shoobiedoobin

This to me comes off as either signing with the hope he'll pan out or locking him up since losing he and Parise at one time would be pretty rough.

It's a scary thought but there's good news-a guy doesn't have to be an NHL from the word go in order to become a great player.

We're too focused on losing/gaining players. Teams who lose players get better, we've seen it happen. And teams who acquire more talent somehow end up worse. Because there's too much of an on paper type of roster-stack mentality. Like we're comparing NHL 13 lineups. Sometimes what you lose in one player, you can make up for with hard work. We're so obsessed with losing Nick that we forget two vital things. One, he was on a level by himself but he was only half of the ice for half of the game. We still have an entire team that functions as a team. And second, and this isn't his fault but the last couple years even with him here we were lazy as all hell. We were the guy who jogged and thought his dangles could make up for it while the harder working less skilled guy stole the puck from him eventually. That was our playoff series in a nutshell, and our whole season in a nutshell. What we lose in Nick we can more than make up for in footwork if we're willing. No other team ever had Nick but many were successful and some won championships. Go look at us in 08-we're busting serious ass. Even Mule is skating hard. The entire team working hard is much more important than one player, no matter who it is. I guess I should make a quick prediction... Central: 1. STL 2. DET 3. CHI 4. NSH 5. COL WEST: 1. LA 2. STL 3. VAN 4. DET 5. MIN 6. CHI 7. PHO 8. DAL I think the Preds and Sharks start slow and catch up later and Dallas surprises people by starting super quick and dropping off later, but remaining in 8th by the midway point. I think we'll have the points to be second or third but go to 4th because we're not leading the division (a silly rule). This is of course assuming we try. If we don't like we haven't the last couple seasons we could drop to 7th or 8th. The standings for the first half will have a lot to do with the health of teams around the league more than ever.

He's become pretty underrated by Wings fans. Last year he was rock solid. He made the small, simple plays that are easy to forget but contribute greatly to our success. With the way we irrationally choose whipping boys and refuse to let go of that rep, he's in the position where he has to prove he can, rather than has to prove he can't. And when that happens a guy can make 10 great plays and they all get forgotten. But when he makes one bad play, we blow it out of proportion because we're too stubborn. I'm looking forward to seeing him on the top line with Kronwall since I think Nik is closer to Nick than we think in play style.

I 'm not saying they're great but they could be a lot worse. I've been to a lot of NHL arenas and the Joe has some damn good sight lines and acceptable higher up seats. Don't even bother getting nosebleeds in Calgary, you feel like you're looking at the game from google maps. RBC center has some pretty bad high seats too.

This is cool. It's not amazing but I won't complain, it's nice. At least the worst seats at the Joe aren't as bad as most arenas. Places like the Bell Center and Saddledome and many others are much worse.

To lose Emmerton* to waivers for a Redden who in the eyes of our coaching staff hypothetically looked good enough to sign for pennies? Not a waste at all. Like I said, I'm not basing this on hope or foresight. Make Redden earn it and if he looks good, that trumps some silly "hasn't been good for years" paranoid fear. And I'm not thinking about this in terms of how many games we have to give him to be in shape, my view is if he's not in shape now, bye. If he is and can play at minimum 7th or 8th dman, his upside is very high. Like was said, it's a risk. Funny you bring up Commodore, since it appears that the sky in fact didn't fall after we signed him. Here we are, just fine. And if Redden gets a 1 way deal somewhere else, cool, good for him.

I don't mind Smith in GR if Redden were to pan out. I don't like it but I view it the same way I view Nyquist starting in GR to begin the season. And I wouldn't mind losing Emmerton, since I don't think he has much of a future here anyway. He's got that feel to him like he'd do well on another team. Rare but it happens. And I've supported him and think we rip on him way too much. He's very solid defensively, doesn't make many mistakes and is a good but not great 4th line guy and sometimes that's all you need. But sometimes you take a chance if it's staring you in the face. At the end of the day, you don't base this decision on hope, you bring him in for a try out. See if he can still skate. I get this feeling if we signed another bottom six guy with some unfounded reputation for being "solid" for 1 year 700k we wouldn't have an issue with it. Or if we're paranoid, get him to sign a two way deal and tell him if he can play his way onto the team that he'll get a spot. It's Redden, it's not like he can be picky. And yes, players coming to Detroit more often than not will play better. Just like any very good team. That's how hockey works and we've seen a ton of examples. Don't even try to claim otherwise. We're the reclamation destination of choice.

I don't care about his history, his name, his age or anything like that. I care about the team winning and if he can contribute more than at least one other forward, I'm all for it.

I'm not following how that makes sense. Redden would be signed for pennies to possibly play on the bottom pairing. If he doesn't work out....we've spent almost nothing and can replace him with someone else who is very cheap, very easily. I'm not seeing where Nick or any top 2 defenseman would play in. Again, we just look both scared to take a risk and scared the sky is falling because our NHL 13 rosters don't have high attributes. For all we know, we could decide to move our feet for the first time in a couple seasons and be just fine on D. No other team in hockey has had a Lidstrom and somehow many teams turn out OK on defense. We sound like the dumped boyfriend who is convinced his ex is the best girl in the world-he can get by with someone else like everyone else has.

The painful reality of life is that if a business doesn't have to kiss your ass, they will never do a thing for you. Good customer service? Deals? None of it is charity. There is no charity in business. So their giving of a discount is a good but not great effort at appeasing us, and it's pretty much exactly as much effort as they need to put in to please Average Joe, and no more. It sucks but whatever. Whether or not you decide to forgive them at this rate is a personal choice. Personally I may get this (probably not) but I know full well that my dollar amount over the long haul, over the next 8-10 years, will drop from what it would've been had I been a more satisfied customer. And it isn't even because of a forced punishment. Losing hockey this long kinda genuinely hurt my interest.

Isn't this kinda just projecting a fear of risk failure? The idea was already stated, low risk (but still there) and high reward. That's the risk but why is that all we can focus on? We have to one day realize that there are way, waaay more factors that go into a guy not succeeding than just not being able to play anymore. That's the easy, and sometimes fun thing to think but it's just not realistically accurate (even though laying judgment gives us a rush that we can't resist). Especially on Detroit where we can make players look better.

Two questions. 1 where's the fife? 2 gimme the fife. But seriously, I've read that yes you can. I'd email them and ask about any blockages overseas though just to cover your ass and be sure in case you pay and it doesn't work.

I'm just curious and would like to see the opinions of people here if this scenario were to arise. We know about Jimmy's contract, two year "try out" sorta deal, this is his last year of it. At any point if another team offers us the elite forward or defenseman we've been coveting so badly, yet ask for Jimmy in return, would you give him up? Knowing we have Gustavsson, who has started and did alright considering how poor Toronto was, and Mrazek, who looks a lot like he could not only start but succeed in the NHL. I'm not a huge fan of sending away players like trading cards especially after grooming them for so long but for the right deal I may be OK. I'm interested to see what others think.

Given that Babs has used Brunner at the point in camp and said Mule will be the net front guy on the first unit, I'd go with... Zetterberg - Datsyuk - Franzen Brunner - Kronwall Mule goes to the net, and Brunner can move around a little more than the average defenseman. He's got a right handed shot so keeping him on the left side will allow for quicker shots and since he's more skilled than whatever other defender would've been playing the left point he can get more creative on offense with the forward. As per every single prediction or opinion, I will go with the usual "it depends on their effort level" disclaimer. We're still skilled as hell but if even a small few guys get lazy and try to rely 100% on skill and won't move their feet, we're once again screwed. We'll leave 5-10 wins on the ice because we didn't try. Mule has to try and get open. That's the wild card. Sorry, I'm rambling. Sammy- Filppula - Bert Smith - White I think they'll give Bert a shot at being the second unit "Homer clone" so to speak, so if Franzen gets hurt Bert could step up and play the role. I think the team still believes the role to be very important. Personally I think it gets way too easy to contain if our other forwards don't move their feet to compliment their passing but whatever. It can work. I think Sammy's off the point and on the left wing where his right handed shot will work better. Smith I think will get a chance to work the point with White there to be a steady presence beside him. Bert should work well on the PP where he can hold the puck extremely well, deke well and not have to skate too quickly.

When I said elite I meant more than just the 5 or 6 absolute best players in hockey. And I doubt Howard will be exposed. Lidstrom was great but he was one side of the ice for only half the game. We will have the rest of our team here and everything will be decided by effort level. It seems like we're judging Howard off of everything but actually looking at how he plays. He doesn't let in stupid whiffers, he can make great saves, and he wasn't the reason whatsoever we lost in the playoffs. Any goalie short of maybe Hasek wouldn't have done anything with how lazy we got the last two years.

^I swear when reading that I was really keeping up with it and giving it a go until I saw "Fact is Jimmy is average" and kinda just nodded off. Someone told me I was laughing in my sleep. Btw, Detroit doesn't want to trade Jimmy like NJ doesn't want to trade Brodeur or NY with Lundqvist. It was a hypothetical scenario you could rattle off for any elite goalie, conjured up by me, just some dude on a forum.

Hey now, Bleacher Report is good for offering a way for joe schmoe to exhibit his or her contrived, uninspired, amateur writing. And that can be hilarious. Most articles read like if a real website let their writer and editor get hammered and only corrected the sdlkfjfjjjjjjjjjjjj from where they passed out on the keyboard. Really though I wouldn't take anything on that site seriously. It's just average joes who can't write worth a lick. They know how to try and kinda sorta make the words sound professional, but the content doesn't sound professional whatsoever. Too many ignorant forum-style opinions when those opinions only survive on forums because the like-minded gather to reassure each other.

Gamecenter live is good but has some problems. Recording sucks and picture quality can be so-so if you're streaming on anything but a good PC. Blackouts too, obviously. Center Ice is fifty bucks as well. Just go with that if it's available to you. If you have a DVR, you will be able to record games and won't suffer through stupid blackouts. Picture quality most of the time is HD.

I guess no one should've signed anyone on July 1st. Good grief.

Yeah you're right. High quality proven goaltenders in their prime come along all the time. Especially ones who could've conceivably, and should've, won ROTY. And ones that were in the Vezina race until they got injured. It's just that goalies in Jimmy's scenario don't get traded often. Vancouver is asking quite a bit for Roberto Luongo and I wouldn't say Howard is much worse. What doomsayers and debbie downers on forums fail to realize (aside from the fact they're almost always wrong) is that while they may have number online, in reality no one takes their mopey emo bulls*** seriously. Everyone but Hank and Pav suck, every other team has better players, blah blah blah.

I'm curious. For all the people who are insisting with aggressive opinions that Yandle and/or Bouwmeester are elite/suck/average/etc...how many people actually consistently watch either of them? I know just typing "I dunno" isn't as fun but really how much do we know? I think the proof is all over the place. I've lurked around on a lot of Wings forums and if you want a good laugh, go look at some of the know-it-alls insisting smugly that Ian White was garbage and shouldn't be here. I saw people questioning Dan Cleary, with the usual illogical "well he sucked before, he can't ever be good somewhere else" stupidity. I've seen people chew crow on signings or trades so often I just laugh when we wipe our memories and have another go at playing pretend expert like it never happened. And for anyone who might actually watch either of the two consistently, not to sound like a dick but how many would even be able to judge their ability to play or fit in here? We can hardly even make up our mind about our own players. It's one thing to simply state what you think but it's hilarious when people pursue silly shouting matches over guys they don't even watch.

Stepped onto the ice=stepped into the gym. Same deal. Was probably stiff, went out and tweaked a somethingerother. Not a biggie.

....really?

"Tweaked something" sounds like a quick, jerky, fast player stepping onto the ice stiff and feeling something peculiar when he moved too quickly. Nothing to be worried about I bet.