PavelValerievichDatsyuk

That twitter page also mentions Edlaer for Tatar/Nyquist as a possibility and mentions Tanev as a player Canucks might be willing to move. It all seems more like speculation.

I say we draft the next Russian we find with a V_ _ _ _ _ _vich middle name.

I'm actually on board with Larkin, though I think I voted for Abby originally. I think the team's at the point that the young players need to be taking over the load and it would be a good message that the team is yours based on your present contribution rather than a hierarchy of experience. DK would be a good option for that message as well, but Larkin is more of a lock to be an elite player on the Wings for a long while.

To be fair, D men (which he was with the WIngs, but not the Leafs) are much less likely to receive the Hart - especially after the Norris was introduced in 54. He was a runner up one year, though, and won the Norris and 3 Byngs. But you're right - Fed's Hart, 2 Selkes, and Leaster B. probably wins out, though the later 2 weren't around during Kelly's time (so it's comparing a Hart to a norris). ...and Feds is my all-time favourite so I'm not going say he wasn't the better one.

As you say, Sawchuck played 7 seasons elsewhere, but it is different for goalies and few stay with one team so you're correct in not considering him. But also, Lindsay played 3 years in Chicago. Fedorov played 5 years for other teams Red Kelly played 8 years for the leafs so that's a bit different to me But also in comparing to other retired numbers, just amount of time in Detroit should matter as much as the percent of their career: Fedorov played 13 years in the D Abel only really played 9 full years with the Wings (+ 3 partial years:15gp, 24gp [Overipe policy?], 2gp). 12 if you count those Lindsay played 14 years here Sawchuck played 13 years here (+1 year with 7 gp as a prospect) That would make a case for Red Kelly, though since he played 13 years in Detroit. Anyway, I think 91 should be retired. I also think we'll get more numbers retired in the modern era than the past, because it is partially a way for the Ilitches to honor their own legacy as owners and the a golden age they helped create.

We lost Lidstrom and Stuart end of 2012, 2 important Pkers. Everyone's talking about forwards, but we've lacked the D men who fight for the front of the next and can control rebounds so they can clear it. But it's been since 09-10 since we were top 10 in the league for PK percent. I'm not too worried about the Pk, though. We've been middle of the pack and I think Marchenko and Mrazek will help it get better. Totally agree about skill guys on the PK - If Larkin and AA get time that will help more. I'm more worried about the PP.

In his defence, he was great the first year after in Anaheim. His dropoff was when he was traded to Columbus post-lockout. That team was pretty horrible (except Nash's line, which I don't think Feds was ever on) and finished bottom 6-7 each year he was there. I think his pts. in the years: 05-06: 44 06-07: 42 07-08: 41 Would have been higher in a better situation (I'd add 10 with a playoff team). I think he could have had impact in 07 - not a driving force, but a support. I think he would have been 38 at that point. By the time he was in Washington he was definitely not the same player. Edit: Then Again 38 is pretty old. I remember watching him in Washington and it was kind of sad to see his magic gone (totally understandably due to age). I didn't watch him much in Columbus - maybe that the way he was there too.

Agree mostly. I didn't mean that they were all better - just that there's better options. I think Bishop and Fleury will be trade and anyone that would be willing to trade for them would almost definitely protect them as well. If I'm the Vegas GM I'd cross Howard off the list though, because he'll be 33. I'd go for the younger goalies (Varly, Neurvith, Subban) It would be kind of funny if Varlamov and Neuvirth end up back together like in Washington. If that link is realistic, Vegas is going to be set for goaltending.

If you had the choice between Howard, Malcolm Subban, Niemi, Riemer, Neuvirth, Fleury, Bishop, Miller, Hammond, Varlymov (as that article guesses) would you chose Howard? I don't see it happening, especially with his caphit - though Vegas probably won't have any really big contracts so they won't really have to worry about that.

But we have players lower on the food chain than Helm and Glendening. Why is the attack on them? Just the money issue? No Miller/Ott gets you Mantha and you can bump Helm down a line. Or you get Frk or Bertuzzi. Then if we don't sign Vanek (who I don't think should be here long term) then you can have Mantha. T-Lark-Abby Z-Niel-Ny Helm-AA-Mantha Shea-Glen-Bert/Frk Jurco/pulk I think Mantha needs more development time, so I'm fine with Vanek for a year and let Mantha steal his spot sometime during the year. Giving Pulkkinen or Jurco a shot could have been a better for the team, though. Don't like the Miller/Ott signings.

Maybe that was a misleading way of describing it. There was a article I read recently (that I can't find, but will try some more) that said he looked into surgery for his knee problems that kept him out a bit this past year. The doctor's told him surgery wasn't an option and Holland said he's going to look into changing his training methods. To me, the impression I got was it's the Cleary path of a deteriorating knee. Edit: Couldn't find the article, but here's one of him talking about his knee rehab. http://kuklaskorner.com/tmr/comments/roughly-translated-niklas-kronwall-talks-about-rehabbing-his-knee-and-the-w I also read an article where he's asked about early retirement and he shut it down immediately saying he wants to play as long as possible - So maybe I was wrong to suggest that he might not last the rest of his contract, but I'd guess that he'll miss games each year and that will be opportunity for the younger D men.

An umoveable 1.8 mill isn't a big deal to me. I'm more concerned about the Nielson deal - though it could end being good and have liked what I've heard about him. If we need to retool the roster, it will be Nielson, Howard, and Ericsson's big deals that get in the way. We have loaded up with expensive lower line deals (MIler, Ott, Glen, Helm) which isn't smart, but hopefully Mill and Ott are just for this year (unrealistically, I hope they both end up in AHL by the end of this season). I know you call all lower line players plugs, but Glendening is good a faceoffs and in the shutdown role on elite players. That isn't that common. Many young players would be made foolish against Crosby or Stamkos. And 21 pts. is good for a 4th liner. But, yes, we could get another servicable 4th line center easily - We had Emmerton, Andersson. And I'm sure Turgeon might do fine, but we don't know that for sure and all young players have the transition year(s) so why not keep the guy that we know is really good at the role. I know what I described is what others have complained about - blocking the youth, but Glendening's only 27 - that's prime hockey - the one's we should be worried about blocking youth are the older signings like Miller and Ott. But anyway, I think we'll have plenty of turnover in the next few years: Kronwall gone in 3 (though the news of his inoperable knee suggests maybe less) Green has 2 years left Smith 1 year left (we'll see what happens) Pulkkinen, Jurco, Vanek, MIller, Ott, all have questionable futures upfront (many I think won't be around past this year) Mantha, Bertuzzi, Svech, on the team soon.

I like Glendening. It's a bit too much money, but I'm not sure why people are complaining about the 4 year term. 27 year old players that could be UFAs don't usually sign contracts that short. He'll be 32 at the end of it - we'll get his best years. Also, something that might be considered for context in the overpayment is that Glendening's previous cahit (628.333) and salary was ridiculously low - if you think of it as back payment the 2 contracts probably equal out to a fair amount for cool hand Luke.

I don't think there's much of a chance we'll see Frk unless its on a later call up. When's the last time a player made the team without earlier call ups? (Larkin's situation doesn't count) I think if he had a future he would have been chosen instead of AA or Mantha for earlier call ups. I still think Ott won't play much and will be sent down to make room when come upon roster problems. The D situation will be very interesting to see play out. I do think the # of NHL games shows what the organization thinks. XO's 25 games says to me that the 7th spot is his. Jensen's never even had 1 NHL game so I think he's definitely sent down. I've really wanted the 6'4" righty, Sproul, to get more of a chance than his 1 game. I hope we keep him up as a group of 8.

Hmmm, didn't know that. He has pretty good numbers in the AHL: 14-15: 75 games: 61 pts. 15-16: 56 games: 48 pts. He's outproducing Mantha (though Mantha's a year younger) and was 11th in the AHL 14-15. Looks like maybe we messed up by not signing him.

Why, yes, I did read the post. I thought it was clear that I was pointing out that the North American part was not applicable since half the guys are North American. Also, the 4 I listed all have "simple" names. If you want to augment your criticism of the draft, you could say there weren't enough tough players chosen.

Quine and Sproul are from Ontario Hudon and Ouellet are from Quebec. Though Ouellet was born in France he grew up in Quebec.

Maybe it's a different experience with the US's airport security. I travel Montreal-Toronto regularly (yes not 2.5 hrs, but domestic so check in is the same) and I leave my place 1 hr before flight (weekdays, the airport is easy to get through). 15 min cab rides. Only a carry-on, so no baggage check. Under 2 hrs. on both sides combined. But fine, I withdraw my insanity comment. Maybe Datsyuk will live out in the boonies. There's so many other problem's with this idea, anyway. For instance, Datsyuk as a travelling KHL player often won't even be flying out of St. Petersburg. But more than anything: St. Peterborough is wwwwwwaaaaayyyyyy closer than Detroit. Anyway, I'm going to excuse myself from all these why Datsyuk left/was he justified conversions - they're oddly infuriating and I also feel a little creepy with all the speculations about the specifics about how Datsyuk lives his private life.

This is not correct. The rumours started before the Albom article. It was even reported on Hockey Night in Canada about a week or 2 before. Datsyuk was trying to quell the speculation and said he wanted fans to hear it from him. You can call the article a distraction, but the questions were already being asked so it would have been a distracting storyline anyway. A 3 hour flight is 7 hour commitment? Insanity. Anyway, I checked google when the 30 hour discussion was going onand it's a 2 and half hour flight. Domestic flight - show up an hour before, daughter greets you at airport. It's really crazy that people have had to go to such lengths to convince people that living in Russia is easier to see his daughter than across the world in Detroit. This a daughter from a previous marriage so he's not going home to live with her. Maybe he'll see her every few weeks compared to a few times in the few months of the offseason.

If we didn't trade Datsyuk's caphit, we probably wouldn't have Nielson or Vanek. I would be interested to see what the criticism level would be like around here in that case. No one will know for a while what we missed out on with Chychrun, so I think speculating can only go so far. I think it's interesting to compare this trade to the 2013 draft trade where we similarly moved down in the 1st round. 2013: down 2 spots (18:Mirco Mueller - 20: Anthony Mantha) + we received a 2nd rounder (58th: Bertuzzi) 2016: down 4 spots (16:Jakob Chychrun-20: Dennis Cholowski) + we received a 2nd rounder (53rd: Hronek) + we got rid of Pav's caphit + took we took on Vitale's caphit) If you take out the part about the 2 contracts switching hands, the 2 trades look very similar if you look at pick numbers. We gave up a higher 1st round pick in 2016, but we received a higher 2nd so that compensates a bit. Haven't seen any complaints about the 2013 trade and we didn't even get rid of a big contract as part of it. But, obviously, the difference is that we ended up with the higher ranked player (Mantha ranked 15, mueller ranked 16th in the consensus top 30) (Chychrun ranked 12, Cholowski was honourable mention - just outside the top 30). As a sidenote, I don't think we can guess that we would have picked Chychrun. Both Chychrun and Fabbro were ranked higher than 16th and Stanley was taken 18th, so there were D choices and our choices often deviate from the rankings (cholo, bertuzzi are examples). We made the trade to Arizona not the Jets - Or maybe you're referring to them as the relocated Jets? Also, the trade was 16th+Dats for 20th+53rd+Vitale. To simplify it to Dats for Chychrun is very misleading.

3. 5 years is short for anyone re-signing a UFA at 29. I'll bet we had to go with this higher cap-hit to cut down the years. Most signings of homegrown UFA forwards seem to be 7 or 8 years now. I don't see any problems with a 34 year old Helm. We just signed Nielsen at 32 for 6 years. 4. Like in my previous post, His best production year was 2 years ago when he was 27. As you say, his 32 pts. in 2010-11 was without Pav. If you take this year's production numbers as the beginning of a downfall most of our team will be in the basement in a few years. I expect most players' number to return to form as Blash/new PP guy figures out the offence/lines better in his 2nd year. 5. He does have an injury history. The back injury was concerning but that was 3-4 years ago and hasn't come back. His cut wrist tendon isn't a recurring problem. The concussion this year in training camp can maybe account for some of his down year since he didn't have the regular season prep. Not too worried about injuries on the whole since they've all been unrelated, rather that one chronic problem. Anyway, I've said my piece. To me, Helm is someone we know what to expect from and that's speed, consistent effort, solid defensive play, secondary scoring. I think we'll see that for the 5 year term.

Goose scored 17 last year. Taking from a different year seems like cherry picking stats to me. This wasn't an essential signing. I'm glad we reupped him, but I can see why some disagree. Without the Miller, Ott signing, I think people would look at it differently. I don't think the caphit is a big deal, though. We have Lark, AA, and others on their entry contracts and other young players on RFA deals for the next while - we would have to worry the cap for a bit. Also, who was there to throw money at? This is not true. 2010-2011: 32 pts 2012-2013: 26 pts in 68 games (got injured, traslates to 31 pts. over the full year) 2013-2014: 20 pts in 42 games (lockout season. His best season for pts per game. 39 pts over 82) 2014-2015: 33 pts Last year was a down year for his production - like it was for almost everyone on the team. from his record you can expect over 30 pts from him. I think saying he's worth less than 3 mill is unrealistic. He would have gotten more than 4 in free agency. That is worth - market dictates value.

I don't think it was money that kept E on the first line. Kronwall and E were an established pair by the time Blash came here. If it was that high salaries levitate you in the lineup then we would have seen K+Green. Also, people have complained for years about Abby or Helm being in the top six and them being there (before their current contracts) shows that our coaches haven't been shy about putting lower contracts higher up. Also, we've had big contracts like Weiss on the 4th and Jimmy sitting.

Krs-one covered most of my response, but also Helm never said this bolded no matter how many times you refer to it. He said he's fine with playing on the lower lines as long as there's "that respect factor." Whatever the hell that means, but he does seem to be fine on the 3rd and 4th.

Good point. I was just trying keep Vanek, Tatar and Nyquist on different lines when I made the combos. Vanek can be swapped with one of the others. Or maybe Abby. Vanek and Nyquist together wouldn't be the worst - just thought that would be a light line.