ogreslayer

No, it's not. http://www.freep.com/story/sports/nhl/red-wings/2015/05/20/mike-babcock-detroit-red-wings/27594379/

Thank you for providing me what I'm sure will be the biggest laugh I had all week. I'll leave you now to argue with others.

Jump to conclusions much yourself? Just reading the tea leaves here with Franzen, not wishing a career ending injury on anyone. But since you asked, yes I think there are still concerns with Hank's long-term durability based on his past back issues & on top of that, given that he was just more than likely concussed with a gloved punch to the face, I also have concerns there too. In your mind, does that also mean that I'm hoping that Hank's career gets cut short too "by any means necessary"? Just both patterns of injury there to be concerned about, more so in Franzen's case given the circumstances.

That's at least 10 concussions in his career & that number comes directly from the Red Wing's own official web site. http://redwings.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=756952 So yeah, it may be speculation that his career might be cut short because of it but based on his past history, science behind repeat concussions, & the effects that have been seen in other athletes, it certainly isn't wild or "laughable" speculation. Really at this point the question shouldn't be "Will Franzen's career be cut short?" it should be "By how much will Franzen's career be cut short?". Link? See above...

It's actually up to 50% of 3 contracts at a time & the total dollar amount can't exceed 15%, or $10.35m this season, of the upper cap limit so overall dollar amounts are very much relevant. Source: Section C on page 272 of the CBA http://www.nhl.com/nhl/en/v3/ext/CBA2012/NHL_NHLPA_2013_CBA.pdf

Speculation but given the fact that he's out for another extended period of time because of headaches, signs are kind of pointing in that direction are they not?

You are absolutely correct. That was actually the reason the Wings had to play out the string with Sammy's contract. He was still considered injured during the buyout window. It's sounding more & more though that Franzen's career could very well be cut short by concussion symptoms. If that's the case, the Wings will get cap relief with the sole exception that they'll need to be at or below the cap with Franzen's salary included for one day at the start of each season which is what Philly & Boston have to do with the Pronger & Savard situations. Well, that is until the trolls in NHL HQ decide to change that rule too eventually.

That so looks like a toddler's onesie to me

So maybe the Wings should also sign Ken Dryden or Vladislav Tretiak to back up Brodeur after they trade for him to add to their number of legendary goalies?

And basically, if Franzen decides to hang 'em up early without a Pronger/Savard style injury exception, instead of taking the cap recapture penalty, the Wings can use a buy out then. "Hey Johan, instead of retiring & getting nothing, you mind if we use an ordinary course buy out on you now? You get paid 2/3rds of your remaining salary & we don't get hit with as big a cap penalty. You cool with that? Yeah?" Really, the only risk the Wings have in not doing that earlier is opportunity risk i.e. what prospect or free agent could they have in that spot instead.

I would almost say that Dallas Eakins just felt someone walk on his grave, but would MacLean want to go from a poorly constructed team in Ottawa to the absolute ****show they have in Edmonton? Sit at home the rest of the season & go to Toronto in the off season when they fail to land Babs.

By answering the way he did, Bernier pretty much just said, "I am completely ignorant as to who who this guy is & was too lazy to look up even the most basic of information on him. I am only here because I was offered free tickets to the game.". If only the reporter had responded with...

You are invited as a celebrity, athlete or not, to attend an event with a red carpet & reporters to honor someone. You clearly do not know anything about said someone. You can't take a couple of minutes before hand to at least google the guy for god's sake? You don't even need to spend 10 minutes reading his wiki, just pull out your phone & google the dude. None of that is on the reporter who is there to cover the damn event, it's Bernier being an utter & complete moron. And with that, here's a picture of the ugliest Christmas Elf standing next a guy collared after an appearance on Dateline NBC.

Not that it really matters given that Brunner went unclaimed, but waiver priority is based on who has the lowest percentage of possible points in the standings at the time of the claim.

capgeek.com has a 'Calculate Waiver Status' option if you drill down on individual players

Yes. It sounds like they're broadcasting from the parking lot.

So the blog would have to switch to only covering the Griffins soon?

I believe you forgot Howard Is Average

Conceivably, they could take on his salary with Chara out but when he comes back, it would all depend on who they sent back Buffalo's way. If everyone is healthy (with the exception of Savard of course) their cap space is only $3.7m & Myers comes with a $5.5m cap hit. Given those numbers, I would think that Boston would look for a less costly, short term solution.

Well, it's assumed he does. See thought #28 here: http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/30-thoughts-the-value-of-young-stud-defencemen/

Officially, Quennville is the highest paid coach in the league at $2.9m a year. Roy's overall compensation is probably more than that given his additional VP role.

Roy's titles are Head Coach & VP of Hockey Operations http://avalanche.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=32596

If the league is willing to take less money from NBC, Rogers, regional networks, etc. they could probably make that happen. No network is going to pay full price though if they don't have exclusive rights.

Nor would the Ilitch family want to assume the cost of staging broadcasts or other risks in forming their own Red Wings network I would think, even if splitting the risks with a rights partner. There is definitely strength in numbers in this case. Don't forget, we're just a decade removed from things being bleak enough that the league gave NBC broadcast rights for no money upfront, only getting a share of ad revenue after NBC covered its production/distribution costs. I won't even get into details on how recent trends in cord cutting could spell trouble for future revenue for sports leagues. Ultimately what I'm saying is that don't think the Wings, if they even had the ability to split off on their own in regards to broadcast rights, that it would be a slam dunk success.

It's not a legal issue at all. Direct from the FCC.... All blackouts of sports events today are the result of contractual agreements between the content owners (i.e., the sports leagues or teams) and the programming distributors (i.e., the broadcast television networks and stations, and the cable and satellite networks and systems). Each sports league has different rules about when a televised event is blacked out, and those rules are part of the contracts the league or team signs with programming distributors. http://www.fcc.gov/guides/sports-blackouts It works this way because the NHL (and by that it means the owners too) & their broadcast partners agreed to it, the government really has no involvement in it at all. The only thing the recent FCC rule change impacts, as I stated in an earlier post, is that leagues no longer have government backing for blackouts which was really only there for public perception to begin with. The repeal is all about positive publicity for the FCC more than anything else as they can use it as an example of being pro-consumer even though it changes nothing. The only thing that is going to impact leagues' abilities to control their broadcast rights like this will be if Congress takes away their anti-trust protections & in essence declares the leagues/teams don't hold the exclusive rights to broadcast their product. Personally, I don't ever see that happening.