djohns74

As of today, none of them for me, thanks. Yzerman and Lidstrom stand alone among the "modern" players both in terms of importance to the sport in general and, of course, the Wings specifically. They're both firmly in the "legendary player" category, none of these others are. This has nothing to do with the HOF or pure stats for me, a retired jersey is a much higher honor since it's so much more rare, especially for the Wings.

Performance bonuses are only allowed for either entry-level or 1-year contracts for players 35+ or those coming off LTIR, so Stamkos isn't getting any of those no matter where he signs.

Sorry Osgood fans (and I know that, inexplicably, there are many of you out there), but there is zero chance that the Wings retire his number. I'm fairly confident he'll make it into the Hall based on his numbers alone, since that traditionally gets guys in, but no one can convince me that he's on the exceedingly short list (currently 6 guys) of former Red Wings legendary enough to hang from the rafters. It's been mentioned already in this thread, but Lidstrom is without question just as much of a shoe-in as Stevie was, but that is it. Shanahan? Fedorov? Give me a break. Great players with important places in Red Wings history to be sure, but not to the point that they can be mentioned in the same breath as Howe, Lindsay, Sawchuk, Yzerman and Lidstrom. No chance. Maybe there are one or two others currently on the team that could merit such an honor one day, but in all cases, it will be at least another five years before that question can legitimately be asked, never mind answered.

If the details are indeed accurate, then literally all this new contract does is increase the Devils' annual cap hit a bit while potentially saving them some actual cash at the end. Can we all agree that Kovy will not still be playing when he's 42 (never mind 44)? Okay, good. So then his contract is going to come off the books some time before its actual end. Let's pretend he retires at 40. Under the original contract, that would leave 4 additional years that don't get fulfilled during which he's scheduled to make $550K annually, but with a cap hit of $6 million per year. He would have earned right about $100 million over the 13 years he played for the Devils ($102 million - [$550K * 4]), but the Devils would only have been charged a total cap hit of $78 million ($6 million * 13 years), so they're saving about $22 million in cap hit, though very little in terms of actual money spent. The contract value was $102 million, they would have paid $100 million, so not much of an actual saving there, but a definite circumvention of the salary cap in most people's eyes. Now the new contract (again, if accurate). He again retires at 40 taking the final two years of the contract off the books. He would have made $7 million over that time, so if the total contract value is $100 million, then the Devils would have paid him a total of $93 million while the total cap hit charged over the course of the deal (13 years times $6.6 million) would be $85.8 million, which is a discrepancy of just over $7 million, or just less than a third of that of the original contract. If we assume he doesn't play out the contract, then it still could be considered a circumvention of the cap rules, but it's not nearly as much of one as in the original contract. Instead, the Devils would save a bit of actual cash this way, which I don't think the NHL is nearly as concerned about in the long run. Based on all of this, I would say that this new contract structure is nothing more than an attempt to better disguise Kovalchuk's ultimate intention here of not playing out the entire term. In that sense, this one should probably be rejected as well. But considering that the money paid to cap hit charged ratio is much closer to reality, and the NHL doesn't want to lose a star of his caliber to the KHL, I suspect they'll let this one go through. However, if they simply remain silent, the deal is automatically approved, but they won't have verbally given their approval. I feel this is the way they'll choose to go, both for face-saving and future deniability, so don't expect to hear any reports about official "approval" of the deal.

And following the Kovalchuk trade, they're going nowhere fast.

Actually, the goalie for the losing team in a shutout most definitely does NOT take a loss to his personal stats. Not sure if this was cleared up, just wanted to point it out for clarity. EDIT: It appears that it goes down as an OTL (overtime loss) though. Meh, don't really see how that's all that relevant from an individual player point of view. The only reason for a team OTL is to award the extra point after all.

BINGO

Clearly, it's silly to compare a goalie with zero NHL experience with either Fleury or Mason (or any other NHL netminder), I don't think an honest comparison was intended in either case. It's funny though, you always hear about young players being brought in too early and getting ruined that way (see: Lions quarterbacks) but then you also hear about players being left in the minors too long and getting ruined THAT way. It's all 20/20 hindsight, it's so hard to tell how either kind of treatment will affect an individual.

True, even 20 is still too young to be playing in the NHL, just look at Steve Mason. All he was able to do was carry a mediocre team to their first playoff appearance, win the Calder trophy, finish second in the Vezina voting and fourth in the Hart voting.

Wow, lots more sarcasm and hostility in this thread than is typical (and that's saying a lot!) And very little of it directly relating to Jason Williams... On topic, Williams at 2.5m over 2 seasons would be perfectly fine. The same price for one season is ludicrous, no way that was the offer.

I really didn't think Cammalleri was a $6 million a year player, certainly not on a 5 year deal. Bouwmeester is a tough one, I really think someone was going to overpay for him no matter what happened. I could have easily seen him getting $7 million+. Taken together, the Sedins might be the worst one here, that's a ton of money to tie up in two players of their caliber. Think about it, that's almost Datsyuk + Zetterberg money, are they really close to that level?

Right, and either way, whatever the person is making, whether it's full value on a 1-way or partial on a 2-way, it does count against the cap. In theory, there's no real way of "hiding" salaries.

I will provide a quick translation here: "Screw you, Brad Stuart!"

Just like with game 5, if the Wings can't bring their best performance for game 7, then they don't deserve to win the cup. That being said, I'm confident that they will play much better than they did last night and lift the cup for the home crowd.

I agree on the Smythe for sure, I was going to say pretty much the same thing. For the Hart... that's a bit of a gray area, a case could definitely be made for what you're saying, but I don't see a reason to consider 6-8 seeds any higher than others. But that's not really the issue here. For the Smythe, I'm totally with you, if a certain player stands out as having carried his team to the Finals, he should be considered, win or lose (i.e., Giguere in 2003). Malkin probably ought to be a candidate this year, by that criteria, and Crosby should not simply because of how effectively the Wings can shut him down on home ice. The question is, does Osgood qualify under that criteria? I say yes, he does. That being said, there is no "rule" about who can win it and the losing team should be considered because of the example of Giguere in '03. Take him out of the equation and the Ducks most certainly do not sweep the Wings, and almost certainly don't make it all the way to the Finals. He carried that team, period. Individual performances like that are what this trophy is all about, it's just that more often than not, the team with the individual that stands out like that is the one that goes on to win too.

"CROSBY SUCKS!" God, I love the fans at the Joe at times like this.

Hockey Writers Association, and yes, I believe they vote as soon as the series is decided.

Yep, Hank was all over Crosby like stink on a monkey last night, great to see. One thing I love about the Wings is the way what should be a top scoring line converts to a shutdown line while guys like Helm and Abdelkader step up and handle the scoring. That depth and diversity (along with equal helpings of talent and determination) is what makes this team so tough to beat at this point in the season.

Osgood and Franzen are definitely my top two for the Wings. Three more wins anything like the one yesterday will lock it in for Osgood, guaranteed. I'll say again though that if the Pens can push it to 7 games, even if they don't win, look for Crosby to get it. Malkin may deserve it at least as much, but let's face it, the winner is selected by the media. 'Nuff said.

Perfectly said, I absolutely could not agree more. So far this playoffs, the Wings have proven that no matter what gets thrown at them, they find a way to overcome and win anyway. So, when it comes right down to it, I believe that if the Penguins win this series, it will be because they outplayed the Wings and for no other reason. For that, they will get my respect, even if I would be unable to deal with the media's bulls*** next year.

If it goes 7 games, there's a very good chance that Crosby or Malkin will get it since the only way the series GOES 7 games is if the offensive dominance continues for one or both of them. Otherwise, I firmly believe that it will and should be Osgood.

This. Please. Kindl's a risk for sure, but I don't see how he could be worse than Chelios over 6 or 7 minutes. And might actually be capable of eating up a few minutes in overtime, if it gets there, god forbid.

Great news, I never expected that he'd get enough votes to land in the top 3. Not that he doesn't deserve it, I'm just used to the individual players on the Wings being underappreciated by people outside Detroit. On a side note, let's not forget how many times Lidstrom had to be a finalist for the Norris before he finally won one, hopefully this is a sign of things to come for Pavel.

This is a big reason why I just switched to AT&T U-verse. Great service with tons of HD, including VS, stupid fast internet, and all for basically the same price I was paying for WOW. No-brainer for me. Too bad it's availability is still somewhat limited.

If Datsyuk gets some consideration/recognition, I'd be pretty happy with that since it's more than the Wings ever get as far as Hart voting goes. Unfortunately, I think there's a few other more "obvious" choices that will likely wind up in the top three in the voting. On a side note though, does anyone else think Steve Mason should get a ton of consideration here? I mean, if we're talking about the player that is most valuable to his team, would Columbus even have a prayer at the playoffs if it weren't for this guy?