DickieDunn

And broke his collar bone when he sneezed.

If he was faster he might stick. 178 pound defensemen with average speed don't have a high likelihood of being good NHL players. If the Wings don't give him a qualifying offer he might get an UFA deal, but if his goal is NHL or Europe, he'd be better off just signing in Europe.

Yes, Pierre frequently spends time with several members in the organization. I hope he gets the job. No more ****** on NBC and the Pens will fall harder than a Bruin trying to get a call.

There is no way they will keep a waiver eligible kid as a reserve. one of the kids would probably be better anyway.

Weren't there substance abuse issues too? I think I remember hearing he really liked coke.

The point was good player == good coach automatically, be that Larionov Lidstrom Gretzky or whoever.

Gretzky's coaching record: 143-161-24, 2 4th place finishes and 2 5th place finishes in the division.

Why waste time making an offer that's less than their reported salary demands? Callahan wants $6 mil per, Vanek wants $50 mil over 7 years. Neither are worth close to that. I don't go to Captain Cut and Paste's blog, I just go to milve and the Detroit paper sites directly, but I'm assuming Holland said they weren't going to get into a bidding war or something, unless the above post was it. In that case, it doesn't say he wouldn't give their agents a call. On Defense, I'd be happy to let Smith move into the top 4 and bring in a rookie for the third pair, and let Kindl and Lashoff fight it out for the 6 spot. People always say they want to give kids a chance, then demand that they go out and get vets to fill holes. Smith has 120+ NHL games in plus two playoff runs, and showed improvement. He deserves the shot.

OK, what forwards on Columbus, Calgary, Florida, and Phoenix are better than Franzen? We'll start with those 4 teams.

Unless Holland blows away the next best offer, why would they trade him to Detroit where he'd have several chances to knee or elbow Crosby and Malkin instead of sending him west?

Regardless the point is they made an offer. They didn't "let him get away."

Just because a guy was a good player and is an agent doesn't mean he'd be a good coach.

How many teams have 6 players better than Franzen?

Just out of curiosity how do you measure "he plays/doesn't play defense" because the Franzen I see is better than average defensively for a winger.

He averages a goal every 3 games. Does it matter if he scores them in bunches or exactly one every third game?

Before the cap, there were usually multiple top end free agents available in any given year. If a team didn't get their first choice, their second, third, and even fourth option were usually pretty good. Now players get signed to super long term contracts to try to keep the cap hit down, and they're not hitting the market as frequently. If you miss on Suter, the next best guy should be a second pairing guy. This year the best d-man potentially hitting the market is coming off a career year that just happens to fall in a contract season and very easily could fall back to being a second pairing guy even though he'll get top pair money and term. The rest of the top guys are either old, injury prone, or both.

They tried to get Burns. The Wild liked the package they got better, and I thought it was an overpayment.

If there are 15 guys you like at least one will be there at 15. Unless you think there's a big drop off between 10 and 15 there's no real reason to trade up.

There only needs to be one there. And if there are 5 or 6 guys they like they'll try to move down again this year.

And yet Filppula had one season over 40 points in Detroit. Do his PPM average by season, it'll be all over the place.

Weiss was against the other teams' top players. Filppula was against other teams' second and third lines. It also sounds a lot like another way to say Filpulla's +/- is better. G-A-PTS-GP by year for Filppula in Detroit 10-7-17-73 19-17-36-78 12-28-40-80 11-24-35-55 16-23-39-71 23-43-66-81 9-8--17-41 Weiss in Florida 6-15-21-77 12-17-29-50 9-12-21-41 20-28-48-74 13-29-42-74 14-47-61-78 28-32-60-80 21-28-49-76 1-3-4-17 Weiss has been more consistent than Filppula throughout his career. Filppula has been up and down and up and down.

Filpuula showed that he's not capable of centering the second line on a consistent basis. Every year but one he was either hurt, ineffective, or both. His one big year he spent most of it on Zetterberg's wing and followed up that season with one of his worst. He spent his last season in Detroit looking disinterested, lazy, and completely ineffective. There was no reason to bring him back, particularly not at $25 mil over 5 years. If he comes close next year to producing at the level he did this year, it will be the first time in his career that he did it back to back seasons.

I think a lot of fans see comparisons to a Hall of Fame caliber player, or they read what a prospect could develop into, they don't take into account that most players don't reach their full potential. Some are complete busts and never see the NHL. Others have decent careers, but never reach what their top end potential was projected to be-guys like Bonk, Anders Ericsson, Smid, and Upshall. It's more likely that Mantha puts up Fraznen type numbers than he turn into some perennial All-Star power forward.

NO! We have to demand that he score 40 goals and win the Calder, then average 40 goals for the next 12 years while leading the team to at least 5 Cups in his career. If he doesn't do that, he'll be a total bust.

Alexandre Daigle. Radek Bonk. Al Montoya. Nikita Filatov. Patrick Stefan. Thomas Hickey. Marek Zagrapan. AJ Thelen. Scott Glennie. All guys drafted high, full of potential, no reason to think they'd flop, and they all did. You're right, those younger stars probably aren't available, I'd still call and ask though.