kipwinger

Since when does adding a top 4 d-man and a top 6 forward not count as making a big move? Those are HUGE additions to any team. No, we're not going to go out and pick up a superstar, but adding someone like Wiz or Bieksa, and adding a forward like Laich (or anybody is this caliber), definitely count as big moves.

No, no they do not. A large part of the problem is the fans, or at least the hockey culture in Toronto. I've heard them described as the Yankee fans of hockey, proud and fanatically loyal, but short sighted. Unfortunately, for someone like me who revels in the Leafs' failures they are probably going to get better, if they have enough common sense to leave Brian Burke alone to do his job. Anybody else notice how all he's done is tear that organization down, strip it of dead weight, or at least get rid of contracts that didn't fit into his scheme? Also, notice how in most cases he's moved guys in return for relatively high draft picks. They are a few years away yet, but they're going to start developing that team, the right way. And in a few years they'll have a very quality hockey club, just like Burke did in Vancouver, and just like he did in Anaheim. Unless all the scrutiny from the dips*** fans and all the other indians wanting to be chiefs gets him fired first. They've been terrible for a long time, that won't change overnight, but they've got the right people in there to do it now.

My other big question concerns Brooks Laich. Capable of playing left wing or center, defensively responsible (+14), with a good offensive touch (48 pts. this season, down from 59 and 52 the last two years). He's young(ish) at 27 and has been improving steadily every year. Between his size (6'2, 220 lbs.) and his versatility, I really like him on our top two lines, allowing us to mix and match wingers and spread the offense out over the top three lines, providing the depth that we need to compete with the San Jose's and Vancouver's of the league. He made roughly 2.5 million on his last contract and would likely make a little more. Anyone think this is possible, provided Rafalski's defensive replacement come in around 4 or 4.5 million, in addition to the fact that the cap will expand, and Modano's (at least Modano's) contract is likely coming off the books?

You're right on both accounts, and you wouldn't necessarily have to put them together if you signed Carter. But if they were, I don't think you'd be in too bad of shape.

You may be right on this. However, and I'll probably get blasted for this, one of the VERY FEW criticisms that I have of Babcock is that he plays with the line combinations constantly. To the point that guys are playing with different pairings every few nights. In a game where chemistry and timing matters as much as hockey, it seems to really bog some guys down. I don't know if that's the reason they haven't been as good together, but I don't really care for it, and certainly you don't see other teams tops lines doing it (at least not nearly as often).

Fair enough. Like I said, I haven't really seen them too much, but sounds like trouble.

Yeah, it's probably an extremely long shot, but man would it ever look good.

Ok cool, thanks for the info. Anybody else like the looks of this? Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Holmstrom Franzen-Carter-Cleary Bertuzzi-Filpula-Abdelkader Eaves-Helm-Miller

Does anybody know if he can play the wing as well? I'm curious what kind of options he would give us as far as line combos?

God knows I'd want to see the deal done. If they can figure out a way of doing it, that would be a big break. It gives us the addition in the top six that Babcock wants (and we need) without breaking the bank for it. And gives us more money to work with when it comes to signing additions on the defense. Good point on the RFA aspect of Voracek, that might be a deciding factor. Rafalski's contract coming off the books this year was a huge break for us. Now this possibility. Can we really be this fortunate?

Damn, Voracek's cap hit is only 1.2 as well. We'd have to throw a lot more than Hudler or Abdelkader their way.

"No, please dear GOD no. At no point in his career has Jovanovski been worth that much. As for right now? You do know that while Jovanovski started the season as the Yotes' #4, they acquired Klesla during the season (who played ahead of him) and rookie David Schlemko passed him on the depth chart? Would you pay $5m for the #6 defenseman from a team that had the third-worst SA/G and the fifth-worst PK? A defenseman whose ONLY purposes on his team (Jovo scored 14 points in 50 regular season games, and did not play the PP) were leadership and defense/PK? I sure as hell wouldn't foot that bill. He's at least learned that his defensive zone exists, though, even if he still isn't very good there. Jovo might be a good fit on the third pairing to replace Ericsson. He's got some speed, he's physical, and he's as good defensively. But I wouldn't pay him more than $1.5m to do it. Past that you can get much better players." I agree dude, I wasn't arguing in favor of Jovo, I don't want him. I'm just saying I don't think he's going to take a big paycut to go somewhere else. He'll get 5-6 million, and hopefully it won't be from us.

Trade for Carter? Done. With that size, age, and kind of production on the top six, and the fact that at least half of his cap hit would be offset by the loss of Hudler's contract, I'd do it in a second. Of course, I thought it would be a good idea to go up to 4-4.5 million on a forward in addition to Hudler's contract, so I'd obviously be for it. Because of Carter's age, you could presumably pair Hudler with a young prospect (probably Tatar) and still come out even or ahead in regards to long term depth.

I completely agree. I thought we was pretty good in those playoff games as well, which is why I couldn't understand why he didn't play in more once Franzen was pretty obviously rendered ineffective. The only thing that I can think of (considering nothing ever came out) was that Babcock thought he just couldn't do it, or just couldn't keep doing it. And certainly the comments couldn't have helped reassure him. Again, I don't know if that's what really happened, but for some reason they didn't feel confident playing him in those games, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why.

I was happy with the Wings signing him too, I liked it in theory. I just think that there's a time and a place to say things like what he was saying, and to do it the way he did doesn't really make a coach feel real good about playing him in the playoffs when it matters. I don't want to say it's a lack of heart, but when you feel like maybe the will to play isn't there anymore, then it's probably time to quit.

Yeah I like Montador a lot. He's a better fit, and comes from a very defensively responsible system which is always real positive for an FA pick up. With those third pair guys, it's about getting a lot of bang for the buck, which is why I was curious about the Wallin thing. But at similar prices you're absolutely right, Montador is the better choice.

To take this in a different direction, can anyone make a case for Ian White and Niclas Wallin of the Sharks as possible alternatives to the defensive holes that need to be filled. Both are good, stay at home defenseman. The problems I see are these: 1. Neither can reproduce the kind of offensive numbers Rafalski put up, so that's lost. White was acquired in a trade for a first round pick so SJ is probably going to want to re-sign him. Wallin is at best a third pair guy, and makes 2.5 mil, so he'd have to come down a little bit (he's 36, so it's realistic) in order to take over the Ericsson role, but he was a stud in the playoffs (against us anyway). Because they are on the west coast I really haven't seen either of them play enough for me to say anything about them either way. Any thoughts?

I was a little irked by his "I just don't know if I have it in me" attitude all season. I think that's largely the reason Babcock went with Draper as the extra forward when Franzen was down in the playoffs. He's been a great player for a lot of years but if that's how he feels then he'd better just retire.

He wanted to sign long term with the Wings and we didn't have the cap space because we signed Zetterberg long term the same year and had to re-sign Franzen in the offseason. That's why he went to Chicago and signed long term. To give credit to you (can't believe I'm saying this) he did in fact sign the one year deal, although he certainly wanted more. "Late in the regular season, on March 23, 2009, Hossa was quoted as saying he would like to sign a long-term career deal with the Red Wings for the upcoming season. He also stated he is willing to take less money to continue to play for Detroit, saying, "I know if I go somewhere else, I could have more, but I'm willing to take less to stay here. Hopefully things work out." Hossa's comments came just several months after the Red Wings signed forward Henrik Zetterberg to a twelve-year contract extension." "On July 1, 2009, Hossa signed a 12 year contract with the Chicago Blackhawks worth $62.8 million. The contract is front-loaded with $59.3 million due in the first eight years for an average cap hit of $5.2 million per season.[28] It was also the most lucrative deal in team history until defenceman Duncan Keith signed a 13-year, $72 million contract several months later in December 2009.["

Here's something interesting to check out. I was looking at Erhoff, Wisniewski, Bieksa, and Suter (for next year's class) career comparisons and I noticed something pretty striking. Their numbers are pretty much identical for all intents and purposes. They are all roughly the same age, put up the same kind of numbers, are all career plus, and average the same time on ice. Admittedly, each player is a different guy. Wisniewski is bigger and more physical than the rest, Erhoff has the best offensive numbers, Suter plays the most and has been consistently a top pair guy, etc. Obviously, each player is a different fit for each team looking to sign them, but as far as any one of them being far and away a better player than the rest statistically, or monetarily, there's just not that much difference. Here's the links to each, have a look and see what you think. Suter...http://espn.go.com/nhl/player/stats/_/id/3047/ryan-suter Erhoff...http://espn.go.com/nhl/player/stats/_/id/1965/christian-ehrhoff Wisniewski...http://espn.go.com/nhl/player/stats/_/id/2966/james-wisniewski Kevin Bieksa...http://espn.go.com/nhl/player/stats/_/id/3269/kevin-bieksa

Agreed. All I'm saying is that Jovo will definitely make the money, and if they're roughly the same price, or if Wiz is cheaper, lock him up.

That's the point, he's not going to take a cut. He's not old enough for that yet. He's going to sign a contract like Roman Hamrlik did with Montreal in 2007 (4 years, 22 million). Hamerlik was 33 at the time and playing good hockey. Jovo is 34 now and playing good hockey. He's not going to take a massive paycut and go year to year at 34 years old. He'll do that at 37-40 when his effectiveness is limited. I have no idea why anybody thinks that Jovo would take a huge paycut. Of course he wants a cup, but he's not at the twilight of his career yet where he's got to either get paid or get a cup, at this point he can still do both. He's got a lot of decent hockey in him, he'll sign a 5-6 million dollar contract for three or four years.

ED JOVANOVSKI IS 34 YEARS OLD, WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME A 6 MILLION DOLLAR PER YEAR, 34 YEAR OLD HOCKEY PLAYER SIGNED A 1 YEAR CONTRACT???? If anything he'd be looking to lock up something for the remainder of his career, and do the rent a player trade for a cup. Plus, if you're going to give him 5-6 million a year for one year, why not give Wisniewski 5 million a year for three or four years and lock up your defensive corps for a couple of years. Remember everybody, when Lidstrom leaves, there is no guarantee that we'll be able to sign Suter or Burns. So going into a Burns/Suter negotiation would you rather know you've got Kronwall, Stuart, and Wisniewski all locked up for a couple years, or would you rather have Kronwall and Stuart locked up with Lidstrom retiring and Jovanovski a free agent to sign or replace the same year. (I realize we have to re-sign Kronwall and Stuart too. Realistically they'll get their raises, probably before the end of the next season). For the amount of money it would take to sign Selanne (even though it's an incredible long shot) why not invest the money wisely and pursue Dubinsky, Laich, Scottie Upshaw, or Erik Cole, for the same or similar money and lock them up for three or four years. Datysuk and Zetterberg aren't going to be this good forever, we've got a realistic window of opportunity to be competitive for the cup for the next 2-3 seasons before those guys are getting too old to carry the load anymore. I honestly don't see spending next year filling holes with stop gap measures(any paying a lot for those measure too), hoping for a jackpot the year after, when there are plenty good young hockey players to fill those holes. Plus this year we're in a good position. We're very close to being the most cash heavy of the competitive teams. Something that we may not be able to say in a year or two.

Damn dude, don't be so touchy (especially considering I'm the argumentative one). Cap hit IS the only thing that matters to the TEAM. But when you're talking about free agency, the TEAM has to make a deal with a PLAYER. Presumably, the team wants to keep the cap hit low, while the player probably cares less about the cap hit and more about how much is actually going to go into their bank account per year. The point is valid either way, you're right. But when it comes down to it, when you're trying to entice a free agent to come to your team, usually the biggest draw is how much you're going to pay them per year, not how much of a cap hit the team is going to take. The point I was trying to make about structured contracts was that sometimes you can have it both ways. Depending on how you structure the contract sometimes a guy can take home seven and a half million in a year (worthwhile to the player) while his cap hit is only six million for the same year (worth more to the management). This is roughly what happened with Zetterberg in 2010-2011. The player doesn't give a s*** about the cap hit in most cases. He cares about what he makes per year. When you're talking about a player leaving one team to go to another you think that salary figure doesn't factor into the decision making? You think Johan Franzen agreed to his deal because the team would have a 4 million dollar cap hit, or because he would make 5 million dollars the same year.

Wait, it gets better. After they sign with other teams for seven million each, Selanne will leave the team he wants to retire with, and Jovanovski will take a massive pay cut to leave a team and city that he's happy with, and then the Wings will sign them both and be back in the hunt. This is only logical after all. Thank god he's the smart one here (and clearly not prone to whimsically imagining outrageous salaries and FA destinations and acquisitions without any sort of historical precedent).