kickazz

All it took was 6 mill for 3 years. Phew

TJ Oshie is an overrated player overall and got his fame at the Olympics shootout. End of story. I'd take my chances losing on the shootout than pay him 4.5 mill for his 20 goals. We have 2 younger players with an upside that can score 30 goals and make half the money (Nyquist/Tatar). If this organization starts trading away assets for a player that scores 36% on shootouts I'm going to start watching the KHL instead.

Their chemistry was noted to be the best in the league at some point, some consider it better than Sedin twins chemistry. Even at this age, some of the plays they make is absolutely ridiculous. They're all over the opposing team and their finesse is ridiculous combined. Their no look passes are godlike at times.

I was going to mention this in my previous comment but chose not to as I thought not many shared the opinion haha. But yeah he's very similar in his style of play to Hank.

There are times when 97.1 resources can be as good as a high school student gossip.

You and me on the same page here. Kopitar is one of my favorite non-wings player as well. Wish we could get him next year, he would fit right into our system. But you're right it does seem like they're making preparations to keep him.

Aye, the whole Suter and Parise situation bit us hard. They went to play in Minn for personal reasons and somehow it turned into "ooooooo Red Wings can't attract these guys! Holland lost his touch! Maybe Babcock is the problem!" "Omg did you hear Zetterberg say it's either him or Babcock?" "Datsyuk said he's had enough of Babcock and intends on going to the KHL after 2013!" "Fire Holland!" "Get rid of Babcock!" All was rubbish. Parise is a born Minnesotan that wanted to play for his home state. We did well this year for market and hopefully we can land another big one next year. I'm hoping Kopitar as Richards moves on.

Mike green to Wings.

Because Abby played with Z and Nyquist and scored 23 goals with that line, a career high for him. Abby no longer plays with Pav unless he's playing with Z and Pav together. (Abby - Pav - Zet) The Abby and Z chemistry is better than Abby/ Pav chemistry from 2013. Abby only created space for Pav. But Z actually turned Abby into a goal scorer. I'm not saying Pav can't do the same but this is just how things turned out to be and it worked pretty well. No reason changing that unless it no longer works.

^ Not true.John Tortorella was ranked LEAST likely to play for and Mike Babcock was ranked SMARTEST NHL coach by a poll done by ESPN with 50 NHL players. Players like Caps coach Bruce Boudreau and Pens Dan Bylsma (each received 16 percent). But they love the Wings' Mike Babcock (22 percent). When asked about the last coach they'd want to play for, Rangers coach John Tortorella took the dubious title (18 percent). "He's always yelling and calling out guys in the media," says one Western Conference wing. http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=5028185 The whole "Babcock must not be drawing attention" rumor started when Holland failed to land Suter and Parise. Always easy to point fingers at the coach when s*** goes down the drain. That's why the Maple Leafs have been a great soap opera to watch for me. Edit - That same poll showed that players voted the Red Wings as the Best NHL franchise. 60% of the votes.

Nyquist is a better powerplay performer than Tatar is. He was 3rd in the league for PP goals........

Abby didnt play Abby doesnt play on a line with pav and tats, thats creating two entirely new lines and youre removing a big body from the second line. The richards, nyquist, Z line would get demolished. The goal is to increase Zetterbergs longevity, not to speed his retirement. Lol.

If Franzen comes back Franzen - Pav - Zetterberg line would be deadly. They would score a loooooot of goals. Franzen - Pav- Zet Tatar - Richards - Nyquist Abby/Pulk - Sheahan - Jurco Helm - Glen - Miller Both 3rd and 4th line would be big. First two lines would be high goal scoring.

Many people should also remember that Zetterberg is a natural winger who converted to center. I've been wanting him to play winger for almost 3 years now because I knew his decline was eminent. When Weiss was signed I was hoping it would allow Pav and Z to play together but I guess here we are 2 years later with Richards. Better late than never if Holland wants his captain to play out his contract..

Between 2006 and 2008 I believe, Hank was the primary center while Pav played his Wing, but they switched on and off a lot. I remember this because on HFboards people were surprised Babcock did the change up. I think Hank in his prime was just better at centering duties, in 08 his faceoff percent was super high from what i remember and his shudown ability to play his body was second to none. But its blatantly obvious now that Pav has maintained his centering skills while Hank has significantly declined. If the two play on a line together, I expect both to switch taking faceoffs once in a while but Datsyuk should and will take almost all of them. But yes I def agree that having them together for the season will be quite deadly. And it will help both their longevity. What's the use of making the playoffs when one of your superstars is running on fumes and can barely skate? This is similar to what Bownman did with Fedorov and Yzerman. Yzerman was slowing down and putting him with Feds really worked out.

It also helps when your team has Rafalski, Lidstrom followed by Zetterberg, Datsyuk and Franzen in their prime rather than Smith, Kindl, Ericsson, a washed up Zetterberg and an injury prone Datsyuk.

If Howard won 3 cups should be go to hall of fame o.O

Blash basically said everything is still up in the air till after camp.

I hope by D you mean Defenseman there.

That doesn't make sense Hasek's career wasn't successful because we won a cup in 2008 it was everything before that. If anything the 2008 cup probably gave the least boost to his HOF resume.

Word is Sheahan may play Wing or Center. http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2015/07/red_wings_coach_jeff_blashill.html Everything is up in the air till after camp it looks like.

Yeah I agree. Hollands sort of been a flub the past 3 years and he probably thought it was best to law low with the media and act like not much was going on and hoping his talks worked out with Richards and Green. Which they did. Typical, we all would have probably done the same thing in his shoes.

They split up Datsyuk and ZEtterberg on powerplay. So we ended up having two lethal units rather than one. First time they split them up for that extended period of time too. I think like more than half the games.

I wonder if he would have continued to produce well had he not left Tampa. Seems liek as soon as he came to Rangers, things went downhill. Perhaps he would still be playing as a 40 year old.

I mean if I were a GM I would probably do my best to keep media busy by saying bs comments while I did my work behind the scenes.