kipwinger

What's your take on posts that aren't overly serious? Do you pick up on them? Do they go over your head? Do you recognize the inherent absurdity in suggesting that someone could "catch" losing, as if it were a disease? Or does the temptation to nail me with an awesome zinger put you on autopilot? I was goofing around. Lighten up. I like Murphy, Rouse, and Macoun just fine. But I will never, EVER, like Wendell Clark.

There are a few of their players I think are good. But I've got to be "all in" on this. So I'm calling it. No Toronto losers. None. Even the ones I like. They'll leave their loser germs on the equipment in the training room and before you know it all our guys will have loser. Next thing you know we'll be extending crappy defensemen to 7 million dollar deals and blaming everything on our top line wingers. Not on my watch.

Based on his recent history I think Holland would sign Green, and go into training camp with the exact same defensemen he has now, plus Green and Ouellet. Then make them compete for spots and figure the roster out from there (aided by inevitable injuries). That's what he's basically done with the forward corps for the last two seasons, so why not the defense? That's said, I'd be really surprised if Kindl is still on the roster after this season. I think he'll get traded. And if that doesn't work he'll get waived and probably bought out/defect to the KHL. I know I would. Lashoff's position is tenuous and he's easy replaceable if waived/traded. So there's plenty of room there. Even more if Smith or Quincey are traded. And I don't that's as far out of the realm as some might believe.

I don't want anybody from Toronto. They're tarnished with "loser". I don't want our players catching the loser bug too. I'm sick of losers. I'd rather keep our guys. Our veterans are winners. Our kids are winners. The only guys who aren't winners are Weiss, Quincey, and the fourth line...and see how that's working out for them lol.

He'd have to clear entry waivers to sign with Detroit...and if he's any good, then he'd probably get claimed. Remember when Detroit signed Nabokov from the KHL? Same deal.

Yandle's super good. He's got Mike Green's offense, better defense, and is MUCH more durable. He's a workhorse. BUT, we don't need a workhorse. We need an offensive defenseman, and Yandle will cost a lot to acquire (and keep when his contract is out). As such, I'd rather just wait and pursue Green in free agency. At least that only costs the price of the contract. When we talk about "rentals" aren't we usually talking about guys who are free agents at the end of the season? Not guys with another year on their contract? So, Mike Green (if traded for) would be a rental because you'd only be getting him for the remainder of this season, while Yandle wouldn't...because he'd play the remainder of this year and all of next year, at least.

Good win! Finally beat a good team. Good work boys!

Oh, is that all? Just a power forward and two hall of famers? Lol. I'm just kidding with you. I agree. We're a decent team, but we're not a contender. I've said elsewhere, we don't beat good teams and we're only .500 against crappy teams lately. Our offense is not existent most nights, and our blue line defense well but does nothing else well. Like krsmith17 said in another thread, I think we could be a contender in the next couple of years but a couple solid acquisitions. But not this year.

We have no chance of winning the Cup. But I still wouldn't trade those two...so yeah, what the f*** is he even talking about lol.

First line centers don't grow on trees, even aging ones are hard to get your hands on. Who'd center our team? Helm, Sheahan, Weiss? Larkin, AA, Nosek? No thanks. All good players, but not legit, contender level centers...yet.

I dicked that whole post up and combined several thoughts into one, which made it all wrong lol. These were... 1) We need to beat good teams. 2) We haven't played a lot of good teams lately so it's hard to gauge ourselves. 3) St. Louis is a good team, so it should be a measuring stick game. To answer your question though, yes. Washington is a good team. I was completely forgetting about them (despite actually going to that miserable game).

Well one thing we can all agree on...at least we're not paying Dion Phaneuf 7 million dollars to defend guys like Ryan Johansen. Yikes!

I was just coming here to say the same thing. This is the first good team we've played since getting thumped by Vancouver. Should be a good way to gauge whether we're headed in the right direction.

Right, Holland didn't want to replace all his mid-tier guys with unknown guys or depth players like Bowman did with Versteeg, Byfuglien, Niemi, and Ladd. I get why Holland let Hossa go. My problem is that since 2010, the narrative has become "Holland chose Franzen over Hossa". Which is bulls***. Holland chose to keep this core team from the 2009 Cup run intact, rather than blow it up just to keep Hossa. When you put it that way, it seems a little bit more reasonable. Which was my point all along.

That's exactly what happened anyway. So we had Franzen, Cleary, Bert, Williams, Eaves, Miller, and two rookies at league minimum Ultimately I agree though. 1 guy can't replace six. Which is probably why Holland wasn't too concerned about re-signing Hossa. That's a fairly accurate thing to say. Know what isn't? There wasn't enough money after signing Franzen to re-sign Hossa. Which is what the narrative has transformed into. That's bogus. Given that Holland had Dats, Z, Franzen, Cleary, and Holmstrom in the top six, and all those guys had already won a Cup together, I doubt he was too worried about bringing back Hossa. Likely, he'd rather have the depth (as you've pointed out). But that shouldn't be mistaken with "not being able" to re-sign him. Teams get rid of depth to keep stars all the time. Sometimes it works (Chicago post 2010), sometimes it doesn't (Boston now). But to say it's impossible because Franzen was re-signed is (at best) inaccurate.

I didn't think that was the case. I thought that they were moving him because he's essentially redundant with OEL and it would cost a fortune to keep him past next year?

It makes sense to trade Yandle for O'Reilly straight up, which I've seen speculated in many a rumor mill.

Also, people realize Hossa's cap hit was 7.45 million in 2009 right? By signing him to the exact same money he made in Chicago we would have gained around 2.3 million against the cap compared to the year before. Or, in other words, his cap hit is less now (for Chicago) than it was the year we had him. So even if nothing changed from 2009 accept his contract, he still would have been more affordable re-signed than he was the year we actually had him on the books. And that's with no other changes. Add to that the fact that we lost Hudler, Sammy, Kopecky, Conklin, and didn't need to sign all of Bertuzzi, Williams, Eaves, May, Miller, and Leino, and there was plenty of money.

I agree it wouldn't have made a difference if we'd kept him. We had 5.3 million dollars wrapped up in guys we signed (or claimed) after Hossa left (Bertuzzi, Williams, Miller, May, Eaves, Leino). And that's 5.3 without making a single trade. Move a player with a moderate salary out, and there's more money. I agree it was tight. But I don't agree that it was one or the other. It was one or the other ONLY if we didn't want to move out salary to retain Hossa...which clearly Holland didn't. Lots of teams clear salary to retain stars. Holland didn't. Likely because he didn't think Hossa was that important, and not because (as a result of Franzen's signing) there was absolutely no money available. Again, they brought on the equivalent of Hossa's current contract AFTER he was signed by Chicago. Also, last year also showed that Ken Holland clearly doesn't mind going into a season over the cap if he sees fit. He had no problem waiving guys like Tootoo, Samuelsson, and Eaves a year ago to get cap compliant. So he clearly A) knows it can be done, and B) will do it. I don't buy, for one second, that he REALLY wanted to retain Hossa, but just couldn't make the cap work. Especially considering they offered him a contract valued 1.1 million dollars less than what he makes now. You really don't think Holland couldn't have found 1.1 million if he'd really wanted to?

Firstly, you can Google Holland's personnel moves. I see no need to list every trade, or signing, or player he let walk for another, just because you feel like being difficult. Secondly, the fact that you've always seen something one way doesn't mean other options weren't available. It also might explain why, despite the fact that I've listed multiple alternative scenarios, you refuse to think anything else was possible. You don't believe it was possible because you've never believed it possible, despite the fact that there's at least a handful of other possible scenarios. The fact that you think its black and white is the cause of your consternation, not the effect. Because accepting that there were alternatives to what happened, and it happened anyway, either makes Holland dumb or else means he just didn't want Hossa that bad. Neither of which are as simplistic "it was either or". It wasn't. I've now told you several ways in which it could be both. Some of which didn't involve trades. If you still insist it wasn't possible, its because you're being obtuse. Not because you've got a firm grasp of the situation.

Not unless its a shootout loss. Not unless its a shootout loss.

There were lots of scenarios in which he didn't have to move a player under contcct. I've mentioned some above. Also, you're speculating about his unwillingness to "work the phones"...speculating badly.

What's that got to do with Franzen? If there's a strong incentive to keep someone, you make it happen. Now, aside the fact that Hossa may not have wanted to stay here at all (which isn't a stretch considering our coach is a dick), I do believe there were some (minor) mistakes that were made surrounding the choice to let Hossa walk. Here are a few mistakes Holland (and management) made that might have influenced what happened (and how we view it). 1) Its the managment's job to determine whether guys are just a flash in the pan or here to stay. They clearly misjudged Franzen's long term potential. Though it should be noted that for three of the next four years he was within 5 pts. of his 2009 career high. So even if they agreed on a short "prove it" contract, he would have been in the same ballpark as he was in 2009. Indications were that he'd keep it up, but still, it's their job to get it right. 2) Having a better handle on Hudler's status would have helped retain Hossa. Hudler held out and bolted for Europe when he didn't get offered enough money as an RFA, but that happened after Hossa had already signed elsewhere. Assuming they knew he wanted a TON of money, they could have traded his rights before free agency and used that money toward Hossa. Knowing Hudler was a potential flight risk might have helped prioritize extending Hossa as well. 3) Having a better handle on whether Samuelsson was going to try out FA could have made a difference as well. He ultimately did want to test the market, and so a big chunk of his salary could have been used to extend Hossa prior to FA (if, indeed, he wanted to come back). And that's about all for big mistakes. Otherwise, it was just a matter of prioritization. And, as I said before, considering the Wings had just won the Cup without Hossa, he probably wasn't as big a priority for Holland as we'd all like to think.

Again, read above for all the possible things that could have been done in order to keep Hossa. And then ask yourself, "was it really Franzen's contract that was the difference, or have I been wrong this whole time?".

I'd be excited if we had Matt Martin, he's a good role player. But I'd be irritated if Martin did something blatantly dirty and then Ken or Mickey acted like he was a paragon of virtue even though they knew better. Because that would be dumbing down the product, which I don't like.