kickazz

Which other "teams" Frank?

Lol!

No he isnt. Datsyuk is.

I hope they score 1 more.

Ken Daniels trying to be as positive as possible

Omg I can't.

Ahh i thought u meant he souldn't be playing since he was sick. Yes the team has been equally s***ty on all ends

If he's dressed and on the bench then that's on him and the coaching staff. If he wasn't feeling good then he shouldn't have dressed. This isn't the right time of the season to play sick.

My friend you've out done yourself on this one.

For the people talking about Datsyuk making $7 million - or even $5 million if he signs another extension and only plays 50 games and produces like 34 points. Let me ask you a question (and answer it too) How much did Steve Yzerman make in his 1 year extension in 2005/06 and how much did he produce? GP 61 PTS 34 Salary $1,250,000 Now I'm not saying Datsyuk would be paid $1.25 mill but to assume he would get $6 million as a 39 year old FORWARD (NOT DEFENSE FFS) is absurd. He can easily be an affordable re-sign and his contract will workout depending on his assumed longevity (i.e they know he can no longer play the full season) and the kids will get their play time. Building around the kids & keep the veteran for cheaper.

The difference though is that Yzerman could barely play the 82 game schedule. Zetterberg can still play the entire 82 game schedule (more or less). Zetterberg, Nyquist and Abby are the only ones who played in every game this year. Everyone else has either gotten injured or gotten sick (they need to drink more orange juice) But you make a valid point in terms of him on third line. I think having Abby - Dats - Zet as third line in a couple years might not be a bad idea because the three of them have really good chemistry and they could easily be one of the best third lines in the NHL since the competition against them wouldn't be very good. That's assuming the kids can transition into the 1st and 2nd line role and take up responsibilities. But here's the catch. That would be a very expensive 3rd line. No go for a lot of fans. $15 mill cap hit lol.

How about we don't resign some of those players? As to the highlighted point. We're going to have DK, Oullett, Marchenko, Sproul, Smith, Kronwall, Ericsson, Green as our defensemen?!?! WOW!

Glendening wouldnt be needed as much if AA was groomed into this - Team has already somewhat started transitioning the future centers (Larkin and AA) into PKers. They had a test run this year and will likely get a lot more PK time next year especially if we can't resign Helm (who btw is our best PKer and can actually score too). Your best PKers are usually your best scorers. Look now at Kopitar, Toews and Bergeron (Nash, Zetterberg Datsyuk years ago).

Do you happen to still have the % changes since you started the last thread? Would be nice to see the trend change so we can compare in future seasons. This way when people freak out next season we can say "now now we were down to 25% at one point with 14 games left" or something. If not that's cool - thanks for keeping us updated

A couple of days ago Mike Babcock said he's cheering for the Red Wings and that "they are important" to him so maybe he'll have the Leafs ease off and give us the win?!!?!?

Still not 100% I heard. Needs more practice time. Only got like 15 minutes in yesterday I believe. Apparently he was really reallllly sick. http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2016/03/jimmy_howard_will_try_to_lead.html

Would be nice if Howard plays most of the rest of the games and the games Mrazek plays are subpar (although obviously still enough to win). His recent "decline" will certainly help when it comes to giving him a fair contract this summer. The way he was playing in January (Vezina like really) I was starting to think Holland would have to pay the hell out of him. Which would really hurt us in cap space. Before people freak out and get angry and start defending Mrazek. I'm just speaking in terms of cap management.

No lol. He's got TBI no one's picking that guy up.

Didn't realize we went upto 65% nice.

Getting rid of Datsyuk will help fix this mess. You know why? Because Teammu Pulkinnen needs 19 minutes a night. He's our next Datsyuk. Bank on it. Ok seriously though. People have mentioned we need to give kids more ice time to make them better. What I see is that our young centers- Sheahan and Larkin already get a significant amount of ice time (about 15-16 minutes). The only one that likely needs more ice time would be AA (he only gets 9+ minutes). If you're looking at Datsyuk - you're comparing him to our centers, not Wingers. Our young future centers are Larkin, AA, Sheahan. 2 out of 3 of them already get good ice time. Datsyuk isn't the reason why AA doesn't get ice time. That would be Richards and Glendening. If you're concerned about why Jurco, Pulk, etc young WINGERS don't get ice time. Then refer to the veteran wingers. Who would those be? Abby? I guess Nyquist and Tatar now...?? So are veterans really the issue? Or maybe it's that we have too many young kids? Is it because we've hung on to too much? Maybe we need to trade? Idk I'm just blabbering now.

Really? By your own admission then Anze Kopitar and Patrice Bergeron are better than Toews and better than Stamkos Both Kopitar and Bergeron have MORE points than Stamkos and Toews. And extremely good defensively (look at the selke candidates) So the second best player must be either Kopitar and Bergeron. Not Stamkos. Nor Toews. Which goes back to the original point.. Is Stamkos really worth $10? Will Holland even think he's worth throwing that much towards? Because Kopitar just signed an extension worth $10 per year and is better than Stamkos (by your logic).

Evgeni Malkin. It's no competition at all. Malkin can carry his team when Crosby declines time and again. Stamkos hasn't been the same since Martin St. Louis left. If Stamkos miraculously came here his only job should be to shoot the puck and score goals. We don't need anymore "complete" players.

Lol. So I actually looked it up. Datsyuk hasn't decline in possession metrics at all. (like I said in that other thread) Stamkos's decline is nearly identical to Zetterberg's. Z was 54% in corsi while Stamkos was 53% last year. Both at 51% this year. Big dip. Anyways to steer this back to topic. Technically Stamkos's value should drop. He simply isn't the 90 point scorer he was for like 3 seasons in a row. And as I've already pointed out - he isn't a more "complete player" like we think he is. He's just not the offensive player he was years ago. And defensively speaking he hasn't really gotten much better. But obviously these damn teams will throw their money at him. Except Holland. I don't think Holland will pay him $10 million - because truly speaking I'm starting to wonder if Stamkos is really worth that much. Who knows. Maybe I'm being overcritical now.

To be honest Stamkos actually has significantly declined this year. His point total last year was 72 (already much lower than his previous years bests) and is 58 this year with only 10 games left. He scored 43 goals last year and is at 33 this year. His puck possession has dropped aka his corsi/fenwick. So not only has he fallen off offensively but also in terms of his possession (which people like Buppy and Kipwinger consider a big part of defense). Grit, faceoff, Takeaway/Giveaway ratio, shot blocking is all still similar to last year

Actually MLive reported he did have a flu so the speculation was correct. Just not sure about "stomach flu" or influenza virus. Regardless I'd assume he will be back for Tampa. Likely won't be hundred percent but enough to play.