinking and I am wondering, does anyone here think Holland said to Lilja, this is what we will pay you, however; if Stuart re-signs you will be the odd man out. I mean Holland (minus the Feds issue) has been pretty upfront with everyone and let them know his plans, I bet even J-ho knows what the long term (3-4 year) plan is for him in this org. IF that conversation between Lilja and Holland did in fact happen I would not be surprised to see Lilja traded, but for right I see Lilja staying, but you bring up an interesting point and a thought provoking one at that!!

If I had to come up with different words for my opinion I would be hard pressed. They will toil in that group at the bottom of the playoff push that is separated by about 4 points from 7-10 in the conference. They will be like the Avs last season, I don't expect much from them, but anything will really be a positive growth for them. Campbell on D for them is like what Toronto has for D, a whole lotta offense, he can hit (doesn't hit too often though), but his defensive game is strides behind his offensive game. He is an over hyped Bryan McCabe in my opinion.

I think there are 800 Jimmy Howard threads this could have been in. But I think the team will wait until next season see if he has it as Ozzie's back up, if not they will hope Larsson will, if not they will find some one else. Edit: I thought this post summed it up pretty well:

Pretty cool, can you imagine that, your phone rings, id says mom, so you are like, "Hey ma, hows it going, WHAT, Dallas Drake, what, ahhh I just shat my pants! Can you hold for a second I got get changed!"

Exactly, why is it so hard to repeat, because, it is so damn hard to win it the first time. I don't think repeating is any more difficult than winning it period.

I agree, however, if this team wasn't so deep he also wouldn't be staring down the barrel of a training camp battle. I am not saying he is uber valuable to the Wings, but his skills would be very useful to a team like Tampa that has s*** for D right now, sorry they have 2 d-men now that can actually play D. Other than that they have no D! It is not always what value a player has but what a gm sees his perceived value to be. In Detroit Lilja's value (along with Lebda, Meech, Quincey, Cheli) is a lot less than it would be on a team like Tampa, Florida, Phoenix, LA, St. Louis, etc because they don't have a top 4 that includes anything close to one of Lids-Ralf-Kronwall-Stuart, , let alone all of them. While Detroit fans may complain about having a player like Lilja, and how he is one of the worst players on the team, think about how a fan of Tampa feels when Lilja is an upgrade over 4 of their 6 d-men. I still think Lilja being traded makes the most sense because it A) frees up space on the backend and B) clears salary. I just don't think they will trade him just after signing. Not saying they won't but I see a sign in trade as less fair than trading a player under contract (I know we disagree, but it is not like that is the first time we have disagreed). But in order to trade in my little fair world the Wings have to get rid of 2 players, a forward (Sammy* to free up 1.2 mil ) and a D-man (Lebda, Meech, Quincey to free up the spot ). It will probably be cleaner and easier to trade Lilja and be done with it in one move. *Sammy seems like the most likely candidate and with Hossa and Mule and Flip and Huds proving they can be secondary scoring threats Sammy has become expendable.

NO they both have no movement clauses.

Don't get me wrong ZDH(omer) has great chemistry and was one of the best lines in hockey, however: -To think that Hossa wouldn't seemlessly slide onto that first line is underrating Dats and Homer. Hossa has many of the same skills that Z has. This puts Dats back to his natural position. My only worry with this line is will Dats revert to his old ways of not shooting enough. -Huds Z Mule, you have an up and coming homer with more ability beyond the dots in the O zone with the puck. Huds who has probably the best release on the team, and let us not forget Z has tremendous set up skills and fantastic one on one skills, much like the center of the first line! -Cleary -Flip- Sammy this will be scoring line 2b as opposed to a more traditional 3rd line, offensive upside, much better than most third lines in the league and will probably see a lot of time against 4th lines, you have three guys who would easily be top 6 on most teams and for Cleary he is a 2nd liner on probably every other team in the league. Yet this line can play very solid d. Speed may not be their biggest asset but this is not Luc Homer Igor speed either. 4th line-Draper and whomever else. This line I am going to name the lego line. There are so many different type, style, size pieces that you can put in with Drapes and have the line be successful, D-mac, Downey, Helm, Maltby, Abdelkader, Leino, Kopecky. This line gives Babs the ability to bring in some of the young guys and let them play with a great leader and teacher in Draper! Whomever plays on this lill do the following: Fore Check like their life depends on it, play tenacious D (hahahahaha) and work extremely hard. These lines may look like you would like to see them in a different order but what team in the league can throw out four lines that you could easily play all of them 15 minutes a night and call it a division champ (barring injuries). Babs can always fall back to ZDH(omer), Huds Flip Hossa, Cleary Draper Sammy, Maltby Kopecky Downey, and still be just as effective. Just because Babs says these are his starting lines, that doesn't mean he may not see something mid season, mid game, mid practice that makes him change the lines. It is like he walked into the Ferrari plant and the owners said hey here are all of the parts you can use, put them together how ever you want. Regardless of what it looks like it will still be a Ferrari!!

Odds are other than D-mac and Downey any red wing player put on Waivers would get picked up including Lilja. While the people on this board may trash Lilja, he is a big PKer, shot blocker, solid stay at home D-man who would easily be in the top 4 of most of the bottom 10 teams in the league. And the only reason why D-mac and Downey would make it through is that they are part time players, other than I don't see a team letting Quincey or any other Red Wing player making it through waivers, especially when you consider the respect Holland and Andersson are getting around the league and in the media about their drafting and skill scouting abilities. But just my opinion!

While he may have said he would trade Dats for Crosby straight up, what I assume he meant or was referencing was the two completely separate from their teams, just talking about which player he would think is better or has the overall better upside. Nowhere did he say he wanted Holland to rip the cup champion team apart and trade Dats for Crosby which is what you said. You failed, and you are way to wound up about this, but that is just my take. I have been there trust me I get to wound up on this board all of the time.

Same here, if Franzen goes on a tear with Z, that will be big bucks for both next year. The other thought I had, because one personality keeps the other in check, is that maybe Franzen sees the benefit between playing with a guy like Z as opposed to Fil. Not a dig on Fil, but most centers Franzen would be paired with on other teams would be very similar to Fil, no where near the category of Z. Maybe that makes Mule want to stay at a discount. But the 3rd personality kicks in and says if Mule wants that much money where it handcuffs the Wings, that frees up money to potentially land Hossa and Hossa >> MULE!!

http://mvn.com/nhl-wild/2008/08/27/the-bes...nhl-the-top-10/ Puck Daddy blog referenced the above list, that is just the top 10, there are two others for 11-20 and 21-30. EDIT: The ranking criteria:

I'm not saying Huds can't do it, but the original post I made was referencing some one saying he could focus on offense, in this system he will need to focus on D no matter where he is.

They are going to turn him into a power forward!! LOL

egroen, The only thing that is a little deceiving about that post is that Babs expects everyone on all 4 lines to focus on D, that may be why Huds ends up on the 4th line so much (not that the 4th line doesn't play d, but they have a lot less minutes). What made this team a champion was every forwards commitment to defense, Huds will still have to focus on his own end a lot especially with increased minutes.

For some reason I seem to recall Sammy on the 2nd pp more than Stuart???? I could be wrong though.

Isn't vet minimum 500k?

Oh there was no sourness meant to that post, I was just bringing up that in the case of detroit he weighed attendance in other barns more than with other teams that is all. Sorry if that sounded harsh!

arnoldbuck, In the puck daddy blog the original author stated that Wing's fans in attendance at other teams barns counted for a lot on his rankings. The fact that when he went to Buffalo games (I think he said Buffalo) 50% of fans if not more were Wing's fans. The original author also said that he took into affect the Det economy. Regardless of what side of the debate you are on, his criteria for this is accurate. However when you are choosing your own criteria how can you not be accurate?

I gotcha man, just trying to explain myself because saying he won't change lines (the first line of my first post) I really meant he won't have to, of course it is wise. But after reading my post I realized my statements were made out of excitement. As to the last part, seriously all I have to do to keep me level headed about this year is review last years Pats season!!

I assume all ranking was done based on a three year stretch.