Richdg

I never said Hudler over parise. I said Hudler AND Jones over Parise. Would have 2 players, more goals and more grit. Now before others read into things that have not been said, let me clear a couple of things up. There is a difference between great and good. Or stars and solid. parise is a good solid player. But is parise a top 15 forward in the NHL player? No. But, to his credit, he is about to get paid like one. He also slows down dramaticly in the PO's. In 37 career PO games, he has 13 goals. About 1 g per 3 games. In the regular season he is closer to 1 per 2 games. In the end, it the playoffs that matter. He is just like most of our forwards in the fact he is not big enough to maintain his productivity in the PO's. When the games get tighter, tougher and more physical-IE playoff games, smaller players see their production drop further-unless then have other big wingers to create space. We as an organization have plenty of small forwards. We have very few big forwards, and the ones we do are old. Doing more of the same and expecting different results is foolish.

Sorry, off 1 year. But that makes it worse. he will then be 36 and still cost a lot. I am not nor have I ever said trade from prospects and draft picks. I said trade for guys in the NHL that are starting to prove themselves. guys just entering their prime that are producing. Big difference.

regular season points don't mean what they once did. Getting to 100 was a hard thing to do once apon a time. not anymore. The last 3 years in the playoffs tell the real story. 2 round twice, 1st round once. with the second oldest team in the NHL this is going to continue for a couple of more years.

A few thing....parise is not gritty. he is also a 60 point guy, not a 80+ point guy. he is a sniper only with very average play making abilities. he is also only 5-11/190. same as most of our forwards. they need people to create space for them in the playoffs, and Parise is not going to do that. Not to mention suck up a lot of money.

Suter Yes! parise? No thanks. Just don't see it. he is a small sniping forward that is weak on D. Most of us agree that the RW need to be bigger, faster, younger, and grittier. parise costs a ton of money and doesn't solve but half of those problems. How does a guy that scores 35 goals, end up with a -5 rating on a defensive focused team like the devils? Hulder is a 3 million per year player that scores 25 goals. parise is a 6+ million player that scores you 35 goals. Are ten more goals worth 3 million more? No. I would take a Hudler and Jones combo over parise every day of the week, and I am not a fan of Hudler at all. Doan and jones would be even better!

This is always the debate that bring teams down. if you go look at all of the major professional sports, find the "teams of the decade" and then go see how they do the following decade. When do you cut bait with the expensive veteran players that made you great? Hang on to long and you become a bottom dweller. Move to fast and the fan base can revolt. But that only lasts untill you win a championship, then they forget all about it.

The other part of this is of course when do our guys become FA's? Holmstrom, Hudler, Stuart and nicky this year, only 1 will return, maybe. Next year datsyk, Howard, Cleary, and Filppula are UFA's. Howard will double his salary or more. do we spend the big money on a then 35 year old datsyk? Cleary will be gone and Filppula could go either way. Point is as has been the case, change is coming not matter if we like it or not. the question is, how do we manage the change and remain a Cup contender? Do we resign datsyk to another 4 or 5 year deal and commit 30 million more to him, or move him now while he has value? same with Filppula?

Winning during the regular season and winning in the playoffs are 2 very different things. For twenty years we have been 1 of the top 2 or 3 in wins during the regular season. we should have 10 Cups then right? Nope. They playoffs are a tough physical grind. Even the best teams like us, are pushing to win 1 out of 4 cups. yes every player gets hurt at some point. the point is, as players age, they get hurt more often. That is very much part of their fade. heck this year was the first time we were fairly healthy goiing into the playoffs. Most of our injuries happened in the last month or so of the regular season. Still didn't help. we couldn't use that as an excuse this year. I still go back a couple years to our playoff series vs the Yots. 1 player-Doan, decided to hit everything wearing Red and White. There was no answer from our team. None. Most of our stars disappeared. They ran and hid. For those of us old enough to remember the 90's, we didn't start winning cups untill our grinders came of age. we had all the O in the world with Federov, Kozlov, Yzerman etc.... It was the additions of Kocur and Shanahan plus the maturity of McCarty and lapointe that made us great. They are the ones that checked, hit everyone, yes dropped the gloves, and gave the stars spce to move. Not to mention the genuis on the bench.... We as an organization have a gap right now. we have a bunch of guys over 30, and a bunch of guys 25 and younger, or in their first couple of years playing. we have very few stars or stud players between 25-30. There are 3 ways we can fix that. wait 3-4 more years for the young guys to develop-which mean 100 pt regular season and early playoffs loses, sign free agents, or make trades. Signing 2 players this year, and maybe 1 next is not enough. It will only maintain the staus quo. The fact that we are all on a forum discussing next year in early May sucks! Granted it is better than the 70's and early 80's and never making the playoffs-I remember that too........ Some of us remember who when Bowman was hired and he tried to run Yzerman out of town. It does happen. In fact it is rare to stay in one place your whole career. Go through just the RW history. Howe, Abel, delveccio, sawchuck, Lindsey, were all traded away at one point or another. Glad you brought up Shanahan. we traded for him. The let him walk as a FA. Got nothing back for him. He stayed 2 years to long.

Now, someone has to check. There is always room for gritty 4th line guys. heck draper made canada's team a time or 2. There are reasons for this. Am I saying Justin will make it? nope. i am saying has has a chance, all of which depends on him over the next 1.5 seasons. How he improves will determine a lot. if he gets into the 15-20 goal range while playing a checking role, then he is in the conversation.

ne name to keep an eye on, and he is just staring is Krieder with the NYR. he is a 6-3/230 C that just signed a month ago and is playing a lot for them in the playoffs. he has great speed. Most expect him to become an 80+ point per year guy. A couple of other names that you can't forget are Komeiserik (spelling) and Abdelkater for the checking line. Its still 1.5 years away. Lots can happen and more will develop.

Glad you brought up injuries. all of these guys are old, and older players get hurt more often than younger players. it also takes them longer to recover. That is very much part of their decline. None of these guys are going to get healthier as they get older. just doesn't happen. nicky is/was a freak of nature going as long as he did before father time caught up with him. kind of like Nolan Ryan in baseball. no one that age should be that durable and throw that hard. The cold hard trueth is, all of those players are in decline. if you go and look at all the teams in every professional sport, the teams that make deep playoff runs and win championships have the majority of their players in the 27-32 age group. That is when men reach the physical peak, and have the experience to be good. The evidence to our decline is starring everyone in the face. We just lost in the 1st round to the Preds. Other than Suter and Weber, is anyone on their team worth trading our best players for? Go through their forwards and ours. rank them 1-14. our 1 is better than theirs. Our 2 is better than theirs. Our 3 is better than theirs. Etc... yet we lost and it wasn't even close. They as a team were bigger, younger, faster, and more hungrey than we were. As for money/FA items, keep this in mind. we have about 20 million overall to spend. We need to resign helm and Abdelkater. That will take around 4 million. Leaves 16. if Nicky returns, that spends another 3-4 million. Leaving 12 to spend. Even if we are lucky enough to add Suter and parise (spelling), we are at best the same team that just lost in the 1st round. Parise is going to have to have his career best year to offset the lost goals by Holmstrom and Hudler. Stuart and Suter is about a wash. For the past 20 years we as a team have been smaller than average. but we were faster and more skilled, which allowed us to win. Now the league is filled with guys 3+ inches taller and 15+ pounds heavier that are as fast or faster and every bit as skilled.

But the problem is, all of our core are old. They are all expensive. How many will still be playing in 5 years? You can't add new expensive star players will keeping/paying the old ones. Look at the following: Z is 32. his point totals the last 5 years are: 92, 73, 70, 80, and 69. Dat: 34 years points: 97, 97, 70, 59, 67 Franzen is 33 5 year points: 38, 59, 21, 55, 56 why a guy that has never scored 60 points in a season is considered a premier play is beyond me. he was 69th in scoring this year. Bertuzzi is 37. 5 year points: 40, 44, 44, 45, 38 Cleary is 34. 5 year totals: 42, 40, 34, 46, 33 Lidstrom is 42 (we share that....LOL) 5 year totals: 70, 59, 49, 62, 34. Kronwall is 31. 5 year totals: 35, 51, 22, 37, 36. Now here is the point. All fo these guys are on a negitive slope. yes some improved in 2011, but with the ages involved that is more likely a 1 time thing than a trend. This group is not going to get better. Only worse. All are signed except Nicky of course. In this day and age we can't just cut them either. No I do not exect Z and Dat to get traded. To much attached to them. But if we where going to, now is the time. Wait much longer and they will not have much value. Looking ahead a couple of years, a team that is lead by a 38 year old and 36 year old, at C is not going to go well.

Yzerman set the bar on hanging on for the last couple years. he played his last 4 or 5 years at less than 2 million. Add in a little inflation and the number is 3 million. The part every forgets is, to get someone good, you have to give someone good. There is also a salary cap. I know may are hot to trot over parise, but I am not one of them. he is another small forward, which we have a bunch of. the days of a team full of 5-11/180 players is over. yes a few are needed and can be successfull. But overall the average size is closer to 6-2/205. We have 3 forwards that are that size or bigger. 1 is old Burt, 1 disappears-Franzen, and 1 is very young Abelkater. yes moving Zetterberg or datsyk will cause riots int he streets. I get that. But where will they be in 3 years? Old broken and with no trade value.