kliq

I dont see why this is suprising. Weiss was a very good player in juniors, and that skill set did carry over into the NHL. Injuries in your early 30's shouldn't dismiss what you accomplished in your 20's.

The Wings have done a great job of finding gems in the later rounds of the draft. Lets hope the tradition continues!

I never said Nill made a bad move, if thats the case then that's a good move on his part! Waiting also wins cups. You can’t just go out and trade for Hasek, and sign Brett Hull & Luc Robitaille anymore, it’s not the early 2000’s. We are developing our young talent while maintaining competitiveness. You are saying that we are going nowhere, but you also say that we are amassing a plethora of young talent, aren’t these two statements contradicting each other? I believe that bringing up young talent is a better direction to move in then going out and trading picks and prospects for vets as well as signing average players for too much money in Free Agency. I admit we are not built to win a cup this year, but that’s okay. Making moves now for the wrong player can hurt a team moving forward. You are also saying we should not lose any more prospects, but that we should trade a first rounder. Isn’t that essentially the same thing? How is trading Dylan Larkin for example any different then trading next year’s first round pick? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like you are frustrated that we are not winning NOW. I totally get that, I would love to win now as well. I think every person who posts on this board feel this way. The problem is the NHL is different then it used to be. The two main factors being the Salary Cap, and long term contracts which are stopping the elite players from hitting UFA. Then when an elite talent actually does hit UFA, you have 29 other teams bidding for his services, not 5 like in the early 2000’s. It seems when bashing the direction of this team, everybody always falls back on Cleary and Quincey. If signing Cleary is the biggest mistake we have made, we have a pretty damn good GM. I would take Cleary at 1 year/2.5 million to David Clarkson 7 years/36,750,000 or the 50 other horrible contracts given out in Free Agency any day. Now if Holland signed Cleary to 5 years 25 million this past summer, sure fire Holland lol. You talk about moving the older guys….who? Datsyuk may miss the window for when we again become contenders, but what can Holland do? Datsyuk was set to become a UFA and when Holland signed him Datsyuk wanted to play here or in Russia, he has a No Movement Clause. Plus, does anyone want to trade him even if we could? I don’t want to trade Z or Kronwall, I think they will still be good once our young guys are ready to compete for a cup, plus you need vets to guide these kids. Who are we to trade? Franzen? Helm? Teams aren’t offering Bobby Ryan for Franzen & Kindl, or Tyler Myers for Qunicey and Helm etc. My point, just be patient, winning appears to be coming. If we are lucky, it will be sooner then later

That is one of the biggest mistakes a GM can make, doing a deal just for the sake of doing a deal. I'm not against trading or free agent signings, but I would take what Holland has done over bad trades and bad signings any day. Moves can be great for a team, but the key to being a good GM is making the right moves at the right time for the right players. You want to see a team that makes moves for the sake of making moves, look at the Leafs over the last 10 years for a perfect example of that. Unfortunately some fans need immediate gratification (not saying you, this is a general statement) and if things aren't changed immediately, or if there isn’t a major move made, they freak out.

Possibly, but my guess is because they don’t want to waste Mrazek warming up the bench. It wouldn’t surprise me if McCullum doesn’t play a game.

IF that is true, most of that was probably water weight and/or fat. Not possible to gain 28 pounds of muscle in one summer.

You have to suspend these guys when they violate these policies. Does the act itself necessarily deserve 20 games.....maybe not, BUT what this does is slowly change a culture. When you take anything performance enhancing, it is not fair to those who don’t. For example: People who are doing things the right way, may end up being cut from a team rather than getting that last coveted spot on a NHL roster because someone less talented took something to give them that slight edge. The ONLY way to change a culture of performance enhancing drugs is to have a policy in place, and stick to it when infractions occur. If a guy has a medical issue, he needs to go through the proper channels. In 2014, all players should know this. Yes of course sometimes certain guys may get a raw deal, but you can’t enforce a policy some of the time or else the policy loses its power and its purpose.

http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/11824416/family-says-hall-famer-gordie-howe-recovering-remarkable-rate Apparently Gordie is recovering at a remarkable rate! I didnt see this coming, but its nice to see!!!!!!

Ya I hear you. A player from an old era may be the best ever from a "hockey sense" perspective. But if you start taking shot power, speed, strength, agility etc. into consideration there is no comparison.

You cant compare players from one era to players from another era skill set for skill set for all the reasons you just said. All you can do is look at how good a player is in comparison to the other players in their respective era. For example, here are the league leaders in points in 1988-89. Lemieux scored roughly 33% more points then Yzerman (3rd) and roughly 100% more then Kurri (10th). That to me is what shows the greatest players of all time. Domination of your era. 1. Mario Lemieux*-PIT 199 2. Wayne Gretzky*-LAK 168 3. Steve Yzerman*-DET 155 4. Bernie Nicholls-LAK 150 5. Rob Brown-PIT 115 6. Paul Coffey*-PIT 113 7. Joe Mullen*-CGY 110 8. Jari Kurri*-EDM 102 9. Jimmy Carson-EDM 100 10. Luc Robitaille*-LAK 98

I had one, but not anymore. I was sitting on the aisle and had it under my seat. With so many people walking back and forth it got stepped on a ton of times and had footprints all over it.

It was really nice, but it was really sad .

Good Game! I was there in person, and the first period was awesome! Second and third were a bit boring, but I will take a boring second and third any day if it means a win!

You cant penalize players for getting injured. At least for long term injuries (ie. Savard. Pronger) there is cap relief. As far as I know this groin injury happened on the Wings. His injury on Florida was a wrist injury, not groin. As far as your UFA comment, you hit the nail on the head. People get so hung up on teams not signing UFA's, but it happens all the time where a UFA signing blows up in a team's face. Its better to sign your players to long term contracts now a days. Its not a risk when you have seen a guy play on your team for years.

OK I think I see what you are saying. If we went with all unproved kids instead of guys like Quincey, Kindl we would likely do worse in the standings THIS year.

This is sad, especially at his age and health prior to the stroke. I've read stories of guys in their 40's who have had strokes and the massive recovery process. Its not an easy thing to recover from, especially when you are Gordie's age. I hope he's not suffering .

If the difference really is that small, i'm sure Babcock will be signing an extension as soon as the season is over. If there is a hangup, I'm guessing its the term.

Couldn't agree more. The guy needs to play, and if they want to bring him along slowly, this is the natural next step. At least now he can get to game shape/speed and then hopefully in a few months all the "Weiss is a bust" talk can be a thing of the past.

You think that us having too many third pair quality D-man is going to make us too good and result in us finishing too high??

Any record breaking deal has an effect on the entire pool of coaches, its a way to raise the mean.

The main article right now on ESPN Hockey is "The outcome of the negotiations between Mike Babcock and the Red Wings could have far-reaching effects when it comes to the salaries of the game's coaches. The more I think about it, I dont think this is a Holland/Babcock thing, I think Ilitch is probably giving his two cents, and it wouldn't surprise me if Ilitch is getting pressure from other owners to not go too high. Once the bar is set for the highest paid coach, the #2, #3, #4 etc. are not too far behind. It can change the entire landscape.

My post has nothing to do with the poster Barrie. You made a comment about a topic on a "discussion board", I gave my opinion on the topic. I'm not defending anyone, simply giving my opinion. If this was a private convo between you and Barrie that you didnt want anyone else entering, PM him/her.

Niskanen, like Frank said was offered more by Washington. Erhoff wanted more term which Holland wouldnt give (plus IMO he is hoping to have a career year in Pit and then cash in next year like Niskanen). When you say players took less, this comes from a report by I believe Ansar Khan regarding the Boyle/NYR. While the Wings did reportedly offer more money in total, they offered less per year. (3 years/12.5million @ 4.16million per, opposed to 2 years/9 million @ 4.5million per. Plus, Boyle reportedly wanted to play with St. Louis again, and he thought NYR had a better chance at a cup this year. Though i'm sure if Holland threw at him 3 years at 15million Boyle would have taken it.....but he didnt. Robidas reportedly signed in TO because it puts him closer to family, but I never heard how much Holland offered him. Holland did make offers, but I he didnt appear to throw insane amounts at these players like other teams did (again, ala Wsh/Orpik).

If the Weiss situation is simply Babcock slowly bringing him back, I 100% agree in why would Weiss waive his clause to go to Carolina. If the Weiss situation is Weiss being in Babcocks dog house and Weiss struggling at playing in the Detroit system, then I think he would waive it to simply go somewhere and actually play. I'm hoping its the former, not that latter.

I'm not going to say I like the Quincey contract because I don't, but at the end of the day its for two years, and really has no effect on this season.Niskanen's contract is for 7 years, and Orpik's contract is for 5 years. Orpik's contract was actually ranked the worst in all of hockey in an article I read recently.