kickazz

I bet PP would be worse if we trade Nyquist

I'd rather not have re-signed Helm, Miller or Ott and saved around $5.5 million. Again that's exactly my point. None of them needed to be resigned. But 2 of the 3 likely were because Holland likely wasn't sure going in if he'd hit or miss in free agency. What could $5.5 million have gotten us? For one probably 3 less forwards that we're log jammed with.

Martin would have been the worst contract of the decade. Glad we didn't go for it.

Even in his best year he put up 33 points (once). Almost everyone you mentioned were either former 40-55 point scorers or are making 900k less than his current contract is so either way it's still an overpayment. Matt Cullen signed his 3 year extension after scoring 48 and 39 points and signed with the penguins after scoring 25 points in 62 games (not 25 in 77). And why would I compare one bad contract with another? (Matt Stajan). Actually Stajan's contract isn't that bad since he's 3.1 million not 3.85. Kruger is only 26 and still has an upside. He's not 29. No matter how you cut it, it's an overpayment. By about a million dollars. Which is my point anyway. He's worth less than $3 million. Max $3 million in my opinion. Probably would have gotten $4.5 million in free agency because some managers like to throw money.

I don't think it was THAT important to resign Helm to be honest. And I especially didn't think Miller was either. I think Holland tried to play it safe and wanted to keep them in case he didn't land other free agents. $3.85 x5 isn't a slight overpayment for a bottom 6, 26 point scorer. It's a pretty big overpayment. Even if he kills penalties. Just to put it into perspective, Gustav Nyquist scored more goals (27 goals) than Helm scored points (26 points total) when he got his contract and only makes 900k more. Wayne Simmonds makes as much money as Helm does and scores more than twice as many goals and points. We should have let the guy walk and let someone else overpay him to be honest. I'm purely looking at this in terms of numbers and financies. Don't think I'm trying to insult Helm guys lol. This was a bad contract. And it's not even bad in hindsight like Ericsson's was (who was probably expected to be a pretty good D man but ended up disappointing most fans). This one is bad from day 1 and I'm hoping to god, moses and buddah that there's no NMC or NTC so we aren't stuck with it if it doesn't work out. And ya'll know I'm no Holland hater either.

Just realized that the top of the page on the forums that has Datsyuk, Nyquist, Zetterberg and Tatar with fade out of Lidstrom, Yzerman, Howe etc will now probably fade Datsyuk away

I have no issues with Helm. I think could be one of the best 3rd line centers (if they actually played him in that situation lol) in the league and an excellent PKer. But my goodness handing out NMCs to low tier players would be ridiculous. As I've eluded to in the other thread , all that concerns me is guys like AA getting an opportunity.

So basically against most of the east teams

Well remember that Ericsson was on the first pair with Kronwall for almost 3 years. (And we all kept screaming WHY). Money plays a big role for the team imo. Which is exactly what concerns me about the roster overall right now. Blash seems to be a bit different, doesn't seem like he cares *as much* about juggling the lines. He did demote Richards to 4th line at one point.

Yeah but would you play a guy making almost $4 million on 4th line? Just looks like bad management.

Helm's full contract details are still not made public. Only term and pay.

Damn Krsmith, you just made me realize how screwed we really are with the log jams...

Vanek and Zetterberg need to stay as far away from each other as possible way too slow of a combination but I get your point. Man that still means Jurco has become useless. Not worried about Pulk he's out most of the first half of the season anyway.

We're not talking about what should have been. We're talking about the situation the team is in now. Helm doesn't fit in anywhere. The only scenario he fits in is if we cut AA and send him down to GR. Which sucks because AA definitely deserves to be in the lineup

wait for magical trade i guess

He does seem like the odd man out.. Tatar - Nielsen - Vanek Zetty the Grizzly Teddy - Larkin - Abulkadir Nyquist - Sheahan - AA/Helm/Mantha Miller - Glendogmillionaire - Ott/Jurco Where does he fit in? Can't be 4th line anymore. Top 6 we just brought in two forwards for that. Hank should be 3rd line but won't be cuz #RedWings. Maybe Vanek will drop down to third line but then Nyquist would be bumped to top 6 before Helm would. Helm seems to only fit into 3rd line but AA and Mantha will be looking for that spot. AA makes Helm expendable. Maybe not this year but in a year or two AA is Helm 2.0 with a higher upside for scoring. 5 years for this contract is not looking good. I just hope theres no NMC or NTC. edit - If you bump Sheahan down to 4th line that opens two slots for 3rd line. One for AA (who imo really should be on this squad) and other for Helm. But then 4th line is now clustered. We have Miller, Glendog, Sheahan, Ott, Jurco

Yeah but we shouldn't even have been 3-1, that Chicago team was breaking records that season and we were without Lidstrom for the first time. It's cause our vets were still solid but they declined** bad in 2015 and even worse in 2016

Real talk I pondered on it at 2 am last night in bed. 7.5 hours gotta stick with the 90 minute sleep cycles for that perfect REM sleep. Maybe I swtiched from same to better because I'm Jamie Lannister and like to switch to the winning side as any Lannister would.

I changed my vote to better. For now. Last year almost everyone on the team regressed which is an extreme outlier for a team full of youngsters who are projected to get better. I think part of their regression was due to poor coaching. This year we still have the same youngsters and many of them are entering their prime. With the change in coaching staff and Blashill gaining some insight, they should be better. Datsyuk was good on paper but when it came down to it he wasn't here for the first few months and if you guys recall he didn't find his mojo for a few months (remember how LGW were bashing him in november and december?) additionally he didn't really show up in the playoffs. So realistically Datsyuk aka The Magic Man was only really here between January and April. I think Nielsen is Datsyuk's replacement with the added element that he'll probably actually play most of the season. So he'll be an "upgrade" in terms of long term reliability to an older, injured Datsyuk. I take back what I said about Vanek being Richard's replacement. I no longer consider him Richard's replacement, but rather Johan Franzen's replacement. The two are similar in that neither is as fast in their current phase of hockey while both are supposed to be goal scorers around the net in close quarters and PP specialists net front presence. I don't think Larkin is going to have a "sophomore slump" , I actually think he'll be better. I actually can't recall if any of our rookies have even gone through sophomore slumps. Tatar went from scoring 17 to 29 goals in his second year and Nyquist maintained his 27-28 goal range in his second year. If anything they had a "junior" slump. Lastly, and I think this is the main reason why I switched to better.. is Petr Mrazek. After his first legitimate 82 game season he showed us flashes of what we see consistently from Carey Prices hightlights. Mrazek went through a pretty s***ty slump after having a Vezina like performance for 2-3 months. First goalie to stop 15 shots on goal by Alexander Ovechkin, (arguably the best goal scorer in NHL history) in a single game speaks volumes to his potential Imo. Mrazek is now one year more experienced, and if he can maintain his consistency HE will be the sole reason this team wins out games. He was our Carey Price from November- January. He needs to be our Carey Price from October - April. The rest will follow suit. So I think they'll be better than the 2016 Red Wings and as good as the 2015 Red Wings. But not as good as 2013 Red Wings that took Chicago to game 7. Dipset.

If it helps he makes only 100k less than Wayne Simmonds, scored 19 less goals and 36 less points.,and throws 77 less hits.

Interesting to see "better" winning.

Yeah I'm glad he was pretty bad for those two months (February/March). It will bring his price down a bit. If he had continued his Vezina like performance from January then we would have ended up having to offer him like $7 million a year, something we can't afford and worst case scenario could have lost him to someone else. I assume hell get somewhere around $4.5-5 million now.

I don't think so. We still have a starting goalie named Howard. And no team in the league really needs a starting goalie at the moment (Calgary was the last real team that needed one). If anything I'd say the organization has the advantage.

If we're including coaching changes I'd say we're slightly better. New coaching staff is much better on paper. My vote is for "same" for now though.