Matt

Mostly "Duuurr-huuuur, who wanna live in Detroit? Derp, derp" type nonsense.

I remember that day. I was doing a radio interview for the sports radio station in Flint about 30 minutes before the start of free agency. I spoke about how talks broke off with Brad Stuart the night before so he was likely to head to free agency and that while the Wings had cap room for Hossa, there's no way the Wings could compete with Edmonton's offer. Right after the interview was done Stuart re-signed for four years and, shortly after free agency had opened, Hossa agrees to a deal while Holland is filling his gas tank. Figures.

If I were to wager to guess I'd see Suter signing for around $7.25-million. (The Wings are likely going to have to be willing to throw out any self-imposed salary "caps", like Lidstrom's, out the window if they want to be anywhere in the conversation Sunday.) Parise I think would net at (or slightly above) $7.75-million. Get 7-8 year contracts and maybe bump that cap number down. Wings will absolutely front-load those contracts if they need to (within the rules), something that Pittsburgh seemingly isn't willing to do. Ilitch doesn't have any issues with doing that, so that's in our favor. I think one thing they'll have to really push is the new arena -- the Joe isn't really a selling point. Part of the "program" sell for this club is going to have to be something with a new facility coming within the next few years, because the Joe simply cannot compete as a facility with the likes of Consol Energy Center, or Xcel Energy Center for that matter. Part of that "new era" of an Original 6 club dedicated to winning Cups, treating its players like kings... Can Holland fly out to Parise's place in Minneapolis by noon on Sunday, and Babcock to Madison for Suter?

Brian Campbell? Precedent has been set, I haven't heard anything regarding changes to the CBA. Wade Redden just wishes he had Campbell's agent.

Parise's been one of my one of my favorite players since the Olympics -- he was downright fantastic for the US. The guy simply brings it. I'd love to see both here -- and I think the Red Wings are going to have to be willing to "overpay" to get both -- but Suter is a higher priority, easily.

Thanks!

No worries -- it was more source material than anything. I had two large, hi-res images of Franzen that fit the look of the Datsyuk/Zetterberg photos and had them both in home/away sweaters. I plan on doing some updating come July 1st, anyway. (Lidstrom left me scrambling for a 3rd "in color" player as he was previously one of the three.)

I believe that the lower $19/20-million figure written about is what is assumed to be left over once the Red Wings re-sign Abdelkader and Quincey. Which makes sense.

Both of these are already included. I tried adding Sarah Lindenau's "Left Wing Lock" but I kept getting errors with the feed, and I couldn't find one for Matt Saler' "On the Wings". Hopefully within the next couple of months there'll be a "On LetsGoWings.com" column that'll have the latest and greatest from here once that blog feature is completely revamped. (Slowly getting to it again!) I can't stress enough how important it will be to re-fresh your browser if you're having displayed layout problems. Unfortunately, this appears to require a forced refresh on all distinct 'main' pages on the forums -- so you'll have to do it for the main forum index, the forum view, topic view, etc.. A minor annoyance better avoided, but I can virtually guarantee that any display problems you have -- unless you are (for some unholy reason) still using IE6 -- are fixed via a forced re-cache/refresh of your browser.)

Due to popular request I've added back the Red Wings news headlines feature that was present in the last message board version. This one comes with a few differences, however. You can see it by scrolling to the top of the page and clicking on the "Show News" tab. The page content pushes down slightly to display three different sets of news feeds: Detroit Media, Red Wings Bloggers, and Wings on the Web. The "Detroit Media" is a feed displaying the most recent articles from the Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, and mLive (Booth Newspapers). The "Red Wings Bloggers" feed displays the latest stories from The Malik Report, Red Wings Central, Abel to Yzerman, The Production Line, DetroitHockey.net and others (as many as I could get working -- some I wanted to add didn't have valid RSS feeds). The final "Wings on the Web" column is a Google News feed that gathers the most recent headlines across the web that are focused on the Red Wings. I hope you guys like the addition, which is expanded greatly from what the past version was!

Yes, it did. Conversations seemed to devolve rather frequently and disagreements there tended to foster resentment elsewhere on the forums (and it showed in the confrontational nature of some posters when replying to members they didn't agree with in the political forum.) Overall it was far more trouble than it was worth, and was subsequently axed. As an update: I have the "news tab" expander working on my development install of the forums. Once I'm able to parse the various RSS feeds I'll be adding it to the forums here. So the "news headlines" that several of you have mentioned missing should be back -- barring any unforseen problems -- soon and better than ever (more headlines for more sources.)

I'm currently looking into a way to integrate this back. If I can get it to work correctly (and not slow down the site) what I'd like to do is create an "expand for news" tab that will push down the content of the page slightly and offer headlines from a variety of sources instead of just one. (For instance, four columns of different bullet lists of news/blog articles... but will be hidden unless you select the tab to expand/view it. It would also be able to be toggled back.) However, this is VERY early in that stage. I'll see if I can get it working like I hope -- if not I'll have to shelf it for a while.

It appears as though the media tag was consolidated under the "Special BB Code" button (it is the top row, third from the left that looks like a photo -- right before the "Font" dropdown). Inside that pop-up you can select the media you wish to insert and then paste it in the corresponding box. It'll handle YouTube and a variety of other embedded media.

^ This is correct. I don't doubt that there will be Red Wings selection discussion leading up to their picks. Once the pick is made we'll have to try to steer discussion pertaining directly to that pick to a newly created thread via a link in a post within this thread and go from there.

Just a quick note: Though I'm trying to slowly weed out "mega-threads" on the forums, a pinned "Draft" discussion topic like this one fits when discussing the draft as a whole. In the case of Red Wings draft picks, they can each have their own separate thread to discuss them (meaning: 2nd round pick gets a thread, 3rd round pick gets a thread, and so on.) Thanks!

Just a note: I'd like to have the individual signings and trades to be broken up into individual topics to help encourage conversation on individual transactions rather than one "mega-thread". It's a bit of a policy change that's been occasionally enforced in the past, but I for one don't like to sift through a 12+ page thread to find a transaction that was done last week. (Yes, it means more topics on the front page, but a necessary evil to make for an easier browsing experience in regards to finding the conversation you're looking for.)

More updates added: There's now a "Stats" tab in your profile that charts out your posting habits by time of day and by volume (sorted by forums).

Thank you! With this version I've reduced the number of ads and have tried to make them as least obtrusive as possible. A necessary evil, unfortunately, to help cover hosting costs -- and upgrades like this one!

Another to add to the list!

Yes, there is a curse filter in place now. As far as Franzen is concerned.... I wouldn't be against adding Suter/Parise to it in 10-14 days. Are you using adblock? If so, that might be the issue. (Skyscraper ads are the only thing in that column -- 160px body and allowing for a 20px margin on the left side.) There is. The sidebar on the forum index can be toggled on/off by hovering over the column with your mouse. You'll see a black box with an "x" inside it fade into view. Click it, and the column is minimized. Want it back? Just do the same thing (hover over the right side, a black box with a "<" appears, click it to get the sidebar back.)

Please be sure to continually check the first post in this topic as I've been adding to it regularly!

At the bottom of the page there is a "Change Theme" link. Click on it to change between the Red/White themes.

Well, blame Lidstrom for retiring for some of the delay. All of the template graphics were done -- with him in color -- then he went up and retired on me and I had to fade him out. The nerve of that guy, I swear! Thanks for the comments, everyone. There'll be some adjustments that will continue to occur on the forums over the next few days to help ease the transition a bit.

The LetsGoWings.com Forums have been upgraded to the latest and greatest version of IP.Board (v3.3.3 in this case). For details and updates, please see this thread.