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Hmm...I don't know if you can call it a solid defensive unit when the best defensive player on it has yet to play in the NHL...

Ignorance. Lidstrom was clearly a leader while Yzerman was still around. Zetterberg in his first couple seasons wasn't going to be a leader on a roster with guys like Yzerman and Shanahan who have been viewed as great leaders much of their careers. Franzen wasn't going to get more ice time with Yzerman and Shanahan around. So ultimately, the only one you can realistically rag on is Datsyuk for not stepping up. And guess what? Until he proved this season he could play in the clutch, Datsyuk was ripped on mercilessly. Yzerman retiring did not cost the Wings a Stanley Cup. Yzerman's presence on the team would not have changed the result against Anaheim...the problem was that with Schneider and Kronwall out, our PP point men consisted of Lidstrom, Samuelsson, Chelios, and Lebda. That's a Norris winner, an unspectacular 2-way winger who makes bad shot decisions, a stay at home defenseman who has scored 62 points in 287 games the past four seasons, and our #6 defenseman who has scored 30 in 120 in his career. And I will remind you: Yzerman was not pushed out the door like some players have been. The Wings were trying to convince Yzerman to return for the 06-07 season.

Zetterberg is significantly better than Dats...so the listed order either doesn't mean anything as faras ice time, or it's a function of line strength, and Dats' playmaking is seen as a better asset given the wingers he'll be with vs the wingers Hank will have. And if it is looking like that, I would expect Hudler on Dats' line, to give him every shot at becoming the sniper he's shown he could be.

And it doesn't change the fact that Nill's comment on Grigorenko and Dats was the only thing we had heard regarding the lineup until this Babcock article.

Messier hung on way too long. His last few years was still playing on the Rangers' first or second line, even though he hadn't contributed much defensively in a decade and he was scoring barely a point every two games. Messier was also making 4m at the time. He signed this as a 2-year deal worth 8m after scoring 23 points in 43 games in 01-02. WTF? As far as all-time ranking...Yzerman was better than Messier. He doesn't get credit for it because Messier always gets the 'he's a great leader and a great player, he won six Cups!' without having to have the negative qualifiers of 'he won four Cups on the second line behind Gretzky' and 'He scored 50 once and 40 three other times, and the two best years came on Gretzky's wing' Messier isn't second in scoring because he was an amazing offensive player. He's second in scoring because he played his best years in the most wide-open, weakest defensive and goaltending era the league has ever seen, and he played well past his effectiveness. Messier's average stat line over the 24.57 seasons he played (94-95 counts as .57) was as follows: 71GP, 28g-49a-77pts Yzerman's average stat line for his 21.57 is: 70 GP, 32g-49a-79pts So offensively, they had pretty similar careers, the major difference being Yzerman played his best years with third liners while Messier played his best years with Gretzky, Kurri, Anderson, Coffey, etc. As far as defense, though, one of them was a Selke contender for most of their career. The other is Mark Messier.

Since we always have so many doomsday predictors for the fate of the Wings, I thought I'd put together a little example of why exactly the Wings will dominate the Central this year. I took the rosters of the other four Central division teams and combined them into two teams; the Illinois Black and Blues(Chicago/St. Louis) and Kentucky Fur Coats (Columbus/Nashville). I tried to pick the best roster available from roster players under contract, and did not use prospects who have yet to play in the NHL such as Toews and Kane. I also limited the rosters to two players 35 and up. Illinois Black and Blues Paul Kariya 6.0m/Doug Weight 3.5m/Martin Havlat 6.0m Keith Tkachuk 4.0m/Tuomo Ruutu 1.875m/Lee Stempniak 2.5m Petr Cajanek 1.85m/Patrick Sharp 775k/Brad Boyes 1.5m Rene Bourque 825k/Ryan Johnson 800k/Jamal Mayers 1.333m Kevyn Adams 650k FORWARD TOTAL 31.608 Duncan Keith 1.475m/Barret Jackman 2.2m Eric Brewer 4.25m/Jay McKee 4.0m Christian Backman 2.3m/Brent Seabrook 942k James Wisniewski 650k D DEFENSE TOTAL15.817m G Manny Legace 2.15m G Hannu Toivonen 532k GOALTENDER TOTAL 2.682m TOTAL PAYROLL 50.107 Kentucky Fur Coats Rick Nash 5.4m/Sergei Fedorov 6.08m/Steve Sullivan 3.2m JP Dumont 2.25/Jason Arnott 4.5m/David Vyborny 2.2m Martin Erat 1.675/David Legwand 1.875m/Alexander Radulov 919k Martin Gelinas 1.25m/Radek Bonk 1.475m/Jason Chimera 875k Darcy Hordichuk 517k FORWARD TOTAL 32.216m Marek Zidlicky 3.35m/Rostislav Klesla 1.6m Dan Hamhuis 2.0m/Shea Weber 610k Greg deVries 2.5m/Ryan Suter 785k Ron Hainsey 738k D DEFENSE TOTAL11.583m G Chris Mason 1.25m G Pascal Leclaire 1.05m GOALTENDER TOTAL 2.3m TOTAL PAYROLL 46.099 Now you may notice some high profile players missing from these rosters (Foote, Khabibulin, Lang, Brule, etc.) These decisions were made because either the player was too expensive for the role he would play (Foote, Khabi, Lang, Modin, Westcott) or another player would have fit better in the spot he would have ended up in for similar cost (Brule v. Bonk for 4th line center.) Ultimately, this exercise proves the Wings will continue to own the Central, because even combining the rest of the division's best players into fewer teams, you don't come up with rosters better than Detroit's. EDIT: formatting

Hmm. Nashville traded Timonen and Hartnell because they were significantly overpriced. Nashville traded Vokoun because he cost significantly more than Mason, who outplayed him last season in the same number of games. Kariya left because he thought the team was moving to Hamilton, and because the Blues offered him $6m. Forsberg still may return. Arnott, Sullivan, Dumont, Legwand, Erat, Radulov, Zidlicky, Weber, Hamhuis, Suter, Mason are still around. DeVries has been added. Bonk has been added. Gelinas has been added. Doesn't sound like rebuilding...more like retooling. EDIT: Also, Nashville is still $1m below the cap floor, based on 14 forwards, 7 defensemen, and 2 goalies that ARE under contract. This would mean that the minimum they can do is sign a player who makes 1.5m, because someone would have to come off the roster as well. According to TSN, Forsberg has said he only wants to play for Colorado, Philadelphia, or Nashville. Philly has no cap space, and Colorado's would be basically wiping out their remaining cap space with Floppa. Nashville seems to be the likely destination.

If Yzerman's knees didn't get messed up, he'd be the Wings' all-time leading scorer and would be second all-time in scoring. But that's not what happened, and we can't say 'Yzerman should have bionic legs installed so he can play ten more years!' Or perhaps you'd have rather had Yzerman go out like Messier and Coffey went out...as players who could contribute very little to a team, and were only hanging on for individual glory.

It sort of spawned fro mthe Oct 6th GDT...I was going to comment (in response to a comment about a Blues/Hawks game) about how you could combine the Blues and Hawks to make one decent team...and it sort of just snowballed from there.

Except if that happens, they would have to trade somebody. They don't have enough cap space left for both Selanne and Niedermayer.

Fixed it.

Jim Nill said Grigs would be playing with Dats right away to see if he would stick. So I was using that in all my mock ups, which usually looked something like: Holmstrom/Zetterberg/Samuelsson Filppula/Datsyuk/Grigorenko Cleary/Hudler/Franzen Maltby/Draper/Drake Kopecky Also, I don't see Kopecky centering the fourth line you posted..Drake would get that job as he is an excellent faceoff man. If Grigorenko is removed from the top two lines as in your lineup, I would expect Draper on the third line centering Cleary and Franzen, with Hudler and Flip on the wings with Hank and Dats, respectively, and Homer playing with Dats.

The preseason games vs the East are designed to appease the crowd that is upset about not seeing the other conference during the regular season, I thought that was pretty obvious. Has anyone checked to see whether this is an anomaly or the norm as far as preseason schedules?

News to me. I've heard Grigs will be with Dats, Homer and Z will of course be on the top two, leaving a selection of Filppula, Samuelsson, Franzen, Cleary, and Hudler. I guess I expected Hudler to be Babcock's last pick of those guys to actually get worthwhile playing time given the fact that last season he was the only one who didn't get a shot on the first line at some point, and that Babcock benched him in favor of a recently-back-from-long-term-injury Kopecky, who is 6'3, 205, and posted 22 PIM in 26 games, which projects to 68 PIM over 80 games.

I knew I forgot somebody.

Holland has a decent sniper. Babcock refuses to play him because he's not 6'3, 205 with 70 PIM per 80 games.

Rafalski is an good defensive defenseman. Nobody's perfect, but Rafalski is on the high end of guys in the league, and is one of the few defensemen who can claim to be a top-30 offensive defenseman and a top-30 defensive defenseman (Lidstrom, Pronger, Chara, Niedermayer, Zubov, Redden and Phaneuf rounding out the group), while many more guys fall into the group of one or the other.

And I never claimed as such. Above I even stated it was not. But it was a major reason.

Especially considering players have worn #91. Palffy used to wear 68, but that was because it was assigned to him because the description 'skilled Czech' reminded the equipment manager of Jagr.

Vladdy was great, but he wasn't great for long enough to justify the retirement. If we retire it because his career was cut short, we then have to hang up Jiri Fischer. If we are going based just on level of greatness, putting Vladdy up means Ozzie, Shanahan, Fedorov, Red Kelly, Ullman. Ullman especially, as he has the kind of stats you generally look for, and it would mean both his #16 and his #7 were hanging in the rafters, so there's no reason not to honor him at that point.

What Fedorov said pretty much is in line with what I have already heard. The Wings offered a 5 year, 50m deal that Fedorov liked, then changed it to a 4 year, 40m deal. Fedorov instead opted to sign a 5 year, 40m deal. No matter what you think of the guy, that is NOT chasing the money. Please stop regurgitating inaccurate opinions that are likely based on bigotry.

As Fedorov was pretty much the only available top-six forward who was defensively reliable for either squad, I based many of my picks on offense for value. They do have more offense in the top six, but the Wings have the two best defensemen in the division, and Holmstrom, Hudler, and Grigorenko are the only forward in the Wings' top twelve that aren't good enough defensively to play PK for most teams. Also, Mason is the only goalie listed who would have a chance at making the Detroit roster even as a backup. A good top six is a good start, but you need good defense and good goaltending to have real success.

I don't give a flying f*** whether you or some dumb ***** on TV agrees with whether dog fighting is inhumane. That's irrelevant to this issue. The only important fact is that dog fighting is illegal, and has been so since before Vick were born. The proper sentence in this case would be for the four defendants to fight arena matches until only one is left.

The originality is more brilliant on here, because we're LGW and that's just a fact of life.

Using Ozzie's save percentage and the total combined time played and shots face by Lalime and Sanford, Ozzie would have allowed about 30 fewer goals over the season in the same number of shots and minutes. That's a MASSIVE difference. One thing that's noticeable; the Blues in 03-04 were seven goals on the minus side, yet still posted 91 points. Based on goal differential, that should translate to the 05-06 Blues posting about 64 points. Not far off what really happened, and goal differential generally is a good predictor of win-loss record. That 30 goal difference I mentioned earlier? The Blues lost 19 games, or about 25% by 1 goal, including 15 OTLs. If we assume 7 of the 30 goals not allowed, or about 25%, come in those 19 games, that's an increase of a minimum 7 points. Given Ozzie's history of locking it down in clutch situations as compared to Lalime's history of NOT locking it down, and perhaps a higher percentage of goals in tight games are not allowed, meaning a greater number of points the record would increase by. I would surmise that Osgood on the 2005-06 Blues would have resulted in a 75-80 point season for the team.