DickieDunn

His knee is gone and he has a lot of other responsibilities. No need for him to play.

Unless there is some kind of confirmation about this it's hack journalism at its worst. About what I expect from Captain Cut-n-paste. The recapture penalty on contracts signed under the last CBA is a steaming truckload of BS. It's just the owners who wouldn't/couldn't pay players punishing the ones who did. Unfortunately that's the rules now. If Franzen is going to play most of the deal I think they keep him. If it looks like he might retire soon they almost have to buy him out unless he really is going to retire and doesn't want to play back home. In that case the Pronger ltir solution is best.

I'm surprised Cleary was brought back, and most of the reasons why he was are for his leadership. To bring Nyquist up they have to clear cap room. Waiving 2 people doesn't clear enough, nor does trading Eaves and waiving someone. Samuelsson only clears 100k of cap space. I was iffy when he signed and it has blown up in Holland's face bog time. I did the math last week. If they waive Tootoo and Eaves they will have something like $560 in cap space, can't remember exactly. That's enough to recall Emmerton. Glendening has a cap hit of $575, so he can't be the 23rd player. If they waive Eaves they can trade Tootoo and keep around $450k salary and bring Nyquist up and be right at the cap.

If you were GM of an NHL team would you trade for Samuelsson? I wouldn't.

Simple rule is if you see the guy's name you don't hit him. That's all on Pulk. Pulk will get hammered because he's a rookie who has no shot at making the NHL out of camp and they can say see we do want to stop those hits. Then when a star does it or nobody is hurt they can make an excuse to let it go later in the year. What should happen is it's a suspension regardless of injury or player status, but we might as well wish that the government actually did what was right instead of what's best for themselves.

If Tatar sulks or plays poorly, then by all means trade him. I'd rather have a vet who wants to be here than some kid who's going to spend the whole season crying. At this point his attitude needs to be "I deserve to be on the team and in the lineup every night, I'm going to prove it," not "if I don't get my way I'll go to Russia," and he certainly shouldn't be saying that publicly. Those comments make me wonder about his intelligence too, since he should know that a) he probably wouldn't clear waivers and would end up in the NHL on another team, and b) even i he did clear waivers he can't just go play in Russia unless Detroit lets him. If any kid is going to get sent down, it will be Nyquist. He's the only forward who doesn't need to clear waivers, and they will NOT go into the season with 6 d-men. If that happens, it's either going to be for a week or two max, or the whole season, and they would still have to clear about $1.5 mil in cap space after that. That means trading a vet, or waiving Eaves and trading Tatar. If they trade a vet, Emmerton can go as soon as Helm is ok. This is how I see the roster shaking out after it's all said and done: Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Abdelkader Franzen-Weiss-Alfredsson Tatar-Helm-Nyquist Andersson centering 2 of Cleary, Miller, Bertuzzi, Samuelsson, or Tootoo, one of those last 3 will be gone, the other of the guys not in the lineup as healthy scratches, with Tatar rotating in and out as well. Eaves and Emmerton waived I think Tootoo is the easiest one to trade, so he's probably the one most likely to be gone.

He may spend a couple weeks in GR. Other than that he'll be in Detroit.

Tatar will not be waived. He wouldn't clear them if they tried. He cannot play overseas without the team oking it. Unless Helm is on LTIR for the entire season they have to move Bertuzzi, Cleary, or Samuelsson in order to get under cap anyway, so Tatar would be losing his spot to keep Emmerton or Eaves. Anyone dumb enough to think that will happen? Eaves is gone. One of the bubble vets is gone. Emmerton is gone as soon as Helm is back.

I would be surprised if Dekeyser played as well this year as he did right after he was signed. He was coming in with no pressure or expectations. This year he may try to do too much, and now that other teams have seen him his weaknesses will be known and exploited more than they were before. Couple that with the overly high expectations some people have of him, and there are going to be a lot of people disappointed with his play this year, and by the all star break you're going to be seeing "send him to GR" and "trade him now" demands.

So you're saying that young players don't improve from one year to the next?

It's not waiting for kids to come up it's giving the guys on the roster an opportunity to show what they can do.

Hrep drep

Meaningless. If they did say something it would do neither side any good to admit it. If they didn't it could be because they knew what would happen just like I know what happens when my ex-wife calls after she spends money on something stupid and is broke because of it. Or he could have had his agent tell them not to bother before they had a chance to mention it.

At what cost though? Most players would be traded for the right package but if a team isn't looking to make the deal then it takes a lot to get a GM to even consider moving a top player. Why would a team not in an obvious rebuild trade a star anyway? Yandle is supposed to be available but he isn't the guy they need. Edler was but apparently isn't any more. Myers is probably on the block but unless he pulls his head out his ass that contract is toxic. I can't think of anyone else who is likely to be moved for anything approaching a good deal for Detroit.

If they thought they couldn't afford his salary they would have worked out a trade with Philly or taken the draft picks for him. They won't trade him and Detroit doesn't have the cap room for him anyway.

Fixed. I think the kid will be a consistent 55-65 point guy int he NHL when he's in his prome but he hasn't proven anything yet

Why wold the Preds trade him? Unless he demands a trade, I just can't see it happening anytime soon. But let's put aside that for now. Weber has a cap hit of $7.86 mil. Assuming the most likely final roster for the Wings is Eaves being waived and Emmerton sent to GR after clearing waivers, they will be $820k under the cap. That means they would have to move just over $7 mil in cap space. That probably means Quincey and Samuelsson plus one other roster player is moved, either to Nashville or in separate deals. If Nashville won't take them, then it becomes incredibly complex unless Weber says he will only play for the Wings, because another team would presumably not have to make a second trade first. Let's say the perfect situation happens, and they're willing to take Samuelsson and Quincey as part of the deal. It would also probably take Smith, Sproul or Oullet, Nyquist or Tatar, and either a couple high picks or another top prospect. I don't think he'd be worth that much. Let's assume that the deal is Quincey, Samuelsson, Smith, Nyquist, Sproul, and a 2nd. That shorts Detroit a d-man and 2 forwards with no cap space to get someone else. Even if the trade logistics can be worked out, with the recapture penalty this could be a killer, especially considering they have Zetterberg and Franzen both as potential hits from the recapture rules. If They trade for Weber this year around the trade deadline, and he plays 10 years here and retires at the age of 38, they would have a hit of over $4 mil for 3 seasons. Even if he plays out the contract, they would have an over the hill former hard hitting d-man who based on similar players wouldn't be nearly as effective as he is now and who will probably miss a chunk of the season every year from the abuse he takes taking up almost $8 mil of cap space. No thanks.

How do you know that 2 of Dekeyser, Kindl, or Smith won't be the caliber of player you're saying they need to trade for? What defenseman who is even rumored to be available would be a clear upgrade and is worth the rumored asking price?

It's about value.

Challenge for those complaining about Franzen. Find 5 players who have hit UFA status who have scored more goals for the last 3 years with a smaller average cap hit sincw signing their UFA deal than Franzen. As frustrating as he can be he provides good value for his cap number.

Kronwall is a #1 d-man. Please stop saying #1 d-man when you mean elite d-man. They are two different things. You either draft those guys (and Sproul might get there) or throw a ton of cash and/or prospects to get them for the last half if their careers. The only other way to get one is hope a team loses patience with a kid and they trade him like Hartford did with Pronger.

And have Lashoff as the 6 and no #7

Either you develop players or you try to keep overpaying for vets and eventually end up with a crap team full of vets you can't move. It's time to let the players grow into top 4 roles. Between Smith Kindl and Dekeyser the 2nd pair will be fine.

I put Dropkick Murphys on my Pandora feed and get a lot of Irish bands like Flogging Molly and the Dubliners.

Pro athletes don't belong in the Olympics