kickazz

But even that is hard for us. Toronto had players other teams wanted. Kessel and Phaneuf. If we wanted to sell players that would coincidentally make us worse then we would have to get rid of Mantha, Larkin, Nyquist and Tatar. They ain't doing that. Everyone else isn't really that good and I doubt would make us all that much worse. Sure we could sell off Helm or Ericsson at the deadline. Guaranteed losing them won't put a dent in our ability to win or lose games. MAYBE selling Green could make us worse. But probably 1-2 spots in the standings. But maybe not. The thing is, the parity is so high that even on the bottom side of the standings there's literally a 1-2 point difference. So selling or not selling might not even matter because of that. Unless you want more picks. Which Holland already did by selling Smith, Vanek, Ott, Jurco this past year. But if I remember correctly selling those guys didn't make us much worse wins/losses wise. I just happened to give us draft picks. For us to actually get significantly worse we would probably have to sell a combination of Zetterberg, Tatar, Nyquist, Green.

You're making excuses. Tanking doesn't work, if it does, it takes a long, long time. In which case I don't even know if its tanking that worked or just time itself that did the trick. Anyways, we'll eventually become good through the natural process just like Chicago did.

Toronto didn't really choose to suck. They sucked for almost a decade and then Babcock got there and got rid of a bunch of veterans, Phaneuf and Kessel and tanked all within 1 years time. Then they happened to get lucky by getting the first round pick. Which obviously landed them Mathews. If they got unlucky they wouldn't have gotten Mathews and likely would have still been eliminated from the playoffs this past year just like all the previous years. Also Toronto still isn't good. They're okay. But likely will become good. But good enough to win the Stanley Cup? Probably not with the way Pittsbugh is looking. And once McDavid hits his prime I doubt a combined Mathews, Marner or Nylander could out win him. Same goes for Edmonton. They never planned on sucking in 2015. They sucked, simply because they sucked just as they did in the previous years. And they happened to win the draft lottery and jumped from 3rd pick to 1st pick and got McDavid. We easily could be talking about Buffalo instead of Edmonton today. But we aren't because there was a lottery. There is no genius managing involved in this. Toronto and Edmonton went through a decade of bad luck and all it took was one year of good luck. Who the hell wants to wait that long. And that's just two teams. Buffalo, Carolina are still trying to get "lucky" and it's been about a decade for them too. New Jersey has been on trying to get lucky for about 5 years now, woopty doo they finally got a 1st pick OUT OF SHEER LUCK. Their prize is Hischier (ehhh). They weren't even trying to rebuild they just got screwed by Kovalchuck, Parise leaving lol. They did aquire a crap ton of picks over the years. Nothing different from what Holland is doing. I think if it's around February and the prospects of making the playoffs are dim, then sure by all means lets NOT make the playoffs so we're top 14 in draft and can try for the lottery. But purposely tanking since day 1 is stupid. Stupid managerial speaking, and also stupid in terms of marketing. Of course it doesn't sound stupid to fans because all we want is our team to win. But the owners want to make money and sell their product. Got to see it from their perspectives. Who would keep on going to a brand new arena knowing that their team is tanking? And ends up tanking for the next 5 years in a row? That's how you lose fans. No marketer would purposely show it's fan base that they aren't willing to sell their product and they're in fact trashing their product. They're going to put the best product out there for people to buy and that's through winning or trying their best to win.

Nobody really rebuilds anymore. Teams just suck and got high picks after a decade (Edmonton, Toronto)

I don't get how Nyquist is overrated around here. He was our 2nd best point producer for f***s sake. Not only that, he's been top 5 point producer in 4 seasons in a row. No one on this team besides Zetterberg has been able to do that. Some people are oblivious to facts because they chose to ignore them and go with the herd mentality narrative.

Do they do that with other teams too tho? Would have to remove other teams injured players too.

It is interesting that Z wants to leave as soon as Kronwall's contract is up Don't blame him. First losing Datsyuk then losing Kronwall. Losing old teammates does suck.

We're the product of a crappy league with too many issues. I'm afraid things will stay this way until the next CBA.

Helm is such a wasted contract. The guy rarely plays a full season and we're hemorrhaging almost 4 million on him. I'd try to move Helm, Nielsen, Ericsson Teams would for sure take Helm. He's a good player but not useful to us at all. I don't even know what his place on this team is. I mean he's not a young player nor is he a veteran. We're basically wasting his prime. Nielsen is a good player but we would have to retain salary. Ericsson.. I doubt anyone is interested. Our best chance of trading someone that another team would actually be interested in is probably Helm and Nielsen. I would keep Tatar and Nyquist. They'll be useful when this teams youngsters (Larkin, Mantha, Svech) take over the team.

With the next CBA I assume it will get even more stringent.

You guys are missing my point. I'm saying assuming he's not actually hurting to the point where he can't play and assuming his back is anatomically no different than it was 3 years ago. Meaning two years from now he's still the same Zetterberg health wise as he is today. Of course if something actually happens in 2 years then yeah he legitimately is done. But that's not what I'm getting at. I wouldn't be shocked if the owners went as far as asking doctors what's different now than it was 2-3 years ago. Ultimately Z might get the LTIR but I'm sure it will come with heavy scrutiny and the NHL will probably investigate it before they allow it. Dude it's not happening lets not even get into this. Lets talk about future options.

The circumstantial evidence is just highly stacking up against Zetterberg. The doctors cleared him to play years ago (almost 4 years ago). Not to mention Z has only missed like 5 games in the last 3 seasons. I don't see how a doctor would all of a sudden say "no he can't play anymore, we take it back". Doctors face legal ramifications for lying about patients health. And a herniated disc that was fixed a long time ago isn't a reason to not play anymore. Hossa and Z may single handedly screw over the next CBA and LTIR rules. But mostly Hossa. But maybe that's good because I'm personally sick of the way these long term contracts have been going.

Might be a problem since Z called out the contract and wanting to leave 2 years ahead of time. They have evidence on him. Also he should at least try to hit 1000 points. I mean I guess he technically could if he put up average of 48 points in the next two seasons...

It shouldn't be horrible. By 2019 we would have $30 million in cap space since a lot of our vets' contracts are done by then. The players we would have to resign would be Mantha, Larkin, Nyquist Ouellete, Jensen, Mrazek. None of them will command superstar level contracts or anything in 2019. We'll have more than enough money even with his recapture penalty. I would be more worried if we had a high end player in his prime who is looking for a big time deal and commanding like $10 million per year, but that won't be the case. This is all assuming we don't pick up any FA or make any big trades and just continue drafting and developing within.

That's why I think it's stupid he came out and said he's done in 2 years. NHL is going to call the LTIR attempt bulls*** and say "nope, you gave yourself away"

His case does seem a bit different. It seems like he's more talking about how much gas he has left in his tank rather than simply going back to Sweden to play hockey there. Well his word is probably true, I expect hell retire in 2 years. A healthy player can't be LTIR'd can he.

Zetterberg is kind of stupid for going public with this if you ask me. Should have kept his mouth shut. But, at the same time he could be a genius to warn the fan base 2 years ahead of time like " Yo just telling ya'll I got 2 years left in me, not 2 weeks like ma boi Datsyuk did, don't player hate" Alternatively could be a way to tell the management "get your s*** together or else I'm leaving in 2 years". On a serious note, this is pretty weird by the way, he just said months ago that he plans on finishing the contract then all of a sudden goes and drops this news purposely. Also I've never seen a player openly admit to leaving and saying the contract was a loophole to trick the NHL?? This guy not only has a giant beard but also some giant balls for doing this. For someone as private as Zetterberg has been about his personal life and what goes on in the locker room, to go out and give details like this is VERY uncharacteristic. Something is fishy about this.

Apparently the answer is yes

Compared to if he retired now?

No.

At least he's given us a 2 year notice instead of a 2 week notice before the playoffs like someone else recently did lol. He's basically saying that Holland/Yzerman purposely made it a long term and front loaded contract, so that his actual cap hit would be much lower for the team and he got paid most of it in the first 10 years. If you think about it, it was a pretty genious move by management. It helped both the team out and their player. What's more is the cap recapture penalty wouldn't be bad the last two years, assuming they don't LTIR. But if they do LTIR that's obviously even better.

Well at least he doesn't pretend to be a computer GM, gotta give him that much Kliq.

No to the "if anyone is wondering"

No.

He's on a contending team now, if he doesn't look good that would be laughable.