LeftWinger

Patrick, Tippett or vilardi. In that order. But any one of them would be great. I prefer Tippett because I believe in 3 yrs time, Larkin and AA will be your 2 top centers and Tippett will be your #1 Right handed power forward. I looking to the future, not next year. We'll need Tippett considering we have nobody like him in the system.

If Nyquist got us a 1st, and it led us to picking Hague, PLUS we kept our #1 and got Tippett, Holland would be my personal hero and I would forgive him for all the abused tires from his past!

While I agree that Holland will probably re-sign him if he feels he can play, but he'll probably do the 1 yr at a time thing like with Lidstrom. You fill it with nobody big. You play your youth and have some cap space for once in our cap history in case you're at that point where you need to acquire that one or two players at the deadline. Having cap breathing room is not a bad thing in a reset/rebuild.

Owen Tippett. carry on....

If by "boring" he means the odds of him getting shot in Chicago are far greater than whichever Northern suburb he lived in here makes living there much more exciting, then he can have all the excitement he can handle! I'll take the boring life not filled with flying bullets! Shame on Chicago!

NM....my bad

Oh, ok... meh, if he doesn't then we'd still have about $22M in cap space. Still much, much better than we have projected now.

Either I'm tired or I am missing the jest....

I think maybe his $2M salary guarantees it!

Thats ok, Riley will score another way tonight, I'm sure!

Winnepeg is right ahead of us with 69 points....if we can't get that top 4 pick, I'm still liking the Trouba for our #1 plus player trade! Then we trade up to get Hague in the organIzation and our D will be just dandy moving forward!

Ugh! We's Got's ta lose some games!

Tatar with 20 goals now....can you say $5M+ per season? He'll get 7 years $35M with a NMC.

Ok, in order to reset we need to cut salary bigtime! Here's a optimal scenario: Helm gets claimed by Vegas, we are able to trade BOTH Howard and Ericsson over the summer, Kronwall goes on LTIR (or even better, comes back 100% and ready to be "kronwall" again.) (I only says Helm gets claimed to avoid the fight over Nyquist again... Ideally one of the $4M+ guys gets claimed by Vegas, no matter which, Nyquist, Helm or Abby.) We draft Tippet in the top #5, trade up to draft Hague in the bottom 10 of the 1st. I know the argument about buy outs, but if we cannot trade E (retain some salary) then the buyout is a nice option. With the buyout it doubles his length to 6 years, but the cap it is modest at $1.6M, $1.3M, $1.3M, $1.3M, $1.3M, $1.3M. I'd much rather trade him and retain $1.5M for the next 3, but buyout is always an option. Which ever way, we need to open up that D spot and cap relief. DK is most definitely and building block. He has had a couple of bad seasons, but as many of you have argued to me about other players, he's not the only one to regress under Blashill. I agree that with legit top #1 and #2's on this team, Green and DK would be much better suited at #3 and #4. If we lost Helm to Vegas, traded Jimmy, LTIR Kronwall and Franzen and bought out Ericsson we'd have $26M in cap space for the summer. No problem's now with money or roster spots.

He has been demoted this year and has gone up and down the draft board all season long. He seems to be overrated by some, which means he is also could be underrated by others. With having our highest pick in ages, I'd rather use it on a consistently ranked player.

Blashill will still be the coach next season and Liljegren will be your #1 pick by Holland. That's truth, get ready, because, well, Ken Holland.

Ok, it is now February, the deadline is Tuesday the 28th, IT'S TIME! Here is the official discussion thread for al your opinions and suggestions for this team to "buy" to make the playoffs or "sell" to get the highest possible draft pick this year and collect as many draft picks/prospects as they can. Also, if/when trades happen from now to the deadline, we can gather it here along with the initial "TRADE" thread. I know a thread will be made for almost every trade, especially if it involves The Wings, but we can discuss all of it here as well! So, here it goes! I love the lore of The Streak ad would love to see it go on, but only if we were competitive, so, IMO, they should SELL. Here is my list of players that are not available: Zetterberg, Neilsen, Larken, Athanasiou, Mantha. Yep, its short. Not that I want to trade the entire team, but at this point, I need to see the light coming (hope its not a train) and get back to this being a true Hockeytown. I am not up on other teams prospects, so I don't know who is worth what, but I am very much ok with trading assets for picks. Honestly there is a player I'd want to "buy" but not that it will get us in the playoffs, just to get him in our organization now instead of waiting to see if he goes UFA in 2018, and that is Cam Fowler. Whether is be at the deadline or before the expansion draft, I want this guy in our organization. He is better than what we have, yes I know he isn't a top #1 D-Man, but having him would make us better next season and beyond. My ultimate goal is to have Trouba or Hamilton here, but that obviously is not going to happen at the deadline, or even at all, for they would be pricey. I still maintain that a top 5 pick would get one of them here (add a asset to add to the pot) but that has been debated amongst us here and there. I am not sure even what our guys could bring, but I am pretty sure there are teams out there that would love to have Vanek, Green, Smith (if healthy,) Tatar, Nyquist, Helm, Abby, etc...and one of our goalies (yes, for the right price I'd risk trading Mrazek.) Any of these players could bring anywhere from a 1st to a 3rd round pick in this or next years draft. So, we know that Vanek is being asked about, as is Tatar and Nyquist. What could we really get for any of them? I know Anaheim is a the top of their division, and Fowler is doing well, but unless they can convince Bieska to waive his NMC, they have to leave one of Fowler, Vatanen or Lindlholm unprotected. I am sure they'd love to get something for one of them instead of losing them to Vegas. What could we offer for Anaheim outside of my 5 "non trades" above? Could Nyquist+ bring him here? Like I said, acquiring Fowler would not be for a playoff run, but for our future. I am interested in reading all your comments on what you think we should do and players you are willing to let go in order to either get us there, or get us into a top 5 pick.

Lol, thats what was said about Holland last year...so last summer was supposed to be a good indicator and now this summer is. Next summer?

3 yrs in the USHL and 4 yrs NCAA. never drafted? Late bloomer?

Holland has done right then last few years in the 1st round. I just hope he doesn't blow the cat this time with a top 5. It'll be like him to draft Liljegren in the top 5 if he's still there instead of Tippett or Vilardi if they're still there. I just believe Tippett or Vilardi would have the greatest impact on this team. But we need so much, it's hard to fill all our needs in one draft. We need a #1 center, a #1 right wing scorer, a #1 defenseman and they way it looks maybe a #2 defenseman as well.

They pretty much failed in drafting in the 90's, especially in untapped markets. They got Holmstrom in 94 (not Holland,) then Datsyuk in 98 and Z in 99. But the rest...no luck. No hidden gems in late rounds, and really a lot of hot garbage in the early rounds. Even before Holland there was a lot crap picks too, so not just putting it on him. They need to draft the best player in the position they need. This year, being a lottery pick, in my opinion it'd Patrick, Tippett or vilardi.

He's absolutely my first choice after Patrick. Maybe even before Patrick. I would not be mad if he took either of them over the other.

Which is why I would not be happy if they passed on what we all know they need, to draft more of what they have. Patrick, Tippett, Vilardi. If we're top 5, one of those three should be left for us.

The last few years, Holland has done us right at the draft. Mantha, Larkin, Svechnikov. I'm willing to bet that if Datsyuk played his last season here and we weren't looking to dump his cap hit, Holland would've drafted Chychrun in our draft position.

Maybe having draper and Maltby as scouts is the reason most of our team are bottom 6 players...I guarantee that a handful of members here could scout just as good or maybe better than those two. Like I said, give some of us the official piece of paper and there isn't much difference.