Richdg

Spezza produces about 25% more points per year on average than legwand. Younger as well. UFA is what has become a joke. Everyone gets resigned before it starts, then there is one or two good players available. You have to draft and you have to trade to build a team. No we all understand that it will improve. But and this is key: there are no major upgrades even rumored to be available as of today-that will change of course, and 2. To get one of those type of Dmen we will have to pay twice the amount of a guy like Spezza. If Spezza can be had for say tatar, ouellet and a 1st, imagine what a guy like Carlson will cost: tatar, Nyquist, Ouellet, Mrazek and a 1st just to start.

Yes he will go there. He will be assigned to GR. But he can not play in a PO game. he was not on GR's roster during the regular season, which is required by AHL rules. he can practice all he wants, be a black ace if you will. But he can not play. which Bob kaser the Griffins play by play guy talks about all the time.

Really? 4 pages on this for a guy that can't play for GR in the PO's this year. He wasn't on the team which is required.

Really? Shanahan, Hasek, Chelios, Maltby, Draper, Murphy, and a host of other greats were all picked up by trade at one point or another. Trading is as important, maybe more so than drafting. Trick of course is to never overpay and try to underpay.

The NHL will go to 32 at some point. Not sure if Canada will get the teams though. Salt Lake, Seattle, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Portland, Las Vegas are all bigger cities/markets than any city in Canada which doesn't have a team. As for bettmen, the owners love him, get over it.

We all can and do have long lists of players that we would love to have playing for the RW's. Holland and Babcock have both talked about adding "top 6 forward" and a "RHed top 4 Dman". That of course is the easy part. The much harder part is figuring out who we can trade away, without completely gutting the team and our future. So who can be used in trades? The following can't be do to NTC/NMC: Datsyuk, Weiss, Kronwall, Ericsson, and Howard. can't be moved do to sentimental reasons: Zetterberg. UFA's and no value: bertuzzi, Sammy, Cleary, Legwand, Quincy, Alfie, and gus. Now we can begin. Forwards with some value: Helm, Abby, Miller, Nyquist, tatar, Sheahan, Franzen, Jurco, Glendening, Andersson, Pulkkinan, TooToo, Callahan, and ferraro. Dmen with some value: Dekeyser, Smith, lashoff, Kindl, Ouellet, Sproul, marchenko, and backman. G with value: Mrasek minor/junior players: long list. Now the debate begins. You need 14 forwards, 7 Dmen, and 2 G's on the NHL team. You need a few NHL ready prospects in the AHL in the event of injuries. 2-3 F 2 Dmen and a G in GR that can be called up should be enough-we hope. So the extras; helm and Glendening. Physically they are twins. both about 5-11/195. On the ice they are very similar. Helm a little faster, Glendening a little grittier. Both play the same position: checking line C. Glendening is 2 years younger and about 1.5 million cheaper. I would keep Glendening and use Helm in a trade to fill our 2 major holes. Tatar and Pulkkinen. Again very similar players. both in the 5-10/190 range. Both are snipers. Same age. the only real difference is, Pulkkinen is Rhed and tatar is a lefty. Neither is big, both need to improve defensively, and both a good shooters. between the 2, tatar has more trade value because he has done it at the NHL level, Pulk still in the minors. keep Pulk and use tatar in a trade. kindl. he struggled this year but has played better in the past. We have a ton of good young Dmen right on the verge of being ready. use him in trade, but this is a selling low year with Kindl. Smith. Does he stay or go? I am fine with either. But you have to provide some value to get some value. In the right deal there isn't anything lost. if we are going after say Carlson to be the RHed Dman, then moving Smith is fine. after all Carlson is Rhed, proven, and a year younger than Smith. With Ouellet and backman a year or so away, this isn't a big risk in the right move..... Mrasek. yes he looks like a guy that could be very good at the NHL level in a couple of years. But that also makes him a very valuable trade piece. We have a very good NHL G in Howard-who is signed long term. We have another good looking prospect behind Mrasek in Paterson. This means if we have to, in the right deal, we can in fact move him. In the grand scheme of things, what is more important to the team right now? A great G prospect or a great Dmen or Power forward? Those 5 are our primary pieces that we can move in a trade without causing more holes to appear. yes the 2014 1st round pick can be added to the list, making 6 major trade pieces. we still then have filler like Callahan, Ferraro, Almqvist. That should be enough to make 2 nice deals.

I have been beating that drum for a while now. Petry is a RFA though, not a UFA. He is almost a RHed clone of DD.

ET In understand what you are trying to say, but this is the real world. You either do or you don't do. Holland didn't. There may be many reasons for it-real and imagined, but at the end of the day you don't get credit for trying. BTW There is no bigger Dekeyser fan than me. But next season is the year to watch out for the soph slump. To date DD has played a total of 83 NHL games-regular season and playoffs. Same thing is true for Juroc, tatar, Nyquist, Sheahan, etc...... Next year is the year we have to watch out for.

To bad for us, Maroon is becoming very expensive. He is having an awesome playoffs....

True, there is no other Lidstrom out there. but there are guys between where he was and where say Quincey is. If nick was a say 98 and Quincey is a 70, we can't find a couple of guys that are 85's? That is how we have to look at things. It wasn't just Nick. It was also Stuart and rafi. That is 3 guys and we haven't replaced any of them. Now maybe Dekeyser is one of those guys, but we need more.

True and always has been.

I understand that. it takes two to tango. There are deals out there, always is. The questions become who for whom. Most of which we the fans never find out about.

DD, yes we do. Anytime you can pick up PROVEN stars for prospects you are winning the trade. rentals not included of course. prospects are great, but they haven't proven anything yet and 2 out of 3 never will.

Dabura, the links you posted the other day show that Dekeyser is already our best defensive Dman. it also shows that both Kronwall and ericsson are second pair guys defensively. yes E and Kronwall will throw a big hit once and a while which is fine. But neither do it much. Of course they are on the opposite ends of the size spectrum. But from a Dman I am ok with 1 hit per game as an average. Which both do. All of our Dmen are in that range for hits. It is at the forward spot that I like to see guys that pound on the other teams D. Guys like Martin who averages 5 hits per game. Now back to the point. We have some pieces we can in fact move. If we add a UFA or 2, that gives us more pieces to move. We have plenty of cap space for us to do so, will Holland act? No idea-but not betting on it......

Spector was going through the list today of RHed Dmen we could be going after. Niskanen (spelling), Big Buf, Gilbert, Myers, and a couple of more.

BTW Howard's 5 on 5 PO save % was..... 952!!!!!!! that is freaking awesome. To bad he had the freaking flu.

Good for Abby. he is a great guy and gives max effort. Not his fault he has iffy hands...... Go USA!

Mrazek may be our next goalie, but that is 3 years or more down the road. I doubt Holland does much of anything. Which means another 3-5 years fighting to make the PO's and losing in the first.

Why does anyone expect Alfie to be better? he played what 65 games this year and scored 17 goals. Finished the year looking really slow, wild shot-happens when your legs are gone, and a sore back. Now he will be a year older and you expect better? I have no doubt that Mantha right now could score 17+ goals on the RW's next year. It is the other parts of the game that he needs to develop, not his shooting/goal scoring.

If you lay out our special teams you really see where the issues are. PK is ok with guys like: Abby, Glendening, helm, Miller, Z, datsyuk, Nyquist, Sheahan, and Jurco at F then DD, Kron, and E at D. It is the PP that has major issues. PP1: datsyuk and Nyquist are the puck movers, no one to work in front of the net and down low with only Kronwall on the BL. Need a big body up front and a RHed shot. On PP2 it is the same problem: Z and Weiss as your puck movers, no one down low/front of net, DD on the BL. Again need a big body for up front and a RHed shot on the BL. That makes 4 holes on the team. 1 of the 2 holes on the BL could in theory be filled by Sproul or Marchenko. But both are very young with a year or less in pro hockey at the minor level. As for filling the holes down low/front of the net the only young guy that could possibly do it is Sheahan. That would mean 2 guys in their 1st/2nd years filling major roles. That is very risky and would be wasting Datsyuks talents and time.

Correct. This is were as an example a smith+mrazek=bogo. Just as an example.

The questions with Smith are two fold. 1. He is poor defensively. 2. he is another lefty. Now one can be fixed, the other can't be. As I mentioned before, if I am putting together a trade for a guy like Carlson-6-3/215 RHed, year younger than smith, great shot blocker, and better offensively than Smith, then hell yes we do it! Same if we are packaging him for a guy like Lucic. No don't trade him for picks. That would be dumb. But to get quality you have to give up quality.

No. Back then we had Shanny, McCarty, lapointe, later added Clark, Robie-who was very good down low, one of the samuelsons.... or was it sundstrom..... had some tough Dmen like Pushor, ward, chelios, etc....... It wasn't until the mid 2000's that that group retired that we developed our softness. A lot of tough gritty players that were replaced by Bertuzzi and nothing else.

Michaleks knees are shot, which is why Ott is letting him walk. he only has 1 leg left......

Clarkson can only be bought out with an ordinary buyout-which is why it will not happen. he signed last summer with Weiss.