Miller Brew

Franzen is due for a breakout in the regular season. He was projected to score 40 goals this year. But still, for the playoffs, your argument is totally on the surface to benefit your point. You disregard TOI, GWG (clutch), Franzen started off as a 3rd and 4th liner and now he's a BEAST in the playoffs. He's better than Hossa in the playoffs, that's indisputable. Franzen has 10 GWGs while Hossa only has 3. Look at the +/- differential. Even in a non-cap world, I'll take Franzen over Hossa in the playoffs any day of the week. But if you want to cream your pants for regular season stats, by all means, go for it. Playoffs is when hockey really begins.

Nice. If I remember correctly, Franzen started out on the 4th line and worked his way up to the 1st and 2nd line by being dominating and clutch. Since Franzen broke out, all is history. ...and I'm sure Franzen would make $6 million+ on any other team. He's a bargain. Hossa is a bargain right now but in 7 or 8 years he's overpaid and his contract is 1 year longer. It's not as cut and dry as you try to make it seem, Carman. Player/Playoffs/Salary/Contract all factor in to make Franzen the best choice for the Wings. Wings shed a s*** load of salary next year and, because of Hossa's contract, Chicago is in big time trouble next year if they want to keep their core/depth. I'm just glad Holland and the Wings don't have these kind of drama/issues.

How did he clear waivers? Holland has money to play with right now and we could use a little scoring depth... Even if we lose him when Franzen comes back, it'd still been nice to see Holland making a pro active move. Unless...... he already has something else up his sleeve. :evil_grin:

Who's happy that Hossa is gone? I didn't read that anywhere on this forum. Please quote it. Franzen is a better player in the playoffs and Franzen's $3.95 cap hit is better than Hossa's $5.27 cap hit. Post lockout Franzen has 51 points (+29) in the playoffs to Hossa's 42 (+7). Clearly Franzen is the better playoff performer and he's $1.3 million /yr less cap hit. In a perfect world Holland would have Franzen, Hossa, Hudler, Sammy, Quincey and Luongo. Unfortunately, in a cap world, that's not eva gonna happen. Holland made the better choice by keeping Franzen. Like I said, it doesn't seem that way now because Franzen is out on LTIR and won't be back for 4- 6 months, then Hossa comes back and scores 2 goals. It's easy for people to jump on the bandwagon. I can't jump on the band wagon, sorry.

How is it decided who gets first dibbs? We have all the cap room in the world right now. I say use it up...

Red Wings aka HockeyTown have the most playoff appearances and 4 Stanley Cups in the past 12 years of any other team in the NHL. I've lost count to how many WCF and SCF in the time frame. Yes I am jealous. The question isn't *if* they need to rid people, it's *how many* and *who* they have to shed because they're going to have all their cap invested into one line, overpaid goaltending and Campbell. Trust me, I'm not jealous. Hell, Chicago can't even mail in their qualifying offers in on time. No way they pull of this cap nightmare without losing significant depth. Anaheim is a one line team too. Look at where they are in the standings. EDIT: 4 Stanley Cups in 12 years, not 13. Forgot to include the lockout.

Okay, I agree regular season stats are fun to look at. But playoff stats are even funner. Compare their playoff stats. Clutch playoff performers and power forwards like the Mule are a special breed. Factor in the pay differential and the choice becomes clear. Hossa scores goals; Franzen wins games (clutch). Sure Hossa looks like the better choice now because of an unforeseen injury to the Mule. But once the Mule is back, the Red Wings will be all fired up.

That tends to happen when key players are out injured. I doubt the 3 SHG's would never had happen if Blake was on the blue line QB'ing. That said, I hate using injuries as an excuse. SJ was horrid and Chicago is playing good right now. They'll will fizzle. It might take for the Red Wings to give them a good ol' beat down again, but they will fizzle. Remember Chicago had to suck since 1961 to get to where they are right now. And after this 1-year window, they'll be faced with cap issues... aren't they over the cap now? They must be dollars and pennies close. I'm glad Holland doesn't have to mortgage away the entire future for a one year chance to win. It's probably nice getting all that great talent from drafting, but I'm sure it wasn't fun to suck so bad for so long to get there. Now they are going to be losing some of those guys because they love to overpay their players and can't manage the franchise. This is Chicago's high. It'll be short lived.

Losing Kronwall may have hit the morale of the team. But I don't blame the scoring drought on losing him completely. I PK and PP took a hit, for sure. (our injuries has really hindered this team, but not to the point where they can't score/win) Wings had 40 shots and 20 solid scoring chances tonight. That's just bad puck luck and unlucky, good puck luck and lucky for the Thrashers. All good teams go through this.... Wings don't see it as long because they usually have Franzen's, Fillipula's and William's to get that one clutch goal to spark the team. I'm blaming this on a scoring drought and the team just needs to keep working hard and continue to play through it. It's Babcock's job to keep the team ignighted by switching up the lines. You can see the holes, but I still think this team is good enough to win a lot of games we lost. We're still outplaying opposition for majority of the game and getting chances. They just need to keep working hard. Wings' confidence looked down in the 3rd period tonight. They lost that spark and hunger to win. I think they were feeling like it was hopeless.... That bothers me more.

Limiting the highest scoring team in the league to only 2 goals is something to build off. The boys really need to smother the net more. Bert should just plow through the crease instead of skate behind the net and try a wrap-around or a pass. If he takes a goalie interference penalty for driving the net, then I'm still all for it. I'd rather this team take goalie interference penalties than hooking penalties. Drive.the.net. We don't have finesse shooters so the boys need to get their nose dirty at the net. I'm a HUGE Bert supporter and I'd love nothing more than to see him form back into the human bulldozer he was. Dats looked shaky. I can't blame the first line on Bert or Homer when Dats was even connecting with Zetterberg... I think our 1st line problem is Dats off his game right now. Not all on the Bert / Homer. Draper took some stupid penalties tonight. Did he get 2? Can't remember. Last game the boys took a lot of penalties too. They can't go to the box with such bad PKing. Stay out of the box and we don't have to worry about our week PKing. EDIT: I came down on Ralfi last game for being lazy and not playing to his potential. Tonight he had glimpses of brilliance. He shows some amazing speed in the 1st period. I didn't know he could skate that fast. I thought he was Helm at first.

Holy cow, look at all San Jose injuries... Torrey Mitchell Rob Blake Devin Setoguchi Brad Staubitz Jody Shelley http://tsn.ca/nhl/injuries/

I was thinking the same thing

$3.95 cap hit > $5.25 cap hit Playoff clutch > Playoff flop 11 years > 12 years Non-NHL Investigation/attention > NHL Investigation/attention Franzen > Hossa

What makes me feel better about losing Hossa was keeping Franzen. Franzen is the BEAST. This team does look a lot worse without Franzen, Fillipula, Kronwall, Lilja and Williams. I agree.

Wings beat both of these teams already (while injured none-the-less). Not too worried. Hossa will be back to his old form by playoffs. And so will Franzen EDIT: 3.....2......1...countdown before all the hawk fans bombard LGWs to tell us how great their team is and the best in the world history of NHL to ever lace em up... and they are locked to win the cup. 1961

Franzen is playoff clutch. He's money. Holland made the right choice. 12 years for an aging Hossa is just wayyy too long....

Dats has looked average compared to what he's capable of. He seemed off with Zetterberg tonight too.. I wonder if he's nursing an undisclosed injury.

Ovie, you can't do that... unless it's to Crosby or Malkin.

Careful... Thugs rob old men for that kind of loot.

Why are you insecure? Why do you need to troll other boards and demand people to stroke your ego? Don't you have a hawky forum where all the members can take turn stroking egos...? Isn't your team playing tonight? Why are you here? Answer: Insecurity issues.

This article doesn't mention the fact that once Wings are healthy, they'll be back to form.

Patrick Kane, is it you? Either Hawks aren't playing tonight or they really don't have their own message forum. Which is it? Why else would Hawks' thugs be here? Here's 20 cents, please don't jump old men anymore....

How about this... Keep Lidstrom and trade Lebda? Sound like a good idea?

Sharks / Hawks game tonight? I didn't know hossa was back. Then again I don't care either. Hossa's a great player until the playoffs start. Who is in net for Sharks? My guess is Nabokov, right? He's not a very impressive goalie.

Bert looked good tonight but like everyone else, couldn't finish.