krsmith17

I agree. The likelihood of anyone getting a roster even remotely close to what it will be in three years from now is slim to none. It's still fun to predict (maybe not for you). It's really not much different than talking about what if trade scenarios (Trouba), or what if free agent scenarios (Tavares), or predicting where the Wings will finish in the standings, or who will win the Stanley Cup, or the countless other things that are discussed on this board that we have no real way of predicting with any sort of accuracy...

I agree that the UFA market isn't going to save us, and it's time for Holland to come to realization of this. However, I do think the trade market could save us, if we had a GM that was capable of pulling off a couple big time trades. Dahlin would be a great add for us. I really wish we somehow got Liljegren in this year's draft, but of course he slipped to the Leafs. Imagine a top pair of Dahlin - Liljegren for the next 10-15 years... Instead we'll have to settle with Dahlin - Hronek...

Yeah, I'm hoping Cholowski and / or Hronek can develop into top pair defensemen. Maybe one becomes a true number one, but I agree that we likely need to look outside the organization for that stud number one. Bean remains to be my pipe dream, but Fleury would be a great addition as well.

You're that high on Elfstrom? I'd be shocked if he makes the NHL, let alone becomes a 2nd line winger. I also don't think Holmstrom will be anything more than a bottom 6 forward.

Who are the 13 forwards? I'm counting 12 with Sheahan and Athanasiou, and assuming Witkowski will play up front... Zetterberg, Nyquist, Tatar, Nielsen, Larkin, Mantha, Athanasiou, Sheahan, Helm, Abdelkader, Glendening, Witkowski. Are you counting players from the minors? We don't have the cap room. A trade will have to be made if everyone is healthy to start the season, and simply trading Sheahan probably won't be enough if we want to fill the 23-man roster.

I'd be okay with trading Sheahan, but if we do, we're trading low on him. He's coming off a historically bad season and every team knows the cap crunch Holland has this team in. I think we'd be lucky to get a 3rd round pick for him at this point. I'm afraid Holland is still trying to trade Mrazek, which I think would be a huge mistake right now. Again, we'd be selling low, coming off a terrible season. I'd rather trade Howard, but that obviously isn't going to happen. I hope Sproul isn't a victim of the cap crunch. Waiving him doesn't give us that much more wiggle room, and if he does get waived, he will be claimed. Ideal scenario IF everyone is healthy going into the season would be to trade Ericsson. We could trade him to a team like New Jersey or Buffalo along with a 2nd round pick for a mid-late round pick, and retain $1M in salary. However, there's no way that happens because Holland has gifted every player with NTC's. In saying all that, I still think Holland will get out from all this with some sort of injury in training camp / pre-season...

Svechnikov and Dahlin are projected to go 1 / 2, but Liljegren was projected to go top 2 this time last year too, and we all seen how that played out. Hopefully we can strike gold with one of those two. I agree, Holland should do what he can to get Svech. Burke did a lot of wheeling and dealing to get the Sedin's, turning 4th overall into 2nd and 3rd overall. Assuming we're out of the playoffs, getting into the top 2 should be a priority.

Svechnikov is a bit of a pipedream, but not out of the question. Same goes for Dahlin. If Zetterberg is still around in 3 years, I'd hope to get rid of Nielsen, but it's not a must. Regardless, changes need to be made, and I'm not convinced Holland is capable of making the necessary moves to get this team back on track.

It's a terrible strategy, but it will likely work itself out once again...

You think 4 trades in the span of 3 years is unrealistic? That just goes to show what an incompetent GM we have when it comes to making trades to improve the team... The first one I mentioned isn't mine. It's the roster that The Hockey News came up with, and if that's more realistic, then we're in big trouble... I wouldn't let him walk, but we need to make some room for the kids coming up and he isn't under contract so I left him off my roster. In a perfect world we trade him for an upgrade on defense. I don't think that will happen though (see above)... I can possibly see him playing in a reduced role, but certainly not as our top line center like THN suggested. Hank is our only player that has played all 164 games the past two seasons, but only making $1M the last two seasons, I could see him retiring if it doesn't effect the team too much.

http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2017/08/red_wings_cap_issues_will_be_s.html#incart_river_mobile_index "General manager Ken Holland said Monday he anticipates being slightly over the $75 million cap if everyone is healthy to start the season. That would force the team to trade or waive a player. But Holland said they will wait to see what unfolds in camp and preseason." "Niklas Kronwall, who has been plagued by a knee issue he said can't be remedied by surgery, is expected to be ready for the start of training camp on Sept. 15. "If everybody is healthy when we get to opening day, we'll probably have to make a move," Holland said. "I'm anticipating we'll be over by a little bit.""

Not sure... Nielsen, Glendening, Ericsson and Daley are all shipped out somehow...

Well you're right that that would be extremely stupid, but I really don't think it will come down to that. Yeah, I think Kronwall ending up on LTIR is the most likely scenario. Kronwall along with the medical staff would have to deem him unfit to play, and I'm thinking (hoping) they may have hinted that as a possibility to Holland recently.

Absolutely!

Well aware of this... but I personally don't think Holland will do anything other than wait it out and assume that either one of Kronwall or Ericsson isn't ready to go or there is some other injury in training camp / pre-season to use LTIR... So let me try this one more time... What do YOU think Ken Holland will do to relieve the team of the cap issues? You're so convinced that it won't be fixed through LTIR. So what will happen?

My apologies. I've always thought the word viable, in this case "viable plan" meant good plan, but it means a plan that would work. Well what I meant was that I never said it was a good plan, I think it's a terrible strategy, but you're right, I did say it's a workable plan, and I do think that's exactly what Holland plans on doing. Of course everyone is healthy or close to it, it's August. You're telling me you don't think a single player will suffer any sort of injury in training camp or preseason? I'd be shocked if they don't. I also don't think Kronwall is as "healthy" as the team is leading us to believe. We'll see what happens, but I'll ask you again, do you actually think Ken Holland is going to make a trade? What do you see as a realistic plan (something you can see Holland actually doing) to solve the cap situation?

No, because that hasn't happened at all the past few years... Oh wait, yes it has... We are in this position (over the cap), what seems like every year around this time, and someone always gets injured in training camp or pre-season, and "magically fixes" the cap problems. By the way, I never once said or suggested that LTIR is a viable plan, I've actually said the exact opposite on several occasions. We should make a trade, but that's not going to happen, and you're kidding yourself if you think it is.

It will work itself out, it always does. Someone will get injured in training camp / pre-season, and just when that player is ready to come back, someone else will get injured... Kronwall likely ends up on LTIR at some point this season. Also, despite the rumours from last season, Sheahan won't get us a first.

They're both slated to play junior (WHL). Cholowski will play with Prince George and Rasmussen will (again) play with Tri-City.

L...T...I...R...

I'm not sure about a dud, because I think he may be one of the few you can say is a lock to actually make the NHL, but as far as ceiling, I still think it was somewhat of a dud pick. Rasmussen likely tops out as a 2nd line center, likely a middle 6 center / winger. It wasn't until the past few months that I've come around on the Cholowski pick though, so hopefully both have massive years this season and put up huge numbers in the W.

No.

Yes, but if that is the case, that wasn't the best planning by Holland and his staff. I know it was Nicklas Lidstrom, but even the perfect human had to retire at some point, and he was 40 years old. Realistically, they should have been setting themselves up for Lidstrom's retirement much sooner than 2011. I know you should "take the best player available", but at some point you need to draft for team need, and it was clear that defense should have been addressed a lot sooner. 22 of their 74 draft picks (less than 30%) in that time were defensemen, and of those 22 defensemen that were selected, they averaged 178th overall. That's crazy! In saying that, a big reason that number was so high was because they traded away a lot of picks at that time, going on Stanley Cup runs. It's hard to fault them for that, as it proved to be a successful strategy. And it's not even like they selected forwards every year, passing on high end defensemen. For the most part, especially earlier (2001-2006), they picked best player (defenseman) available, even using hindsight. We could have had Subban in 2007, but we did take a defenseman in Smith, who at the time was regarded as a higher potential defenseman, so it's hard to fault them for that. In 2008, they took McCollum, and even back then I hated that pick, mainly because I don't like taking goalies that high in the draft. In hindsight, they could have taken Voynov or Josi with that pick if they were targeting defensemen, which they probably should have at that point. 2009 was a very weak draft for defensemen (outside of the top half of the first round), so it's hard to fault them for the Ferraro pick. In 2010 when they took Sheahan, they could have had Faulk, but that would have been a bit of a reach at the time, and they would have had to get very lucky to pick him out of all the other terrible defensemen that we're selected around him. So I guess, I'm not sure what they could have done to better prepare for Lidstrom's retirement, other than trade up in the top 10-15, but even that would have been a bit of a crap shoot. So I guess more than anything, they were unlucky taking defensemen for quite a few years. Hopefully that is about to change with the high volume of defensemen taken in the past few years. The more I hear about Cholowski, the more excited I'm getting for him. I'm definitely going to pay close attention and watch some of his games this season.

Yes. Yes you are. His name is Brendan Smith... Seriously though, the only thing I've gathered from this, is that we're long overdue. I'm still not sure we have a true stud number one, but I think a few have the potential to become top pair defensemen. Most will end up as 2nd pair or lower, and that's fine, but I'm really hoping at least one (Cholowski?) turns out to be a big time player for us. Also since Kronwall, we've drafted our first defenseman in each year at... 2001 - Blatak (129) 2002 - Berggren (131) 2003 - Quincey (132) 2004 - Kolosov (151) 2005 - Kindl (19) 2006 - Pyett (212) 2007 - Smith (27) 2008 - Nicastro (91) 2009 - Fournier (90) 2010 - Marshall (201) 2011 - Ouellet (48) 2012 - McKee (140) 2013 - Wheaton (139) 2014 - N/A 2015 - Saarijarvi (73) 2016 - Cholowski (20) 2017 - Lindstrom (38) In 17 years, only three 1st round picks (Kindl, Smith, Cholowski), four 2nd round picks (Ouellet, Sproul (same year), Hronek (same year as Cholowski), and Lindstrom), and the rest were 3rd round our later. It's no wonder we've never had much luck drafting and developing defensemen when we simply haven't drafted enough, high enough... We seem to be tipping the scale a little in recent years, which is great, and hopefully one or... five of these guys pan out to be very good players for us...

Awesome!