kipwinger

That's really not true though. Samuelsson, Kopecky, and Quincey all had much higher totals with other teams. They all had their career years elsewhere. Our biggest FA offensive success story is Hossa who, again, had his sixth best offensive season with us. Now, you could argue that this is because we only ever sign role players and aging guys...but that would only further my point that our organizational philosophy is such that offensive production is not our primary concern. But as I stated before, it's not a knock on any player or our philosophy or system. It's just an acknowledgement that our current system does not revolve around high powered offense. I'm not really sure why I'm even having to argue this considering 1) nobody has come to Detroit in recent memory and had a career year, 2) we haven't had anything close to a league leader in any offensive category in quite a long time, and 3) in the last five years have ranked 14th, 2nd, 7th, 19th, and 16th respectively. The anomaly is the one year we did have a good offense not the three bad ones and one sorta good one. Edit: In in interest of fairness, Ian White had a career year with Detroit, eclipsing his previous personal best by six points, which is roughly the same as Samuelsson's improvement when he went to Vancouver. I stand corrected.

Right but you can't dismiss marginal the improvements made by Quincey (when he left), Filppula, Hudler, Kopecky, and Sammuelsson (when he left) as being in essence "too small to matter" but then use equally small improvements (or sustainments) made by Alfie, Hossa, or Bert as proof of the opposite. If one sample is too moderate a change to matter, then so is the other. I'd agree about the injured players and short-timers though, and to give credence to your position I'd say that had his role remained the same Legwand would likely have sustained the level of offense he'd had in Nashville as well. None of which was my point, however, because I was responding to a guy who said Holland hadn't made an impact move since Hossa. My point was to suggest that our system has not been conducive to large amounts of offense in quite a while. So one shouldn't be surprised if guys like Legwand, Alfie, Weiss (injured, I get it), Quincey, or anyone else don't have the "impact" that they might have on another team. Doesn't mean they're not quality players or high profile moves. It means that their numbers suffer as a result of team philosophy and system which works against big offense. It's also not a dig on the team, system, or philosophy either. It's an acknowledgement of those things' effect on offensive production. Edit: Hossa had his sixth best offense season in Detroit. So I'm not even going call that a sustainment. He's had better offensive production on 3 of the 4 other teams he played on, and the only one he didn't was his 12 games in Pittsburgh.

Alright man, you win. You've said it enough that it's finally sunk in. Niskanen sucks because you say so (over and over and over again).

Where's GMRwings at? I'd think he'd already be here to gloat about Price. Isn't that his boy?

It's a legit question. For years that's been the Red Wings way. I'd like to think it would matter about as much as when Hossa came in and made more than Hank or Pav, but who knows. I do know this though. If the Wings continue to deny that market/contract inflation pertains to them they'll continue to miss valuable free agents. And as they slip down the standings the free agents are even less likely to sign with us, and will require more money if they do. Vicious circle. I'd hope Kronwall is professional enough to understand that. Lidstrom certainly understood that in order to ice the best possible team he couldn't continue to remain the team's highest paid player into old age.

When you say "impact player" it appears what you really mean is that "they haven't added a STAR"" since Hossa. Weiss, Alfredsson, and Legwand were all bona fide top six forwards their entire careers, and based on Alfie's 49 pts and Legwand's 51 pts. this season they've still got plenty of impact. Weiss was hurt, oh well, no knock on his "not being an impact player". Even Quincey was a legit top four defenseman when we acquired him, coming off big minute high production seasons with two different teams. I love acquiring stars as much as the next guy. I'm the one pulling for a Ryan Kesler trade. But it's unfair to suggest that Holland doesn't bring in "impact players". He does. He just doesn't bring in stars. Mostly because there aren't many of them to go around. Instead of worrying yourself over the lack of star deals. I'd ask myself this. Why is it that every player that we acquire produces less when he gets here, and why is it that every player we lose produces more after they're gone? Now that's a question for the ages.

Agreed. Nobody is saying that he should get paid like Chara, Suter, or Weber. And he won't. He should get paid about 5.5 million. Which is a slight overpayment, but in today's market, with few other options, that's what a defeseman with his skill set will make. We either 1) can pay it, 2) stick with what we have, or 3) spend more money than the overpayment for Niskanen on a cheap alternative. Those are the options and two of them don't seem to be working too well for us. He'd be making about as much as Duncan Keith, who signed his 5.5 million dollar contract extension two months into the 2009 season. Up to that point, his previous career best was 44 pts. and 32 pts. Wisniewski signed a similar sized contract after putting up similar numbers and playing similar minutes. So did Erhoff. It's likely Niskanen doesn't become a Duncan Keith, Chicago got a steal by signing him long term and letting him develop. But he'll likely be as good as Wisniewski or Erhoff. And both of those guys are worth their contracts. Quality, big minute, puck moving d-men don't grow on trees.

I would LOVE to see PK take apart the might Boston Bruins for soooooo many reasons. Vive le bleu, blanc et rouge!

Correct. And that's no knock on either of those players, or on our organization. It's just that some guys who work on one team wouldn't work on another. Gaborik in Columbus for example. Good player, wrong team. Same with Krug. He needs a big team to be effective.

No thanks. A 5'9 defenseman can work on a team of giants and badasses and giant badasses. On our team he'd just get steamrolled on the forecheck and he'd have half as many assists because the guys he'd be passing to are 190 lbs. as opposed to 215-235 lbs, and get knocked off the puck more often. Sadly, Torey's not the guy for us. Good player though.

Hey I'm not saying throw the kid away for nothing, despite my constant irritation with him I've said over and over that he will get better. With that said, I think we could handle losing him (provided we signed Niskanen), and it would definitely take the sting out of it if we were getting Kesler in return. But...if you can get Kesler without giving him up, why not?

I real question is, how well would Todd McLellan like working for Jeff Blashill? Let's just combine the two threads right now.

Or you could sign Niskanen, take the risk, and use those assets on a forward with size, speed, skill, and grit who has already identified your team as being one he'd wave his NTC to come to. Just sayin'.

You keep saying this, what reason do you have to think he'd be a disaster? The kid is already better than all but (maybe) two of our defensemen. It's not like he's an unknown quantity. He's a young d-man just entering his prime, who has played his way onto the top pairing of a good defense, on a very good team. He plays on the PK, PP, and has put up points on two different teams. You know how many defensemen we have who have put up 48 pts. a season (Niskanen's numbers this year)? One...Kronwall (career high 51 pts). You know how many defensemen we have who have put up 35 pts. in a season (Niskanen's second best year)? Two...Kronwall and Quincey. You know how many defensemen we have who have scored more than Niskanen did his rookie year? Two...Kronwall and Quincey. Even if he never improved from his rookie year (which he obviously has) he's still better than every other puck mover on our team not named Kronwall.

Yeah, wouldn't want to marginally overpay for a good young talent (Erhoff, Wisniewski, Niskanen) when there are bargains everywhere you look (Commodore, White, Colaiacovo). We've been down this road before. Just overpay for Niskanen by a million dollars if necessary (5.5 for 5 years) and let him grow into it. Either that or we can A) do nothing to our defense (which seems to be working great so far, ugh) or B) sign some marginal journeyman or aging vet and hope they produce over their heads (which I'm sure will totally work this time too, double ugh).

If you're going to give up the assets necessary to get Joe Pavelski why wouldn't you just go after Kesler instead? In addition to all the thing you mentioned about Pavelski, Kelser's also cheaper, bigger, faster, grittier, better defensively, and would take less to get considering he's demanded a trade. I'm starting to get the feeling the objections you had yesterday were less about his cap, injury proneness, or trade value, and more to do with the fact that you just don't like Ryan Kesler.

I get the sense you don't like Franzen. Why the change of heart?

It's not a matter of giving up on anyone. It's a matter of changing the dynamic of the team because the same old thing just isn't working. Also, Kesler is 29 and has played in 77 or more games 7 out of 10 years in the league, only dipping below that in the lockout year, his rookie year (when he likely didn't dress all 82 games), and one other time about six years ago. He only missed 5 games this year...with a broken finger...suffered in the Olympics. That's a higher rate of games played per season than Datsyuk or Zetterberg, nevermind Helm. It's not like he's Vincent Lecavalier or anything. He's also under contract for two more years at 5 million dollars...so he's not exactly breaking the bank. No matter how you cut it, we're a MUCH better team with Niskanen and Kesler rather than Helm, Smith and a 1st. And you're not giving up the world. One (or all) of Sproul, Ouellet, Marchenko, and Backman projects as high or higher than Smith and Sheahan is probably already better than Helm. Plus, how do you not like the size and speed of a team with Kesler, Sheahan, Jurco, Abby, and Franzen (and in a year or so Mantha). Just written down it's tougher to play against than the team we actually iced for the last five years or so. Everybody always wants to get younger, faster, and harder to play against. Here's how we can do it, and it will only cost Helm, Smith, and a 1st. Hell it may even cost you less (but I'd gladly go this high).

I agree with everything you've said here. And still I make this trade 100 times out of 100. It's a no brainer, for both sides.

So would they. It's Holland I'm not sure about. He's loyal to a fault.

Check out my proposed lineup in the other offseason thread to see exactly what I'd do with the defense. We wouldn't lose a single young d-man either. Spoiler Alert! It involves moving our 1st, Smith, and either Helm or Abby for a hometown guy who wants off his current team and has already identified Detroit as a place he'd waive his no trade clause to go to. The same guy who was nearly had for two packages which weren't as good as the one I just proposed.

Well you definitely don't break up the kid line, so Sheahan stays where he's at. But I don't think there's any reason why Helm couldn't get quality ice time on the fourth line. The grinders did it for years. You don't have to like Drew Miller. Babs does, so he's not going anywhere. If we were to sign a guy like Thornton (which we won't) he'd likely be the 13 forward and be in the press box most nights. That's just the truth of the matter. As for Niskanen...26 pts. as a rookie is not unremarkable, it's pretty impressive (especially since Dallas was horrible back then). He then improved to 35 pts., which is good by any objective measure. His numbers then dipped as his ice time did, and went back up as he earned the ice time back, culminating in a 48 pts breakout season which happens to coincide with his being at an age where defensemen typically have breakout seasons. If Brendan Smith put up 26 pts. in his rookie season people around here would devolve into wild throes of ecstasy considering they're ready to lick his balls after the 19 he managed this season. Again, Niskanen's for read dude.

Get the bottom six playing exactly where they should be and they'll be fine. The kid line was a very good second line this year, so slotted (correctly) as third and they'll be dominant. And a shutdown fourth of Miller-Glendening-Helm/Abby would be very solid as well. Hell, I'm feeling generous...if it would please everyone else, sign a fighter to be your 13th forward. Who really cares anyway?

I'm just trying to be realistic with this one. You can't get Kesler for Smith, Glendening, and a 1st. You just can't. But you really could for Smith, Helm, and a 1st, and I'd do that in a second. He didn't just have one good year. He's had a couple of pretty good years, and then a breakout year with a couple stinkers in the middle. Which is in line with his scouting report which said he was a guy with all the talent who just needed to put it together. Looks like he has considering he's worked he's played his way into 20+ minutes a night on a defense that has Letang, Orpik, Martin, and Scuderi. Kid's for real.

So in the "Offseason Needs" thread I posted my realistic offseason plan, which was to sign Niskanen and promote from within. Here I'm going to post my dream scenario, which actually might not be too off base. Sign Niskanen, and trade our 1st, Helm or Abby (not both), and Smith for Ryan Kesler. We don't need a first, we've already got too many NHL quality prospects, and we can easily handle the loss of Smith and Abby or Helm. No knock on any of those guys, but I love the thought of this Z-Dats-Kesler Franzen-Weiss-Nyquist Tatar-Sheahan-Jurco Miller-Glendening-Helm/Abby Kronwall-Ericsson Niskanen-Dekeyser Marchenko-Quellet/Sproul Note: If that rookie third pair was shaky you can always trade for a veteran third pair stay at home guy with any of the 2 million quality prospects we've got. Double Note: This package for Kesler is better than both Pittsburgh and Anaheim's packages which reportedly "nearly landed" him at the deadline. It should work. If not, add some combination of Kidl, Andersson, Bachman, Pulkkinen, Callahan, or Ferraro until it does.