eva unit zero

Team, yes. Linemates, no. Bossy was never playing with linemates who were offensively as good as Lemieux and Francis. Yes, Bossy had Potvin on defense. Jagr had in his time in Pittsburgh Larry Murphy, and later guys like Kevin Hatcher and Jason Woolley. No, they aren't Potvin offensively...but Gillies and Trottier are not Francis and Lemieux offensively. Offensively, it's close and Jagr could be argued as better. But Jagr was one of the worst defensive forwards in the league, especially among top-six forwards, and had no physical game whatsoever, despite his size. Bossy was very good defensively and played well physically. Even if you rate Jagr ahead of Bossy offensively, he wasn't so much better there that Bossy's advantages in other areas are snuffed out.

The major difference is that Bossy was solid defensively and didn't have a playmaker anywhere near the level of Ron Francis, who centered Jagr most of his Pittsburgh days. Also, in Jagr's best season, he played on a line of Lemieux/Francis/Jagr which had three of the league's top four scorers. Jagr is viewed as being "alone" in Pittsburgh after Lemieux left when he had tons of offensive help, it's the fact that the team was terrible defensively, the forwards didn't play defense, and the goaltending was horrid that caused the team to have such troubles winning. Oh, and don't try to compare Cam neely to Mike Bossy. Neely's best seasons weren't even close to Bossy's average seasons. Neely was overrated by a wide margin even before he retired. Kind of like Sheldon Souray this year...how the HELL did he manage to get Norris votes? I wouldn't even consider that piece of s*** a first pairing defenseman.

I agree...I assembled a top-20 list of each position after and LW is by far the weakest. So weak it's sick. Every other position has HOFers that don't even make the list...while LW has guys like Brian Propp and Slava Kozlov actually making it in near the bottom. Granted, there are some pretty decent LWs in the league now likely to knock those two out...but still...weak position.

Not when he's the #6 guy on my list...

Yes, and Kyle Quincey is the best defenseman in the league per dollar. He posted a ton of points and was solid defensively and only made $525k. But there are some holes in your rebuttal. 1) Clemmensen is a goalie. 2) Versteeg is a rookie. Malkin made barely more than Filppula last year, would you say they are in the same talent range? Flip makes more than Toews and Kane, too. Find me someone the Wings could REPLACE KOPECKY WITH for the same kind of cash. And he'll stick around for under $600k. People expect Hossa to take a $3.5m paycut, and don't think Kopecky would be satisfied with only a small raise? WTF? I suppose I did walk into that by not ruling out rookies...but ok. Find me some forwards who have played at least two seasons who makes the same kind of cash ($600k or less) that Kopecky will be signing for who are better than Kopecky. Best player in his price range may have been a stretch...but irreplaceable at his price? That's certainly another story.

Not nearly as well as Hudler's.

I have Richard/Bossy/Lafleur as a very tight race for second, actually. So I'm not going to lay down a huge rant about how Bossy was better than Lafleur because I consider all three of those guys virtually equal. Considering that #5, Andy Bathgate, had more than a few seasons where he was considered on par or close to the level of Howe and Richard, it's a fairly tight field at the top of the RW group.

The Wings should pick a defenseman whose best strengths are his puck skills, good size, and skating. Defensive play can be taught, especially in such a strong system as Detroit has. A player with good puck skills who is a good skater can be developed into the right kind of playmaker for his team. The only thing that can't be developed is size. Looking at draft rankings and seeing where defensemen rank, I would hope for Stefan Elliott as he seems to fit those conditions best of defensemen who might actually be available at 29.

The Hart is for MVP, not Best Player. You can be more valuable even if you are a worse player. And you agreed that Z is better than Pavel defensively; where does the "Pavel was better offensively" affect the Selke selection? The Selke is awarded for Best Defensive Forward, not Best Two-Way forward. Sometimes I think people (both fans and voters) don't understand what the awards are actually for. Also, one award I left out that I shouldn't have: Calder: Rinne, S.Mason, Ryan, Versteeg, Wheeler

The idea is that we get a defenseman who is projected to be a #1 defenseman in the future plus move our first rounder up to a top ten pick in this year's draft while trading a decent but unnecessary and overpriced piece of our defense away. The only downside from the Wings' point of view is giving up Filppula, and that may have to happen anyway if Hossa is to be re-signed. I'd rather a deal like this go down that most potential deals that could happen for Flip. Hudler is a better fit between Franzen and Hossa than Filppula is as he's a better playmaker and has MUCH better offensive awareness. Don't get me wrong, I do think Filppula is a good playmaker; it's just that Hudler is better at it than Zetterberg is. He's probably one of the best playmakers in the league. Putting him on a line with Franzen and Hossa full-time would just be scary. Especially as it would be the second line, and see less of the defensive focus than a Datsyuk-Zetterberg-Cleary/Holmstrom line would. Just frightening to think about, really. Think about our team five years down the road, assuming older guys like Lidstrom, Draper, Maltby, and Holmstrom retire...Rafalski, Kronwall, Ericsson, Summers, Kindl, Meech, Smith. Unless we see some serious flatlining from those kids, that would be like the Crosby/Malkin or Zetterberg/Datsyuk of defenses. And better than what we have right now. Combined with Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Franzen, Hossa, Hudler, Cleary, Leino, Ritola, Abdelkader, Helm, and more, plus Larsson/McCollum in nets? That's a pretty solid roster just from within the system, not even including what potential free agents might be acquired. If this trade were acceptable to Phoenix, I make it in an instant.

Double post.

What Phoenix needs to pick up is a playmaking center; especially one who can play decent defense. Prucha/playmaking center/Doan would be a good start. In fact... Phoenix still needs to add quite a bit of payroll to reach the cap floor. Perhaps the Wings could make a swap, such as: C Valtteri Filppula, D Brad Stuart, and DET 1st 2009 for PHX 1st 2009 and D Chris Summers

Belfour: 2 Vezinas, 1 Calder, 1 Stanley Cup, 484 Wins (behind only Roy and Brodeur), 2 First All-Star team appearances, 6 All-Star Game appearances (including once injured) Leetch vs. Belfour is no contest. Belfour wins. Comparable numbers when it's much harder to win awards (such as All-Star game appearances) as a goaltender than it is as a defenseman. Leetch is one of the top defensemen of his era. Belfour is one of the greatest goaltenders of All-Time.

A) Babcock doesn't make the roster decisions. B) Kopecky played ahead of Abdelkader and Leino in the playoffs, and has outplayed Maltby for two years now and was IMHO better than Draper last season. Keep that in mind when saying "Kopecky is useless and Babcock wants to get rid of him."

Because he's a right winger? I wonder how close Iginla vs Hossa was, though. The first and second teams should have been, IMHO: First team: C: Pavel Datsyuk, Detroit LW: Alex Ovechkin, Washington RW: Jarome Iginla, Calgary D: Nicklas Lidstrom, Detroit D: Duncan Keith, Chicago G: Tim Thomas, Boston Second team: C: Evgeni Malkin, Pittsburgh LW: Zach Parise, New Jersey RW: Marian Hossa, Detroit D: Zdeno Chara, Boston D: Shea Weber, Nashville G: Nicklas Backstrom, Minnesota This of course doesn't necessarily reflect who the best players are at those positions, merely who had the best regular seasons this past season. If I had to rank the top 20 forwards, 10 defensemen, and 5 goalies, based on regular and postseason play over the past couple of seasons, it would look like this: C: Zetterberg, Ovechkin, Malkin, Datsyuk, Getzlaf, Crosby, Thornton, Iginla, Hossa, Parise, Kovalchuk, M.Richards, E.Staal, Alfredsson, Elias, Spezza, Lecavalier, St. Louis, Marleau, Doan. D: Lidstrom, Chara, Keith, Niedermayer, Weber, Bouwmeester, Pronger, Rafalski, Boyle, Gonchar. G: Brodeur, Backstrom, Lundqvist, Luongo, Osgood. The top ten players, overall? Lidstrom, Zetterberg, Ovechkin, Brodeur, Malkin, Datsyuk, Chara, Getzlaf, Crosby, Keith

Leetch over Belfour, Barrasso, Howe, Wilson? I don't think so.

IMHO, these should have been the top five (in order) for each of the major awards: Hart: Ovechkin, S.Mason, Parise, Lundqvist, Malkin Norris: Lidstrom, Keith, Chara, Weber, Boyle Vezina: Thomas, Backstrom, Vokoun, Luongo, Miller Selke: Zetterberg, Kesler, Datsyuk, M.Richards, Conroy If you have any complaints about this (I KNOW people will) then feel free to post them.

Lebda and Samuelsson cost more than Hudler. Trading Lebda would bring back what kind of return...a third round pick? Fourth round? Hudler will likely bring back a second rounder at the kind of contract he would get. Small difference in return, HUGE difference in contribution to the team.

Because I made a mistake. Replace him with Doug Wilson on the list.

Kopecky has the kind of skill to play on a second or third line on many teams. I didn't say he'd turn into some kind of super scoring power forward. I said he'd contribute well. His physical game, good puck skills, and defensive awareness would be useful to a team looking for a physical forward to plug in on the second or third line. I will make note of the fact that Kopecky DID play time on the Wings' second line for a few games during the season and did not look out of place compared to his linemates, you don't think that he would be more likely to see that kind of time if he played on a worse team? It's like the Kyle Quincey situation. People wanted to get rid of either Quincey or Meech. I said I felt Lilja was the likely player to go but that it should be Lebda, because Quincey and Meech offered the same or better skills and were younger and cheaper. People on the board said "Durr Lebda is fast and has experience" and what happened? Quincey went to LA and became a first pairing defenseman and scored a ton of points while being defensively responsible. People talk all the time about how the Wings have so much depth that other teams would be grateful for their depth players. I make a reasonable talent analysis that Kopecky would be a good second or third line player on another team and get jumped on because "he's a bum and only plays fourth line in Detroit." What line would Mike Grier play on in Detroit? Kyle Calder? How about Dustin Penner? These are guys who, especially in Calder's case, would be lucky to play on the third line for the Wings as they were last year. They obviously have some talent and can do well on teams with less forward talent than Detroit.

The top two possibilities for the four spots IMHO, by position and in order of how much I think they deserve it: Center: Steve Yzerman, Bobby Smith Left Wing: Luc Robitaille, Vic Hadfield Right Wing: Brett Hull, Pavel Bure Defense: Mark Howe, Doug Wilson Goaltender: Ed Belfour, Tom Barrasso If I had to pick four guys from that group to go into the HHOF, it's Yzerman, Hull, Robitaille, and Belfour.

Third best RW of all-time.

Ok, find me someone who brings what Kopecky offers (size, good physical game, good skater, decent skill, decent defensively) for $575k or under then because that's what Kopecky would cost. Sorry you don't like the guy, but the fact is he very well might be the best player in the league in his price range. He could play third line with no trouble and could play on some teams' second lines and contribute well. It's not like he's an Aaron Downey where he's got zero skill and all he can do is fight. The guy can actually play hockey.

Snow. Can't skate outside if it's warm enough to rain. Wendy's or Burger King?

Hudler centers Franzen and Hossa. The world s***s its pants at the scoring ability of the Wings' second line.