kliq

I didnt vote because I didnt like the tone of the poll, but I think this small sample size shows you why the Illitch's/Holland etc. are not tanking.

Happy Sproul is in, this kid needs to be playing, but what is with the second pairing. As annoying and over the top as Bill is, there is something to say about possession and taking out Smith and keeping these two in the lineup is just going to make us worse. Is Smith injured and I dont know?

We dont need Elliot, but he is a UFA at the end of the season, and without trading him Calgary would be holding 3 goalies. Plus its a way for Calgary to dump salary on us to offset Howard. Plus, if we take Elliot maybe we can ship him out at the deadline to a team like LA.

That + would be the big question. If Howard is involved it would have to be like Howard/Tatar/First Rounder/2nd Rounder for Elliot/Hamilton. Remember Calgary gave up a 1st and two 2nd's for him. They are not going to take an immediate loss on him. I dont think GM's physically meet to discuss a trade unless its the GM meetings, or they are facing each other and in the same city.

Dont forget Subban and Weber for the third pairing.

I would love to get Dougie, its just odd that a team trades for someone, locks him up long term, and then shops him. I would take trading for an already established 23 year old top tier player, then hoping to find one in the draft any day.

What is the story with him and Calgary? He was a guy that everybody wanted a couple years ago, but now that they got him the Flames are already selling? Just not a good fit in Calgary? Or is it a cap thing? Elliot is only signed for 1 year, maybe he and Howard are swapped in a deal?

Yep, they were one of the teams in the running for him.

Are the Axe or Bill accounts opened now?

I wouldn't trade for Shattenkirk, if you dont think we are a cup contender this year why risk losing future assets when you can try to sign him for nothing July 1st. If we can trade Howard, and even possibly Green as he has a very easy to trade contract come the summer (1 year at 6mil) we could easily have the cap space to sign Shattenkirk. Sign him, then make a trade for Trouba and I think that changes our back-end dramatically. DD is a very good player, but he seems to be getting exposed playing as a #1 guy. If we got those two and bumped DD down to second pairing, everyone would fit in where they should.

I wonder if this means AA will be playing 3rd line center when he comes back? If Vanek and Jurco are also coming back soon, we have the ability to move AA off the wing. With the exception of Frk (who we got back anyways) and Pulk, LTIR always seems to work out for us when we have a player about to come back from injury. I remember last year we had a very similar situation and then Miller went down for the season as was placed on LTIR.

The thing about the Helm contract, is people are making it sound like it is some outrageous contract, but when you really assess it for what he is which IMO is a very good third line center and good PK guy, I don't think it is a bad deal. It was mentioned in an earlier thread, first line centers are typically paid now a days anywhere between 7-11 million per year (ie. Toews, Crosby, Malkin etc.). Second line centers are typically paid anywhere between 4-7 million per year (ie. Nielson, B.Sutter, Krejci, Brassard etc.) and third line centers are paid between 2-4 million. Helm being a very good third line center is being paid right around where he should be. Does it go great with the other contracts we have? Probably not, but that is not the debate here. I get it, when you look at Helm's contract next to the contract's of E, Howard, Weiss (I realize he was bought out), Abby, Nieson, etc. it tends to be looked at in a different light as all of these contracts together are leading to cap issues. But if you look at Helm's contract for what it is and on its own in a bubble, that being 3.85mil for a very good third line centre for 5 years, it is not close to as bad as what Red Wings fans who clearly have a bias towards long term deals think it is. I could easily see other teams who feel Helm could solidify their third line offering him an offer similar or slightly better. Imagine him on a team like Dallas or St. Louis etc. he could be a great addition.

Yes....this lol.

Ya I remember the 90's, those were my teenage years . Best time in my life hockey wise, I think any Wings fan under 40 would tell you that. My comment was rhetorical, I didn't actually think you or others thought they were the owners. My point is that people make it sound like Holland and Blashill are running this team and the Illitch's need to come in and save it. I think it is pretty safe to say that Ken Holland is operating based on the direction of his owner. I mentioned this is a previous post and I apologize if I sound repetitive, but last year when the Tigers sold players at the deadline it ended up costing DD his job as this reportedly pissed Mike Ilitch off, so if your mandate is to make the playoffs, keep the streak alive, never sacrifice the year at hand for the future, I'm not sure what else management can do. With that being said, I am not happy with everything Holland and Blashill are doing. While I do think ownership is telling them to be active in UFA, and to make sure they make the playoffs, when it comes to signings like Ott and Miller, those are on Holland. I cant see Illitch butting in and say you need to sign Drew Miller or Steve Ott.

Do you think that Ken Holland and Jeff Blashill own this team? Its funny how people think the Ilitch's have nothing to do with the direction of this team.

Does it? Other then the 3 outliers I outlined, not many teams have had success based on YOUR narrative, you clearly say success is defined as winning a cup, that's all people remember right. In response to your obligatory Helm/Abby comment because we need to discuss them in every thread in addition to the thread's you create to complain about them, signing guys like that are not going to ruin your team and lead to mediocre results. Detroit's problem is that they don't have any elite level talent right now to put with them. Any elite team has elite guys, middle of the road guys, and lower end guys. We have the middle/lower end guys, we just don't have the elite. Having the middle/lower end guys is not what is hurting us, its not having the elite. You make it sound like Abby/Helm=failure which is an incorrect narrative.

How shocking, you dismiss the first bit of info provided. If only I could had seen that happening. Please tell me Dickie, what is it you are looking for? Is there anything possibly out there that anyone can show you that wont lead to a cynical response? I dont recall anyone getting upset with you for "cluttering threads". What people do get annoyed with is your obsession with Helm & Abby's contracts. We all get it, you don't like them.

Here was a tweet from Darren Dregor on July 1st: Darren Dreger on Twitter (Regarding Helm): "He took the discount. Dallas, Boston, Van, Calgary were all very interested. https://t.co/wp8hec2Ix2"

We had this convo in a previous thread where I posted all this info and you ignored it. Do we really need to re-visit this in a new thread? Also, what are you looking to prove in this thread? I can already tell you how its going to go. Someone will post an article, tweet etc. from a reliable source (ie. a Bob McKenzie type) and then you will say you don't buy it. If you are looking for a team like the Canucks (a team that was rumored to have given him an offer) to come out publicly and say "we offered Darren Helm a contract" we all know that's not going to happen as GM's just normally don't do that.

It may take 5 years if you get your picks perfect, but when you get a couple wrong it takes ALOT longer, and that's if you ever get it right. Chicago made the playoffs 1 time in 11 years between 1997 and 2008 LA didnt make the playoffs for 7 years.between 2002 and 2009 Pittsburgh didn't make the playoffs for 5 years, their re-build was actually done fairly quickly but lets not forget they got lucky with Crosby as that was the year where it had nothing to do with standings. but rather a random lottery where every team had a 1/30 chance to land him. Lets not forget, these are the best 3 examples. Lets look at some other team that have done this and not had the same success with the "top 5 picks guarantee everything to change" philosophy: Columbus Blue Jackets - Came into the league in 2001, missed the playoffs 13 times, made the playoffs twice and did nothing. All those high picks did nothing for them. But hey, they got Nash. Atlanta/Winnipeg - Came into the league in 2000, missed the playoffs 14 times, made the playoffs twice and did nothing. All those high picks did nothing for them. But hey, they got Heatley/Kovie/Kari Lehtonen Carolina Hurricanes - Since their Cup, they have made the playoffs 1 time, missed the playoffs 9 times. Still waiting on their franchise player that is going to lead them to a cup. I wont even go into the Oilers pre McDavid, its just too easy. I could do more teams, but what's the point. I hope you see what I am getting at. Sure drafting high gives you a higher probability of finding a franchise player, nobody would deny that. But you are making it sound like re-building is some easy task that will always workout buy constantly bringing up the 3 outliers. Re-building usually fails and leaves a large percentage of the teams out of the race for years, some times up to or over a decade. Do you really want this? Do you want the Wings to become the Lions? I would prefer the Wings trade away/dump some vets (E, Howard, Ott, Miller) play a combo of kids/vets but put more of the focus on the kids. I don't want to see every decent player older then 25 gone and traded for picks. It's not like players like Tatar/Nyquist are going to get you top 5 picks anyways.

I am very aware that Huet was there in Price's first year in 2008 but Price started more games, then in 2009 Price became the bona fide starter with Halak as the backup. It was then in 2010 when Price lost the starting gig to Halak (though it was closer to 50/50). Then after a year of being challenged Price showed management that he had what it took and snagged the starting job and they traded away Halak and signed Auld. I actually went into detail about this earlier in this thread, no facts needed to be checked lol. In 2010 Halak outplayed Price, it challenged Price and made him a better goaltender. When you are a goaltender in the NHL, the mental side of the game is extremely hard. You need to be able to get through a lot, and if we want Mrazek to be the guy that leads this team into becoming a contender one day, the guy who is going to start game 7's, the guy that is going to be "the guy" then having Jimmy Howard as an obstacle is one that he need to learn to overcome. If this is too much for him, then he's not the guy we are all hoping. For the record, I am not against trading Howard, but not because I am worried about Mrazek, I believe Mrazek is going to shine, its just a matter of when. My reason for wanting to trade Howard, is because of his 5.3 mil cap-hit. If we could have Howard at 1.5mil I would love to have him here. You are right, Montreal did trade Halak in the off-season, and I believe that if given a good return Holland would not hesitate to trade Howard. The problem is in the off-season, all reports indicated that teams wanted Detroit to retain salary as Howard is a hard player to trade with his track record/cap-hit. Mrazek is going to get a chance to play, have some faith in him. You can't coddle players.

Ignore Bill, he's trolling you. Corsi is his new bait. Tatar has definitely been a disappointment so far this year, I think you could probably say the same for Abby and Nielson. I cant put any blame on Z, he his playing great for what he has left in the tank. Sure his caphit/production ratio is not great, but I dont think he can do any better with what he has left. Another issue we have is offense from our D. When 4 points ranks 2nd on our team in points (from a D-man) we have a problem.

Mrazek wants to be the starter, outplay Jimmy. It's simple. No different then what Price had to do in Montreal when Halak was there.

These guys are not children, if starting the second game of a back to back instead of the first game was enough to throw him into a funk, the guy should not be starting. I get why people are upset with ownership/management/coaching, but this is a reach if there ever was one.

You hit the nail on the head. I 100% agree with you kickazz. I will use myself as the perfect example. I have a season ticket package (10 game pack), I have signed up for it every year for I believe the past 4 years. If the Wings tanked and become a garbage, and I mean true garbage (not this hyperbole that fans spew on here now of how we stink) I would not renew as I have no desire to make the trip over the US (I live in Windsor) to see the Wings get killed the majority of the time.