Richdg

I stand corrected. I thought we got hammered if Z is unable to play and forced into retirement. 1-2 million is no problem. Now can he play is the only real question.

only for a year, which if Z needs surgery works out. takes a long time to be "ready" again. Franzen can just go and not be missed.

We could be in the market for a new captain and #1 LW or #2 C.

Ummm for those that watch the games, yes Micky has been talking about Z not being 100% and that his back has been bothering him. That means yes, he has been the walking wounded. Z has had a bad back for 2-3 years now. It is not going to get better on its own. HD's don't work that way. he has to have surgery. Period. Even then doesn't mean it fixes things. Just buys time until you have another then another then another. I know lots of people that have had this issue-spent 30 years in construction. Everyone that has one surgery on HD's has another within 5 years. Heck, look at Bert. How long and how many surgeries has he had? Several. Micky Redmond had his career cut short because of his back.

Bumpy, if you go back a few pages I did propose improving the D. I propsed: signing vanek, trading for hanzel or some other big C, signing Matt Greene for the 3rd pair, and trading for Petry to be the RHed pair for dekeyser. By doing that we improve our F corp and our D in the same off season. 2 UFA's and 2 trades, and a much much better team overall.

Bumpy, I do agree that we need to improve the whole team: F, D, and G. I disagree with the thought that the F have been hit harder. In fact IIRC everyone of our Dman have missed time this year due to injuries. maybe Lashoff hasn't, but everyone else has. But that really doesn't matter. Injuries happen to all teams and all players. The good teams fight through it. The issue still is how do we improve. The only 2 options are trades and free agents. There are no top notch Dmen available, so we would have to trade. of course that cost a lot of prospects and our depth.

No on Callahan. he isn't worth it. Always hurt, has he ever scored 30 goals in a single season? No. as for team needs, what? Our O is ranked 19th, the D is ranked 15th. What do we need to improve? How about the ST's? The PP is 22nd and the PK is 10th. Please stop with the injuries, both/all have been hurt. Forwards, D, and G. Again, go back to 08 and 09 when we made/won cups. top 3 in O both years. Top 5 in D one year and 20th in D the other. It is all about scoring goals. Scoring 3+ goals a game is king in the NHL. We win 75%+ of our games when we score 3 or more goals. We lose 90+ % of our games when we score 2 or fewer goals per game.

Yes to the rest of the world-like Europe, the Olympics are a big deal. Euro's will sit out to play in it. Team Sweden or team Russia still means a ton to them. BTW, what network broadcasts the Olympics and the NHL? You think that will not come into play? No the owners don't lose a thing, still play the same number of games. A easy fix would be to drop the NHL AS game, which no one cares about. That is 4 or 5 days right there.

DD, let me get this straight. You are ok with paying 41 year old Alfie 5.5 million per year, and not pay vanek? Even though Vanek has produced twice as much as Alfie the last 3 years.

Doubt that this happens. The Euros all have other leagues they can play in and will for one year. The NA players don't, so if it appears that the US and Canada are going to get hammered, pressure will rise and they will play.

So we have been reduced to "darkhorse" status now...... Great..................

Bumpy, we have plenty of cap to do both. yes vanek is the only star out there. maybe he is 100% stuck on 7 years, if so then no don't sign him. Most of the "rumors" I have seen have been 7 years 50-55 million to sign him. Sell him on 5 years 45 million, then he has time to get another decent 3 year deal-with some other team, after that. That means more money for him. You talk about sending Jurco back down, not sure we will be able to do so next year. Replace him with whom? Ok sign another journeyman-that has worked really good to date right? Cleary, bert, Sammy, tootoo etc..... We don't need average or below, we need stars. Again we have the money to do it! 16-20 million to spend after we resign our RFA's, depending what happens with Franzen.

Pumpkin, yes. I don't want any of our UFA's brought back. all are old or broken or limited athletes. But that isn't vanek. He is a 4 or 5 year bridge to future waves of young guys. No I do not want to trade for him either. Rentals are bad ideas in the best of times, which we currently are not having. Go ask tigers fans about the Smotlz for Alexander trade. been 20+ years are we still ***** about. Even though alexander helped them to the PO's, giving up a HOF hurts a lot.....

Buppy, we do have several guys with long term injury issues. Z had a bad back that will be with him the rest of his career, gradually getting worse. helm with his lack of size and style of play is always going to miss games. Not sure if he is a guy that can be counted on for more than 65 games per season. Datsyuk is 35 and has been trending in the more games lost due to injury direction. been a long time since he played over 70 games-2009/10 was the last time. Since then he has played 56 games, 70 games, 47 games-lockout year, and this year he has already missed 15+ games. That is his future as well. Franzen has already had 3 or 4 consussions and we not sure if he will ever play again as of today. The % of athletes in all sports that get retired after 5 concussions is very very high-like over 90%. The danger we face now is, if we stand pat and guys go down to injury again-which they will, there is no NHL ready talent in GR to replace them. It is all in Detroit already. Maybe mantha will be ready at some point next year, and who else? Pulk maybe. That is only 2. Everyone else will be in Detroit.

Z-the only guy that I moved from that group was Nyquist and that was to fill another major need. BTW tinky is Sheahan....... Buppy-all those games missed by our top 6/7 forwards are only going to get worse. The lack of size, age, and history of inuries by that group will not get better as they get another year older, only worse. That is very much part of our issue.

Why wouldn't he be the go to guy here? he would be the best goal scorer we have. Datsyuk is far more a passer than natural goal scorer. They would be a great pair. I don't care what Franzen's 82 game averages are, he doesn't play 82 games. After his 3 or 4 concussions he will play less and less every year. Vanek btw scored 20 goals in 38 games last year. That is a 40+ goal pace over a full season. Come 2015 there are 5 UFA's that would be of interest: kane, Toews, Zajac, Spezza, and Ryan. Of those 5 not one has ever scored 40 goals. Kane has 1 season of scoring 30. Most of his years are mid 20's. Toews will get resigned, so no sense wasting time on him. Zajac is typically in the upper teens in goals scored, so no real help there. Spezza is the same age as Vanek, a great passer, and has a bad back. Ryan would be awesome, but he will have everyone after him. This means over the next 2 summers there are 2, yes only 2 top goal scorers available via UFA. That is it. Thing is, we have the money to go after both of them. This year we have 16 million to spend after resigning our RFA's. Buyout Franzen and we have 20. Spend 9 on Vanek and we have 11 left over. Next year we have that 11, 2 from Tootoo leaving, plus the cap goes up. So we should have another 15/16 million to spend and once again very few RFA/UFA to resign. We could go out and add Ryan next year for the same freaking money, and still have 6/7 million left over! All of this changes of course if we make a trade or 2, which we should do as well. Point is, money and cap are not an issue right now, nor will it be for at least the next 4 or 5 years. DD, I don't think anyone wants Vanek for 7 years. I said shorter term and higher salary from the begining of this. 5 years/45 million or 4 years/10 million. Then let him go.

Yes, everyone wants the RW's to pick up their personnel ideal player. Well guess what. Those guys are not out there. You can only pick up what is available. Hell Alfie who is 41 just got paid 5.2 million. You don't think vanek is worth 7+? That is just crazy. Again look at our roster for next season. We are full and have a bunch of money left over. F: Datsyuk, Z, Nyquist, tatar, Jurco, Sheahan, Helm, Abby, Tootoo, Franzen, Miller, Glendening, Callahan, and Weiss. Who is ready in GR? No one. maybe Mantha in Feb if he has a great start. Only 1 guy can go to the minors without having to clear waivers. This is our forward group. A bottom 1/3 scoring group overall. Yes adding a guy like Perry or Ryan would be awesome. But they at this point in time are not available. Some talk about adding a top pair D man. There are none in UFA so we would have to trade. If that is what we are going to do, say good bye to 2 maybe 3 out of the Sheahan, Jurco, Tatar, and Nyquist group. Plus some young Dmen. if we do that, heck we don't even have 14 NHL caliber forwards. Do we even have 12 at that point? Some of you are questioning Vaneks ability to score. That is juts silly. On a bad Sabres team last year he scored 20 in 48 games. Playing with Datsyuk and Z he gets 40+ easily. Yes he is that good of a goal scorer. Not he is not a great D player nor is he physical. Again, who out there AVAILABLE is? No one.

Pumkin, you may not like it-hell I don't like it either, but that is the way the game is played. talent costs money.

Pumpkin that is just BS. I can just here the phone call now..... pavel, this is Ken. Would it be ok if we signed vanek to play on your wing? We might have to pay him more than you. No ken it is not ok. I want to continue to play on a low talent team with no chance at winning the Cup before I retire........ Ya right.......

Ok some don't want vanek, fine. Do you have a better idea? if so, who and how? That is the key. let's play the game. Let's say we decide to go after a top 1/2 Dman. is there any available in UFA? No. That means trade. So what does it cost to get a Weber type Dman? Nyquist, tatar, and Smith just to start. Even that package isn't getting it done. if we do that, what does it do tour team? Our 20th ranked O just got worse. A lot worse. We don't have any scoring behind those guys that is ready to play. No what bout the cap. After we resign everyone we have a full roster and 16 million or so left to spend. Spend on who and what? save for what? If our team next year is the current version minus the UFA's, that is nota very good team. Maybe compete for the playoffs. That is the best it can be. Buyout Franzen and now we have 20 million to spend. But again, on what? There are no bonuses for not spending up to the cap. ticket prices don't drop, cable bills don't drop. Team just sucks. Its not like we need the cap for 2015. We only have a couple of RFA's to resign. The UFA class in 2015 isn't very good either. 5 really good players, but they will all get resigned. So again we have cap and no one to spend it on. If one or 2 UFA's do make it in 2015 we would still have cap space. If we have 20 million to spend this year, and we use 9-10 for Vanek, 3 for Greene, we have 7-8 left over. The cap in 2015 will be larger, so we should have 10-12 million to spend, minus what tootoo makes.

DD you do realize that Vanek is a better offensive player than Parise, getzlef, and Perry right? All are in their 9th full season, just like Vanek is. All are 29 this season-P and G turn 29 in May, so only 1 year in age, and Vanek HAS OUT SCORED THEM ALL!. Vanek is 30 goals ahead of Parise and Perry. 100 goals ahead over Getzlef. Yes perry and getzlef bring other things along with them, but they are not UFA's. Vanek is. P and G also are signed for 7 more seasons after this one. They will be 36/7 when their contracts expire and still be costing their clubs 8 million per year. If they even make it that far. parise has what, 7 years left at 7 million per year. Add in for inflation and ya Vanek at 9 million for 5 years is about right. Still better than 7 years and 56 million.

DD, now you are just being silly. Let's compare shall we. Franzen 34. 173 career regular season goals. 4 seasons out of 9, that he has scored 20 or more goals. That is it. factor in his multiple concussions-why long term deals are bad, and he is signed for 6 more seasons after this, each one with a 4 million $ cap hit. Vanek 30. 269 career regular season goals in 9 seasons. 8 soon to be 9 seasons of 20+ goals-needs 1 more this year. Vanek is twice the player Franzen is, which is why he will get 7-8 million per over a 7 year deal. I wouldn't want another long term contract for guys into their late 30's. We have enough of those already. So to get him, you have to pay him higher per year to get the shorter deal. 7 million x 8 years is 56 million. 9million x 5 years is only 45, but he will have 3 advantages. 1 he gets to play with Z and D every shift, and 2. At 34/5 he can sign another deal for another 25 million or so. So more money for him in the end. 3. he gets a real chance at a Cup if the RW's have any idea on how to work things this off season. Last point. Best guess is we will have 18-20 million in cap space this year after we resign all of our RFA's. After Vanek there is no one else to spend any serious money on. Meaning we can sign him, and still have 9-10 million left over heading into the season. Bringing him in frees up other assets to use for a trade to further improve the team, and allows us to bring on another big contract if we need to.

DD, Franzen could NEVER score 40 goals. Hell he can't even score 30. How old is Franzen BTW? Oh yeah 34 and breaking down. That is the danger here, not the money paid out. We have a ton of cap room and there is no one else to spend it on. Stars just are not going to make it to UFA anymore. We also don't have enough players to make any trades to improve ourselves. Right now we have 2 options. 1 Play the young kids, stand pat, and continue to fight for a PO spot until datsyuk retires. OR Make some big time moves, take a risk or 2, and make another Cup run. If we are not going to try and make another Cup run, then why did we resign datsyuk? What was the point?

Bob, Vanek has and can score 40+ goals per year with a good C. h ha 2 seasons already with 40 or more goals. Both with the Sabres.

Dirty and Pumkin. My post was just an example of how things could go. Point is with a little luck and effort we would have some extra pieces to then make trades and fill in holes. Something that can be done to make a couple of moves so we can make another run or 2 before Datsyuk is gone. Yes I would like to sign Vanek to a shorter term for more money per year. having him for 4 or 5 years at 9-10 mill is a safer bet than him for 7 years. the chances of him still producing at a high level at 34 is much greater than at 37. History shows most guys hit a wall in that area and drop off fast.