DickieDunn

I saw a couple articles awhile back and I've talked to Blues fans. It's not a big secret.

I have a few thoughts. Players exchange certain abilities like choosing where they play and limiting their leisure activities in exchange for obscene amounts of money. All those limits are part of the CBA. They're all agreed to. If players want to play Olympics, fine. But if they get hurt then they should have to cover their medical bills themselves and not get paid until they're healthy again. If the injury is serious, their team should be able to terminate the contract with no penalty. If I break my collar bone on my time and can't work, my boss can fire me, why should it be different for pro athletes? They should also forfeit their pay for any games they miss traveling or whatever. I think that this is just posturing by the league to get some kind of concessions from the PA. Enough high profile players are going to want to play that the league will end up shutting down again. But it's going to cost the players something.

Isles would need to take Quincey or Kindl and eat enough salary to make it work. Then the Wings would be stuck with an old, overpaid, concussion risk on D.

Stewart had his minutes cut for lazy play and because he doesn't get along with Hitchcock. Given that Babcock and Hitchcock are similar coaches and friends I don't think Stewart would be much better off here.

No. Which is stupid.

I'd take Callahan for 5x5 but no more money or term. He brings a lot to the table other than scoring.

yup

And it would be too much by $10k CAPGEEK.COM ARMCHAIR GM ROSTER CapGeek Armchair GM Roster FORWARDS Henrik Zetterberg ($6.083m) / Pavel Datsyuk ($6.700m) / Daniel Alfredsson ($3.500m) Johan Franzen ($3.955m) / Stephen Weiss ($4.900m) / Tomas Tatar ($0.630m) Gustav Nyquist ($0.950m) / Darren Helm ($2.125m) / Todd Bertuzzi ($2.075m) Drew Miller ($1.350m) / Joakim Andersson ($0.733m) / Justin Abdelkader ($1.800m) Luke Glendening ($0.575m) / Mikael Samuelsson ($3.000m) DEFENSEMEN Niklas Kronwall ($4.750m) / Kyle Quincey ($3.775m) Jonathan Ericsson ($3.250m) / Jakub Kindl ($2.400m) Brendan Smith ($1.263m) / Danny DeKeyser ($0.925m) Brian Lashoff ($0.725m) / GOALTENDERS Jimmy Howard ($5.292m) Jonas Gustavsson ($1.500m) BUYOUTS Carlo Colaiacovo ($0.000m) BURIED Danny Cleary ($0.825m) Patrick Eaves ($0.275m) Jordin Tootoo ($0.975m) ------ CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter) (estimations for 2013-14 crunched using simulation date of 2014-02-10) SALARY CAP: $64,300,000; BONUSES: $2,635,000 CAP SPACE (23-man roster): -$10,667

Or Datsyuk and and Kronwall collide at center ice and both get hurt and are out for the regular season. Kiss the playoffs goodbye Wings fans.

Then his entire cap hit would count. If he retired they would have enough cap space for everyone who can be sent down, plus Eaves and Cleary, to play in GR, and recall Emmerton. Glendening would make too much money at that point.

Either the Wings give players a chance to take a bigger role, or they continue to sign vets and keep the young players in smaller roles. A lot of fans seem to want them to do both. If they sign a vet, they complain that they're screwing the young players. If they open the spot up, then they're being cheap and/or lazy because they didn't go out and get a vet. Based on what they've done, it was reasonable to assume that one of Smith or Kindl would be a solid #4 defenseman this year. Further, because of salary cap restrictions, they could have signed Alfredsson or a defenseman. Alfredsson was the right choice.

So in other words, you want the World Juniors to be the Olympics every 4 years.

The belief was that Kindl and Smith would progress. They haven't.

Trading for an old defenseman who's coming off a concussion and carries a $4.75mil cap hit: not good. From Boston's perspective, trading Morrow for Quincey would possibly get their GM fired. With his injury problems this year? I doubt it.

Most companies allow vacation time though, where their employees can take time off to go pursue other interests.

If it's just Gilbert, they might be able to get him straight up for Kindl. I'm not sure how much more he'd be able to fetch. I'm not really sold on Kulikov either, especially with the prospect depth the Wings have, but anytime you can get a talented 23 year old in a trade, I think you have to take a good look at it. They could always do a conditional pick or two instead of set rounds, too.

This affects the Wings because...? He can't be in GR, they have to recall him. It does absolutely nothing except keep him form playing for the Griffins, which a lot of people complained that he was doing anyway.

On a one year deal for half his salary, sure. He's not as bad as a lot of people think, and I think most of that has to do with the idea that he's replacing Lidstrom or Stuart, that they traded a 1st rounder for him, and his salary.

There's this really smart guy who wrote a blog about who the Wings might pick up. http://redwingsandotherthings.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/possible-red-wing-deadline-moves/ One of the possibilities is a multiple player trade with Florida. They're looking to move both Kulikov and Gilbert. Given Babcock's apparent disdain for Kindl and Smith's stagnated development, sending the two of them and a couple prospects like Marchenko, Pulkkinen, or Ferraro could get the deal done. Florida gets 2 young defenemen who are signed next year for reasonable contracts and who could still develop plus prospects, Detroit gets their right handed shot and a young defenseman. Granted, I don't think it's very likely, but it's certainly no sillier than some of the "Samuelsson, Bertuzzi, and Kindl for Edler" suggestions I've seen on various boards.

It had never been an option before that. It's a lot easier to keep denying something than to take it away after it's become accepted practice.

I could see Ovechkin for sure heading to the Olympics, and any contracts that come up in the next few years will either have a clause included that allows them to go, or won't cover the 17-18 season. Not all the players care enough enough to do that, but some of them do.

I would rather have Alfredsson for 1 year at 5 mil than pay Vanek anywhere close to 9 mil per for any length of time, yes. That is a ridiculous overpayment. Vanek is a good scorer, but not that good.

I foresee many problems in a few years.

The thought of giving Vanek that much money makes me ill. The last 3 years his 82 game pace was 30g 71 pts or something close to that. Even at a point a game he's not with close to that much. Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Alfewdsson/Jurco/Moulson Franzen-Weiss-Nyquist Tatar-Helm-Sheahan Miller-Andersson-Abdelkader Callahan-Ferraro/Glendening as reserves That looks pretty good to me with what Tatar and Nyquist are showing. They don't need to give Vanek the second highest cap hit and 6th highest salary in the NHL.

The problem is it looks like he wants a 7 year deal.