kipwinger

The only other right handed shooter of this caliber in the FA class is Bieksa, who's probably better defensively, but only marginally, and not as good moving the puck or offensively. Bieksa will also likely command a much higher contract after the post season that he's had. Plus, I don't think you really have to go for a lock down defender with this signing. They're replacing Rafalski, who hasn't been real great on D for the last couple of seasons anyway, so as long as he's as good as that or better then you're even money but with more offensive production. Then when Lidstrom retires you go after the biggest, baddest, lock down guy out there in next year's FA class. Probably Burns from Minnesota. Also, here's hoping Wisniewski would sign for the old home town discount.

Yeah but wouldn't it be smart of Holland to send an offer sheet on someone like Weber (not expecting to sign him) and force Nashville to pony up and spend more of their cap on him than they really want, in essence using money to sign him that they would like to use to sign Suter next year? Sort of like what San Jose did last year with Chicago and Jalmerson. In the end they had to pay way too much to keep him and ended up losing players they likely would have liked to keep. There's more than one reason to send offer sheets to guys. That said, I tend to agree with everyone here who suggests there's no way that the Wings outbid Nashville for Weber without breaking the bank, which would be dumb and not a good idea in the long run.

It's not unrealistic to think that we could send offer sheets on low end RFA's, but it is unrealistic to think we could do it for someone like Weber.

How about signing Bieksa or Wisniewski to shore up Rafalski's hole on D (both right handed shooters and point men on PP) and pursuing Brooks Laich or Andrew Ladd as a much needed addition to the top forward lines. Both Bieksa and Wiz make around 3.5 mil now and would want a raise, Laich and Ladd both make around 2.5 mil and would want a raise as well. All told, I think we could sign one of the defenseman and one forward for around 7 million, which is offset by Rafalski and Modano's contracts coming off the books. The team would look something like this (not married to these line combos but have to make due with what we've got considering the old guys are under contract and nobody is going to trade for Homer or Bertuzzi at this stage of the game). Zetterberg - Datysuk - Homer Ladd/Laich - Filpulla - Franzen Bertuzzi - Abdelkader - Cleary Eaves - Helm - Miller/Draper/Mursak Lidstrom - Stuart Kronwall - Wisniewski/Bieksa Kindl - Ericsson