kipwinger

I agree. Problem is, if they don't really impress, or you don't keep them, then you're losing a big asset for nothing. Conversely, if you lose a big asset, you've got more incentive to keep them regardless of how they play. For example: Does anybody really think Holland would have been so quick to re-sign Quincey (twice) if he hadn't spent a first on him? If it had been a third rounder Quincey would likely have left. But if you spend a big asset you want to get some mileage out of the return, regardless of how good it's been.

Look, you may be right. I'm certainly not saying it couldn't happen. But after free agency I'm a bit hesitant to just assume guys want to sign here. And that doesn't even address whether or not WE want to resign him. Say you do give up a top young player for him, at that point you almost have to re-sign him, regardless of the season he's had or whether one of your young guys is tearing it up. What if you give up Tatar or Jurco and Green struggles while Sproul has a MASSIVE season in GR. Do you let him walk? If so, you've lost a future top six winger for nothing. If you keep him, you're blocking another young guy with another ineffective vet, and you tie up money that could be used elsewhere. In any case, these are all reasons why it's not a good idea to give up good young roster players for guys on expiring contracts. Hence, you almost NEVER see anybody do it. Not necessarily, given all the talk about "stop gaps" leading up to FA it's not hard to argue that Detroit doesn't intend to keep whoever they acquire around for very long. That's the whole point of a stop gap.

A top four defenseman under contract? Sure. I'd trade almost any of our young guns in a package for Yandle. He's that good AND under contract. But losing a guy as good as Jurco or Tatar for a rental is dumb. How much developmental time and resources go into each prospect? A lot. And the absolute best you can hope for is that they turn into top six forwards or top four defenseman. In Tatar, Nyquist, and Jurco, your best case scenario has come true...and it's DEFINITELY not good value to throw that away for a guy who (if recent history is any indication) isn't going to help you compete for a Cup and probably isn't going to re-sign with your team at the end of the year.

Not so far, but he did finish a little stronger at the end of last season. Then again, he was completely buried in the depth chart too so it's not like he's had a chance to play much.

Like I said, it really seems to be a matter of fundamentals. A lot of guys on good teams get away with bad habits in juniors. And even when they come up to the AHL their skating makes up for their lack of positioning. His just doesn't, so he gets exposed. But I agree, he's not done. He's just got to learn the right way to play hockey now.

I agree. I always thought that in the best case scenario he'd model his game off of Vanek. He's not the greatest skater in the world either, but he's got a good shot, is sturdy down around the crease, and is a physically strong guy who's not afraid of contact. I don't know if it's too late for Frk to be a poor man's Vanek, but that's probably the guy I see in him the most.

I don't think anybody is saying that all the young guys are untouchable. But rather that they shouldn't be traded for peanuts. Which should be obvious, except that it isn't to some folks.

Again, clearly you're happy with White, Colaiacovo, Quincey, Sammy, Tootoo, Alfie, and Weiss, and you obviously think that's absolutely the best possible acquisitions that Holland could have made. I don't buy it. But I'm not going to argue with you about it. You win. Holland could not have possible done any better. Kudos Ken Holland. Despite your best efforts, fate has been against you for the last half decade and that's why we went from a Stanley Cup contender to barely making the playoffs. Nothing at all to do with your personnel decisions, which are the best they could be under the circumstances, and happen in a vacuum anyway.

You're totally right. I had no idea that Niskanen, Boyle, Ehrhoff, Stralman, and every single other free agent all went "home" to play this year. No wonder we didn't get any. There just weren't any FAs from Michigan this year. Totally makes sense now.

Kane's gonna get soooooooooooooo wasted tonight! PARTY!!!! WOOOO!

I definitely don't think that Garrison is as good as Green, and Garrison is under contract, but the two scenarios would be similar in that they're both cap dumps of offensive defensemen in the 30-40 pts. range. So starting with something similar is not a bad idea. If Garrison was worth a second then Detroit should probably start with a 2nd plus a little more and go from there. All this talk about starting with Tatar or Jurco is nuts.

What did Garrison go for? I'd start with a package that was just a little better than that and work my way up.

I agree with you, but from what I understand a lot of Frk's problems stem from being bad positionally and not being a good enough skater to make up for it. Jurco has good skating at least so the learning curve was shorter. As I understand it, Frk (by virtue of playing with MacKinnon and Drouin) had a lot of success without ever learning how to be positionally sound. But now that his line can't steamroll people he's finding he's got neither the positioning nor the wheels to make up for it. I think Blash will get him going. But he's basically learning the "correct" way to play hockey at a MUCH higher level than most guys do.

Edit: I don't know why I typed all that. Since 2010, the first down year we had after the Cup runs, we lost Rafalski, Stuart, and Lidstrom. We acquired Ian White, Kyle Quincey, Carlo Colaiacovo, Mike Commodore, Mikhail Samuelsson, Jordin Tootoo, Daniel Alfredsson, and David Legwand. If you're content with that, fine. I'm not. I've seen the other moves made around the league, I've seen FA contracts, and trade packages too. We had the money and the assets. We didn't get the players. If this is the best we can do then A) Ken Holland's an idiot, B) Players don't want to come here, or C) both. You don't think so? Fine. But Holland himself used to say in Detroit "we expect to compete for the Cup every year". 40 year old Daniel Alfredsson and a bunch of bottom end players aren't going to get you there.

It's an example of the types of packages Holland either doesn't offer, or does and gets rejected. I know he didn't offer on Spezza, and you know what I meant. You make it seem like Hollands trying his best, and not getting any results, but then ALSO say that people aren't actively avoiding the Wings. So since we're not getting players, I don't see how both can be true.

Doesn't matter. I see wrestlers and I go into a tailspin. I'm currently watching this...

Thanks a lot dude. I've just spent the last 30 minutes reading about my favorite WWE matches on Wikipedia, such is my devotion to the greatest league in all of professional sports lol.

I did not know that. Thanks for the info. I legitimately thought everyone used periods instead of commas. By all means, keep doing your thing. I'm glad I asked though.

Is your period button broken? Because this is not the first time I've seen you use commas instead of period when trying to write numbers in decimal notation.

I take it you've not heard that saying before? You should google it rather than have me try to explain idioms on a hockey forum.

To me "the streak" is a lot like kissing your sister.

Couldn't they just move one or two of their second tier guys...like they did when they dumped Ladd, Versteeg, Big Buf? If they dropped a combination of Bickell, Versteeg, Shaw, Oduya, and Hjalmarsson they'd shed a lot of money and they'd still be a really good team. I hate to say it, but the Hawks will be just fine.

Well, believe me, I'm not fan of the Hawks, or the Pens, but I think you're a little off base here. Any team that has Crosby, Malkin, Neal, Kunitz, Jokkinen, Dupuis, Sutter, Niskanen, Letang, Morrow (for a year), Iginla (for a year), Orpik, Martin, Scuderi, et. al. SHOULD be competing for Cups. There was no problem with their depth. They just have a mediocre coach and they underperformed. As long as guys are willing to take less to play for contenders with top flight talent (as the recent signings of Ehrhoff and Richards suggest) then BOTH teams will continue to field competitive teams despite the money allocated to their star players.

Not really, I'd prefer the team be good than me be right.

I was talking about Legwand, since he's the center we gave up assets to get.