Richdg

Now, let's take Holland at his word. That makes our roster: Abby-Datsyuk-Bert Franzen-Z-Sammy Nyquist-Andersson-Tatar Eaves-Emmerton-TooToo Helm (may not be healthy) plus who ever we resign: my guess is Brunner, Miller, Cleary in that order. That would make 14, 15, or 16 forwards. Kronwall-Ericsson Dekeyser-Kindl Smith-Quincy Lashoff-Cola 8 Dman. G: Howard Gus This means we are over full. Trades can be made. If we add 1 or 2 UFA's, it is a true full house.

Bickell to help on the LW-he did score 17 goals in 2010/11 and Clarkson to play RW-he scored 30 last year and 15 in half a season this year.

Yes! But I am worried it could be a bad contract. 7 or 8 years at 8 million + per year. would be better to pay him more per year for fewer year. a 4 year 30-35 million deal for example. He is already 35.

updated the order.

Or, maybe with someone better than Cleary we are not the 7th seed heading into the PO's. maybe we are 4th, 5th, 6th. Have you forgotten had bad Cleary was during the regular season? he just doesn't have the skill anymore. It is time to say thank you for your efforts, heart, blood and guts, and move on. Cleary is our past, not our future. Same with Bert, Sammy, Franzen, maybe Miller, White, etc.....

Anyone who puts a lot of weight into this season good or bad, is making a mistake. No preseason/training camp, short compressed schedule, was a health nightmare, etc.... We were a borderline PO team and still are. if that is good enough for Holland, then he needs to retire. That isn't good enough for me or most fans. We understand that you are not going to win the SC every year. No one does. But it is managements job to try to make their teams better every year. if they don't think they need to-as Hollands very vague comments hint at, then time to move on. Don't get me wrong. I am a fan of his-in total. He has done a great job. But he needs to be more aggressive. I fully understand that every move made doesn't work out. same with every draft pick, every prospect, every old vet looking for that one last run. But standing pat, getting another year older, and expecting better is not a plan for success. That doesn't mean we need 15 new players. But 4 or 5 are very much needed. Cleary-UFA, Sammy-old and broken, Bert-old and broken, must be replaced. For anyone to say, hint, or think otherwise is dumb. Those 3 used to be top 6 forwards, but they no longer are. There are no top 6 forwards in our system ready to play. we have to go out and either sign or trade for some. One of the writers from Detroit was on the Huge show yesterday and was saying much of the same things. Fippula will price himself out of Detroits range, but they want to bring Miller and Cleary back. He also didn't expect any buyouts to be used.

I don't know. he could be better. That is the point. We are not going to win the SC with Cleary leading the way. The fact that he was our leading scorer speaks volumns about this team. Which is why today all of our players are golfing and not getting ready to play the Kings. If we keep: Z, Dat, Franzen, Bert, Abby, Brunner, Cleary, Fil, Sammy, Helm, Emmerton, TooToo, Miller, and Eaves (that is 14 forwards) where are the young guys like Nyquist, Andersson, Tatar, and Sheahan going to play? In GR again? How does this make us better? It doesn't. We have to clear out 4 guys just to bring the kids up. Helm is hurt-1, Cleary is a UFA-2 Miller is a UFA-3, we still need to move one more. But none of this makes us better. Let Fil walk makes 4. But we still are not better. That is the key: Get better. Using the same guys year after year and expecting different results is foolish.

Who said anything about choking? We played ABOVE our talent level. Which s the point. We can't eep bringing the sme old tired, beat up, worn out guys back and expect to improve. It doesn't work that way.

Guys, use capgeek and read. If franzen was to retire in the Summer of 2017, 4 seasons from now we would have a cap it of 2,772,727 for 3 more seasons. If he was to retire in the summer of 2016, our cap hit would be just under 2.1 million for 4 seasons. I he retires in the summer of 2018 the cap hit is 4.16 million for 2 seasons. If he retires in the summer of 2019 the hit is 8.32 million for 1 season. In any of these events he costs us money on our cap, when he is not even playing. The hit is worse as he gets closer to the end of his contract. Now if we buy him out, he gives us a $0 cap hit. he is going to get paid his 22.5 million no matter what we/he does.

depends. yeshe has some offensive skills. he is also fairly young-26/27. But it will coe down to how much he wants. 2-3 million for 3-4 years, ok. 4+ million or a 8 year deal? no thanks. same can be said for Cleary, Filppula, and Miller. We can only keep 14 forwards and we do need some more size, toughness, and gol scoring.

Over the next few days we will find out about all the injuries. But guess what? EVERYONE HAS GUYS PLAYING HURT! It is the freaking playoffs. very few if any teams are going to go through the playoffs without having half their team banged up. Happens every year. As for Cleary, no one has ever doubted his heart or his guts. he has tons of both. But he is also half the player he used to be. It happens. he is 33/34 now and a UFA. No I do not want him back. We have young guys in the minors that need to play. yes they could flop. But untill they play every day, we don't know. What can Cleary give us that Sheahan can't? Nothing. Yes Sheahan is young and inexperienced, but how does he get experience? oh ya-he plays!

Lashoff will most likely be with the Wings. Then the best 6 in GR, rest in Toledo. Yes i get excited about the potential. But untill these guys play games at the pro level in north america, we have no idea if some/any/all/none will make it. It is a big step, with each following level becoming a bigger step. if 2 out of that group turn out, we are doing a great job. But, depth like this also allows for trades. we have a bunch of young Dmen and lack good young forwards.

Yup. Now that the U18 WC's are over, some guys are rising and others falling. Mccarron is rising fast. He had a great U18 WC and we may have to take him in the first to get him, which is fine by me. I will have some up dated scouting reports, videos, and my own personnel RW draft over the next couple of days.

Move Franzen if we can, if not buy him out. He is not worth the cap hit. Not now and not in the future. Those that defend Franzen like to say things like "you can't get a 30 goal scorer for 4 million per year". That is true, but Franzen isn't a 30 goal scorer. he has scored 30 goals in a season 1 time in his career-back in 08 when datsyuk and Zetterberg were also having their career years. if you look at his numbers Franzen is really a 25 goal per year guy, at best. Now who if the better buy? Franzen 33 at 4 million and 25 goals per year, or a guy like Ryan 25 and 33 goals per year at a 5.2 million cap hit? Ryan clearly is. People are also tying in facts that have no bearing on Franzen. We are not a team with cap issues as of today. if he stays or goes we have room to spend. it is how we spend that matters. The only thing that matters with reguards to Franzen is: can we get someone better? if so, you do it. There are some UFA's that are better, there are some that are equal and cheaper, and there is always the trade route. The biggest roblem with Franzen is he is 33 and only going to get worse. he is not a young kid that has time to improve. he is on the downward arc that everyone has after 30. For those that are wondering about contracts, Capgeek has a very good section on this. If quotes the CBA and will provide the buyout rates for guys on the "contract advantage" list, which includes Z, Kronwall, and Franzen. If frnazen plays his whole contract, his cap hit is basicly 4 million per year. if he was to retire at say age 37/38 with 3 years left on his deal, his cap hit would be a little lower-about 2.8 million for the remaining years of his contract. Same is true for Z and Kronwall. As of today, we have those 3 guys signed for 7/8 more years at a cap hit of 14.5 million per year. if all retire early are cap hit goes down to about 10 million per year. It is possible that in 4 more years, we will be spending 1/7th of our total cap on guys no longer playing in the NHL. we need to fix this now, before it becomes a problem, and the guys in question still have some value, so that they can be moved.

Ok, season is over. BOOOO! It was a hell of a nice ride though. That being said, next major thing is the draft. We should have the 18th pick. This is the exact spot guys like Mantha are supposed to go. Now if I have my math correct our picks are: 1st round-18 2nd round-48 3rd-78 4th round-108 5th-138 6th-168 7th-198 In a perfect world we would pick up an extra pick between 18 and 48. Lets see what happens over the next couple of weeks. Edited 5/30/2013. Order is now set for us. We have the 18th pick in each round.

Maybe a better version of this idea would be: build the best cap compliant team, which does make things much tougher. You can't have 4 C's making 7+ million per year. Anyone can draft an AS team, and not be wrong with how they lay it out. Make a team that is under next years 64 million dollar cap, assuming everyone is available. A much tougher thing to do.

In other words, nothing new here. Datsyuk may go home or he may stay here. Same as we have all talked about-at length for months now.

No it was not Nicky's fault. but the team did look to him to do everything, which often happens with superstars. now they can't look for someone else they have to do it themselves. it does change everyones mindset, and that can be a good thing.

Here we are heading into the long holiday weekend. The sun is shining, and the Wings are still playing! Heck, we are 1 more win from another series! Truely awesome and shocking. Couldn't be happier! The effort, the coaching, and Howard are the reasons why. Time to give all of those some serious love. No this is not the most talented team in the NHL. in fact the hawks are one of the most talented teams. ut we are out working them and out thinking them, thus we have a 3-1 lead. Babcock has once again shown he is the best coach in the business. He can coach a laoded AS team or a blue collar team that is lacking high end talent. Doesn't matter, he wins. Jimmy is showing that he is truely one of the best in the game today. never to high, never to low, just goes out and does his job, and does it well. Showing he is worth every penny of his new contract. This team has goen into the house money area. We are already further than anyone could have expected, and looks like we are not yet done. this is when things get fun. with nothing to lose, there is no pressure. With no pressure, guys play better and have fun. That is when teams become truely dangerous. What a great year this has turned out to be! If it last for 1 more game or 15 more games, we as Wings fans have NOTHING to complain about.

But if we keep winning........ With the 30th pick in the 2013 NHL draft, the Detroit Red Wings take: ........gets a little more interesting.

Just got home from school. AWESOME GAME! Hawks are a really dumb team tonight.

Big giant huge win today. I was at work so couldn't watch. But we did what needed to be done. I thought we would get 1 in Chitown. Glad to be right on that. Now how do the b hawks react and can we sustain? Hope we do.

As of today, if we lose we will pick 23? IIRC everyone else in the PO's has more points than us.

If we win another series we will be to low to get mantha. But we are also now in the area bailey is a good option. Very similier player.

No one skill: size, speed, strength, puck handling is enough. You want guys with several talents. A big fast skilled guy is better than a small fast skilled guy. I like a balanced team. Size and speed and skill.