ogreslayer

How many Wings fans would be pissed if say theoretically the Flyers did flip a 2nd rounder to Nashville for Suter's rights & he ended up signing there? I can imagine the pitchforks & torches and cries of "Don't give me the cost was too high crap again" already. If I were in Kenny's shoes, which clearly I'm not, yes I would want some sort of confidence most likely in the form of having one of those "it's really not tampering, I was just having a pleasant coversation with a player's agent" conversation prior to pulling the trigger if having the quality of the pick being conditional on signing isn't an option.

One man's opinion, not gospel, and that man is not an NHL GM. Again, you can't ignore the fact that inclusion of picks/players can be made conditional upon signing. So yes, I think with a generally weak UFA pool this year, it is entirely possible that a package for Suter's rights could turn into something as big as a 2nd round pick+prospect conditional on Suter signing. And who's to say that there won't be a GM that will consider the risk worth it by making a package like that non-conditional. Who here thought that Ville Leino was worth $4.5m a year for 5 years, yet Darcy Regier still took on the risk of signing him. Personally, I never discount humanity's desperation & stupidity when it comes to risk/reward decisions. For other examples of botched risk/reward decisions, see: DiPietro, Rick; Lecavalier, Vinny; and I'm sure many here would add Franzen, Johan

And you know this because you have contacts in both front offices? If Poile "creates a bidding war" wouldn't that be more than possible?

Only to have him cry about wanting to go back to Edmonton halfway through the season to force a trade? Maybe the Wings should. Sure helped out the Kings this year.

Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

You kind of hit it in the last part of your comment. Because you can make either the pick and/or the player conditional on signing. Like in the Stuart rights trade, the pick only changes hands if Stuart signs with SJ. If not, the best the Wings did was get a player that will be a depth add to GR. As far as that package for Suter, given that C'bus flipped a 5th rounder to Montreal for the rights to Wisniewski last year, I think a 3rd for Suter is more than fair. As to Ferraro, given his last 2 sub-par years in juniors & an underwhelming run in GR so far, I would have absolutely no problem seeing him flipped to Nashville as compensation if the Wings sign Suter early. At this point, I don't ever see him making an impact with the big club if he even makes it at all.

If I were Kenny, I would do a 3rd & Ferraro without hesitation given Landon's relative lack of development so far. One other thing to keep in mind, while nobody in the organ-i-zation can say publicly that they're going after Suter without being slapped by the NHL, there's nothing that says Suter's agent can't call up Kenny & talk theoreticals i.e. "So if Ryan were interested in X amount of years for Y amount of money, would you be interested?" If something like that were to happen, Suter could go to Poile to say "Listen, I'm leaning on signing with Detroit on the 1st. If you want something in return, you need to trade my rights to them before". Would Poile still try to hold the Wings over a barrel in that type of scenario? Probably, but the urgency to get something out of the situation would temper that a bit.

Would that make Helm...The Boy Who Skated or The Forward Who Lived? Why yes, yes I am a geek

How about Kellogg Arena a.k.a. The Cereal Bowl?

Any way to make sure that one of the things that doesn't change is this? Pretty please?

This one... and this one...

No on EMF because it's not 1990 and the song sucked back then too & no on Gary Glitter because it's not 1972 & personally, I think it would be a good thing to keep all association with kiddie porn out of the new arena. Parents, keep this guy away from the young 'uns: I say keep the personalized goal songs for players but just update them a bit. I've always been disappointed they never busted out Tool's song 'Hooker with a Penis' as Hudler's goal song.

Uh no, not really unless you're using the 2 games he played in the regular season in 2008 after leaving school as "straight to the Wings". He spent a good portion of 2 seasons in Grand Rapids. http://www.nhl.com/ice/player.htm?id=8471716 If that really is the definition of straight to the Wings then, I guess we can say Riley Sheahan did the same thing.

Actually it was reported that Tomas Vokoun's agent was given approval from the Caps to talk to the Pens about a contract prior to the official trade for his rights. That's why the $2m/2yr contract was announced at the same time of the trade. Doubt very much it would have happened if the Pens didn't already have the contract locked down.

Who is this McDonald guy you keep talking about? The Wings have no such person on the roster. Oh, you mean Joey MacDonald? I seriously doubt he'll be cut or thrown in on a deal. He'll be put through waivers & either play in GR or the Wings lose him if another teams wants to claim him. So realistically, he'll be in GR splitting time with McCollum and/or Petr Mrazek throughout the season.

I like to bag on the Mule because of what appears to be a lack of effort at times but really, the production the Wings get out of him for the cap hit he's at isn't anything to really ***** too much about. Just think if he was getting Vinny Lecavalier money.

And given Babcock's stance in that interview & others I've seen, he made it pretty clear that he was better, maybe slightly but better, than the 6th & 7th the Wings put on the ice. Ultimately it was better for his development to have him be "the man" in GR than get 11-15 minutes a game here or there in Detroit & potentially have his progress halted. So short-term, yeah Smith could have easily had one of those spots last year, and as Babs said probably the year before, but they're taking a longer-term stance from a development standpoint thinking he's going to be a solid top 4 contributor. Don't forget too that Kindl was out of waiver options & Smith's not so keeping Kindl up & sending Smith down also made sense from an organizational flexibility standpoint. There are reasons Smith wasn't up full time last year & him not being able to beat out Kindl or Commodore wasn't one of them.

It probably has something to do with the organ-I-zation thinking it was better for his development to stay in GR, get playing minutes, & play in all situations instead of taking the short-term view of putting him on the bottom pairing because that's clearly where he would have been. To quote one Mike Babcock: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1083865-detroit-red-wings-big-name-prospect-returns-to-the-red-wings

Short answer: No Long answer: Noooooooooooooo Helm is the straw that stirs the drink that is the bottom 6 as was seen in the Nashville series as soon as he went down. No way Kenny trades off Draper 2.0.

Simply put, Kenny won't go after RFAs regardless. On the off chance he would, I would rather see him try to steal Weber from Nashville but there's no way that's happening either. If the Wings lose out on Suter and/or Parise, I think Kenny will be looking at trades.

And all this time, goalies were considered the most stable & mentally balanced of all hockey players right? Just wait until he tries to make an NHL comeback at 47.

YouTube? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr0QbxjpI9s And from a different angle...

Exactly. No way he lasts into September where he's taking camp invites in order to earn a contract. Have a feeling he'll be signed within the first week of July.

Have to wonder now how long it takes before Nick is working with Hakan Andersson as a European scout. That's my guess on what he & Kenny talked about as far as him having a role in the organ-i-zation.

There's your new broadcast team when Ken & Mickey decide to hang 'em up.