kipwinger

I agree with this, provided he maxes out his potential. There are a few things though that I think he could do to really improve his game so far. In the d-zone he tends to puck watch and loses his man, and then he's caught running around trying to catch up. He's really got to work on staying in his spot and not drifting toward the puck. Offensively, he doesn't seem to respond very well to pressure from the forecheck. When pressured, he'll make bad passes. I'd like to see him use his skating ability (his best asset) to relieve that pressure before he passes. A couple of strides before the pass would help a lot in that regard. Finally, until he's got the experience and comfort level he needs to jump into the play safely, he should only rush to a point. I don't want to see him completely stop his jumps, but he typically ends up way too low for his own good. Until he's got a better grip on when and where he can do it safely I'd prefer he pull up and get back into position before he reaches the dots.

All valid points. It's probable he wouldn't get a raise, the thing that has me wondering though is that IF the Wings wanted him back badly enough, and there is some indication that Babs really wanted him back, then it's possible they had a gentleman's agreement to sign for a little less this year and a little more next. I'm not talking huge variation or anything, but a slight bump as a pat on the back for helping them retain a player that they wanted and still not go overboard with the cap. Such backdoor agreements do happen though, considering that was all the talk this year when the Alfie talks with Ottawa went to hell.

Given how everybody is playing right now, who do you scratch to get him back in the lineup though?

It obviously depends on the year he has, and how much the cap goes up, if any. This year's free agency was a typical for sure, but even then there weren't too many teams beating down Dan Cleary's door. I don't expect him to get much of a raise, if he gets one at all it will be because he signed a very favorable deal for the Wings this year and they feel he deserves an atta boy.

I agree, but you could just as easily say 4th or 10th, doesn't really matter. The average ages are so tight across the league that it's pretty hard to argue that one team is "old" and therefore disadvantaged, while another is "young" and therefore has a leg up. Not that you were making that argument, but others have.

Poor Bert, I liked it more when he had two on the season.

I aim to please.

They're the fourth oldest team in the league behind New Jersey, Florida, and Pittsburgh. But you're right, it's not the point of this thread. http://stats.nhlnumbers.com/teams

Well I guess that in your previous posts you've failed miserably to justify Tootoo's contract based on "bringing energy" and "pumping up the crowd". And how could you not? I mean, with the veritable cornucopia of sound, fact based, information you've provided I can't help but come to the light. I had no idea that being a hype man and "pumping up the crowd" by "bringing energy" was worth so much in your eyes. I guess you've won me over. I'm going to head over to Youtube right now and look up some old Public Enemy videos. Nobody could "bring energy" and "pump up the crowd" like Flava Flav. Good win dude. Good win.

I mean, it doesn't really matter does it. You're responsible for not hitting guys in the head, accidentally or not. He doesn't have a history of this, which should keep the punishment to a minimum, but at the end of the day you can't do that.

I wonder if Babs ever fought when he played minors, or if he'd just healthy scratch anyone he didn't like.

Haha, I read that too and thought the exact same thing. For a while I was an assistant professor at Central Michigan, and trying to relate to the 18 year old freshman was an exercise in futility. Pretty much the exact same thing going on here.

So you're not going to address a single thing I said and focus solely on my well documented opposition to fighting eh? Again, please tell me what he brings to the table that's worth 1.9 million dollars to a cap crunched team?

Fighting in hockey is stupid, everybody knows my position on it. There I said it, I feel better. My opinion on fighting is not why I think Tootoo is the odd man out. I think that because he makes more than Eaves and plays far, far, far less. You can make this about my position on fighting if you want, but you still haven't really explained why Tootoo hardly plays if indeed he's so valuable. You're talking about of both sides of your mouth. You imply that Tootoo brings a unique skill set and that every team that wins the Cup needs at least one guy with a unique skill set. So far, I can sorta go along with you. But then you say it's not about his hitting for fighting, which are the only thing he brings that are unique on this team. He does not play special teams, he's not a defensive whiz, he provides no offense, and he plays less than all other forwards 5-on-5. Then you say it's about some amorphous intangibles like bringing "energy" and "pumping up the crowd". But those aren't unique skills. Big saves, goals, important penalty kills, all "provide energy" and "pump up the crowd". Even by your standards he fails to bring more intangibles than anyone else...except hitting and fighting, which you say isn't the point. Tootoo hits and fights. And that's fine, he should play his game. But he doesn't do anything else of value that someone else doesn't do better...and the Red Wings HARDLY value that. That's why he's the odd man out.

I think you're wholly misrepresenting Kaleta here. He's never going to be confused with Henrik Zetterberg, but as far as bottom sixers go, he's got pretty good skating, defense, and penalty killing ability. He doesn't light the world on fire offensively, but then again he's a fourth line agitator for Buffalo, so his chances to put the puck on net are few and far between. My old roomie was from Buffalo and I've had to sit through far more of their games than a person ever should, so I've seen quite a lot of Kaleta over the years. As I said before, he's as good as Tootoo and probably better. Kaleta's problem isn't his game, it's all between the ears.

You might have a point about Karlsson, if you think Cooke intentionally tried to cut his ankle. But you're off base with Savard. That hit happened in 2010 and Cooke was not given a suspension. It wasn't until the 2011 hit on McDonagh that Cooke received his lengthy suspension and subsequently "cleaned up his act". Whether you believe that he is reformed or not, you certainly cannot claim that the Savard hit is proof that he isn't because that hit happened prior to his supposed reformation. Additionally, I would like to point out that in the two seasons since his big suspension he's had 44 and 36 penalty minutes respectively, with zero major penalties, and one misconducts in combined seasons. Prior to the suspension he was coming off three straight 100+ pim seasons, with 12 majors and 7 misconducts combined. Compare his last two years with Abdelkader's 62 and 34 pims, 8 majors, and one misconduct during that same time span and you'll see that there's at least some reason to believe that he's turned his game around. The real issue is that he should have been playing that way the whole time.

Didn't know where I should put this so I'm putting it here. Pretty sure I just found...Doc Emrick at the Tigers game. Looked like they had him on camera in Tigers gear.

I'd like to see...just for a game or two. Alfie-Dats-Bert Zetterberg-Weiss-Franzen Tatar-Andersson-Abby Miller-Helm-Cleary Tootoo-Eaves

We have more guys in their twenties than in their thirties. Now apparently we're not young enough. Do we need to be Edmonton to be considered young? Oh wait, their average age of 27.2 isn't noticeably different than our 28.6. That average will be even lower in two weeks when Helm and Eaves return to the lineup. Buffalo has the lowest average age in the league at 25.3. Unless you're splitting hairs we're just as young as everybody else...within reason.

Gustavsson was never as bad as he looked last year, and once you dig into the stats a little bit you realize he wasn't even THAT bad during that campaign. I'm prefacing this by saying that when your team doesn't score at all, or when they get blown out, the goalie is not really to blame. So in the 0-6 loss to St. Louis and the 1-7 loss to Chicago (in both games Howard got scored on more than Gus) he's not really to blame. Likewise, in the 0-3 loss to Columbus he's not really to blame. Obviously something was wrong in that game, and upon inspection you'll find that we lost 66% of total faceoffs, and turned the puck over 11 times. So excluding those games you're left with... 3-4 overtime loss (in this game we had 19 turnovers and gave Nashville 6 powerplays) 2-1 shootout win 2-5 loss (purely Gustavsson's fault, 5 goals on 22 shots) 3-2 win Not great by any means, but he had as many good games as bad ones last year.

"It’s just a read. If you don’t change the way you visually see the game, then change is impossible." - Matt Cooke Translation: Once you begin seeing opposing players as human beings, and not like animals to be slaughtered, it's much easier to play hockey without intentionally trying to ruin their lives.

Zing.

Sure, that's a definite possibility. And perhaps Buffalo is a long shot in that regard. But Sammy has a history with Florida, had a moderate degree of success with them, and every young team needs veterans around the locker room. An example would be Vinny Prospal with Columbus. He was a guy at the tail end of his career who was a successful contributor on a young team and really helped in the leadership department. Again, I'm not saying it's going to happen, but it's not out of the ballpark either.

Well what makes it plausible is that he's in the last year of his contract. Anybody who picked him up would certainly be taking a gamble, but if it didn't pay off it's not like they'd be stuck with him. Like I said, I think an offensively challenged team or perhaps one with some injury problems MIGHT be willing to take the chance on him given his history, if only for a half of a season. Remember that contracts are pro-rated as the season progresses, so any team that picked him up wouldn't be on the hook for his full yearly salary anyway. Only the cap hit would count against them, and only for the remainder of this season. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but it's not as outlandish as it sounds initially, and it's certainly more likely than someone trading assets for him. Edit: Teams like Buffalo, Florida, Calgary, Ottawa, New Jersey, or Nashville are all on the low end of the cap picture, and also seem to be having trouble finding consistent offense. As such, they certainly fit the bill as far as teams that might take a chance. Especially if they find themselves competitive in spite of their offensive woes like Ottawa, Calgary, and Nashville have.

I definitely think an offensively challenged team would take Sammy for 1 million. But I think it would be smarter to waive him first and see if anyone picks him up before offering to eat salary. He doesn't have a no movement clause though, so he can be waived and picked up by someone else.