SouthernWingsFan

New Orleans baby!!!!!!!!! Brind hockey back here! A local from around the Big Easy can dream.

In a way, Mac obviously does owe plenty to the Wings for letting him get his career and life back on track to hopefully stay this way, but we also got to understand and respect the decisions he has to make to better the life of himself, not just the Red Wings. There are 29 other NHL teams out there and while I think McCarty bleeds red/white to a large degree, he's got to do what he has to do to improve his life both mentally and financially, and that might include entertaining any potential offers for more money by other franchises in different cities. Not that I expect him to get a whole lot more or any "blockbuster" deals, he has to do what will make him most happy/content.

If McCarty sucked so bad this season, why did he play most of this playoffs given the roster as it was laid out? Coaches must have thought otherwise...

I tried out Stella Artois today. Here is the wiki on it... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Artois I liked this lager a lot. Good simple taste with a slight tangy feel to it, but nothing too crazy to where you can't drink a few more of it in one setting/evening.

Ericsson has another option in Grand Rapids without having to worry about waivers, so I highly doubt he's going anywhere. Quincey, not entirely sure. He's out of options I think with the minors and it just depends on injuries if there are any on the d-line, and his performs well, etc.

The Doors - Riders on the Storm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMvfAYEaE8c

No lie. I like the guy as well, but he's won three Cups already, there is nothing else for him to prove in terms of winning championships. He even said himself that he was part of the Wings past a few seasons ago, and not part of the future. I know people might come back with the few guys trying to win a 5th Cup, there's still stuff to prove....well there's probably going to be an underlying motivation to get Hossa his first Cup when it might only be Hossa's only season with Detroit. Again I like the guy, but it's been time to move on from him on the Red Wings a long time ago.

Hey you'll get no gripes from me. I like both guys. I realize the importance of having an enforcer or somebody who answers to other people like Downey does. I'm just humored by many people throwing McCarty to the curb. We all get that he's not the McCarty of old (or young). He's not going to do anything too glamorous anymore. But sans one game against Dallas where he had a bajillion penalties, he played fairly well in the playoffs, given the current part of his career/getting back in shape. And if coaches picked McCarty over Downey for one of those last forward spots/1st reserve spots for the playoffs, they might think he is still useful after all.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writ...ings/index.html Stating a bit of the obvious by this journalist who seems to be new at SI.com, but a decent quick read nonetheless. Mods, please merge with other Hossa threads if you deem necessary.

If what you say in your last statement is true, how come McCarty was trusted to play more often than not in the playoffs, given the roster at the time and injuries and the like. And how come he was preferred over Downey in the playoffs?

If this is the case, then why did coaches pick McCarty over Downey in the playoffs? And for the record, I have nothing against Downey whatsoever, just showing that coaches might think that McCarty had or has more to give than Downey, and that the Downey man-love in here gets a little overboard sometimes.

It won't be boring even if the Wings are quiet, b/c there will always be loudly outspoken critics on here for better or worse playing armchair GM after the trade deadline happened saying that Holland should have done A, B, and C or 1, 2, and 3 regardless of what he did/didn't do and regardless of how ridiculously stacked this roster will appear to be.

So how do you really feel about San Jose signing Rob Blake?

Again then, if this is the case then why was McCarty preferred over Downey by coaches and management during the playoffs?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writ...ex.html?eref=T1 Another decent SI.com article, I just quickly skimmed through it but he seems pretty much within reason on his opinion. While the Hossa signing under his value is magnificent I think, doesn't automatically gurantee a Cup. And some of these overpayments I have been reading about, at least in my opinion, have been a bit silly like the journalist has stated. Is he on base or way out in left field?

If this is the case, why did coaches and management pick McCarty over Downey then? And you can't use nostalgia or the comeback stories as the default answers.

Meh, who knows, I have little doubt that Blake can still have spurts where he can thrown the well-known hard hit and shoot hard like he did in the past, but he's all but in the last parts of his career and $5M/year for him definitely seems like an overpayment to me.

Solitary confinement?

While I agree with you, signing Hossa, along with the two other deals that Holland/mgmt have done so far, have meant that this has already been a pretty successful offseason for the Wings, which generates excitement. And also with the roster that won the Stanley Cup probably being as close to the same next season in all likelihood, that means there is even more firepower to this team. So it is only natural for people to get ahead of themselves. Just something you got to roll with for better or worse. Not the most torturous thing in the world to deal with.

Were you saying that Samuelsson sucked during game 1 or game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals when he had a pretty important part of some of the goals being scored to help win the games?

While Cherry likes the game to be played a certain way obviously and we all know what that type of game is, he pretty much picked Detroit to win the Cup from the start (of the playoffs at least), so I don't understand how he'd be all that bitter.

Roman numerals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And does Chris Osgood have an odd side-job that we don't know about?

Unless you just absolutely know that somebody will be a franchise player for a team or will just consistently produce, I generally don't like contracts all that much for more than 4-5 years. Yep, even the same to a certain degree when Datsyuk signed his 7-year deal at the beginning of the contract. Point being at least for me is rarely I think you know if people at young years/early 20s will fully produce, or potentially be busts, regardless of how high they might have been drafted like Fleury might have been. Also, calling people chokers at so early of an age and playing career is a bit premature as well I think. We've seen both the good and the ugly of Fluery, giving up two pretty bad goals in the deciding game of the Finals, but playing magnificently in games 3 and 5 obviously. Hopefully this deal will give him some comfort with the security and he'll be more consistent than he was in the Finals.

Quite good looking eyes there.

You've pretty much answered your questions there. With Detroit getting out of the Dead Wings Era and starting to win more consistently in the 90s, to finally winning Cups in the late 90s and being able to continue to win more often than not, combined with good management who stress the importance of a team and comraderie and sacraficing to win it all, every now and then you'll see people really interested in playing with the Wings for a certain "discount" per se. I totally understand when free agents test the market and measure their worth against similar players to try to get every dollar/penny they can, but every now and then you'll find somebody that might want to play for Detroit a bit cheaper for a better chance to win and for reasons stated above.