Son of a Wing

I believe it's always important to play to win to maintain that competitive culture. Culture and morale are often overlooked by fans. 
It's not worth getting that bad anymore to improve a few small percentage points in a lottery. 

Stars, Kings and Bruins aren't who they once were. 
I bet we do better than you think we will. 

If he did that, he'd be a bad businessman. Part of his job is to sell. He's been doing that with the 260th or whatever sell out crowd in a row or whatever it was last home game. 
There is no "sentimental honesty" in the world of business. 
Some of you people are being so naive. 
We all know how it is, expecting him to say something to make our egos feel better aint happening.
At the same time he's not bsing either. He's been blunt with the media and said it like it was at times. 
I'm actually surprised people here dont question the Illitches more. If anything they bear more responsibility than someone who simply works for them (Holland).

Except that is essentially what he means by saying we should probably expect less. He just added, "but hey, try to look on the bright side." 
It doesn't matter what he says. You can lie to yourself and pretend there's some particular turn of phrase that's going to make you happy, but there isn't. If he says we need stars, as he has many times, or we're trying to find a defenseman, or whatever...it just changes the rants to "well then do it already" or you whine that he didn't spell out some foolproof plan in exacting detail.
We're in transition, no matter what term anyone wants to use to describe it. No one has ever denied it or tried to hide it. Your mistake is in thinking that because this is where we are now, it's because we want to be here and we're going to stay here forever. Lower expectations now doesn't mean permanently lower. That's just you reading too much into things.

I believe it's always important to play to win to maintain that competitive culture. Culture and morale are often overlooked by fans. 
It's not worth getting that bad anymore to improve a few small percentage points in a lottery. 

Stars, Kings and Bruins aren't who they once were. 
I bet we do better than you think we will. 

Stars, Kings and Bruins aren't who they once were. 
I bet we do better than you think we will. 

I believe it's always important to play to win to maintain that competitive culture. Culture and morale are often overlooked by fans. 
It's not worth getting that bad anymore to improve a few small percentage points in a lottery. 

Stars, Kings and Bruins aren't who they once were. 
I bet we do better than you think we will. 

Stars, Kings and Bruins aren't who they once were. 
I bet we do better than you think we will. 

By your standard was Lidstrom a #1? He wasn't physical at all. How about Coffey, he won a certain trophy a couple times and wasn't close to a shut down defender

Regardless you seem to be defining a #1 as elite level. I think that's far too narrow.

If a guy can be trusted to play a lot of minutes in all situations, and it's not just because he plays on a crap team, he's a #1. Kronwall absolutely was a #1 before his knees were shot, even when he was behind Lidstrom. There were only 10 or 12 guys better than him league wide, especially when you realize he put up a decent point total playing second pair minutes on the second PP unit.

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To be fair Trouba is three years younger. For a defenceman, the difference between 22 and 25 is alot.

I still don't understand how a guy who likely tops out as a second line winger is untouchable or how a #1 defenseman isn't worth trading for.

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Personally I would trade Mantha for Trouba in a heartbeat. As for Fowler, I am not 100% sold on him as a #1 d-man. His stats look great on Anaheim, but I am not sure if they would translate here. 11 out of his 22 points are on the PP, so he could only help in that regard. I look at Fowler as a very good #2 or #3 guy. Who knows though, I could be wrong, it's not as if I watch every Ducks game.

Agreed. Certain posters will spin stats any way they can in order to tell the story they indented to tell before they even looked at the stats. 

We would have to give up draft picks, not gain them, or take on bad contracts,  to have teams take on that much salary. 
Not to mention both Ericsson and Kronwall have full no trade clauses.
As much as I'd like to see it, they're not going anywhere.

Howards cap hit is 5.3 million. Trading Howard for a 6th round pick is essentially giving him away, and if you pick up half of his caphit that means you are still paying 2.65 mil. Bring in another goalie at even 1 mil per year, that becomes 3.65. So all that to save 1.65mil? I would rather keep Howard as a backup.

To be fair though, every point you have made against Draper could have been used against Yzerman a few years back. 
Personally I would be interested in seeing what Ken Holland could do if he was given the green light to no longer worry about making the playoffs for a few years. 
As far as the long term contracts go, I'm not too worried. A couple dont hurt (just look at TO signing Martin). The one's I dont mind are Abby/Helm, and contracts like Zetterberg and Franzen should be easy to trade once the cash amount per year drops (ie. a Pronger situation for a floor team). Howard I think can be traded, if we begin to really struggle I think Nielsen would drop his no-trade clause and I would put money on it that Kronwall is permanently on LTIR in a year or so. The only one that really may bite us IMO is E. Come on Vegas....you need a big D-man!

What exactly are you basing that on? Anything?? Or are you just making stuff up like you usually do?

What exactly are you basing that on? Anything?? Or are you just making stuff up like you usually do?

What exactly are you basing that on? Anything?? Or are you just making stuff up like you usually do?

"He finished his commentary by saying that Datsyuk loves playing with Abdelkader, the piano puller, and that he was also very complimentary to Mantha. Mickey said that maybe playing with Mantha next year would be enough to entice Datsyuk to stay."
Not even close to what you said lol

"He finished his commentary by saying that Datsyuk loves playing with Abdelkader, the piano puller, and that he was also very complimentary to Mantha. Mickey said that maybe playing with Mantha next year would be enough to entice Datsyuk to stay."
Not even close to what you said lol