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Huselius would instantly be the worst defensive forward on the team. His offense is more the result of being somewhat talented and playing on Iginla's line. For more on this kind of phenomenon, see Dan Quinn, Rob Brown, Gerard Gallant or Bernie Nicholls in the 1988-89 season. And furthermore...Huselius would not be a top-six forward on the Wings; he doesn't have the defensive skills or physical play to make him a valid choice on the third or fourth line. Good player. Bad fit.

Bertuzzi for less than $1.5m to play third line with Hudler and Cleary=win. Bertuzzi for top 6 duty and/or for more than $1.5m=lose.

Just for the record... Curtis Joseph started 12 games for the Wings in the playoffs. His record was 4-8. To expand further, his record in games where the Wings did not outshoot their opposition was an impressive 0-1, and his record in games where he faced fewer shots was 4-7. Joseph saw no games where both teams had equal shots. Let's compare that with Chris Osgood's Cup run from this season. Record in games where Wings outshot opposition: 13-4 Record in games where Wings did not outshoot opposition: 1-0 Both goaltenders saw one game in which the Wings did not outshoot their opponent. Joseph lost it, Ozzie won it. Ozzie won nine more games than Joseph, and lost five fewer. Osgood also had several games in the postseason this year where he could be considered to have stolen the game in the playoffs. Joseph never accomplished that feat in a Wings sweater.

Grant Fuhr. Name the two players whose only career NHL game came in the Cup final for the Cup-winning team.

Well, the question is.... What does $4m get you from a forward? How about $4m from a defenseman? Consider that question. Now consider that Streit is coming off a 60+ point season and has averaged better than .5 PPG over his NHL career. $4m isn't a bad deal for Streit if he produces offense to the level he has the past couple seasons, regardless of whether he is up front or on the blueline.

Just for those of you with unrealistic thoughts about our defense this coming season (i.e. anything including Ericsson on the NHL roster) the defense will look something like this: Lidstrom/Rafalski Kronwall/Stuart Meech/Lilja/Chelios/Lebda/Quincey There are a few possible solutions to this dilemma of 'too many defensemen'. In order of how likely they are to occur: 75% - Trade or waive one of the bottom four currently signed defensemen; most to least likely: Lebda, Lilja, Meech, Quincey 20% - Convert Derek Meech or Brett Lebda to forward full-time. 4% - Do not re-sign Chris Chelios. 1% - Trade one of our top-four defensemen. I see the Wings sending Lebda packing, as he offers the least potential and is the most replaceable player on the unit. Meech is an upgrade in pretty much every way except experience. If the Wings keep Chelios, then Lebda's experience advantage is pretty worthless. If the Wings don't keep Chelios, that solves the problem.

Because I think Jiri Hudler, the Wings forward with the third most raw offensive talent, could have scored just as many goals as Johan Franzen did playing a month on the first line and first PP?

Visnovsky>>>Souray. The best analogy I can think of? If Phoenix were to go out and acquire Sergei Gonchar to play in front of Ed Jovanovski. They already have a capable PP quarterback who is a defensive liability...but the new guy is better offensively and defensively.

Franzen got hot while he was playing with D and Z, and then had a good four-game run playing on the second line against an Avs team that put everything it had against Detroit's top line. I am not convinced Hudler wouldn't have scored like crazy in the same situation; plus I specifically kept the 'FFS' line together due to chemistry. With Hossa added to the team, FFS can be no higher than the third line unless you have Dats/Zetterberg/Hossa as the first line and Cleary/Hudler/Holmstrom as the third line.

Some Cup-related trivia... Name one of the two players whose only career NHL game came in the Cup finals for the winning team.

If the Wings signed Hossa...I wouldn't blink an eye in shifting, if only as a test phase, to a Holmstrom/Zetterberg/Hossa and Hudler/Datsyuk/Cleary setup, or something similar. Franzen/Filppula/Samuelsson as the third line instead of the second?

I trust Lilja in the #4 role more than I do Lebda. But I expect it to be Meech or Chelios if nobody else is signed. Meech outperformed Lebda and Lilja both when a top-four role was required, and Chelios is still Chelios. Most likely, we'll see a 50-game season for Chelios in a top-four capacity. This allows us to rest him when need be and to get Lebda/Meech/Quincey some decent time in, yet we aren't relying on unproven youth to be key players.

In some sports, notably football, a player's number choices are limited by his position. Traditionally in hockey, the goaltender would wear #1, defensemen would wear any number under #10, and forwards would pick from the remainder. Typically, no player on a roster would have a number above #25. There have, of course, always been exceptions to this. When teams began to carry a backup goaltender, the second goalie would typically wear the number 30 as it was not a number that was going to be worn. More recently, goaltenders have worn #30 because there have been some higher profile goaltenders to wear the number, because #1 was unavailable, or because they were assigned a number. Numbers close to 30 (29,31,32,33,34,35, etc) have been used due in many cases to numbers being unavailable at one point or another during a player's career and that player sticking with the number.

JUST TO KNOCK IT INTO PEOPLE'S HEADS: MORE MONEY IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CAP SPACE. MORE MONEY IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CAP SPACE. MORE MONEY IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CAP SPACE. MORE MONEY IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CAP SPACE. MORE MONEY IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CAP SPACE. MORE MONEY IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CAP SPACE. MORE MONEY IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CAP SPACE. MORE MONEY IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CAP SPACE. The cap hit is the same in all years, regardless of what the 'wage' is for that season. Front-loading a contract does not mean you take a bigger cap hit earlier.

Until they fail to sign any of these players they have 'traded for' and turn out to have given up assets for nothing. And when will they be improving the defense?

The point I think that is being missed is that Bryzgalov is a better goaltender than Giguere. Younger and cheaper too. The point being that Burke should have capitalized on Giguere's trade value and shipped him out instead; even if Burke didn't get 'fair' value for Giguere he would have gotten a decent return, and certainly closer to 'fair' value than he got for Bryzgalov.

I'm going to remove all the players on the list of Burke's acquisitions who were not top six forwards, top four defensemen, or the starting goaltender during the Cup run. I am also going to remove players who had already planned on signing with the Ducks before Burke was hired. Third-pairing defenseman in Columbus who worked out because he was instantly paired with Scott Niedermayer, who was able to cover most of Beauchemin's deficiencies. He was an expendable young player that could go to Anaheim in return for what was effectively a salary dump by Burke. A salary dump by Phoenix; O'Donnell was deemed too old and expensive for the Yotes, after he had been signed to play in the top our and was then made expendable by the performance of youngsters Zbynek Michalek, Paul Mara, Keith Ballard, and Derek Morris. Burke's acquisition of O'Donnell can be viewed two ways; either as a prelude to expecting the defection of Salei that summer (signed as a UFA with Florida) or as a statement to Salei of 'this guy is who we want to spend this money on.' Judging by Burke's history and attitude, I would more readily believe the second statement as Anaheim never really made an effort to retain Salei, who was and still is a better AND YOUNGER defenseman than O'Donnell and signed with Florida for almost exactly the same amount O'Donnell was making per year. Traded for a top young winger, a top defensive prospect, two first round picks, and a second round pick. Given that Pronger has a third place and ninth place finish in Norris voting since being acquired for that price, and he has yet to be the Ducks' best defenseman over a season, I would argue that trade was overpayment, especially given that Pronger had requested a trade. Ultimately, Burke was trading for a top three defenseman, so it's not like this can be called a bad trade. There you have the list of 'significant' acquisitions Burke made who were around for the Cup. You'll notice I also removed Kunitz; this is because he was around when Burke was hired, and was claimed by Atlanta via waivers and played two games for the Thrashers before the Ducks were able to get him back via waivers. That doesn't count as a Burke acquisition unless you count Doug Brown as a Ken Holland acquisition for the 98-99 season. Three significant deals. Two of which his motive seems to be more about ridding his team of defensively sound Europeans and replacing them with Canadians who are downgrades. Another in which he traded away a skilled young winger, an elite level defensive prospect, and two first picks to get a guy who would be his #2 defenseman. I would argue the only thing Burke did as far as Anaheim's Cup was to not destroy the roster until after they won. As it stands, the Ducks are not going back to the top any time soon after Burke's series of bad decisions this year that downgraded the talent on the team while removing youth in favor of aging veterans who won't be back.

If Bertuzzi can be had for a cap hit below $1.5m and is willing to play third line with Hudler and Cleary, he's welcome to a two or three year deal. If he wants more than that or doesn't want to play bottom-six, then no thank you Mr. Bertuzzi.

You are referring to THN's Future Watch top 50... Which has two Red Wings players listed; Jakub Kindl and Jonathan Ericsson. That's not shocking until you look at the team section and see that Kindl is ranked as the #2 Wings prospect behind Jimmy Howard, who is not ranked in the top 50. Ericsson is not included in Detroit's top 5 prospects, yet Brendan Smith is. Matthias isn't on the Florida list, either. That just cements the credibility that list has when you consider that some players are simultaneously ranked as 'Among the best prospects owned by NHL teams' and simultaneously 'not among the best prospects owned by their team. I don't think any team had more than five players show up on the top-50 list, so the instance of 'top-50' players not appearing on their team's top-5 list simply means that THN loses credibility as far as this kind of list since they clearly have no clue which players are a team's best prospects as they can't seem to decide whether certain players - Matthias included - are a team's best prospect or outside their top five.

Ok. If Hamrlik isn't a career #1...then neither are Zdeno Chara, Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger, Brian Rafalski, or Larry Murphy. Because after all, those guys were all the second or third best defensemen on their teams for many seasons. Or maybe, when I said 'Career #1' I meant he is a guy who is in the top 30 (or 24, or 26, or however many teams there are at the time) defensemen in the NHL most seasons of his career. The fact that he was repeatedly selected to the All-Star game underscores this point, as it indicates his status as one of the better defensemen in the NHL. And btw...if Weber is the 5th best defenseman Nashville had this season, as his playing time indicates....then he would definitely have a hard time making the Wings' roster. Think about it. Would you take Greg DeVries over all of Andreas Lilja/Chris Chelios/Brett Lebda? If your answer is anything other than a resounding yes, then you agree with me; because Trotz played DeVries more than Weber this year, and unless you think DeVries is CONSIDERABLY better than the Wings' third pairing, Weber would have had his hands full based on the fact that Weber was behind DeVries on the depth chart, and would therefore have struggled to make the Wings' top-6. It is not a claim that Weber will never be great; simply that he isn't great right now. He is, however, overrated. Proof of that is available in the fact that Weber, with one 5th place vote, was the only Predator to be mentioned in Norris balloting; despite the fact that his playing time ranks him as Nashville's #5 and not the NHL's #5.

Stacy Roest...outperformed both members of the Joe Thornton/Rick Nash combination in Swiss League play during the lockout. Imagine if that level of play could have translated to the NHL? Roest would have been UNSTOPPABLE.

Emery has plenty of talent. However...he would have to come here fully accepting that he was signing on to compete for the backup position, and would have to sign for the league minimum or close to it. If he can do that, then I have faith in his ability to put the mental issues behind him. Especially once he'd be partnered with a guy like Chris Osgood, who has been one of the most mentally tough goaltenders in the league his whole career. If Emery isn't willing to accept a backup role and salary, he has no place in Detroit. If he is willing to do so, then he jumps to #1 on my list of UFA goaltenders I would like to see the Wings pursue, ahead of Brent Krahn and Alex Auld. Finally... No, I don't think Emery will be in Detroit, for precisely the reason I don't expect him to accept the backup salary; moreover, I think there will be a team that will offer him more than Ozzie makes plus a shot at the starting job. He wouldn't get either in Detroit.

Matthias wasn't one of the top ten prospects in the Wings system. He is projected as a second or third line two-way center. He's not that good. Yes, he scored 2 goals in his first four games and played a significant amount. Yes, he scored pretty well for Belleville in his last year of juniors. But he's not going to be a star at the NHL level. Matthias will be lucky to be a Dallas Drake type of player; a skilled defender, a feared hitter, and capable of potting 15-20 goals on a season. If you are expecting more from him, you are expecting too much. I would have preferred to not have given up Matthias for Bertuzzi...but that is due more to the fact that I think Bertuzzi was an unneccessary acquisition and didn't want to give ANYONE up for him.

The Wings have about 8m available for a one-year deal for a guy like that. I just don't expect it to happen because anyone worth that much will be looking for longer term, and anyone who isn't wouldn't be worth throwing our roster out of whack to accomodate them with the knowledge that they almost certainly won't be returning the next season. Although the Bertuzzi buyout makes things interesting...Cleary/Hudler/Bertuzzi for a third line anybody? If he would sign for less than $1.5m, I'd give it a shot. The worst case scenario is that he's waived and we are where we'd be without trying him.

Roman Hamrlik has been a #1 defenseman for most of his career. He has played in three All-Star games, and his top two offensive performances are not included in those years. He has been one of the better two-way performers among blueliners for most of his career. Hamrlik offensively with the Habs has performed FAR below his career average. This is due primarily to the fact that Montreal is the first team he has played for that did not immediately implement him as their top offensive defenseman; Montreal has Andrei Markov for that role. Hamrlik has been used as a secondary scorer among defensemen and has been used in a much more defensive role as Montreal's other top defensemen are significantly less capable in that regard. As far as value is concerned, Hamrlik is a better value for the dollar than Chris Pronger, Mathieu Schneider, Sheldon Souray, Rob Blake, Ed Jovanovski, Bryan McCabe, and many other defensemen making similar money or more money.