ogreslayer

You sir, just won the internet today!

Well it was directed more at Halpern's shield, not his face. Mmmmmmm...shield.... My guess is that Ott is going to be in favor of making them mandatory now

Supposedly, the ones on sale right now through the NHL shop are screen printed btw. No thank you.

Unless you knew all along that you were going to buy him out between year 1 & 2 anyway.

Hmmm... If only Anaheim would take a trade like McCollum, White (pending UFA), & Miller (pending UFA) for a Bobby Ryan. Hmmm... If only Calgary would have taken Pearce (leaving hockey to go back to med school), Sammy (injured & has a NTC), & Emmerton for Bouwmeester. Hmmm... If only every trade Kenny tried to make for a top 6 forward or #1/2 d-man wouldn't start with teams wanting Smith, Nyquist, and/or Mrazek in return & instead they would take a combination of the Wings' bottom 6 forwards & #6/7 d-men for high caliber players . Hmmm...If only Kenny didn't care about rebuilding the talent pool in the farm system that was dreadful after spending the 90's & early 00's trading his best picks & prospects away and he would just continue to flip them for more bottom 6 forwards or bottom pairing d-men. Hopefully that offensive creativity is on the way in the next few years i.e. Nyquist, Tatar, Jurco, Frk, Almquist, Jarnkrok, Pulkkinen, Sproul, etc. as long as Kenny doesn't go nuts & trade them all off.

Then maybe they shouldn't have become a professional athlete where things like trades are common. Maybe a nice stable career as a dentist would have been better.

Howard deserves $5m+ much more than Flip does. My biggest concern is the length of a contract especially since the Wings still haven't found a backup for him that Babcock trusts. How many more years of playing 75-85% of the season can he take before he has a major breakdown?

Can the Wings find a replacement for a 40pt top 6 winger/3rd line center for less than the $5m+ Flip reportedly wants? Probably...

More on the new faces in GR: http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2013/04/red_wings_prospect_teemu_pulkk_1.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter Marchenko is only there to practice, won't see any game action.

Supposedly, Richard Nedomlel & Alexei Marchenko are also in GR right now too. Nedomlel on amateur tryout evidently.

I've got 2 authentic Yzerman CCM jerseys, home & away, from back when he was still playing. I can tell you with all certainty that the C is on the left above the wing, not on the right above the wheel. There might be a chance the jersey was an old CCM that was customized after the switch was done due to the current Reebok jersey and the C was placed their because that's what's current. Regardless, I would be skeptical.

See Hatcher, Darian and Whitney, Ray after the 2004-05 lockout

Having seen quotes, interviews, etc. from & about Brunner, I think the bigger issue for him this year has been the grind of the schedule/travel, not the smaller ice surface. He would have had adjust to that regardless but it was made extra tough by how condensed the schedule was due to the lockout. Give him a full, normally spaced out regular season & I think he'll be fine.

I'm surprised Helm won't be playing this season......said nobody who's been following his injury this year. More surprising is Babcock saying that Flip is being dropped to centering the 3rd line now between Cleary & Brunner with Miller moving up to the 2nd with Franzen & Nyquist.

And that's why Kenny will use those two amnesty buyouts. I think they'll be Sammy & Cola which frees up $5.5m. Doubt it would be Q instead of Cola but that would be $6.775m that way.

The cap drops from $70.2m to $64.3m next season. As of right now, the Wings have projected cap space of roughly $17.2m to spend with 18 players on the roster. In house UFAs are Howard, Brunner, Filppula, Cleary, Miller, & White. RFAs are Andersson, Nyquist, Kindl, & Smith.

And it's a shock that Bettman would take a good thing & ruin it by running it into the ground why?

And reportedly hasn't had a drink since that night. http://www.mlive.com/griffins/index.ssf/2013/01/detroit_prospect_riley_sheahan.html

Agreed, I've been saying for weeks now that Sammy & Cola will be bought out. And unless Kenny pulls off a trade for a #1 or 2 d-man that sends one back in the deal (most likely Smith I would think), White will be a goner too as a UFA.

If they're going to try to convince Nick to play, his best friend will have to be there right?

It wouldn't surprise me too much if Nashville shopped him around to see if someone would be willing to blow them away with an offer but even with his cap hit a shade north of $7.8m, their overall payroll is only sitting at $53.5m right now.

Any chance the Wings could bring in Homer next season as a special adviser for the sole purpose of getting him face time on 24/7?

Maybe you should ask Darren McCarty, Darian Hatcher, & Ray Whitney whether Kenny would ever use something like an amnesty buyout.

Bouwmeester won't be available on the open market unless St Louis uses one of their amnesty buy out on him. He's signed for next season at a cap hit of $6.68m.

And yet possibly the best coach of his era will probably never get a Jack Adams award. I think that's one of the reasons Babs is so stubborn about keeping Cleary in the line up. "What do you mean superstar filled roster? I won with Dan friggin' Cleary in my top 6!"