PavelValerievichDatsyuk

But from the Yotes' perspective - Why would they want to give him up? The return would have to be huge.

Buffalo!!!

No, we don't have room for 2 D. We've got Oulette, Sproul, Marchenko, Backman, Jensen knocking on the door. We've got to let one take a spot this year. They are also a lot cheaper.

Dats is signed for 3 more years. He could be here longer than that. Z is here 7 more years. I feel it's safe to say that they will still be elite in 2-3 years and that's when our prospect development will really come into fruition (if not this year): Mantha will be on the team. Tatar, Nyquist, Sheahan will be in "prime years. We'll have Mrazek at least pushing Jimmy. Smith will have worked out his game (I believe he's already close to that). With at least 2 of Oulette, Sproul, Marchenko, Backman I really feel that will make a great back end. Jurco, possibly Pulkkinen, Andreas Athanasiauoaioisoioa also in the mix. I feel like we're really on the ascent now and these guys will be pushing us up to being contenders. I feel these prospects really do fill the holes in the team that we saw this year (weak D, top 6 wingers). The thing for me that stands in the way of being contenders by that time is that 2C spot. Weiss is still a question mark and I feel that a lot rests on him being a solid piece of this team. Hopefully we see him back to the player that others say he is.

Too bad we don't play quidditch.

DeAngelo is the guy that was suspended a couple of times for making racist comments to his own teammate. I think he'll fall pretty far in the draft because of that. nhl.com

I found one of the links. A lot of places reported this rumour. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/puck-daddy/brian-campbell-wants-out-of-florida--says-report-161740679.html The speculation was that he wants out. But no interest, I guess or just not true. I just thought it's weird that of all the names I've heard nobody talks about him. Maybe 7.1 and 35 are numbers that just don't add up? Edit: Oops, apparently his cap hit isn't 7.5

Well there is TSN who tries to build up all this drama around draft day trades. The NHL could be interested in getting teams to announce trades on the draft floor like Bettman did with Brent Burns and whoever it was. Make it more interesting.

It seems to me that all the talk of Brian Cambell wanting to be traded disappeared. Was that not true or is his contract unmoveable?

Same with Brunner - Lost of teams interested, he chose us.

That's not actually what would happen if his body wears down - that's if he has one really serious injury. Injuries could just lower his ability to be effective and then they're stuck with a player who plays like last year's Cleary on their roster for the rest of his large contract. Not really the best deal and it does have some risk, but Tampa pretty much were forced to resign him after St. Louis left. No other UFA would fill that hole. Good for them that they were able to talk him down at least a little from the demands that he made with NY.

It is just incredibly flawed that you think the only path to winning is to tank and get a top 10 pick. First of all, even if we take your 4 top 10 requirement, you said yourself we can get them by trading and we've amassed a lot of tradable prospects. Second of all, you're equating top 10 picks with top talent, which is false. Dats and Zetterberg are certainly better than most top 10 picks. Mantha probably should have been top 10. There's a lot of top talent elsewhere in the draft. We've got some of the best scouts, so we use that. People say that the time of draft steals are over, but look at where we got Marchenko for instance. Another thing is that we focused on development. A top 10 pick left to his own can flop, a lower pick with the right guidance and support can be just as good. Third, how do you actually want to implement this tanking operation, because our roster as is will make the playoffs unless we turn into a MASH unit again? Are we going to sell off our older players, like Dats, Z, Kronwall, etc? In that case, we'd end up like Edmonton with top picks and no one to show them the way. We'd also lose a huge amount of respect as an organization and UFAs would take notice. Babcock would leave, Kenny would get fired and we'd have a lesser GM come in and totally change the very plan that you were working on. Do we sell off our budding young talent like Nyquist, Tatar, Mantha, Dekeyser, etc? Players that could become as any top 10 pick we might get. Do we just have a team meeting and say "now you must suck"? Anyway, I see you're posts as understandably frustrated, but I really feel that the team is rebuilding and doing it in a way that will make us competitive for a long time. We're not doing trades because we're building up our prospects and keeping our draft picks. We have about a full roster worth of NHL worthy prospects (I include young players already on the team). We'll get even more at this next draft. We'll let them fight it out for their places in our future and then we can start trading some of them for other pieces. So, Alfredsson...

Another problem with the original argument is that all drafts are not equal in talent depth and top 10 is really an arbitrary line to draw. This year we have the 15th pick. All the talking head say that the talent level drops after the first few players and no one agrees on the order for players after these first few players. So the 7th choice and the 15th choice are really ranked pretty equally. Would it really help us to have the 10th pick this year? Would that mean we could then win the cup?

So It's a little more complicated: http://kuklaskorner.com/tmr/comments/no-jack-adams-for-mike-babcock-but-red-wings-coach-gm-make-intriguing-remar "We'd love to have him. We'd love for him to get healthy, but at this point things haven't turned in the right direction for him. We'll see what happens." Babcock said the goal is to have him in training camp, but he's not sure if he will come in under contract, if he comes in at all. He said the Red Wings do not think Alfredsson requires any surgery. "He's going to continue to go and then we'll work something out," Babcock said. "He's not going anywhere else. He's coming to Detroit if he's coming. He's not under contract with us yet, but we know where he lives. He's gotta get fixed before we do anything."

It sounds like you think the only way to rebuild is to tank. There is many examples around the league to show that strategy doesn't always work. This team is rebuilding and we're doing it while making the playoffs and keeping a competitive team. We are getting better as our young players are getting better. I don't know how you could have watched Nyquist, Tatar, Dekeyser, Jurco, Sheahan, etc. and not thought of them as "the young high end talent we need to get better."

Stuart left to be with his family, who can't move away from California because of some child custody thing.

I understand what you're saying. I don't think Cleary Sammy Bert fell of a cliff, though. We've seen their decreased effectiveness over the seasons leading up to last. And think it's rare to truly go from hero to zero. Alfie still put up 18g and 49pts in 68 games. That PPG might slide a bit, but the situation is quite different than Cleary, Sammy and Bert. We get him without giving up our young prospects. I just hope he is better at controlling the puck on the PP. There was so may times during the year he would bungle a hard pass.

Hell Sheahan even scored 9 goals in 42 games this season so he could score 20 in 82 as well. Jurco had 8 goals in 36 games so he could be a 20g man as well.

Alfie, Hopefully Weiss as well

If gets injured then Mantha or Pulkkinen play. That's doesn't sound like too big a risk to me. Holland's not building a team with "all these old players." We'll actually be a pretty young team next year.

So who does Babcock replace Peters with?

So you're expecting Dats, Zetterberg, Sheahan to only play half the season again. Ericsson and Franzen will miss 30 games again. Nyquist won't play in 25 games again. Weiss will only play 26 games again. Cause all those things will have to happen again for us to be worse than the past year

They didn't say they wanted changes, they just said they wanted to get farther in the playoffs next year. Change in outcome not necessarily the roster. I feel our biggest problems this year were injuries and inexperience in the playoffs. Sheahan, Jurco, Nyquist, Tatar, Smith, Glendening, etc. have added experience. With that and If Z, Dats, Weiss, and Ericsson are healthy in the playoffs I feel we're a very different team. Add to that one of our D prospects stepping up and possibly Mantha or Pulkinen(still haven't learned how to spell it) and I'm really excited about our chances. We've also added by subtraction.

07-08 GP: 72 13-14 GP: 54 He actually had more PPG, but yes more of those were goals in 08. If he's healthy, plays a full season, hopefully he scores his usual 27-30 goals this year. History says he will.

I think an injury prone Monster for one year would actually be a really good situation. That way, Mrazek gets another year being Starter in GR, but also gets to play some NHL games when Monster inevitably goes down with the pulled groin. I previously said I wanted Nabokov - and he would be great -, but it's going to be hard to get any quality backup to come here for just one year. Because of his injury problems, Monster probably wouldn't be in huge demand and hopefully will be willing to make it a one year deal. If he signs for 2 years I won't like it. P.S. Impressive Rant.