kipwinger

I'm as eager to pretend things are "all Babs' fault" as you are to absolve him of any possible culpability. Which is to say that both are gross over generalizations. I don't hate Babcock, I just don't think he's beyond his share of the culpability when things go awry. Now, on to the way you addressed me. You don't have to agree with anything I say. I'm sure you're aware of that. But in the future I'd appreciate you not insinuating I've made things up, or make condescending references to my "elaborate claims". I'm not stupid, or a liar, and I resent being represented as such. As far as evidence for my "elaborate claims", I guess I'd start with all these... "In Daniel Cleary's case, when he was brought back at the 11th hour last fall, at the urging of coach Mike Babcock, it was with the understanding the Wings would ameliorate Cleary having left a three-year deal on the table in Philadelphia." http://www.freep.com/article/20140605/SPORTS05/306050048/detroit-red-wings-ken-holland "Cleary was a surprise, because he had bad knees and better offers elsewhere. But coach Mike Babcock wanted him back. The team leaders wanted him back – from Howard to Zetterberg to Datsyuk. And he came back on a one-year deal worth $1.75 million" https://sports.yahoo.com/news/nhl-s-hottest-scorer-gustav-nyquist-shooting-for-goals--glory---playoffs-after-starting-the-season-in-ahl-161232581.html "At the 11th hour, coach Mike Babcock pushed for Cleary to return, resulting in a one-year contract with promise of future employment." http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nhl/2014/04/27/red-wings-free-agent-list/8294157/ "Babcock had been pushing hard for Holland to re-sign Cleary, a versatile, hard-working heart-and-soul type of player who can play on any line and in any situation." http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2013/09/daniel_cleary_followed_his_hea.html "Detroit Red Wings coach Mike Babcock has been a big supporter of Daniel Cleary since the forward earned a contract with the club following a training camp tryout in 2005. Babcock pushed hard for the team to re-sign Cleary in the off-season." http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2013/11/red_wings_mike_babcock_hopes_s_1.html It's not too hard to see why I'd think Babcock was the primary motivator in bringing back Cleary when two of the Wings most prominent beat writers, as well as two reasonably well respected national outlets reported as much.

I'll agree about Niskanen, but not about Boyle. Boyle put up 36 pts. on a team which was second in the league in goals per game. San Jose is WAY more offensively capable than we are. There's no way he duplicates those numbers. The guy's washed up and his highly skilled offense pulled him along. He'd put up terrible numbers for Detroit, and our defense would remain small and slow, and after getting manhandled in the playoffs next season we'd all be wondering "what happened?". What happened was we were cheap and took a flier on a guy who anybody could see was done.

Why for listening to "the bestest coach eva", and his team leadership, when they said that re-signing Cleary was an absolute must? If he hadn't done that and Cleary put up moderately good numbers in Philly everyone would blame him for NOT listening to Babs. Without the coach's intervention, Cleary is a Flyer right now. It's as simple as that. This I agree with. He likely won't make the team and will retire rather than play in GR. It's just silly that it's even an issue right now. But I'll be amazed if he takes even a single shift as a Red Wing next season.

Not really, those guys didn't play for huge chunks of the season last year. The only way they hurt us was by taking up roster and cap space that could be used better elsewhere. But it's clear that the roster and cap space aren't going to be used better elsewhere so what difference does it make. You can blame Sammy, Bert, and Cleary until you're blue in the face, but they weren't the ones getting dominated by the Bruins. It was our defense who is either too dumb, unskilled, or weak to advance the puck, and a forward corps which both A) too small and one dimensional and B) either not mature enough, or too old, to play against guys in their prime. I don't see how bringing Alfie back and picking up some mediocre puck mover is going to help that. Christ, we've had two mediocre puckmovers in the last 3 years. Why not just hang on to White or Colaiacovo if you want a 2.5 million dollar, smallish, puckmover?

Whoa Whoa Whoa, don't everybody go blaming Holland here. Babs was the one who wanted him back. Babs was the reason he left money on the table in Philly. And Babs was the reason he got a commitment beyond last year from the Wings. If Holland had his say Dan Cleary would be entering the second year of his three year contract with the Flyers right now.

Is it starting to become clear to anyone else that with the exception of some lame ass acquisition like Dan Boyle or Tom Gilbert we're going to have the EXACT same team as last year? All the resources in the world won't make a difference if there's no will to use them. Puke. Expect D and Z to be hurt again, expect the kids to have good but not great seasons, expect Alfie to be re-signed and then be hurt/run out of gas, and expect our defense to be poor again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Didn't they offer Maltby a two way contract in his final year as well? It was basically, make the team or retire? I could be wrong.

Well this both a blessing and a curse. No longer will Bruins fans have the opportunity to cheer on a local hero. On the other hand, at least Shawn Thornton will finally be able to pursue his true calling in life...dragging pretty blond women to the top of the Empire State building.

If Winnipeg is willing to trade anyone, I'd rather have Wheeler. He's a MUCH better player than Kane, though I've got nothing against Kane either. Also, I'd be reluctant to put too many eggs in Pulkkinen's basket. He's got a monster shot but he seems to be a one trick pony. I know you've got to give talent to get talent so I'm not going to shut down people's suggestions, but if it were humanly possible I'd MUCH rather trade Pulks than Tatar.

I'll take your word for it because I play the nothing lol.

I don't think anyone would argue that a good team should have a mix of grit and skill, North Americans or Euros. But beyond that kind of a platitude I don't think there's much to say. Anybody who thinks they know the exact ratio to land a Stanley Cup should feel free to post it. If not, then I'd imagine it depends on the coach, organizational philosophy, and existing roster.

That's the most reasonable set of defense pairings you've posted in a while. I'm proud of ya kid!

It's the ciiiiiiiiiiiiiiircle of liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife! "Some people pull the cello and some people play the cello" - Pavel Datsyuk

Here's my source, I know it's probably not as "accurate" as you'd like but it is the actual NHL website so it should do. If you still think Smith scored more even strength points than any defenseman on the team, I don't know what to tell you. http://www.nhl.com/ice/playerstats.htm?fetchKey=20142DETDADALL&sort=evenStrengthPoints&viewName=points Finally, I notice that you keep ignoring the part of my point where I criticize Corsi stats because they're heavily skewed toward offense but I'll try again. If Corsi numbers truly tell which player is "better", then how do you explain Mike Green having a higher Corsi than Ryan Suter and David Booth having a higher Corsi than John Tavares?

I don't agree that player acquisition is a crap shoot, but I do agree that this isn't a story. Lost in this story is the fact that Columbus had their franchise best season this year and were VERY close to knocking off the heavily favored Pens. People tend to overlook the fact that they're building a pretty good team down in Columbus without Nash, Gaborik, or Carter. I definitely wouldn't have wanted to play them in the playoffs. They're fast, big, hit hard, play defense and have a lot of quality talent. It would have been embarrassing if we'd lost to them, and we probably would have if the truth be known.

I know Williams is the feel good story, and Doughty would have been the "he's probably the best player in the world at his position" story, but Gaborik deserved the Conn Smythe. He was something else in these playoffs.

Kesler has a no trade clause and wants to go to a contender. Ottawa isn't one. I don't think this trade would work EVEN IF Kesler didn't have an NTC considering there's no sense in either team getting rid of a player who doesn't want to be there in order to pick up another player who doesn't want to be there. Neither of these guys requested trades so that they could go play for losers.

Which is why I said they're POTENTIALLY negative. I'm glad you got to the bottom of that mystery. Offersheets almost never work, and when they do it's for marginal talent. Because of this they aren't worth the potentially negative consequences. You keep talking about Weber as if something was accomplished by the offer sheet. All it did was drive up his contract, astronomically overinflate the value of franchise defensemen, and piss off another GM who you will likely have to deal with again one day. Whether Poile immediately responded to Philly is irrelevant. The point is that Nashville was always going to match the offer. Philly was never getting Weber. So why put yourself in a position where negative consequences COULD happen if there's almost zero percent chance the offer sheet will work? Same with Montreal. They'll match any offer on Subban within reason. So the only outcomes are, you get Subban on an unreasonable contract, or you don't get him and potentially have negative things happen (in addition to driving up prices which will ultimately harm you as well). There's no scenario where we get Subban on an offer sheet for a reasonable contract. None. So why do it?

In the last 16 years, it's only been attempted 9 times. That's out of hundreds or thousands of potential RFAs during that period. The offer sheet has been matched in every instance but 1 (Dustin Penner). This includes attempted offer sheets on players of "that caliber" like Kesler, Weber, Vanek, Backes, and Fedorov. Apparently GMs should "strongly consider" something which happens a handful of times for every hundred or thousand RFAs, and only succeeds 1 out of 9 times when it is tried. Definitely a good use of their time. With moves like that we could have a Dustin Penner on our hands in no time. You should send an email to Ken Holland. I'm sure the reason he doesn't ever do it is because he's not aware of what a good idea it is, and not because it's unlikely to work and has many (potentially) negative consequences.

But the same can be said of the initial offer. If we sent an offer sheet for Subban and it was a really good deal, Montreal would match it. If it was a really bad deal, they'd give him to us on a really bad deal or they'd match it and then force us to overpay the same amount by raising the price of our RFAs (slightly) through offer sheets. I don't know why I need to keep making this point. If the logic was so sound then people would do it. Since it rarely happens I'd say there's less utility in it then you're suggesting. Either that or almost every GM in the league (including our own) is a fool who doesn't see something so obvious. I'm not buying it. Well that's one in a row for you. The possibility is what stops it from happening. Surely I don't have to explain how deterrents work.

If you don't understand the points I'm making then I don't know how to be more clear. GMs don't do offer sheets because then other GMs would do the same back to them. There's a reason why every armchair GM thinks it's a good idea and every real GM (aside from the aforementioned Holmgren) doesn't. If we offersheeted Subban, the next couple of years would get REALLY expensive in Detroit.

8 million is only slightly more than what Subban will likely get. Probably about a half million dollars a year more than his market worth. If they offer sheeted Tatar and Dekeyser at 3.5 million and Sheahan at 2.5 million they'd be doing us just as much harm as we'd be doing them by offering Subban 8. Offer sheets are largely useless for this exact reason.

At the trade deadline Detroit and Chicago were on the list as well, but may have been dropped since. The gist then, as now, is that Kesler wants to play for a contender. Not a team that misses the playoffs, like his current team...or Ottawa.

Wouldn't they then have all the incentive in the world to do the same with Tatar, Dekeyser, and Sheahan? They could end up costing us just as much as we'd "cost" them and neither of the teams would have anything to show for it other than a player they were going to sign anyway. Which is why GMs (other than that monkey Paul Holmgren) don't ever do it.

I don't want Spezza on this team, but this plus minus talk is silly. You can't use his -26 this year against him and then fail to give him credit for his career +53. He's got a better career plus minus than Mike Richards, who was a finalist for the Selke Trophy. Either it's a terrible stat and shouldn't be used at all, or it's a good enough stat which has to be used to validate a player just as much as it's used to denigrate them. Personally, I don't think Spezza's a great defensive player. BUT, he's better than his -26 indicated this season, and he's probably worse than his career high +26 indicates as well.