number9

Of course Datsyuk and Zetterberg would play better with Parise on their line(s) and Suter on the back end. I'm not arguing that. Obtaining Parise and Suter at that price would cripple the team financially. I'd rather give our home grown talent time to get better and then sign them to reasonable contracts when they earn their spot on the Pro Team....instead of paying mary kate and ashley way more than they're worth for the next 10 years That roster (including Bertuzzi and White) (and assuming you have monster as Howies back up) would leave the team about 2,600,000 in cap space.... What do you do when this season ends and Filppula, Howard, Brunner, Nyquist, Smith, Kindl and White all need new contracts/raises? And all you have is 2.6 mil more?

The Wild have 21% of their cap space tied up with Parise and Suter for a very long time. The Wings have 16% of their cap space tied up with their top forward and top D-man (Datysuk and Kronwall) The Wings have 18% of their cap space tied up with their top 2 overall players (Datsyuk and Zetterberg) I'd also refer to the OP's points per dollar section of his article. If the only goal of the off-season was to sign Suter and Parise, then yes we failed on both accounts. However, if one of our goals was also to "spend our money wisely" then we succeeded where the Wild failed. Datsyuk at 6.7 > Parise at 7.5 Zetterberg at 6 > Parise at 7.5 Kronwall at 4.75 > Suter at 7.5 We don't overpay for FA's when we can wait and develop our home grown talent and put them on reasonable contracts. Build through the draft.

Interested to know what people think

He was going to play for Jokerit but then he got bored

maybe cause....uh.....it's a different culture I don't know much about Football or Rugby but if they choose not to allow fighting cool, good for them, I don't care. I just hope they keep their pansy sport to themselves and don't meddle with mine.

Updated rankings. GR still last. http://www.thegoalieguild.com/reports/ahlrankings/

As soon as their balls drop How do parents reconcile the message of "don't use violence to solve your problems" with the overwhelming amount of violence in the news, tv shows, movies, video games, music, and sports? fighting in hockey has nothing to do with how liberal Canada is btw

Tim Panaccio @tpanotchCSN: #upsetting

Anyone who'd scratch Cleary is probably also scratching their neck like Tyrone Biggums Ok this is a "line shuffling" thread, all I suggested was that Bert, Cleary, Sammy, Nyquist, and Brunner, are those guys that you can shuffle in and out of the top 6. Nyquist and Brunner are great but they are not going to play every game in the top 6 their first year, you'll see Sammy, Cleary, and Tuzzi in there when things need to be changed up. They are not the premier top 6ers but they aren't liabilities either.

This topic should honestly get moved to the "irrelevant" section. Z is our captain. Even a Phoenix fan could figure that one out.

I propose a 50/50 split... 50% of the year the league plays hockey, and the other 50% of the year the league doesn't not play hockey. Simple. Revenue will be split 50/50 as well, half going to players and owners and the other half going to a fan fund. The fan fund will only be redeemable in beer. Dare you to match that Bettman/Fehr Always knew my BA in business would pay off

ELC's are naturally always different in regards to who it benefits depending on the player. A longer ELC will benefit particular players in regards to their team, while a shorter ELC will benefit other teams in regards to the player. Yeah, if they had locked up Kane on a long-term deal for less money earlier it would have been better for the Jets. However, it's different for every different players situation. Honestly they should all just agree to keep it at 3 years, seems to work good so far, no need change things just for the sake of changing them. Totally disagree on your interpretation of rhetorical speech though. Their is a difference between business and rhetorical PR speech to the public. The entire hockey reporting/hockey blogging community is up in arms over all the public rhetoric being thrown around that means absolutely nothing. Bettman and Fehr both come out of meetings and spew BS that makes their side look good, trying to get the fans and such on their side. Any intelligent person can read through the rhetoric and tell the difference between what is a PR scheme and what is actual business/work getting done. Both sides are to blame, however I'd call the owners/league the instigators. Ones mans rhetoric is a smart mans bulls***

Dude, you sound like the one who hasn't been following the lockout. Each side has done nothing but throw around rhetoric. Small gains have been made but they seem more hell-bent on winning the PR battle. Don't understand what you don't understand about that, it's rather obvious.

The owners want longer entry level contracts and longer RFA status, not the other way around. The longer ELC and RFA is the longer the owners can keep players salaries artificially low, aka they won't have to pay them what their worth for a longer period of time. Owners would have to be semi-slow to go for a deal like that, hence why they asked for longer of both in their original 50/50 split.

Bowman could have played Lids at center, Feds at goalie, and Stevie at healthy scratch, and he still would have had a better chance at winning the game than most teams. I think you can shuffle all you want but there are certain do's and don'ts (referring to top 6 lines as they provide the most scoring and require the most chemistry) Abby, Helm, Toots, Emmerton, Miller, and Eaves, should never be in the top 6 Abby and Helm should not play together because we need them at 3rd and 4th line center (assuming Emmerton won't play) Dats, Zberg, Mule, and Fil, should always be in the top 6 Dats and Zberg should not play together because we need them at center for the 1st and 2nd lines If Tuzzi is in the top 6 he should never play on the same line as Franzen. We are not a huge team and we cannot afford to have our bigger power forwards clumped on one line. We need them paired with skilled players so they can get to the dirty areas where the skilled players won't always be. So basically if I was Babs my line chart would look like this: ______ - Dats - _______ ______ - Zberg - ______ ______ - Helm - _______ ______ - Abby - _______ Available top 6ers to insert and play around with: Franzen (as long as he's not paired with Bert), Bert (as long as he's not paired with Franzen), Val, Sammy, Cleary, Goose, Brunner Then depending on who gets pushed down to the third line Babs can make an energy or scoring line out of the third line. Say Bert, Franzen, Val, and Cleary are the top 6 wingers. Then you can put 2 of Sammy, Goose, or Brunner on the third line and have a third scoring line. Say Franzen, Val, Goose, and Brunner are your top 6 wingers. Then you can put 2 of Cleary, Sammy, or Bert on the third line and have more of a bigger/defensive third line. I know a lot of people here like to see Z and D play together but I'm of the opinion that Datsyuk and Zetterberg should not play on the same line together unless it's a power play. I know it's awesome when they play together, but we need them centering separate lines. You don't win hockey games with superstar 1st lines. We need the skill, defense, and leadership they bring on both of our top 6 lines. I read an article a little while back that said while the D/Z line is awesome and effective, the team does better when they're separated (I'll try to dig it up if some really has to make me). As in we tend to win more games and our other 16 skaters do better when they are separated. So Z and D should always be seperate. Sorry, lockouts got me bored.

Fil - Dats - Mule ----------------Fil and Dats have shown chemistry together, Franzen provides the bigger body that works in the dirty areas Bert - Z - Brunner---------------Z and Brunner will have chemistry after playing for Zug together, Bert provides the big body Goose - Helm - Sammy--------Goose brings skill, Helm brings speed and defense, Sammy brings 3rd line scoring Toots - Abby - Cleary----------Grind line baby

Other sports are semi-comparable....but when it comes down to it this is a different league, different sport, different problems

God i totally hate bettman too but we have no idea if the next the commissioner will be better or even worse. Assuming that all lockout and NHL problems will be fixed by firing bettman is foolish. The owners hired this mofo and who's to say they won't just hire bettman 2.0. The wings have way more to gain this season by playing and keeping gary than not playing and losing gary....unless the next comish is really the most awesome guy ever, which i doubt

roger that

This is how the lockout makes me feel.... This better be the end of it

could be a 30-30 too

Problem is we cannot assume a new commissioner won't just pick up where uncle gary left off

impossible to tell from the picture. Looks to be semi-automatic though and naturally a high caliber.

Toots maybe a ****** on the ice, but he leaves that crap on the ice. People I know who have met him off the ice have said he's one of the nicest athletes they've ever met. You can't get mad at someone for hunting an animal in it's natural environment for sustenance purposes. That's the way nature intended it. If you want to talk about cruelly slaughtering animals lets talk about industrial farming, and farming in general. Totally not the way nature intended. Don't get me wrong though I love my porterhouse steak and mickey D's dbl cheeseburgers