FlashyG

I didn't set the threshold to make the list, nor did I make the list, I just pointed out that based on their production both Franzen and Brunner are good enough to make it. Here are the players I mentioned sorted by PPG, with their cap hits included. Franzen .690 - Cap hit 3.954 Iginla .688 - Cap hit 7.0 Carter .685 - Cap hit 5.72 Brown .657 - Cap hit 3.175 Brunner .629 - Cap hit 1.35 Richards .629 - Cap hit 5.75 Lucic .606 - Cap hit 4.08 Callahan .593 - Cap hit 4.275 Horton .589 - Cap hit 4.00 Selanne .583 - Cap hit 4.5 Richards .576 - Cap hit 6.66 Heatley .571 - Cap hit 7.5 Gaborik .542 - Cap hit 7.5 Note - I was wrong about Hossa and Sharp, I didn't notice how many games they missed initially, Hossa has 23 pts in 28 games and Sharp has 18 in 24 vs Franzen's 20 in 29. Its always odd to me when I see people calling for trading or in some cases buying out Franzen with the idea being to replace him with one of the many players that produce less than he does. Especially when all but Brown make more than him, and that's only going to last until next season when Brown will be extended at a far higher pay grade. Brunner, by far though, is the bargain of the group.

3, second round picks from a team that is the lowest scoring in the league for a guy who has 0 goals this year. This solidifies in my mind that we should be selling right now. The prices are too outrageous to be looking to add to our team.

I think you're drastically undervaluing some of the Wings players in order to make this list. Both Franzen and Brunner have produced at essentially equal or better rates than many players on your list including, Heatley, Selanne, Hossa, Sharp, Carter, Brown, Richards, Iginla, Horton, Lucic, Callahan, Gaborik and Richards. Offensively Kronwall has outplayed every defenceman on your list but Suter and Letang. Kronwalls deficiency is his defence, and the 2 guys you suggest acquiring are actually worse defensively than he is. Then in net you list Quick who has the worst Sv% of all starting goalies in the entire league, and who trails Howard in every single goalie stat. Detroits list of depth should read Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Kronwall, Brunner and Howard. Still isn't likely to get us the cup, but definitely better than you make it seem.

Those guys were looked at as "potential" Franchise goalies because they were 1st and 4th overall picks. Also both their status' as franchise goalies are debatable, especially in Fluery's case. Its awfully hard to make a case that the expectations for a guy drafted in the 5th round should be as high as they are for a guy drafted in the first spot in the entire draft. Its not impossible for Mrazek to overcome that and I hope he does, but the odds aren't exactly in his favor. Again, I don't think we should trade him, I just don't think he's going to be taking the #1 job from Howard unless he makes significant improvement over the next few years, or Howard takes some significant steps backwards.

The irony from your posts is astounding, you claim Carman is thinking with his heart not his head when he provides you evidence, all while you claim up and down that a guy with only 2 games of NHL experience is a franchise goalie.

When Howard was 21 he also turned around the fortunes of the Griffins with #'s extremely similar to Mrazeks. Mrazek is a great prospect but he's not in the stratosphere of a franchise goalie, Unless you mean an AHL franchise goalie, which might be true, but lets see how he performs in the playoffs first. He might become an NHL starter, there is also a slight chance he could become the Franchise goalie you keep calling him, but there is probably a bigger chance that he never sticks in the NHL at all then there is that he will become one of the NHL's elite netminders. That's not a knock on him either, its just the reality of goaltending at the NHL level. Putting the expectation of him being a Franchise goalie as a 21 year old who's accomplished nothing as a professional is just setting the guy up to fail. Lets wait and see what we have before we start throwing those kind of projections around.

I'm ok with trading Patterson, but I think its a year early for that. There is a fantastic chance he'll be the starting goalie for Canada at the World Juniors and there will be a lot of hype around Canada's team as they seek to win their first title in a few years after dominating the tournament for so long. If he can backstop the team to the gold his value will skyrocket and he could potentially be the centerpiece of a big trade. If they/he fails I don't think it hurts his value much at all and we can still include him as part of a package like some of the ones proposed now.

Lets dial back the hysteria around Mrazek a bit here, he's a good prospect but at this point he's nowhere near the level of Jimmy Howard and we'd be lucky if he ever is. Playing great at the World Juniors isn't any sort of guarantee that you'll be able to do the same in the NHL especially as a goalie. The World Junior top goalie list is littered with guys who had absolutely no success in the NHL. What we've seen of Mrazek at the NHL level has only told us one thing definitively, and that is he is not NHL ready yet. He was ok in his first outing but faced very little in the way of difficult shots, then he was subpar in his second game before being returned to the minors. He hasn't played a single playoff game at any professional level, he didn't steal any series in the OHL, he stole 1 game in the World Juniors but didn't lead his team to any sort of medal and he hasn't won anything at the AHL level yet either so I'm not sure how you can classify him as someone who has the ability to steal a series. I'm against trading him too, mostly because we lack depth in net throughout the organization but lets see how he develops for a few years before we anoint him the savior of the franchise.

I think Flip will almost certainly be re-signed. The Wings under Holland have always been extremely deep up the middle and with Datsyuk potentially leaving for Russia soon I don't think they'd gamble on free agents being available to replace him. I think they are hoping he'll sign for a bit less but I don't think they will let him go unless his demands are unreasonable.

If they even make the playoffs. They are right on the bubble and Halak got hurt tonight. The guy was on a team that had made the playoffs 5 straight years before he got there and hasn't made them since. How many years does he have to miss them before maybe we start looking at the possibility that having him as your #1 defenceman is a recipe for not making the playoffs. He would have helped out the team offensively while hurting them defensively, and Kronwall is already filling that role effectively. He's also a left side defenceman when we have 5 of them and only one guy who prefers to play the right side. He's almost the exact opposite of the type of defenceman we should be looking to add. The cap hasn't dropped in those years. The Wings have 18.6 million left to sign, Nyquist, Andersson, Kindl, Smith, Howard, Flip, Brunner, White, Cleary and Miller. Flip and Howard are going to get at least 4 a season, so now you're down to 10.6 million. Nyquist and Andersson are going to get at least 1 million each, bringing the cap room down to 8.6 million. Smith and Kindl will command at least as much as Colaiacovo (2.5 million) so now you're left with 3.6 million to sign Brunner, White, Cleary or Miller. Brunner alone could cost as much as that considering the # of goals he's scored in his rookie season and his status as a UFA. Unless there is a buyout of some sort, or a trade involving some significant salary going the other way don't expect the Wings to add anyone this offseason or trade deadline.

Our cap space will be used up just retaining some of our upcoming FA's. Adding a Bouwmeester would have resulted in losing either Brunner, Howard or Flip

I'm sure he'll be playing in the top 6 soon..unfortunately it will be with the Griffins.

The game starts in 5 minutes and there is no GDT yet, I hope nobody minds me providing mine. If I had known I'd be putting it up here too, I'd have made another version with quotes from this board on the back.

Portions of a players cap hit can be retained in trade. Take a look at Toronto's Cap situation. They traded Matt Lombardi to the Coyotes.at the beginning of the season and retained 1.5 million of his 3.5 million salary, If you check Phoenix's cap situation you'll see they are only paying 2 Million of the salary. The problem though is that if Calgary keeps a portion of Jbo's salary they are going to want even more back in return.

If he gets another contract with an NHL team it will be a 2 way deal and he'll have to earn his way to the NHL from the AHL just like he has with the Wings. He could have been grabbed off waivers for free, at the league minimum, with only this season left on his contract and the other 29 GM's passed on him. Thats as risk free as a pick-up can possibly be and still no GM thought he had any value to an NHL roster. It doesn't look good for him.

If someone throws the kitchen sink at a free agent to lure him away from Detroit, then their signing has nothing to do with the "Shine" on "Detroit's Diamond". If he were to sign with the other team when both contracts are equal we should be concerned.

I also watch a lot of TSN, Sportsnet and CBC and I don't think the gap between them and Detroits crew is that large. They are all guilty of some of the very things you're complaining about regarding Redmond. When Pierre McGuire is on TSN he spends half the game prattling on about the Junior program that every player on either team came from, he often celebrates physical play (labeling those players his Monsters) and many of their on air personalities openly complain about the #'s of penalties called. CBC's crews are blatantly homers unless they are calling a game involving 2 Canadian teams. They will applaud the odd good play of a visiting team or highlight a player, but will still openly complain about any calls going against the Canadian team. They also employ a large # of former players who are constantly arguing over one another making it impossible to get any information of value out of the broadcast. As far as their love of physical play and hatred of penalties, they continue to employ Don Freaking Cherry. Sportsnet though is far worse than anything you'll ever see on any Fox Sports Broadcast. The last Oilers game I watched their crew spent half the game talking about their sons Midget games, right down to showing a team photo and giving shout outs to many of the team members and their families. Honestly I don't know how you can level those kind of accusations and Ken Daniels and Mickey Redmond and then hold up a broadcast that features Joe Bowen as an example to follow.

Unless Datsyuk tells management he's going to re-sign or a trade offer comes along offering us a center Flip will almost certainly be re-signed. We'll need a 2nd line center while Jarnkrok develops if Datsyuk heads home. We can't rely on picking one up in UFA especially when Flip would likely be the best center available.

His mother died on the 21st

The problem is that the guy most deserving of being bought out of his contract would be Bouwmeester.

The Wings will have enough trouble even keeping our current FA's there is very little chance we can afford a Horton unless we let go of someone else. WIth Datsyuk potentially leaving for Russia after next season, Flip is now far more valuable than he was before, he is by far the most likely to take over the #2 center role should Datsyuk retire. Its unlikely Jarnkrok is going to be able to step into the role in the next few years and as we learned from the FA period last offseason, its a gamble to try and replace someone through UFA. Looking at this offseason's FA's even thinking optimistically we are probably looking at a minimum of Flip 4m Howard 4m Brunner 3m Kindl 2.5m Smith 2.5m Nyquist 1m Andersson 1m With absolutely nothing left to offer to Cleary, Miller, White, Mursak or Huskins. The Wings cap situation isn't good.

Bouwmeester was traded to a team that was in the playoffs for 5 years straight. They have missed every season he's been anchoring their defence. Neither Yandle or Bouwmeester is what the Wings need, they are both like adding another Kronwall. If the Wings want to add a defenceman they should be looking at right handed shutdown defenceman who will allow Kronwall and Smith to open up offensively. If not that they should look to either unload some added bottom 6 depth as a seller in a sellers market or look to jettison some of that extra depth with some picks for a top 6 forward Thats my opinion

This is all un sourced speculation on Dreger and Mackenzie's part. They are reliable when they are reporting sources, but as far as making their own predictions they aren't any more reliable than you or I. Other than a Calgary Blog earlier this season I haven't read or heard anyone reference a source that Detroit has actually made any offers or that Calgary has actually requested anything. When you see the word "may" as often as you do in that piece you can essentially disregard it as speculation to fill air time.

This is great news for the Wings. If Calgary is increasing their demands for Jbo it increases the chance that the Wings walk away from the deal entirely and that is a win for the Wings. He isn't worth the contract he's signed to, if you want Bouwmeester it would be better to wait and sign him as a FA to a much smaller cap hit.