LeftWinger

Why? Because everyone who has every played for the Red Wings is God? I should Idolize Hudler because he has good stats? I am not allowed to dislike someone because he plays for the Wings? I have disliked Hudler ever since he became a Detroit Red Wing, so it's wrong that I (yes in the minority) don't like him still? "look at me!" I have been saying all month that, YES, Hudler is worth a lot more than he can make here in Detroit, BUT if he wants to stay, he knows he'll have to "take less" which seems to be the motto here in Hockeytown. Everyone jumped all over Hossa because he wouldn't play here for almost half of what he is worth, but God forbid I (and a few others) get mad at Hudler because he will not do the same? What makes Hudler any more special than Hossa, or Zetterberg or Lidstrom or Datsyuk or Franzen? They ALLL "took less" to play here, and Hudler refused. So in his world, the good of the one outweighs the good of the many, which is fine, go make all the money you can, I don't blame him for wanting top dollar. He wasn't going to get it here. I just never liked him and am VERY happy that the clucking idiot is gone. (for now) Not everyone that plays for the Wings is God dude, a lot of people liked Hudler, some didn't. I know a guy that cannot stand Nick Lidstrom, he is no less a fan of the Wings, he just is not a Lidstrom fan. Just because they wear the Wheel, doesn't mean everyone has to like them. ...but for you, "oh, I am so sad! Another mighty Wing has left! Oh, woa is me, how is my life gonna be the same without Hudler on the Wings, oh boo hoo, boo hoo, boo....hoo...hoo" Good Luck Hudler, even though you should have taken less to stay here, I still think... nahm who am I kidding, I still never liked you and never will!

Damn It! I go out of town and this happens! Figures I'd miss it, but: :banana: :carrot: :band: And for those of you who though Hudler was a team player and would give Holland a break to help him ice a FULL roster an the best team possible (Hudler is a greedy sonuvabeep!) He knows the Cap situation, but still wants Filppula type money (or more.) So to those of you who still sympathize with a LOSER: :nopity: and a great big I Told You So! Now we can ice a a full team, instead of ONE greedy person taking up 90% of the cap space!

Long list, but I remember someone asking if there was a way to see who could potentially be an UFA in the 2010 off season:

I've said all along, Hudler @ $1.5 to $2.0m is awesome ON THE WINGS with their cap issues. He is worth WAAAAAY more on the open market, I only hope they can find a happy place 1. so we can see what he can do as he gets older and 2. LEAVES ENOUGH CAP SPACE TO COMPLETE OUR FORWARD RANKS! you cannot play the game with 11 forwards with no room for callups...

oh, I know he is due a raise, I think I gave him one at $2.5m (which would still be hurting us.) Do you tink he'll get more than $2.5?

ok, Hudler (RFA) $3.0m or Latendresse (RFA) last year made $880,000, would you give him $2.0 to come here? He had 26 points in 56 games, if he had played 82 games he may be near 57 points that Hudler had.

Does anyone remember what the process was called when teams used to be able to demand players in return for signing FA's? Like when Pronger signed in St. Louis Hartford was awarded Shanahan in return and when we signed Troy Crowder, even though they asked for Probert in return, Jersey was awarded Dave Barr and Randy McKay... It was like some kind of trade arbitrator or something, but I just cannot remember the term used when the team ask for a player and either received him or was awarded something more evenly exchanged...

That just tells you that 5 on 5 we were virtually unbeatable, if we take care of the PK, we're golden! or should I say Silver!

One of the best leaders in the game! Professional to the nth degree, not like: ..its too bad we are losing leaders like Messier, Yzerman, Sakic and soon Lidstrom and gaining garbage like Cindy. Do you think his dad taught him to act like that on the ice?

Question: What would be better for a Stanley Cup run? Hudler at $3.0m or Rob Neidermayer at $2.5M?

Exactly! But, in Brad McCrimmon up to the task? I say hire Chelios or try to intice Jaques LEmaire to come here to be the Defense coach...

Well at least that would clear the room. I wouldn't, but that is me, BUT at least you are not like the other Hudler-maniacs living the pipedream that we can trade only Lebda or Meech and still sign Hudler.

just where do you plan on getting the cap space to give him "close" to $3m, out of your ass? We cannot even give him $2.5 without handcuffing this team. NOT ENOUGH MONEY TO ICE A FULL TEAM... Hudler better be unique in the way that he signs a deal between $1.5 and $2.0 so he can play on a winnig team that actually has 13 forwards and 7 defensmen in stead of 11 forwards and 8 defensmen... I don't care if Hudler is worth $10million on the open market, we need to fill 3 forwards postions with roughly $2.5 million dollars, if he wants money, he needs to move on or give us a discount for one season and wait until there is more ap available for him...

Way to go Drake! There goes all the Hudler-maniacs arguemtn about replacing his 23 goals with a defensive FA who can only score 10! Now what are they use against me? Seriously, unlike a lot of users here, I don't think we are going to suffer much by losing Hossa/Sammy and possibly Hudler. SUre that is 80 or so goals, but if you get more defensive minded forwards than Hudler is, you can easily shave off 40 or more goals against this season, and you know that with Helm playing all year he is gonna put some in the net, as well as whoever they sign or bring up. If we lose Hudler, it won't be the end of the world, everyone should just calm down... Leino is should get 15-20, Helm should get 10-15, Joe UFA should get you 10. On the low end thats 35 goals if you have more defensinve minded forwards, you will esily make up the difference...

...but isn't Ryan out of minor league options? I would assume that (him being a RFA) if Holland likes this guy, he will re-sign him and give him the 12th spot. Strange though, I wonder if he was going to be a call-up this playoff if he hadn't injured himself? I actually never heard his named mention unitl you brought it up last week. Maybe Holland is just going to give him the pass to go sign elsewhere? But like you mentioned and I have echoed a couple of times, his $500,000 salary would sureley help the cap for Hudler or Joe UFA to be signed...

as much as I DONT like Burke, I have to give him props for what he is doing in Toronto. He has made some great moves and Toronto should be very competitve next season. LOL! All while Pitts gets worse! I love it! Would LOVE to see a Detroit/Montreal or Toronto Finals! Might not happen for a few years, but that would be great!

Get it through your head, lets sign Toews to a 20 year contract where he gets (this is just number not real) $5,000,000 for the first 5 and $1,000,000 for the next 15?!!? Please, spare us we know how long term deals work, Toews and Kane are too young to be signing deals like that. In 5 years they will be worth league maximum (if not in less years.) THere is NO WAY either of them or Keith sign a long term deal that only pays them $1M in the PRIME of the careers! You problem this year lies in that you are OVER the cap already with Versteeg UNSIGNED! Unless you find a salary dump, you are losing him, period! Talon screwed up, now he has to hope your unsigned FA's give him a MEGA discount PLUS he needs to dump salary before camp is over. That leads to getting lowballed by teams because they KNOW you have to dump salary. Then next off season is gona kill Chicago! Say goodbye to Versteeg this year and HOPE you win the Cup NOW because you will have half the talent on your team next year...

These are the fans that beat the Hudler drum by saying lets give him $3.0m and just give up on these guys in the minors. We NEED players like Oulahen to compliment players like Hudler who knows nothing about the game except offense. He doesn't win battles in the corner, in front of the net or defense. Penalty Killing? Whats that? Oulahen might not be Hudler on the offense, but as Pitts proved this year, you don't need 6 goals a game to win, defense wins games (and Bettman ) and theor defense shutdown our offense, I am pretty sure Hudler was shut down the entire playoff! I surely hope we don't lose Ryan to RFA, we will get nothing in return for him since he'll sign WAAAY under the compensation cutoff. He made about $550,000 last season I do believe, I wish Holland would offer him a 2 year $1.0 (combined) contract to play on the 4th line with Draper. That would allow (:puke:) Hudler to get a little more money, and Abby to get his 20+ minutes in GRR to be ready for the playoffs and 2010-11 PLUS save us more cap space PLUS allow us to sign another UFA. If he doesn't work out he can be traded or packaged in a trade to LA for Jack Johnson (wishful thinking, sorry!) No Oulahen is not a savior, but lets see what he can do in training camp and go from there.

Well then Hudler better agree to a contract of $2.0 or less, anyting more and we won't have a complete forward lineup and we'll be right up against the Cap... if he actually gets to his arbitration hearing he will be awarded $3.0 or more and then Holland just has to say no and he is UFA to go where he wants. Hudler is a greedy money hungry chump that would rather have a huge payday than win! (you're right, this is sounding like Fedorov & Hossa too! If Fedorov and Hossa are chumps, then Hudler is worse than them all!) I am tired of explaning it, maybe I am not getting it, but Hudler cannot sign here for more than $2.0m without trading more than Lebda or Meech. Hudler would make 10 forwards, we need 13! I am sure Holland is doing the right thing, but I seriously hope we don't go into the season with ONLY Meech backing up forwards and defense AND be up against the cap... Hudler is not that important to hold on to... Best case scenario, he signs a 1 year $1.5 - $2.0 contract and gets his payday next off season or just leaves. Worst case Holland pays him $2.5 or more and we have NO depth for the season...

Thats a whole lot of convincing, just what are suggesting she do in addition to the above package? I called for the trade on draft day. I traded rights to Hudler, Kronwall, our 1st,2nd picks to Tampa for the #2 overall pick. What was I told? Never Happen, go back to NHL 09, etc... etc... No all of a sudden you guys want to make a trade for Hedman. It's too late, should've made the trade at the draft. Sure we'd miss Kronner, but Hedman would make up fo it, PLUS he will be the defensive leader once Lidstrom steps away from the game, but until then: Lidstrom - Rafaski Stuart - Ericsson Hedman - Lilja Lebda (Meech) Wow, #'s 4 thru 6 are giant! We'd easily rival Anaheim defense corps from last year in size and weight!

Honestly, Haven't I been saying this all along? I have been preaching this until I was blue in the face. I have said time and time again, I do believe Hudler's worth is great than $1.5 to $2.0M, but we cannot give him more because it will eat up most of our cap and we still need to fill the forwards positions. Each and everytime I would get flamed up and down by the Hudler-gard. Each time I try to explain that exact fact that Hudler IS worth $3.0 or more, but Holland cannot pay him that much, so if he wants it, he best leave. I've read thousands of anti-Hossa posts on here calling him every name in the book, inluding "Chump" because he didn't want to play for $4.5 salary, which is over 50% of his market worth, BUT those same anti-Hossa's yelled and screamed and called me names when I suggested that Hudler should also be expected to sign for 50% of his market worth if he wants to play in Detroit and allow Holland to complete the roster with the best possible forwards with the most amount of money to offer them. Again, I was told tons of different things and called things and told to get my head out of my ass, asked if I ever post anything that makes sense... ...so if takes Pat Caputo to pretty much repeat everything I and my fellow "goodbye Hudler" members have been saying to start convincing people that it is just not going to work here unless he takes that discounted contract. Basically, we have 3 forward positions to fill with (leaving Abby out) roughly $2.5M left, assuming Lilja is healthy to play. We trade one of Lebda or Meech and you gain between $450,000 and $650,000 more. So, three forward spots for roughly $3M, you just can't be giving one of those guys $2 to $2.5 of it. Are people starting to see that he needs to "take on for the team" and sign maybe a 1 year deal for $1.5, with the promise that next season they give him his raise. Signing for $1.5, leaves $1.5 to fil out the roster, one of which as Caputo mentioned above would have to be a $500,000 player in order to possibly find a Joe UFA for around $1 to $1.1M. TOo bad Hudler went to arbitration beause #1, he's either going to sign with Detroit for whatever the arbitraitor says and then be traded ( I suggest him, Stuart (convince him to waive the NTC) to LA for Jack Johnson.) or Holland will decide to not sign Hudler and lose him to UFA, especially if he signs for more than $3.1, that would take the 1st and 3rd picks away from us!

Hmmmmmmmmm, who's to say that wasn't the reason he left Detroit? Hossa was ok with the $4.5m but said Kopeky had to be signed too, well Holland tells Hossa he has no intentions of doing that so Hossa goes to where someone will take Kopecky as well... ...in an odd kinda way, if that were the case, I kinda respct Hossa for helping his life-long friend out. Maybe a promise made to each other or maybe Hossa promised Kopecky that he would take care of him...

Lets go with your $3.783 figure. Hudler turned down $2.5, so he will get more if he goes to arb. But lets say he signsfor $2.5, now your have $1.283 left and still only 11 forwards. Ok, you can probably get a servicable UFA for that, but then you only have Meech backing up both Forwards and D-Men... Now you also Lose Ryan Oulehan, he is an RFA, andout of GRR options, so if you re-sign him, he has to play in Detroit or risk losing him to waivers. Unless you bring him up for the 13th forward and his modest salary knocks basically another $600,000 off the cap. Now you are down to $600,000. I supposed that could work, but you won't be able to bring Abby up at all with that cap space... IF Holland is ok with that, then fine, I guess.... But that is assuming Lilja is traded, of course if Lebda or Meech are, this will not work, for we will not have enough forwards. IF they are BOTH traded to make room for another forward, we will only have 6 d-men, with not room for call ups.... My hope is Hudler either walks or realizes that there is not enough cap room for anything over $2.5, and ideally he should take less to ice a better team and give him the best chance at the Cup...

Well they are going to have to trade someone before camp ends right now, whatever Versteeg gets is gonna put them in that much more of a hole. They ARE n fact $562,000 OVER the cap right now! Not sure if they'll regret Hossa signing more than they'll regret giving Kopecky $1.2M a year!

Chrysler hires former Northwest CEO Doug Steenland for board of directors! I guess we'll be seeing Chyrsler disappear in a few years just like Northwest Airlines!