Matt

IMO, this move is the most signifigant since the Wings traded for Shanahan in 1996... ... While I'm not discounting the trade for Hasek, et al, Shanahan and Hossa were/are premiere players at their respective positions and in the PRIME of their NHL careers -- not an acquisition of a great player on the tail end, not quite able to play at the same level as earlier in his career. I'm still on Cloud 9 from yesterday... still having a hard time fathoming Hossa's actually a Red Wing.

Boyle to Ottawa possibly? Though Blake is just a shadow of his former self...

Holland is being interviewed on WDFN right now and the blueline logjam was brought up... The Wings won't make a move until camp time, and anyone (obviously) out of the top four will be available. He doesn't expect to have any problems dealing any of those players due to the low salaries ($1.25m and below). He also added he expects Drake to retire, and if not, it sounded like the Wings have moved on regardless... On Zetterberg: Doesn't anticipate talking contract until training camp when he can sit down with both Hank and his agent.

Bears repeating (if you missed it earlier in the thread)...

If he "goes" he's just going to "go" -- likely a draft pick in return, since the Wings would be looking for roster space.

I can confirm (via Holland interview on WDFN) that Holland DID offer Hossa a long-term deal when free agency opened. Winter called him back and said they're receiving other offers at a substantially higher rate, so Holland thought (by Monday night) he was out of the running. Winter called him up this morning and said he and Marian were talking about a 1-year deal and pitched it to Holland... the rest of the story everyone knows.

Don't forget the Wings can go 10% over the upper limit during the off-season. Filppula isn't going anywhere.

I don't think the Hossa deal really affects Filppula -- yet. He MUST be the next Red Wing signed, however. There's $4,027,667 (est) left under the cap, and you can expect him to get at least half that. It's going to be interesting to see if Chelios, McCarty/Downey get re-signed at this point. I'd expect a trade on the blueline at some point for some cap relief. It's hard to see Chelios at anything higher than the minimum at this point.

+1 I still can't believe it. Have to be dreaming. I'm buying a lotto ticket tonight!

And "A" before nabbing Hossa?

It's Ken Holland's world. We just live in it. Seriously. I'm dreaming, right?

I never said that his decision would lag into the start of the season, just speculated how that would, in effect, be a benefit to the Red Wings because of the cap. Should be interesting how quick he signs if Hossa, et al, start signing on the dotted line.

That's comedy GOLD.

If that's the case then I think that greatly improves the Red Wings' chances of landing him. As it stands adding him to our payroll at the reported offer would put a pretty good squeeze on the cap when you're looking at re-signing Filppula, Chelios and a 3rd/4th-line grinder type -- and that goes without mentioning Howard, Ericsson and whatever happens with Quincey. I'm just not seeing how it's possible for the Wings to get him signed at that offer this summer.

What's amusing is that say he takes the Vancouver offer and then retires after next season... the Canucks still have that $10-million cap hit for 09-10 even if he's not playing. Now, there may be a "loophole" in there regarding the signing bonuses, etc., that are rumored to be part of the Sundin offer, so the possibility is there to work around it -- but I'm pretty sure the CBA prevents those shenanigans. We'll see.

http://ww3.startribune.com/blogs/wildblog/ STAR TRIBUNE REPORTING WILD HAS SIGNED ANDREW BRUNETTE TO A MULTI-YEAR DEAL AND HAS ACQUIRED DEFENSEMAN MAREK ZIDLICKY, A QUALITY OFFENSIVE DEFENSEMAN, FOR RYAN JONES AND A 2009 SECOND-ROUND PICK

Compared to Finger stupidity this deal is fantastic a million times over. I liked the deal before seeing what Finger signed for.... WOW.

As an update, all of those that sent me e-mail inquiries about the group ticket package should have been contacted by the Panthers' representative today. If you have not, please e-mail me at: mattschwartz@gmail.com! In preparation for July 1st craziness, I'm temporarily unpinning this thread.

f***in' Johnnycakes.... Thank god for Raburn (and Miggy) tonight! Maybe it was the good mojo from my old-school Tigers logo shirt purchase earlier this afternoon from Fanatic U. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Nah, that'd make them overconfident. The Wings would be better off with a Score-O strapped to the posts than Theodore in there for target practice. At least the Wings players would earn the goals in practice.

FYI: The Wings WILL be playing on the road for the Southeast Division teams, if they still follow through with that stipulation from the last thee seasons. Since they're in Forida in November there's reason to be positive they'll pay a visit to Raleigh.

Just adding a note that those of you that are interested in tickets please e-mail me or PM me through the forums here (include your e-mail address), as I'll be reponding to those directly. I've already forwarded a substantial list over to Tony, the Panthers' representatives that's helping coordinate this -- the response thus far has been great! There's no space limitations at this point so please contact me if you're interested!

Even though I'd agree that Howard is highly likely to see regular NHL time this coming season, I think we all know that Howard won't be handed anything and it'll be earned in camp this fall. This seems more about debating semantics -- to me Howard is still a prospect until he actually sees regular NHL duty, in the same vein that a Darren Helm plugged in during the playoff run or Ericsson saw time when the defense was decimated by injury last February.