DickieDunn

Cola played well when he wasn't hurt, but he was hurt all the time, and they had 8 d-men. They got rid of the one who had absolutely no chance of a long term future with the team. None of the Wings have truly terrible contracts, Samuelsson at one year and $3 mil left is the worst. It's not like they signed an aging injury prone center to a 5 year 22.5 mil contract, or a winger with one big year to $5.25 mil for 7 years, or a guy coming off a year where he scored 3 goals in 40 games to a 5 year deal deal worth $24.25 mil total.

Everything I read about it said that they couldn't because he wasn't officially cleared to play after his injury, so he could have fought it and they didn't bother trying. Otherwise I can't see why they wouldn't have if it had been a legit option.

They need time to reload before they're going to be favorites for the Cup again. There are no quick fixes in free agency like there used to be where your 3rd choice was still going to be pretty good. Now there might be 2 legit top flight players available at any given position, usually one, and the 3rd or 4th best player is going to be a big step below that top guy. They need to develop and build through the draft, and despite having some guys graduating, they're still a couple years away.

These are nothing more than money grabs and jokes. You choose to play a sport where you knowingly put your health at risk. It's a hell of a lot less dangerous than a lot of other professions, and they get paid millions of dollars to do it.

They couldn't buy out Samuelsson because he hadn't received medical clearance at the time, and Bertuzzi's deal wasn't worth it. The only real bad mistake was bringing back Cleary.

If I was Almquist I'd go back to Sweden for a year or two.

Trotz takes a year off, Babcock decides to step down after next season, Trotz takes over. Him and Tippet are the only 2 active head coaches I'd consider over Babcock.

And now there's this: https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/canucks-owners-threaten-legal-action-if-you-claim-they-hired-john-tortorella-163548729.html

For the most part, if a player shows he is ready, room is made. There is a long list of players who spent less than the maximum possible time in the minors, not including the guys like Datsyuk and Zetterberg who went right from the top Euro leagues into the NHL.

A bad deal is a bad deal, even if you can afford it. If you have $10 million in the bank, would you pay $40k for a rusted out '98 Ford Escort?

Yeah, from the sounds of it it was ownership who insisted on forcing Tortorella on the team, and they may or may not have interfered in trade negotiations.

Just because someone will give him a huge contract doesn't mean it's a good idea.

You must not have seen the same game I did then. I thought he was absolutely worthless in the d zone.

Babcock should have won it several times now. Bowman should have won virtually every year. It almost always goes to a coach who gets his team to the playoffs with a bunch of injuries or a coach who has a young team that plays better than expected. By those criteria Babcock deserves it. No team has lost better players for as long, and the Wings lead the league in cap hit lost to injury by a long way last I checked. A good chunk of the Pens man games list are their backup goalie.

You know how bad people say Smith, Kindl, and Lashoff are defensively? Almquist is worse. He can't handle AHL forwards, he'd be destroyed by even 3rd line NHL guys.

Glendening can play center. They had a ton of centers hurt. Glendening got the call. Callahan has never played center, but he is good defensively and has better hands.

He hits less than Miller, Abdelkader, and Helm. He provides next to nothing in the offensive zone. He skates well enough and works hard enough to shadow another player and frustrate them, but that's not enough for a regular on a good NHL team. I like him as a reserve, but nothing more. Between him, Andersson, and Callahan, Glendening brings the least amount of offense. Andersson is better on faceoffs. Callahan is the better all around player between the two, and hits more and is just as irritating as Glendening. At the end of the day, he should be the 15th or 16th forward next year, depending on who is signed and who, if anyone, is lost on waivers.

How is that a different role than he's played since early in his NHL career? Of those 12, who is worse than Glendening?

There's a reason he's only played 167 NHL games at age 31.

Because there are other forwards who can play defense who bring more offensively too. One dimensional is one dimensional, it doesn't matter if the guy is all offense and no defense like Leino, or all defense and no offense like Glendening. The comparisons to Matlby and McCarty are nice, but not accurate. Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Jurco Nyquist-Legwand-Franzen Tatar-Helm-Weiss Miller-Sheahan-Abdelkader That's 12 forwards better than Glendening. Andersson is also more skilled and good defensively, although Glendening is far more aggressive and adds something that Andersson doesn't, but so does Callahan, and Callahan has shown better hands than Glendening. I'd rather see Andersson and Callahan as the reserve forwards, and Glendening sent to GR as a call up.

Kindl has the talent, but is inconsistent. He's always been that way. When he was in GR, he rarely looked like an AHL player. One night he'd look like he needed to be a top 4 NHL guy, the next he'd look like he should be a 3rd pairing ECHL guy. Lashoff doesn't have the skating ability or the hands to be an NHL regular in a puck possession system. He might be better in a more dump and chase style, but even with that he's a solid #7 guy. Sproul is NOT ready for the NHL. He still makes too many defensive mistakes. So does Ouellet. I think both will end up being top 4 d-men, but not for another couple years. Marchenko is the most NHL ready of the D prospects, but with him being hurt, I'd rather go with what they have.

Pretty much this. There are better options when the team is healthy, but when injuries hit, Glendening can at least do something well. I don't want him as a regular though, unless he improves.

No way. Kenny needs to get Stamkos plus their best prospect or he's a moron.

I bet he knows that the Wings aren't going to pay him and take a cap hit so they can cut him loose. Now only will it cost them a bunch of money, things like that make it hard to convince players from signing with you in the future.

Clarkson benefited from playing with 2 good guys on his line and in a system where the strategy was "bank it in off Clarkson." He should have stayed in that system even though they weren't going to pay him as much. Weiss is a good hockey player who is dealing with an injury that can linger long term anyway, and that is complicated by the fact that it's in an area where hockey players use more than just about any other athlete. It's no different than if a starting pitcher tears his rotator cuff or a running back tears an ACL.