DickieDunn

Why would an agent or player do that instead of getting a better deal now and then get another normal contract later? What if the GM leaves? Or the player gets hurt?

What do you mean by double contracts?

No young player is untouchable. I wouldn't trade Nyquist plus very much for Kesler, but straight up, or for Almquist or another C prospect or lower round pick, then I do it.

There's nothing in the CBA that would prevent him from taking a pay cut. They had to offer him his current salary when his last contract was up because he was a RFA and they had to make him a qualifying offer that was a 10% raise over his previous deal.

If they trade Kesler, they're going to need a #2 center. Unless Vancouver is OK with Weiss just coming off his injury Detroit doesn't have the assets to make it happen. If Kesler comes here it'd have to be in a 3-way deal.

Detroit needs more guys who are hard to play against. Everyone hated Chelios and Hull before they got here, and I guarantee Konstantinov would have been public enemy #1 if he hadn't been a Wing.

Good win. Another 2 points tomorrow puts them in the driver seat for the playoffs.

saw that one coming

I still think Yzerman won't trade him unless he gets full value. St. Louis will get over it eventually, and he really has no leverage right now. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/time-heal-wounds-martin-st-louis-trade-request-011257516--nhl.html

There's no such thing. If Tatar could bring back a power forward in his prime I'd trade him without a second thought.

his bunghole is very powerful. It needs much TP.

How so? They have a need for bigger wings, trading one of the few younger big guys they have wouldn't help much

The other issue for trading for St. Louis is if he's pissed at being left off the Olympic team, why would he agree to waive his NTC to play for the coach of that team who had input into who made it and who was cut?

Except he can't play a 4th line grinder role. He's better suited to playing with a skilled center. I'm ok with giving him a shot there (though not with Nyquist on the 4th line) as long as Babcock doesn't elave him there for 2 weeks when it's not working, and as long as Nyquist takes some shifts in Bertuzzi's spot.

Why does Yzerman have no choice?

Exactly. He's not going to play forever, and I'm not sure that's going to be enough for Yzerman to move him. Someone else would probably be able to give up a better package. Beyond that, I don't necessarily want to move Nyquist for a 38 year old winger straight up, much less including anything else it would take. Unless there's a corresponding upgrade to the D, I don't see St. Louis making that much of a difference anyway. Then there's Holland's statement that he feels they're set up front even without Zetterberg because of Nyquist, Tatar, Jurco, and Sheahan. http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2014/02/red_wings_ken_holland_says_hed.html

That's the speculation. If I was Yzerman I'd tell him to get over it, I'm not trading one of our best players in the middle of a playoff run.

Fans and sports writers and talk show hosts make those comparisons, not the teams. Piche was part of the Quincey trade. Matthias was traded for Bertuzzi. A lot of the trades the Wings made involved draft picks instead of prospects, but is that because Holland won't trade prospects or because the farm system was empty and they didn't have many good prospects to trade? If you only have 2 or 3 guys you value in your system, it's not a good idea to trade them. Now that they've gotten it built back up, they'll have more pieces to move going forward, and I think you'll see some prospects being moved.

Asked for doesn't mean he'll get it. The Lightning are in a playoff run, they're not going to trade St. Louis if they don't get a good package back that will benefit them this year and going forward.

If TB trades him, it's going to be for immediate help on the wing or at center. Nyquist or Tatar would have to be part of the deal, along with a prospect or high draft pick. Even then I'm not sure that's enough.

I really don't see the Sharks moving him. Unless they get a top pairing guy back, which kind of defeats the purpose of a trade in the first place.

Are you talking now, or in the future? You seem to be suggesting that all prospects should be traded because they might not come close to hitting their ceilings. There needs to be a balance between not trading anyone and trading everyone, and I think that Holland does a pretty good job of that. The main issues are that not a lot of big trades are made anymore, and that the prospects the Wings have had to trade weren't really that highly valued. Until they broke out this year, Nyquist and Tatar were just small wingers who hadn't shown they could play at an NHL lever and who were on the older end of the prospect spectrum. Again comparing them to a guy like SIlfverberg, they're smaller, older, and drafted later. I see a lot or proposals throwing out guys like Pulkinnen and Ferraro like they're top prospects, when in reality they're B and C level guys. Even Jarnkrok, who has the potential to be a top line center, has the size issue and relatively lower production in the AHL this year subtracting from his trade value. The only really top flight prospects the Wings have to trade are Sproul, Mantha, Jurco, and Mrazek. Everyone else are either projected to top out below top line/top D pairing guys or have something that lowers their value. So really, it's not that the Wings are overvaluing the prospects, it's more a case of other teams not valuing them as highly as a lot of fans do. Why accept Pulk and Ferraro when you can get a 20 year old who was drafted at 15?

I disagree with the premise that the Wings overvalue their prospects. Not trading prospects and not following through with some of the trade suggestions that fans make-some of which are completely off the wall, doesn't mean that they're overvaluing their prospects. It means that they place good value on them, and won't make a move just to make a move. They have a lot better handle on what they can be reasonably be expected to do than anyone outside of the organization, and generally keep the guys that turn into good players and the guys they move usually don't turn into anything special. Between the salary cap situation and a limited number of top players being moved compared to what it was like before the cap, it doesn't make a lot of sense to go over the top of some of the trades that are made, and a lot of fans tend to overvalue what the Wings have to trade anyway. I'll use the Bobby Ryan trade as an example. I saw a lot of people saying that a package of Nyquist, Ouellet or Kindl, and a first would have been the same as Silfverberg and Noesen and a first. Not so. Silfverberg is bigger and younger than Nyquist, who at that point had just had a good career at Maine and a so-so NHL debut, and was a higher draft pick. Noesen was also bigger, younger, and projects to be as good or better than Ouellet, and is younger and potentially better than Kindl. In order to have gotten Ryan, Holland would have had to add value, and that's assuming the Ducks weren't set on getting SIlfverberg to the point of not wanting anyone the Wing had.

Maybe he thinks Nyquist needs lighter minutes for a game? After Tatar came back from his dad's funeral, his minutes were cut way down for a game,t hen went back up to the 15-16 minute range.

He shouldn't trade a top prospect for a rental, not necessarily trade a guy just to get a pick if it's going to hurt the chances of making the playoffs. I don't think dumping Quincey would be a big deal, and certainly if he can get a pick for Cleary or Bertuzzi he should, but anything else should be something that improves the team for this year and going forward.