eva unit zero

He won't be signing in Chicago. Chicago already has to clear up around $2.2m in cap space just to get Hossa back on the roster once he's healthy. Forsberg will want what, $3m? Then they have to clear up around $4.5-5m. This can be done in one move by waiving and either simply losing Huet and replacing him on the roster with Crawford, or signing another goalie who makes less than $1m. But that would require Niemi to prove to Chicago's brass that he's reliable enough not only to take over the starter position now, but that he can be relied on in a Cup run and that the team can simply drop Huet for nothing.

Who was more physical? Let's go through last season's regulars. Zetterberg Datsyuk Hossa Franzen Hudler Filppula Cleary Samuelsson Kopecky Draper Maltby Who on that list was more physical than Kopecky? Franzen? Maltby? Hardly. Franzen is big and uses his frame to create scoring opportunities, but he is far less physical than he should be at that size and strength, and less physical than Kopecky. As for Maltby, he used to be a vicious hitter, one of the hardest hitters in the league, but that part of his game has all but disappeared. Now he's pretty much down to being a fairly quick defensive forward who is annoying. Maltby does sometimes, however, give you a free waxing with the facewash. This season, the Wings have some guys who are more physical than Kopecky. But last year, nope.

I guess I can't understand why LGW is so incredibly obsessed with hating on Kopecky. Last year he was 26 years old, was the Wings' most physical forward and outplayed Draper and Maltby in the regular season. He's a decent defensive forward who is good on faceoffs, can play both wings, is a good hitter, average skater, and has solid puck skills. No, he's not a superstar player. But again, he's only 27 right now. He certainly could develop in the next year or two into a solid second liner with a physical presence and a good two-way game. He is already good enough to be the base of a checking line on most teams. The only reason I can think of for Wings fans disliking him is being spoiled. He wasn't a super-good third/fourth line player. He was just good. Which clearly meant he was terrible and needed to go.

As much as a headshot penalty would be great, it's like trying to add a knee-on-knee penalty. You can't. Think about it for a second. We're sitting here and arguing over otherwise clean hits that have made contact with the head due to the recipient being in a bad position. And that's with the benefit of slow-motion replay. What is a referee supposed to do with one, full-speed chance to tell what happened? Assume it was an intentional head shot? If that happened, then welcome to the No Hitting League.

Let's take a look, shall we? Detroit has seven forwards, four defensemen, and two goaltenders from the current roster signed for next season. Ken Holland will have approximately $16m to resign or replace the following players: Forwards: Tomas Holmstrom, Todd Bertuzzi, Jason Williams, Justin Abdelkader, Darren Helm, Kirk Maltby, Brad May Defensemen: Nicklas Lidstrom, Andreas Lilja, Brett Lebda, Derek Meech Obviously, the number of players who will be on the final roster cut from that $16m is fewer than those listed, due to current long term injuries. However, replacing Howard with Nabokov would likely increase the cap hit in net by about $5.5m and cut down the open space to $10.5m for six forwards and three defensemen. If you figure in Lidstrom at $4m, then you only have $6.5m to cover 8 players. $500k each for the 13th forward and 7th defenseman, and you have $5.5m for five forwards and one defenseman. Given that the current salary of the six 'regulars' who would be replaced in this instance is between $7.5m and $8m, you are probably replacing with worse players in most cases. If you consider that two of the free agent forwards are on the top two lines, and three play on the PP unit, replacing those guys with weaker talent could be pretty harmful to the offense. Nabokov is a very good goaltender. But he is not worth tearing down a team just to stick him in net.

Here's how waivers work: Waivers used to be based on last season's standings, with a waiver claim that succeeded moving you to the back of the line. Now, from the end of the season until Oct 31st, waivers are based on a team's point total the previous year. During the season, starting Nov 1st, it is based on winning percentage. Teams do not get moved to the back of the line anymore; the worst team in the league has first priority on as many waiver claims as they want. However, with some exemptions, if a team claims a player off waivers and attempts to send him to the minors within 30 days, the team must off the player to all other teams that placed waiver claims first.

Hmm...let's look at some of the top goaltenders who began their professional careers in the 90s. Martin Brodeur (Calder winner, NHL 2nd-Team All-Star, Cup winner by 25) Chris Osgood (NHL 2nd-Team All-Star, Cup winner by 25) Jose Theodore (Hart winner, Vezina winner, NHL 2nd-team All-Star by 25) Cam Ward (Cup winner and Conn Smythe trophy by 25) Roberto Luongo (NHL 2nd-Team All-Star by 25) There are some other goalies whose careers began at or around 25 who have had strong careers. But this almost exclusively applies to European goaltenders (Dominik Hasek, Evgeni Nabokov, Miikka Kiprusoff, Nikolai Khabibulin, etc.) Howard could make a good backup if he can get his head straight and work out the kinks in his game. But he hasn't shown ANYTHING that would make me believe he has more than that in his game.

The numbers in my first example are wrong, but because it should be $1.15, not $1.24. As I stated, Chicago can not spend up to Hossa's entire salary over the cap, as they have almost $2m open without considering his salary. Read provision 50.10 of the CBA.

Ok, to shorten this down to a couple paragraphs: The Wings spend to the cap. So say they started the season with a 22-man roster and $10,000 in cap space, and a player with a salary of $1.25m was injured. The Wings could then replace that player with up to two players, given the 23-man limit, and up to $1.24m in cap hit. Why $1.24m? Because before any LTIR cap relief is allowed the team's remaining cap hit is used. Given the Wings' number of injuries to this point, it would be shocking to say that they have NOT hit the cap and are riding entirely on LTIR relief. But another example? For example, Chicago currently is currently well over the cap. They will have to clear up over $3.4m to bring Hossa back onto the roster once he is in playing condition. They would also have to waive/demote/trade at least one forward. Realistically, they can solve two problems in one by ridding themselves of Cristobal Huet by this point, but you understand the example. Hossa makes more than $5m, but because Chicago was almost $2m under the cap the first $2m of his salary ate that up.

You mean last year's "Should-have-won-the-Calder" goaltender? Nashville won't be giving him up anytime soon.

Datsyuk/Zetterberg/Holmstrom Cleary/Williams/Leino Eaves/Abdelkader/Bertuzzi Maltby/Draper/Helm May

I had these two ideas earlier about how the NHL's CBA could be modified slightly, in what I consider an improvement. 1) Allow teams to trade cash; restricted to the amount of the actual salary remaining for the current season only of the players they are trading away. This would allow teams in poor financial situations which are looking to acquire a veteran presence or a skilled but expensive player could do so by trading with a financially stable team which is doing poorly, etc. A Columbus or Nashville which squeaks into the playoffs could potentially acquire a solid, but expensive, scoring forward who is a free agent at the end of the year and not have to pay his salary. By restricting it to the player's salary, there would be no situations like the Gretzky trade where a player would be traded for a few good players plus enough cash to pay the team for a few seasons. 2) Change the method of calculating a team's used cap space and remaining cap space. Instead of requiring a team to at all times have a roster whose players total up to less than the cap hit, follow one simple rule. Instead of simply having a range teams must stay within at all times based on the players' yearly cap hits, follow this method: Divide the cap ceiling and floor by the number of games. Divide each player's cap hit by the number of games as well. The difference between the maximum and the team's cap number will be added to the team's cap allowance. So thus, teams would have to stay within the cap for the year, but could have a roster whose yearly hit exceeded it. Both of these changes would encourage deadline deals that would shift expensive UFAs-to-be towards contending teams, whether or not those teams were big market teams. This would increase the chances for newer teams and small market teams to not only make the playoffs, but also to have success.

It's similar, with one major difference. Currently, your active roster cannot have a yearly cap hit that adds up to more than the total cap, regardless of whether it would actually cause your team 's per-day cap hit to add up to more than the cap over the entire season. For example, if the Wings currently had less than $200k available cap space, and wanted to replace Lebda with Kindl on the roster, they couldn't do it. Under my system, they could do it, but would have to find a solution soon to keep Kindl up if that was the final decision. But instead of not being able to have Kindl up until after finding a solution, they could bring up Kindl and THEN solve the issue within the next couple of games. What you are referring to has to do with trades, where another team has already absorbed the cap hit to a point, and injuries.

Since apparently this paragraph was confusing, I'll try and make it make sense. The cap floor, cap ceiling, and each player's cap hits will be divided into a per-game (or per-day) amount. Each team will be required to remain above the cap floor for each game individually, but the per-game difference between floor and ceiling would add up as "cap credit" as games were played, and teams could use as much of that amount for the active roster on any given day as they wished, so long as it was available based on their current cap credit.

Hockey: Steve Yzerman. Henrik Zetterberg and Chris Osgood for active players. Baseball: Alan Trammell. Brandon Inge and Jason Verlander for actives. Football: Barry Sanders. Jeff Backus and Jason Hanson for actives. Basketball: Isaiah Thomas. Ben Wallace and Tayshaun Prince for actives.

/thread

The problems are Campbell and Huet. And here is how to deal with them. Assuming Niemi continues to vastly outplay Huet, then step 1 of the solution is simple. Niemi/Crawford is next year's tandem. Huet is placed on unconditional waivers, and if he is not claimed, then the Hawks simply terminate his contract. If he is claimed, then he is no longer the Hawks' issue. As for Campbell, he actually has trade value. There are several teams the Hawks could potentially trade him to and acquire something in return. Even a mid-round draft pick or two would be worth it given the cap space opened and depth of the Hawks' defense. Now the chances of Huet being gone via this method? Unlikely, unless Stan Bowman asks Lou Lamoirello for advice.

Actually, that is probably accurate. I have been making that mistake recently as I have not had the opportunity to watch games recently nor get online much aside from the Colorado game the other day and a few minutes here and there, respectively. But with regard to the cap, it allows the team to have a player on the roster in that player's spot until that player returns, and the team is allowed to exceed the cap by that player's salary cap hit for the duration of the LTIR period based on the replacement player's salary. For example, the Wings' roster, before injuries, would have been: F: Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Filppula, Cleary, Holmstrom, Draper, Bertuzzi, Ja.Williams, Maltby, Leino, Helm D: Lidstrom, Rafalski, Stuart, Kronwall, Lilja, Ericsson, Lebda G: Osgood, Howard Note: When I say "cap space" this includes LTIR cap relief and not actual cap space. This is a 21-man roster that leaves a mere $13k in cap space. But with Lilja on LTIR, suddenly the Wings had $1.263 in cap space. Meech is added to the roster to finish out the defense, dropping it down to $780k. Eaves makes another $500k, dropping to $280k. And we have a roster with 13F-7D-2G and $280k in cap space. But then Helm was injured, putting the Wings at 12 forwards and $880k cap space. This was resolved by adding Justin Abdelkader to the roster, which dropped the Wings to $30k in cap space and a 13-7-2 roster. Abdelkader was slated to return to Grand Rapids on October 8th, and Brad May was signed for $500k. This would have put the Wings at $380 in open space. However, Franzen was injured the next night and Abdelkader stayed up, with the Wings instead now having about $3.480m in open cap space and a 13-7-2 roster. Later, Helm returned from injury. So the Wings now have about $2.9m in cap space with a 14-7-2 roster. Franzen and Lilja are a combined $5.2m, so either they will have to both miss a significant chunk of the season, significant player moves will have to be made, or both once those players return from injury. We can already expect to see the $500 cap hit of either Eaves or May removed at forward, possibly even both, as well as most likely the $650 cap hit of Lebda.

Kindl makes more than the others. You would have to send Helm down AND trade Lebda to do this, or swap Abdelkader for Kindl and have a ridiculous amount of defensemen on the roster.

Booth got hit in the head because Richards had him lined up for a shoulder check and he STOPPED, but the stopping didn't keep him out of Richards' line plus Richards slightly leaned towards Booth to make contact rather than fall on his face. It wasn't an intentional hit to the head like you seem to believe.

Ok Brett, you have just a couple minutes to show us your magic! Prove to use how many goals against you can cause and how quickly it can be done!

Hmm...this summer we could trade Stuart, Filppula, and Leino plus maybe a pick or two for Kopitar.

That play did take as long as it took me to type that post. And instead of pokechecking, which Howard could have done at any point while Galiardi had the puck, instead he tries to stack the pads and flop around. Furthermore, say "If he had that much time to think." He shouldn't need that much time to think. He should see the puck coming in and be aware of the guy on the doorstep. He should already know where the guy's stick is and know he can pokecheck the puck away. Howard so far appears to be a failed experiment. Physically, he's got the talent to be an NHL goaltender. But he just can't seem to get on that level. He either hasn't had the right kind of coaching to put his game together, or he's the kind of guy who will be Mr.Big in the minor leagues for years but always fail to hold down an NHL job because he's just not consistent enough or mentally able to handle it. If it's the former, maybe he comes around. If not, then he's not going to be in the organization anymore by next summer.

And you have been reading too much "Richards hit is dirty" stuff. Richards would have crushed Booth shoulder-to-shoulder had Booth not tried to stop. Take another look at the video, genius. Booth passes the puck and then tries to stop. Richards is lined up to annihilate him and hits him within a fraction of a second after he gives up the puck. He couldn't have just not hit him; he was already throwing the hit. Booth passed the puck and then tried to stop because he SAW Richards and was trying to avoid him. Unfortunately, Booth wasn't able to. That's why Richards just barely catches Booth's head and grazes across the front of his body rather than hitting him full on and leading with a shoulder to the head. Am I really the only person who is this observant?

Opie, I understand your point of view. But the fact is, Howard should have easily had both goals. And here's why: The first goal, Stewart fed Galiardi a very good pass in front. However, while the left-handed Galiardi was in a good spot, his body was poorly positioned. While he was wide open, his poor position meant he had to accept the pass on his forehand, which left him only the option of switching to his backhand to shoot. He was stick side on Howard and within Howard's pokecheck range. See what I'm getting at? Howard could and should have pokechecked the puck away before Galiardi even had a chance to shoot. As for the second goal, Howard played it well except for one error. When a goaltender comes out of his net, it is to increase his area relative to the net size from the shooter's perspective; cutting down the shooter's angles and removing the available net. Howard's error was that he was not in a direct line between the puck and the goal. He was much too far to his left, opening up quite a bit of net that should have been covered. Don't quite agree with this assessment? He only just missed stopping the puck with his blocker despite being out of the net quite a bit. Stewart is a right-handed shooter and was shooting across Howard's body. The first one is not a mistake I am aware of Howard making consistently in Grand Rapids, but the second one I have heard of in the "Needs Improvement" category on multiple scouting reports. While Howard did have some solid stretches, overall he did looked like a below average NHL backup, at best, on Saturday. He hasn't played much better, if at all, than that at the NHL level in any of his performances.