Richdg

Don't forget White-our only RH D and Howard. Both are UFA's after next season. White will get a smaller raise if we keep him, but Howard will double his salary.

Agree on the signing as a RFA. But that is a different issue. There are several posts here saying they don't want Weber period. Low class, don't need that type of stuff etc.... Well sorry but that is pure 100% BS. Worst part is, it completely ignores facts. From the mid 80's through 96 the RW's were one of the most skilled teams in all the NHL. lead or near the top in scoring year after year. raked up goals and points. How many Cups did we win? 0. it wasn't untill we learned to play D and learned how to play tough that we started to win. Look at all teh great offensive players we had during that period. oates, Klima, Yzerman, later added Federov, Kozlov, Lirianov, Coffey, Lidstorm etc...... the list goes on and on. It wasn't untill lapointe, McCarty, Shanahan, Kocur, Rouse, ward, Pushor etc...... came along, with their toughness that we started to win. Fight Night at the Joe is what made this team. There is no doubt about that. Every player on the team from 97 says so. heck....I wonder how many of the high and mighty posted threads on this forum bashing Burt when he went after weber the next game? Don't seem to be able to find any......... In fact, I seem to remember everyone in every media forum giving kudos to burt for doing it.

To for some credit. This is pretty good!

If you are such a wimp go watch soccer. As Micky points out time and time again, nothing repeat nothing gets a crowd more worked up than a good fight. Hell the great player in RW history Mr. Hockey himself has a term named after him. The Gordie Howe hat trick. Goal, assist, and a.......... FIGHT! if you don't like a good fight, might I suggest going to watch a polo match, or maybe some gymnastics. Perhaps ballet is in your future.

To get a lot you have to pay a lot. But if green were to be healthy, we score more goals with Green and laich than with our 3.

I find it odd that a guy with Vladdy in his moniker doesn't like ruff stuff. So you didn't like Probert, and Kocur and Mccarty and Shanahan and Lapointe etc..... either. keep in mind it was because of the last 4 that we started winning Cups again. I see the chickifacation of hockey is in full effect here....... Good lord guys, drop the gloves and grow a pair!

Heres the thing. I can't stand franzen. Every year he has one of the 12 games to 20 games scoring streaks where he is the best around, and then he disappears. When he is scoring he skates hard, plays D and checks people. When he isn't scoring he doesn't do any of those things. You can live with streaky scorers. it happens all the time. What drives me nuts is guys that don't work hard shift after shift, game after game. To the guy that said keep Franzen because "his contract is cap friendly', no it isn't. he is 33 now and will be making 4 million per year for 8 more freaking years! The arm cut the Helm suffered was a fluke. But he spends much of the year playing banged up or misses games because he is so small.

Wow...... A top 5 Dman that you guys don't wont because of some ruff stuff..... THIS IS HOCKEY!!!!!! It happens all the time. The really funny thing is, Burt commited the worst cheap shot in hockey history, and he has been here twice! But Weber "isn't up to pair for the Wings"..... OMG.....Some of you are as bad as Notre Dame fans.......

IIRC hpckeysfuture has us at 15th. Middle of the road. Most of which have yet to play a single professional game. This is not a deep talented pool.It is a bunch of names that we hope become prospects.

Yes there is a step, but top young talent is just that. You can never have enough. as for the roster spot thing, we are giving Smith a spot that he has yet to earn. Granted everyone expects him to play well. But he has what, 8 games at the NHL level and hasn't beaten anyone out.

Or you can watch Doan check our whole team into the boards with no reaction like he did a couple years back in the playoffs. Or like the Preds did this playoffs......

This is one of those wonderfull debates that comes up every year. Do you want a big team? A small team? A fast team? A Slow team? In trueth you want some of all, except slow. This article does point out that the NHL is slowly getting bigger every year. The average for every player was 6-0/200. But is size alone enough of a factor? No. But is sure helps. Using the NHL.com site, and the listed size for each player, how many of the top scorers were above avergae in size and how many below? There were 101 players that scored at least 20 goals this past season. Using 6-1/201 as the above average size, here is the breakdown: 20 goals scored to 29 goals: 35 players were 6-1/201 or bigger and 36 were 6-0/200 or smaller. Of the elite players, those that scored 30+ goals, there is a gap. 30 guys scored at least 30 goals. Of this group, 20 were 6-1/201 or bigger, and 10 were 6-0/200 or smaller. Now yes you have some guys that are 6-0 or 5-11 and over 200 pounds, and you have some guys that are 6-1 or taller and less than 200. So of course no split is ever 100% true. If you look at the Wings roster from this past year, we have 7 guys coming back that are 6-1/200 or bigger. Abby, Franzen, Burt, Kindl, Eric, Quincey, and Smith. Then there are guys like Cleary, over 200 pounds but only 6-0 tall or Miller who is 6-2, but is under 200 pounds. The dangerous part is, of the 3 forwards we have that are above average in size, 2 are well over 30 years old with no replacements close to being ready. But you have to have balance. The Flyers under Clark went out and picked up every big slow moving player they could find. Of course it didn't work. When we have won our Cups we had smaller fast guys and big power forwards at the same time.

How many of them have avergaed over a point per game in the playoffs? Franzen did it 3 years in a row. Which means that, yes when he is hot there is no one better. Which those with a good understanding of the English langauge would have understood by my post.

This type of stuff is kinda funny, and to be expected. According to capgeek, larich has a no trade clause. Which then brings about the questions on the source of this trade rumor. But this is what the off season is for. So let's play along for a few. green is a 26 year old 6-2/210 RH shooting Dman, that is a RFA. When healthy he is good for 25+ goals and 70 points. Larich is a 29 year old 6-2/210 LH shooting C/LW. he is signed through the 2016/2017 season. While not a fighter, he does play a pretty tough style of hockey.he is good for 20+ goals per year and about 50 points. Now what would we be losing? Kindl. he is a 25 year old 6-3/215 Lh shooting dman, that might be max'd out as a #7. No real loss here. Helm. A 25 year old 6-0/180 LH shooting checking C. yes he is a good penalty killer. Might be the fastest man in the NHL. He also has his own injury issues. No not long term ones, but misses 10-15 games per year, including this years playoffs, with nagging injuries due to his lack of size. Franzen. 33 year old LW/RW that is 6-3/220. When he is hot, he is the best player in the NHL. Problem is the other 55-60 games of the season when he does nothing. He also is signed for 8 more seasons! Now it really would be a matter of health for green. What where his injuries? Are these injuries a product of the change in style the past 2 years? Or something more chronic and long lasting? I have not idea. Green is at his best, with the puck on his stick, which means his style fits us to a tee! If the doctors give the ok, i would do this deal. We would pick up about 3-4 million in salary. But we would still have plenty of money left to add some more.

you can never have enough good young talent. if we can sign him, do so. being RH doesn't hurt either.

Just to go in a different direction........ Next C is........Suter? Sign him to a 10 year deal-ends at 37, and breaks the tie during contract negotiations........ Just a thought........

Let's not confuse opinions and facts. Not one of us know what any of those 3 are going to make. I think it will be higher than most of you expect for several reasons. 1. We need to get Abby and helm signed long term. We do not want Abby, helm, Howard, White, Filppula etc to all be FA's next year. In fact i hope all get extended and soon. 2. Now that we know there is going to be a new CBA worked on (please no strike) things will change. 3. Unlike many, I expect Quincey to be resigned, and maybe moved later if the need arises. yes we have money to spend, but so does everyone else. Heck 20 teams have 15+ million to spend this offseason, and the pool of FA's is shallow. There are no sure things in FA. There is as good of a chance we get none of the top FA's as there is we get 4 of them. Without Quincey we have 5 Dman and no one ready in the minors. Far to big a risk to let him walk.

Ummm yes. Quincey alone made 3.3 million this past year. he will go up. Helm and Abby will be pushing 1.5 to 2 million each. So ya, around 8 million for those 3.

Hey look, Khan throw out he very same names i did 2 weeks ago. Ok guys go flame on him now..... LOL Nicky retiring is his last great gift to the RW. Frees up a ton of money. We need to spend about 8 million to keep helm, Abby, and Quincey. That will leave 12-17 left to spend, and provide depth that we lack. Yes we could shoot for the stars at Suter and parise, or go for numbers and get 4 guys out of the second teir. Not sure how it will play out, no one is. But think about these 2 groups. Current roster plus Suter and parise OR current roster plus say Wideman, garrison, Doan and Jones. OR we focus on the blueline only this year, and load up on the forward lines next year which is a very deep class. Take the current roster and add Suter and Wideman. That is a very deep blueline, that also frees up players of value to trade for forwards that are pending UFA's in the 2013 class. Point is, while Nicky retiring may suck emotionaly, in the long run it can and should be to our great benefit.

Sad? hell no. I have 20 years of great memories and 4 cups because of nick. he is one of the best ever to play the game. It is time to say THANK YOU! as loud as we can, and look forward to the next chapter. can we get a waiver and hang Nick's jersey in the HOF on Friday? Thanks Nick for all the time, effort and memories!

Made this handy little spread sheet. it covers the 5 of our top 6 forwards that are signed for next season. has the names, ages, and 3 stats for each year from 2008 through 2012. Those stats are: GP=games played, PTS=points, and shts=shoots on goal. Black numbers are no change or improved, red numbers are declines. Name----Age--------------------2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 --------------------------------GP PTS shts GP PTS shts GP PTS shts GP PTS shts GP PTS shts Zetterberg--32-------------75 92 358 77 73 309 74 70 309 80 80 306 82 69 267 Datsyk----34---------------- 82 97 264 81 97 248 80 70 203 56 59 137 70 67 164 Franzen----33---------------72 38 199 71 59 246 27 21 91 76 55 248 77 56 211 Burtuzzi----37---------------68 40 121 66 44 127 82 44 216 81 45 138 71 38 118 Cleary---34------------------63 42 177 74 40 163 64 34 140 68 46 192 75 33 199 Now for some follow up. Of the 15 numbers for each player, dat has 9 reds. meaning he is declinging just about every year, in just about every catagory. it would be worse but his numbers this year are improved over 2011 when he was hurt. But his 2012 numbers are worse than his 2010 numbers. Second in red numbers is Z. he has 7 out of 15 in red. Cleary has 6 out 15 in red. Burt also has 6 out of 15 in red. franzen has declined the fewest times. Only 5 red numbers. The number that stands out to me the most, is dat's decline in shots. In 2008 he took 264 shots. Then followed by 248, 203, 137, and finally 164 this past year. Granted he played 12 fewer games, but he had 103 fewer shots! That is a 38% drop! None of us want to se a bad RW team. We all want to win Cups every year. But we also have to face facts. The fact is we need to find our next pair of great forwards that can lead us for the next 10 years. We started this run with Yzerman and federov, then continued it with dat and Z. No where in our organization do we have 2 guys that are potential 80 point per year guys. This is Holland's big challenge. Do we trade? Sign FA's? move up in the draft somewhere? My personnel opinion is they need to be C's. A wing by himself can't do it. A good sniper-like parise is, can't score if no one can get him the puck. One last thing. Please understand the difference between good and great. dat and Z are still good players. They are not great players anymore. They will continue to work hard, provide leadership, and score 60 to 75 points for a few more years. But they are not guys that can carry a team anymore. help carry yes, but we have to find the next pair to do the heavy lifting. Chart was fixed, loaded poorly.....

The prospect game is one of the biggest traps fans fall into. Every teams site has the same thing going on. these 5, 10, 15 whatever players are going to be great in a few years. maybe 1 out of 10 every turns into anything. There are towns in the northern part of the US and in canada, where just about every man played junior hockey, yet none make it to the NHL. You have to remember, Juniors is for 17, 18, and 19 year old KIDS! High school age players. Even moving up to the AHL is a major step. If we return to the days on building only through the draft, we will become the Dead Wings once again. Then after 3-6 years of drafting the top talent we can move back up. I don't ever want to see that type of hockey from the Wings again! I still have nightmares from the late 70's and early 80's....... 20 win seasons........ YUCK!

Yes, 1 great post season. but hey, we get to watch and remember that for 8 more seasons...... length of the terrible contract he is signed to........

Smith has the best shot. he could end up as high as a #2 or never make it. Sheahan will be a 4th line checking guy, Nyquist-who knows. yes he has talent, but he is also only about 175 pounds. Tatar is not really a legit NHL player, and the rest are still in juniors. No way anyone can tell on them.

You have just stumbled on the point. They are all playing in the Juniors. That is equal in age to HS and the first year of college. All of them are 3+ years from seriously pushing for time in the NHL. If they ever do. History is filled with good junior players that never work out. Or guys that score a lot in the Juniors that never become more than 4th line checkers. So funny. Clearly you have no idea what you are talking about. But that is ok. Sooner or latter you will understand that I am right. Just make sure you post it as much as your bile.