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Ultimately, the Wings would need Zetterberg and Hossa to take significant discounts to be able to retain both players, even without keeping Franzen, Samuelsson, Hudler, Downey, and Kopecky around. There's only about $13.5m before any cap increase to retain all seven players. Given that both Zetterberg and Hossa are expected to make around $7m, it would be foolish to expect to keep both. The ideal situation is that Zetterberg and Hossa sign long-term for a largely discounted deal around $4m each, Franzen and Hudler both sign long-term for around $2m each, and then Sammy, Downey, and Kopecky are either signed or replaced close to league minimum. More likely is that Hossa is gone, the cap space is still used up on the same players, except Helm, McGrath, or someone else is on the roster instead.

I like Lilja. I think he is a solid stay at home defenseman who gets way too much flak. But let's look at this objectively. Kyle Quincey is the most similar to Lilja in terms of playing style, so let's assume that Lilja staying means Quincey goes. Moving out Quincey leaves the team $350k above the cap. So the Wings need to move out another player who is at least that far above the player replacing him. The league minimum is $475k. Samuelsson and Hudler would suffice, although that leaves less cap space than just moving Lilja. If it's Samuelsson/Quincey... The Wings have less free cap space, and have given up in a salary dump a top-six offensive forward who is solid defensively and a future top-four defenseman to retain a career third-pairing defenseman who is currently not significantly better than the defenseman they gave up despite being ten years older. If it's Hudler/Quincey... The Wings have much less cap space, and have given up in a salary dump a top-six offensive forward who is good defensively and a future top-four defenseman to retain a career third-pairing defenseman who is currently not significantly better than the defenseman they gave up despite being ten years older. Both players given up are under 25. If it's Lilja... The Wings have given up a career third-pairing defenseman in his 30s who was competing for a spot on the third pair with a bunch of 20-25 year olds who made less than half his salary and have higher potential.

Alright. Chelios and Quincey have been signed...so we can now take a good hard look at the numbers. The Wings have 13 forwards, 9 defensemen, and 2 goaltenders signed who cannot be sent down without clearing waivers. Their total cap hit is $57,548,333. So the Wings are $848,333 over the cap, and one skater over the roster limit. The Wings intend to carry 13-8-2; so the simplest move that can be made is to move one defenseman who makes at least $850k. This rules out Chelios, Lebda, Meech, and Quincey as they do not make enough. The top four are unlikely to be moved in a salary dump. Leaving Andreas Lilja. Also of note: Andreas Lilja's $1.25m cap hit is exactly equal to the cap hit of Chris Chelios and Kyle Quincey combined...as if this is what Ken Holland has in mind as well.

Will they let the Canes on the ice with sharp skates given all the black they'll be wearing? EMTs better be on standby.

I would argue it the other way around. Lidstrom is not the most valuable player in the league; that is one category Ovechkin is well ahead of him in. It's hard to be the MVP when your team boasts three of the top six players in the league. But as far as best player? Lidstrom is that, hands down. No, he's not the guy most would choose first overall if you could draft a team from all NHLers for long term stability. But that is because of his age, not his ability. In that draft, I would hope to get Lidstrom in round two if I had an early pick, though. I wouldn't expect to see him still available by that point though.

Ovechkin as the best player just because he's a great goal scorer is like picking Bure because he was a great goal scorer. It's a bulls*** reason. You know better GST. Ovechkin is one of the best players in the league, but he's not the best. 65 goals or not, he's not the top player.

Ok, let me put this another way... How far ahead of the nearest three at their position were Ovechkin and Lidstrom in scoring? Ovechkin is an average of 11.7 points, or 10.4% Lidstrom is an average of 7 points ahead, or 10.0%. Not too terribly different. Ovechkin's might even be lower if Crosby had been healthy. Are you going to sit there and tell me that Ovechkin's MINOR advantage in offense negates Lidstrom's HUGE advantage in defense? I'll remind you of something: Ovechkin is below average to average defensively. Most of the league's top defensive defensemen are below average offensively and are defensive specialists. Lidstrom is special because he is elite at both ends of the ice.

Your argument fails, and here's why. You are saying because it's easier to teach players to be solid defensively than it is to teach them to be solid offensively, that RIGHT NOW a player who is the league's top defensive player and one of the league's best offensive players is not as good as a player who is the league's best offensive player and a BELOW AVERAGE defensive player. I'm not saying that you can't rank AO above Nick. I'm just saying that 'Defense is easier to teach' or 'AO is younger' aren't valid reasons for ranking AO ahead of Nick because neither of those have a bearing on how they would perform on the ice TODAY. If we're building a team, sure. But this is a 'who's the best player right now' list, not a 'who is going to be the best in five years' list.

If I had brought up Harvey, I'd have had to mention Eddie Giacomin, Andy Bathgate, Paul Coffey, Bernie Federko, and Tiny Thompson. And that would have just gotten out of hand.

Which is one reason why Lidstrom is #1 on most lists being posted.

The reason I laid out the modern-era thing was because a requirement of 350 games was a bit high for a pre-1967 player; look at the GP leaders for the Red Wings. Most of the guys with more than 350 GP are post-expansion players. Back in the first half of the 20th Century, the seasons were only 20, 30, 50 games long. That requires that a player be a Wing for more seasons. As far as HOF selection...if a player was one of the better defensemen in the league and played his best years as a Wing and played most of his career in Detroit, that beats a guy who played a couple decent seasons in Detroit after being great somewhere else, or played some solid seasons in Detroit then moved on to be great elsewhere. HOF careers don't necessarily trump non-HOF careers if the HOF was earned OUTSIDE of Detroit and the Detroit years were the low point of the career, and the non-HOF player had excellent years in Detroit which were the high point of his career. Another good example is Luc Robitaille vs Gerard Gallant. Gallant in a second over Robitaille for an all-Wings team...Gallant was better in his best Wings seasons, and played longer for Detroit. Robitaille, obviously, was the better overall player and is the HOFer. But not the better career as a Wing. If we were to argue 'best careers' or 'best WINGS careers' further, we'd have to make the following comparisons; leaving out Robitaille and Gallant as they've already been mentioned: Hasek (or Hall) v. Osgood Chelios/Park/Fetisov/Murphy (or Gadsby/Quackenbush/Salming/M.Howe) v. Konstantinov/Pronovost/Stewart/Chiasson Bucyk/Hull/Dionne/Larionov v. Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Redmond/S.Howe

Let's say that for modern-era (post-1967) defensemen we'll use a minimum of 350 games played for Detroit as a benchmark. That rules out Bill Gadsby, who played his best years elsewhere anyway. Larry Murphy also. Borje Salming, Brad Park, Paul Coffey and Slava Fetisov didn't play here long enough either. Chris Chelios clears the mark, but has spent most of his time with Detroit as a third-pairing defenseman while Chiasson was Detroit's best defenseman most of his time in Detroit. Bill Quackenbush is the only justifiable player who MIGHT take Chiasson's spot as he played long enough in Detroit, but he was traded just a couple years into his prime and continued on to excel for Boston, while Chiasson played his best years for Detroit and was traded after he started to decline rather than as he approached his peak. Please remember that this is specifically a WINGS All-Time team, not a 'All-Time Team (player must have played at least one game for Detroit)' or else every team would be REQUIRED to include Marcel Dionne, Luc Robitaille, and Brett Hull.

Stuart will not be #6. I shouldn't need to explain why.

This has more to do with the fact that the Norris is treated the same way the Hart is with regards to the playoffs; because many writers sort of view the Hart as a 'Best Forward' award. If the NHL added an award for 'Most Outstanding Forward' that was similar to the Norris and Vezina, I bet Hart voting starts to include many more defensemen and goaltenders, and truly excellent players on non-playoff teams start to get a bit more consideration if they aren't getting it. Guys like Tomas Kaberle, who is one of the very best defensemen in the league. That said...Nicklas Lidstrom on Columbus would still win the Norris. Perhaps not every year, but the fact that he's without a doubt one of the five best defensemen in the NHL at both ends of the ice is enough to say that he would still be capable of contending for the Norris every season. The only season recently where he didn't win the Norris came when his offensive production dipped due to the fact that he was playing a defensive safeguard role with Mathieu Schneider. Columbus would not be able to stack two guys with that much offensive talent on the same pairing.

Excellent defensive defenseman, booming shot, good positionally, played well both ways. At his best, he was an All-Star and received Norris votes. He also played the best years of his career as Detroit's top defenseman, back when the team was a regular season powerhouse but still a playoff flop.

Mine is assembled starting with a list of the best players, but at the end filled out to make the best 'team' rather than a collection of stars. Brendan Shanahan/Steve Yzerman/Sergei Fedorov Ted Lindsay/Sid Abel/Gordie Howe Alex Delvecchio/Norm Ullman/Mickey Redmond Pavel Datsyuk/Henrik Zetterberg/Gerard Gallant Syd Howe Nicklas Lidstrom/Vladimir Konstantinov Red Kelly/Marcel Pronovost Ebbie Goodfellow/Jack Stewart Steve Chiasson Terry Sawchuk Chris Osgood

An endless debate? GMR said Flip didn't belong on the third line because of his salary. A few people challenged that statement, and you took up the sword over it.

You do realize that 15-16 minutes for Filppula is actually a cut in ice time? Cleary and Samuelsson will also likely see a bit of a dip as they will be used less on the top two lines. Draper and Maltby will see a minor decrease as they go from being used as 3rd/4th tweeners to full-time fourth liners due to the overload in top-six caliber forwards. Hank and Dats probably also see a minor decrease. Drake's time plus the majority of the opened up ice time goes to Hossa; Hudler gets some as well. Filppula's increase in scoring output comes from playing with equal quality linemates as he had last season, for about the same amount of time, serving the same purpose but doing it on a lower line. This means he'll be doing everything he did last season with the same support cast against weaker opposition. Childishly? You'll have to explain that because I don't see how saying 'A player's contract doesn't earn him a spot on a top line' is childish.

Given that the league was only 12 teams at the start of your sample set and 30 teams at the end of it...it's hard to take '10+' as a serious ranking. Hell, a team that finished 7th in 1968 would have been below average offensively, but now would be in the top 25%. A better sampling would include a system based on percentile rank or offensive share...what percentage of the league's teams did they outscore, or how many of the league's goals were scored by the eventual Cup champs? Because a hard ranking system based on place that puts above average offensive teams from one era beneath below average offensive teams from another era based on nothing but league size is hugely flawed.

Let's take a quick look at the totals each player posted in the season they were/turned 23, and the season they were/turned 24, as this covers the last two seasons Hudler has played: Age 23 Datsyuk: 11g-24a-35pt, +4, 13:38 Zetterberg: 15g-28a-43pt, +15, 18:14 D/Z Average: 13g-26a-39pt, +10, 15:56 Hudler: 15g-10a-25pt, +16, 10:02 Age 24 Datsyuk: 12g-39a-51pt, +20, 15:27 Zetterberg: Did not play; 2004-05 Lockout D/Z Average: 12g-39a-51pt, +20, 15:27 Hudler: 13g-29a-42pt, +11, 13:10 Now, let's project Hudler's offense in each season over the average time per game played by the other two. Age 23 Hudler: 23g-15a-42pt, +24 D/Z Average: 13g-26a-39pt, +10, 15:56 Age 24 Hudler: 15g-34a-49pt, +13 D/Z Average: 12g-39a-51pt, +20, 15:27 It's interesting because at this point in their respective careers, Hudler is considered to be significantly better defensively than Datsyuk was, and has already proven he is capable of performing in the postseason; while the "postseason choker" tag haunted Datsyuk until recently. It's entirely possible that Hudler could end up as a better overall player than Datsyuk.

Flip should see around 15-16 minutes per night, and will likely see a minor increase in scoring output. But he wouldn't have been on the first line had Hossa night signed; without Hossa, we're still watching DZH as the top line and the second line is probably Hudler/Filppula/Franzen rather than Hudler/Zetterberg/Franzen. Draper moves up to center Cleary and Samuelsson, and either the Wings sign a veteran to take Drake's place or give it to one of the kids. Some combination of Maltby/Kopecky/Downey/McCarty/Helm/etc. on the fourth line.

So what? You said that Flip's paycheck needed to be justified by presence on the second line. Well, let's look at the lines if we just line them up by paycheck, picking the first three forwards, then the next three, and so on: Filppula/Datsyuk/Hossa Cleary/Zetterberg/Holmstrom Hudler/Draper/Samuelsson Maltby/Franzen/Downey Kopecky Let's now translate that into line numbers as they are laid out on Babcock's "preliminary" lines, using 5 to refer to any healthy scratch. 3/1/1 3/2/1 2/4/3 4/2/5 4 Seems like a world of difference between your opinion and that of a guy who just coached a team to a Stanley Cup win. The only pair that's together on salary who Babcock would play together are Hossa and Datsyuk. Wonder who knows better?

McCarty is about the 17th or 18th best forward the Wings currently have under contract. Hudler is in the top six. Suggesting Mac in the top 12 over Hudler is completely ludicrous.

In terms of points per minute, Hudler was our third most productive forward last season. And that was playing with a bunch of grinders. Now he'll be playing with Zetterberg. Nine Wings forwards played over 1000 minutes last season. The same nine were the only Wings forwards to score better than 12 points. Of those nine...Hudler is the only one to play less than 15 minutes per game. Yet only Dats and Z, two of the five best forwards in the game, outperformed him offensively. 70 points may not happen, but to suggest it's out of reach for Hudler is ludicrous given that he should be getting a bump of 3-4 minutes per night and will be playing with an elite center. 25-30 goals and 65-75 points doesn't seem far fetched.

The thing about the Selke is this: How does a forward compare with his teammates defensively? How then, do his teammates compare with the league defensively? If a forward is 'average' for his team, and his team is 'average' when compared to the league...he probably shouldn't be getting Selke votes. As far as Staal's case...part of the reason he gets so much praise is his age. He's very good defensively for his age; but I wouldn't call him one of the top five defensive forwards in the league. Granted, most of the guys who managed to get on someone's ballot I wouldn't call that. But when you have past finalists like Modano, Fedorov, Draper, Brind'Amour, and Conroy having solid seasons defensively and only being mentioned on a few ballots...I wouldn't expect a guy like Staal who isn't setting him apart from them to get anything more than one or two votes himself. I'll further note that two-thirds of the first place votes are accounted for by the finalists, half of the second place votes went to the top five, half of the third place votes went to the top 8 vote-getters, half of the 4th place votes went within the top 10, and half of the 5th place votes were gone within the top 13. If you expand it out to the top 30, you get all but three first place votes (a 3-way tie at 35th, each player with 1 first place vote and nothing else) then you have your list of Selke contenders and players who can be considered 'Number One' defensive forwards for this past season. So as for Pens fans saying Staal should be a Selke contender...he will be. He's very good defensively for his age...but if they think he's as good defensively as Z or Dats...no. As for a comparison to Wings forwards, he's probably somewhere between Franzen and Maltby. Which is right where he was in Selke voting compared to Wings forwards.