kickazz

Good deal. $4 million called it.

Helm isn't 27 though he's 29, which is exactly what Ericsson was then he signed. At least when we signed Ericsson we had just lost in game 7 to Chicago in the playoffs 2nd round. The year before that we had gotten eliminated by Nashville in 5 games so it seemed to be an upward trend to try and sign your players. It made sense. Right now we're handing out questionable contracts this summer to a team of players that backed into the playoffs. And has gotten outperformed in the playoffs 3 years in a row. And it's not the top 6. It's the bottom forwards. These are guys you generally don't sign long term and are supposed to be replaceable. These players are what allows management to have flexibility in their cap since the top 6 usually get locked up. Let me ask you a question. Why 5 years for Glendening? Why not sign him for a 2 year extension and see how things are maybe 2 years from now and give another extension if we don't have a good replacement? Why the heck would you give a 4th liner the contract length of a 1st line centerman and lock him up? The only explanation I have for this is this. Panic. We're not attracting the best players. The NHL FA is a s***hole, it's become a retainment strategy. Is it the right strategy? Who knows. Maybe Holland is a genius and knows something we don't. Unfortunately we're heading into an area where we are losing cap flexibility all across the board. 2015 we were probably one of the more cap friendly teams. 2016 and beyond we're probably up there with Chicago in the contracts we're bound to. This is what we have and this is what we're going to have to win with. There's not going to be much changes possible from here on out. Especially after Tatar and Smith are locked in this coming year. My whole thing is this. If you are a contender like Chicago, LA, Pittsburgh, you do all you can to sign that cup winning team long term. But if you're a team getting backed into the playoffs. You should be very cautious in retaining the same team. This is the first year I've questioned the contracts given out by management. So what does that tell you lol.

They'lle keep the streak alive till we beat the record. What is it like 4 more years to break it or something?

I don't mind the streak being kept alive. I'm just concerned that they may have a few more contracts in their hands that might be hard to deal with if needed. We're locking up. And there's literally no going back in today's hockey once you've locked people up. Unless you're the Maple Leafs.

Brunner could Datsyuk. He ain't no bust.

But see that's exactly it. Years ago when we signed Ericsson, nobody was talking about his contract blocking worthy young players. It's only now in hindsight after he's turned out to be a "Bust" (really I think he's a fine 3rd pair guy but that's my opinion). When he originally signed his extension at the age of 29 or whatever it was I was thinking exactly like you are about Helm and Glendening. And both of those guys have signed similar contracts as Ericsson (long term although not as long I guess). You would think that Holland would err on the side of caution after the Ericsson contract. Especially because the team has been continuing to decline. But instead he ended up re-signing the same guys that are a part of a declining team. Which I guess isn't too bad. But long term? Why not wait until next May to extend Glendening. Why hand a 4 year extension now? I personally think Holland is in a bit of a panic with the way things are going in the league and UFAs becoming harder to come by. Detroit is no longer a free agent destination it once was and Holland may be trying to protect what he's got. In the end this could work for his favor or it might not. It's risky management. If it works, then props. Anyways like you said, Ericsson is blocking some worthy young players. Except that he is only now blocking them. 2-3 years from now that could be Helm and Glendening blocking other worthy young players. And Frans Nielsen too. I was against 6 years for his contract. But that was inevitable. he was a 32 y/o free agent and we needed a 1st/2nd line center desperately and Larkin would not have been good enough for it yet.

You're acting as though it's simple. It's not that easy. The Red Wings aren't the type of franchise to bury their veterans in favor of kids even if the kids play well. The only time a kid got into the line up straight from training camp was when there was an empty slot available. That was Larkin. Larkin didn't take away a spot from a veteran, he just filled an empty one. Besides, you don't sign Vanek to bench him. That's absolutely terrible managing and wouldn't happen. Vanek isn't Commodore. Grand Rapids players have a bigger uphill battle than most minor league affiliated teams in the NHL do. It's obvious that a trade has to happen, Holland himself has admitted it. The problem is it's hard. And the other problem will be the log jam, which they'll have to deal with one way or another. I'm actually looking forward to seeing how Kenny handles the situation. Somehow he always pulls it off or someone gets injured

Can make excuses or can accuse Holland. Either way we won't know anything until the time comes. Couple things I'm looking to see how they're going to be handled. 1. Three players this year who will have to clear waivers. 2. The mystery of if AA and to a lesser extent Mantha making the roster. Time will tell.

Well to be fair, he does have a point in that Helm is overpaid. He's trying to meet halfway, we should follow suit imo so this doesn't turn into another Franzen situation for the next 5 years.

Yeah, but at the end of the day it's caphit that matters. Agreed, had he gone to arbitration he would have gotten 1 year and something a bit lower and we would have ended up having to re-sign him right before he hit free agency and who knows what we would have had to pay at that point.. $6 million? $7 million? Cap's going up yearly it seems and so are these wacky market values.

Deal is fine, people are just overreacting on twitter and so is Greg Wyshynski on yahoo (that's all he ever does really). Now let's get Mrazek for $4 million max.

Lol people on twitter calling it "the next Ericsson contract". Smh

Good deal. I think $5 million is what I expected.

If you think being ranked #17 in the league and towards bottom in conference for goals against is good defense then I have no idea what to tell you. If you think our primary penalty killing player being ranked towards bottom of the league for goals against is a part of good defense then I have no idea what to tell you. And most of all if you think our defense is good without a top D-man (who by the way the Wings are looking for as they feel it's their biggest hole), then I don't know what to tell you. I don't know where you've been since 2012, but defense has been the biggest issue on the team. Scoring only recently became an issue when Datsyuk and Zetterberg decline this past year. We've been defensively challenged all across the board since Lidstrom retired. This is a pointless discussion and almost everything you've said lacks facts. And no you don't need corsi to show simple facts to support an argument.

Well to exclude PK and PP time here are the 5 on 5 stats for the team. http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/ratings.php?db=201516&sit=5v5&type=corsi&teamid=11&pos=skaters&minutes=50&disp=1&sort=PCT&sortdir=DESC CF% = Corsi For / (Corsi For + Corsi Against) Higher means you shoot more and get shot against less. Clearly Larkin/Zet/Abdelkader line was struggling. Datsyuk is a possession god. edit- I shouldn't say they were struggling. 50% is pretty good. Datsyuk/Tatar/Helm just blew it out the water though. Ironically if you look at last year's the Nyquist/Zet/Abdelkader line was a lot better at around 55% (i got this number from corsica- another source). I think the drop this year is probably because of Z slowing down and not being as dominant on ice.

So you're telling me. That you don't think there is any correlation to coaching change and the fact that scoring went down? Lol okay lets blame the offensive players. Literally almost everyone underproduced this season. You want to hold all 10 players accountable? Or perhaps it's the new PP coach and Blashill the rookie? Glendening gets about 2nd line ice time. He's a 4th line player on paper but his icetime has been consistent with league 2nd line players. Tatar's ice time has been equivalent to 3rd line players in the league. His 5 on 5 ice time averaged 11:21 while Tatar's was 11:59. So enough with the "PK time" excuses. They play the same amount 5 on 5.

Either you aren't reading, or chosing not to. I've stated my point a million times to you. Literally almost all of these posts have been directed at you, if you still aren't getting it then I can't spell it out any better. My entire point has been about usage and ice time for players on the team.

Have you said anything in this entire thread that's actually a solid factual point? All you've said is something along the lines of "I don't believe in analytics". "No one can score 50 goals". You're just spewing out nonsense here. I never blamed Glendening for lack of production, I'm blaming the icetime given by the coaches. Perhaps you should read twice before you post? Stop coming up with made up arguments about what other posters are saying. You're complaining about players not scoring more than 50 points but the said players aren't even given enough ice time to begin with. Tatar, Nyquist's icetime went down from Babcock to Blashill's coaching. How about you read up a little bit instead of coming out and calling other people's points as "dumb and wrong". If that's all you have to contribute then keep it to yourself rather than trying to start a flame war.

Our team would be able to score more if our team wasn't being consistently outshot. And more shooting starts from giving Tatar, Nyquist and other scorers getting more ice time. Guess who has more ice time between Glendening and Tatar. Guessssss Luke Glendog TA DA!

Yeah it worked perfectly well the last season didn't it? I mean we were such a good team. We were so good that we consistently out shot other teams and also outscored them. Then we did so well that we ended up losing to the eventually Stanley cup finalists Pittsburgh. Ugh if only Larkin would have scored that game winner in game seven of the conference finals. Glendening basically had Crosby's number. He even have Ovechkin's number in the conference semi finals. And don't even get me started on how he shut down Johnson and Kucherov in the 1st round. Our savior Glendening always seems to keep Crosby, Ovechkin, Malkin, Kane, Stamkos in their place. They like almost never score against us when Glendog is out on ice. All three times when Pittsburg destroyed us by wide margins last season (2-7, 3-6, 2-5) was just a fluke. This new strategy is the way to go. It's the way to win Stanley cups. Nevermind the fact that the two teams that won 5 of the last 7 Stanley cups have their top centerman against tough matchups (Toews for Blackhawks and Kopitar for Kings). Nevermind all of that. That's a dumb strategy. They only won because they got lucky. Lucky all 5 times. The best strategy is clearly to have your 4th line player play 20 minutes a night against Ovechkin and allow him to shoot 15 times on Mrazek. That's how you win those godam Stanley cups.

Well Echo you raise a good question. The answer is obviously: Weight lifting or Cardio

It could. Probably not Jurco though. Swap Glendog on 4th and promote Helm to 3rd. I guess Mantha swap for Ott or Miller.

On and off really. But he was drafted a Left Winger and converted to center once we lost Sergei Fedorov. He's listed as a LW by the NHL but sometimes they list him as a LW/C. Looking at his minutes he played as a Winger mostly with Datsyuk up until 2009 or so but during that time Babcock would often switch him to Center to play with other players during the away games. I'd say from 2009-2012 or so he was primarily center and then reverted to LW in the shortened season. And the last two years he's primarily played Center as the organization failed to get a legitimate 2nd line center. Of course we get Nielsen once Datsyuk left lol. He definitely isn't a natural center though and you can tell by his style of play that he isn't. If you watch him closely he almost always reverts to his winger position on ice and his instinct is usually to play along the boards. Whereas when you watch Datsyuk you can see him drive the play through center ice.

Lmfao

Btw just as a side note here are the top 10 scorers in the league since 2002. I think 9 of these players will get into the HoF as some point (eventually). I don't know if Marleau will, his scoring rate is the worst amongst everyone on the list (only 0.81 points per game). And he doesn't have the accomplishments that the other guys on this list do. As far as our two players are concerned, Datsyuk is the third best Center in terms of scoring points per game (behind Thornton and Crosby) and Zetterberg is the 2nd best left winger (behind Alexander Ovechkin). I'd say we have some impressive 6th and 7th round drafts picks here. If I had to summarize this in terms of production, I'd say Datsyuk has been the third best center in the league since 2002 and Zetterberg has been the 2nd best Left Winger in the league since 2002. Hence they should both get in.