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You won't be getting Zherdev for less than $3m. As for the comparison to Hudler, the only thing Zherdev has on Jiri is speed. Put Hudler with Datsyuk and Filppula and you'll get 80+ points. And Hudler is a much harder worker and better backchecker WITHOUT needing to be "motivated" by playing with Datsyuk. Connolly hasn't matched his pre-contract production during his two-year contract. However, due to contract inflation and the fact that his salary from this past season is $4.5, much higher than it was in 2008-09 when he signed his 2-year, $9m deal, he will likely get closer to $5m. Here are your forward lines, updated with Zherdev replaced and prices changed. I have always liked Connolly, and would love to see him on the Wings, but realistically - especially looking at that lineup - I don't see it happening. That would give the Wings seven forwards priced at $2.8m or higher. Wisniewski won't be that cheap. He made $3.25m last year. Babchuk won't be that cheap. He made $1.4m last season. We're probably looking at $4.5m and $2.5m for those guys, respectively. So we'll figure that part in. As for the one-year deal for Babchuk, I don't think I see Holland doing that; if he signs a guy like Babchuk he'll go for at least two or three years. As for Ericsson, Babchuk would be coming in to replace him if he comes to town at all. So let's cut him out, and put in Doug Janik as the 7th, with Kindl taking Ericsson's 3rd pairing spot. So we've got a solid unit of defensemen, but again more expensive than you were expecting. Wiz won't replace Raffi, but he'll provide some solid offense and good physical play. Osgood will likely return as the backup, but for minimal cap hit. As for Boucher, he put up a comparable performance to Pekka Rinne, and significantly outplayed both Marc-Andre Fleury and Antti Niemi. He faced 30 shots per game behind a weak and ineffective defense, yet managed to lead the team to the second round despite his coach's refusal to commit to his top goaltender, and the other two goalies on the team playing terrible hockey. Boucher would definitely be my choice for a backup if Osgood were to retire, but Osgood has already made clear his desire to return. Well, there's your goaltending tandem. Howard should have a better year after the sophomore slump, and Osgood hopefully won't have a season-ending injury. Holland, of course, will sign a solid veteran like Joey Mac who is good enough to fill the backup role but will clear waivers, just in case. Unless McCollum, Pearce, or Larsson show that they are ready for the job. So what does this do to the final cap hit? Well, it cuts pretty close, but still fits. So it's possible to produce your roster at the likely cap hits for these guys, but I don't see it happening. Unless someone goes nuts on Big Rig, that would be the first place I would expect a cap-saving move made. He'd get $500k or so less, if not more, so Holland would have a bit of flexibility he wouldn't otherwise have with only a minor downgrade. It's also more likely Ericsson is re-signed than Babchuk is brought in.

Please find me a dietician who says that Hudler sucks and it's for health reasons. Note: I have never called Hudler a future superstar, please stop putting words in my mouth. TY.

7uongo wasn't technically wrong in his analysis with regards to his style vs. Thomas' style. But his statement was "That's going to happen" in such a manner as if Thomas was acting carelessly. He said it in a flippant, arrogant manner suggesting he felt his style made him a better goaltender than Thomas. It's like asking the question "What flavor of ice cream should I have for breakfast?" Technically, there's nothing wrong. But normal, healthy people don't have ice cream for breakfast; hence the problem.

Wade Redden doesn't really count; he was traded for Bryan Berard immediately after being drafted because Berard, drafted one pick sooner, refused to play for Ottawa. Tim Connolly and Taylor Pyatt were dealt for Michael Peca. Peca starred for the Islanders for a few seasons as he tailed off, before being traded to Edmonton for Detroit native Mike York, a deal that gained back the Islanders a skilled young forward by dumping an older, declining forward on his last contract year. Raffi Torres was traded with depth forward Brad Isbister to acquire Janne Niinimaa to solidify NYI's defense, as well as a 2nd and a 4th. Eric Brewer was traded along with a mediocre prospect and a 2nd round pick for a 26-year-old Roman Hamrlik, who was one of the best defensemen in the league at the time. You would make that deal too.

7uongo's analysis may have been accurate with regards to his chances of stopping the goal as opposed to Thomas', but it was trash talking. "It's not hard if you're playing in the paint, so, it's an easy save for me. But if you're wandering out and aggressing, like he does, that's gonna happen." 7uongo's basically saying that the goal happened because Thomas was careless.

Let's flip that around. How many points would Hudler have scored on Datsyuk's line? Modano scored one point on a play he had nothing to do with. I'm sure Hudler could have put up a few given that he actually WAS contributing offensively. Abdelkader's penalties were a big negative for the team, and I wondered why he wasn't taken out for a game, maybe playing a third line role with Flip and Bert/Homer or something. But of all the forwards who played for the Wings this season, Modano was the least effective. Even the kids on their call ups had an impact in a small period of time. Modano had a few good moments packed into the whole season, but was otherwise useless. Modano had been playing top-six minutes and PP to start the year, and was all the way down to a healthy scratch in the playoffs. There are reasons for these things.

Wait, do you mean this one? I don't see how your statement has any relation to what I said at all, other than the fact that you brought up Holland coming up with alternatives to trying to sign Weber or Doughty; which isn't the point because that brings RFA into the argument. Burns is currently signed and turns UFA next summer. It's like dropping Rafalski for Ehrhoff. What do you lose? He's younger, cheaper, less injured, better player (right now) so why would Holland not make that move with Rafalski retiring? Tell me PLEASE what your logic is on this?

Burns is a UFA next year, not an RFA. And my comparison was specifically Burns to Rafalski, as far as your "youth" comment.

If he's replacing a player who made similar money and was similar skill or worse, but ten to fifteen years older... why not? Because? You underestimate the power of the... Ken Holland.

Rafalski's decision didn't screw the Wings other than to throw a wrench into their roster for next season, and make the FA season more important. But his retirement means they should have a defenseman of similar skill level signed past next season going INTO next season. Previously, Lidstrom (if retained), Rafalski, Kronwall, and Stuart would all have turned UFA next summer. That's potential for complete turnover and possibly serious destruction of the defensive unit. Rafalski's retirement plus significant cap space now means the Wings can easily avoid that scenario.

About 60% of forwards and 70% of defensemen shoot left-handed. You can't just go out and get a right-handed shot because there are far fewer of them. This is despite the fact that around 90% of adult males are right-hand dominant. The reason? In a lot of North American developmental leagues, players are taught to use their dominant hand as the top hand on the stick so that they have more strength and control on the stick in one-handed situations such as a poke-check. European leagues and some North American leagues work primarily on the idea of putting your dominant hand lower on the stick, for power on the puck in shooting situations. Ovechkin is a prime example. Yzerman and Hull are also good examples. They all have/had blistering wrist shots powered by their right-handed shot. I personally am ambidextrous, but I shoot right, and my right arm is stronger. I have also broken my left arm in three places.

1) Richards will probably get more than $7m. 2) You have no seventh defenseman (I'll assume Doug Janik, as he is signed and fits within the remaining cap space) 3) Joey MacDonald will almost certainly NOT be the backup. 4) The chances of the Wings trading Franzen and Kindl and replacing them with Richards and Burns, and signing Jokinen to replace Hudler (who I assume you traded for picks) while scratching Tomas Holmstrom and dressing all three of Mursak, Miller, and Abdelkader? If the Wings trade Franzen/Kindl for Burns and then sign Jokinen and Wisniewski, and trade Hudler for picks, and decide to go with a 22-man roster? The 13th forward would be Cory Emmerton, and Drew Miller would be playing elsewhere. But the chances of the Wings dumping that kind of deal on Richards is low. It would only happen if we'd already made a deal with Franzen, but the Franzen deal wouldn't be agreed to officially until the Richards deal was signed. The Wings need to have that cap space available for defensemen to replace Lidstrom and Rafalski, and potentially next year Kronwall and Stuart.

Have you noticed that all of the top-paid goalies are either in the East, or were in the East when they received their deals and haven't really looked worth that much in the West? Interesting.

Team of Shane Doans? Although on second though that might result in the world being sucked into a black hole when a goal is scored.

Alright genius. Go trade your one center who isn't average or worse at the dot, and get back a winger who is at best average on draws. Let's see how that works for your team on faceoffs. Carter is a defensively skilled center who is very good on faceoffs. He's their only guy who fits that label. Philly won't be trading him for a primarily offensive winger who is maybe average on faceoffs unless that winger is an Ovechkin or Jagr type. Filppula also fits that label. So it makes sense for a Carter-to-Detroit deal to be structured around him, not Hudler. Holland would probably prefer to deal Hudler, but I don't see Holmgren making that deal without Helm involved; and Filppula is probably gone before Helm is. If it were for Mike Richards, Holmgren probably would be fine with Hudler instead of Flip, but would still ask for an Abdelkader or Helm in the deal to improve his team's faceoff capabilities. It's called logic. Try it.

I know! Screw this Carter stuff... Trade Flip, Abby, and Kindl for Mike Richards and Braydon Coburn. Sign Brad Richards. Leaves about $7m total after signing Lidstrom, Eaves, Draper/Miller, Osgood. Up to $5.5m on one of Pitkanen/Ehrhoff/Bieksa/Wisniewski. Meech/Janik to fill out the defense unless Smith absolutely blows it away at camp. Hudler/Datsyuk/Cleary Franzen/Zetterberg/Holmstrom Richards/Richards/Bertuzzi Mursak/Helm/Eaves Miller/Emmerton Kronwall/Stuart Lidstrom/Ehrhoff Meech/Coburn Janik Howard Osgood Whaddya think? Looks great, right?

The problem is, as I've stated before, Carter is Philly's go-to faceoff guy. They won't be dealing him without getting a faceoff guy back. Your deal would either have to see Abdelkader added, or Hudler swapped out for Filppula. Ultimately I don't see it going down without Filppula going the other way; Franzen is good on draws and a good player, but he's older than Carter, worse defensively, and a worse passer. Similar in that both are snipers first, but there's not enough cap relief there. Especially with what is lost. Flip has everything Carter does except the shot. And that's a $2.25m difference, which if Philly is lucky might be enough to buy Leino's shot. Post about Meszaros

Enstrom and Edler are the most attractive options... so of course they're a couple of years away. Lydman, Suter, Burns are the only other guys I would put on the level of the four guys you listed. There are other UFAs I didn't list in those years (such as Gonchar); I simply listed those who were younger and fit what the Wings will or should be looking for at that point.

Mursak, Abby, and a 2nd for Carter is a steal. There's a good chance only one of Mursak or Abby will be a regular forward on the Wings this coming season. So we're looking at trading a young 4th liner and a young spare forward plus a pick for an elite goal scorer. And age isn't really that big of a factor; Carter is 26, Abdelkader is 24, Mursak is 23. So the only thing here is, do you think that keeping Mursak and Abdelkader, knowing that you'll get maybe 100-120 man-games between them next season and possibly the season after, do you think that beats out Carter's 70-80 games on immediate impact? And do you think having Carter long-term as a top-line caliber player while Mursak and Abdelkader develop into 3rd liners or potentially 2nd liners, and the Wings get a player with the pick who has to go through the development process... which helps the team out more in the next ten years? I would say that trading for Carter, by a wide margin. If they take a Mursak/Abby deal instead of the Flip/Abby deal I posted, the Wings CAN'T refuse. It would be stupid. The Wings would be able to dress lines like this: Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Hudler/Carter/Cleary Franzen/Filppula/Bertuzzi Draper/Helm/Eaves Franzen/Zetterberg/Bertuzzi Filppula/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Hudler/Carter/Cleary Draper/Helm/Eaves Zetterberg/Carter/Cleary Filppula/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Franzen/Hudler/Bertuzzi Draper/Helm/Eaves Most NHL teams would be happy with any of those first three lines as their top line. One to test out of course would be Franzen/Carter/Bertuzzi... but I don't see that one working out very well.

I don't expect to get either. They have $4.5m to sign 3 forwards, a defenseman, and Bryzgalov, plus perhaps another forward or defenseman. Instead of trading out Carter or Richards, I would expect Versteeg to be the first out of town. He's easily the least important of their five highest paid forwards, and he's overpaid for what he provides on the ice. Deal him for a pick and a prospect, maybe sign a faceoff specialist like Draper to take his place. That's $2.5m in space freed up, and they still need to sign 3 forwards, a defenseman, and Bryz. Say Bryz costs $7m. Now we're flat even, and need to free up space to sign 3 forwards and a defenseman. Specifically Carcillo, Nodl, and Powe, plus O'Donnell or his replacement. We'll say the total cost there is $3m for those guys. So we need to free that up. Leino would also be nice. Our options are trading one of Meszaros/Carle/Coburn from the D, or trading one of Briere/Richards/Carter/Hartnell/Giroux from the forwards. What makes sense is to trade Meszaros for a decent young puck-moving defenseman who is still fairly inexpensive. This is where a deal with Detroit actually does work; trade Meszaros for Jakub Kindl plus perhaps a 2nd pick and you have the salary freed up. Philly isn't able to keep Leino like this, but by picking up Bryzgalov that wasn't happening, unless Leino stays for cheap.

Pitkanen and Babchuk gets us two of the league's better shot blockers; better than anyone we have right now. I'd take that pair. Especially hoping Kindl learns from them.

Garth Snow, traded back to Quebec as a GM? Unprecedented! Well, six of those seven seasons were before the lockout, and the seventh was the first year after. So my guess is that there was no revenue-sharing crap like you claim. And fine... Toronto "sells" out every night. But that's the same situation in Detroit, and people here talk about how there's no way the Wings sell as many tickets as they do. Plus, people also don't account for the 20-minute bathroom wait time. I mean, SERIOUSLY. I might stop at a CVS and get a urinal bottle before the next time I hit the Joe... As for the losing money; there needs to be a revamp of how the cap works. The cap floor system needs to not be so strictly buckled to the ceiling, while the fact that teams are losing money despite cap increases shows that revenue sharing is built incorrectly. It needs to be pushing revenue to struggling teams in a larger amount than it does now. If the Yotes were to end up staying in Glendale for another 20 years, losing money every year with revenue sharing covering the losses, that would be a correct use of revenue sharing. Revenue sharing should be built like so: 1: Helps reduce or eliminate financial losses of struggling teams. 2: Assists small market teams financially. 3: Assists all teams financially Step 1 would see the revenue sharing pot spent in such a manner to attempt to reduce most or all of existing team losses. If that happened, and money remained, it would pass on to step 2. This would see a certain portion passed to all small-market teams. In step 3, a certain portion would be passed to all teams or all market sizes. This would help small market teams with their ability to compete and to spend to the cap. Teams like Atlanta, Columbus, Florida, Nashville, NY Islanders (not small market, but same situation due to Rangers and Devils), Ottawa, Phoenix, etc. would be able to not only develop young stars, but hold on to them and surround them with talent. Something like this would require a concession to the large market teams, likely again allowing them to purchase players. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Would Phoenix have rather traded Bryzgalov for a pick and a soon-to-be FA, or a pick and cash?

I like Carter, I think he gets a bad rap because the Flyers in general have sucked it up. But if I had to pick a forward from the Flyers to take in a trade, it would be Richards. Not even a question. Carter would be a good fit as a goal-scoring center, or perhaps if he could adapt to be a winger for Dats (sick!) but Richards we already know can play wing, and is one of the league's top all-around players. His only real weakness is faceoffs; which is not really a problem in Detroit if you give him a linemate who can take draws. Franzen is one I can think of right off the bat. Franzen/Richards/Bertuzzi would be a pretty effective line. That's assuming, of course, Franzen didn't end up going the other way. Or just move Richards to the wing or teach him how to take faceoffs. Whatever works.

It's not just "there's not many other guys at his level this year" but moreover, it's "there's not many guys at his level for the next three years". Next summer defensive FAs include Suter, Burns, Coburn, Liles, Carle, Coliacovo among others. The summer after features Enstrom, Edler, Vlasic, Leopold, Lydman, Whitney. The Wings see Kronwall and Stuart go UFA next summer, plus Lidstrom if he doesn't retire. Hudler, Bert, and Homer UFA plus Helm and Abby RFA. So a defense of Kronwall, Suter, Pitkanen, Kindl, Smith, and some random #3rd pair guy for less than $1.5m doesn't sound ok heading into 2012-13? If we're lucky, maybe we can get one of the second-tier guys who plays solid defense and has a good physical game, like Lydman or Whitney, to replace "some guy" on my roster here. I'd say that brings it to a pretty solid unit. Lydman is probably the best bet, because he's the oldest but he's shown to be durable and consistent. Mark Streit is the same age and probably a better player, but has had serious injury issues and might even be retired by then if they continue. Streit is not a physical player, yet has missed 130 games since the lockout, including all of last season, while Lydman is a very physical player and has only missed 44. Lydman is also an excellent shot blocker - something the Wings desperately need. Only five players blocked more shots last season, and Beachemin while blocking more had a lower blocks-per-game rate. A couple of defensemen talked about as potential acquisitions are also productive shot blockers; Roman Hamrlik, Matt Carle, Anton Babchuk, and Ian White were all top-30 in total shots blocked. Going further into the top 60, and you get Tomas Kaberle, Andrej Meszaros, Jay Bouwmeester, Braydon Coburn, and Joni Pitkanen. All of those guys are ahead of the Wings' leader, Niklas Kronwall. Brad Stuart would have posted a higher total than Bouwmeester and Coburn with equal games played. As for the mention of Ian White now and earlier in the thread, and whether or not you want to spend money on him; Derek Meech has a very similar skill set to White, although he isn't quite as effective a shot-blocker. Then again, not many are. Meech could be a sub-$1m alternative to Ian White.

Yep, and Howard will have a season-ending injury in October after being run by Matt Cooke, so Holland will then go out and sign Manny Legace, who had been playing on an AHL contract. He'll trade for Andreas Lilja the day before the next Pens game so that Cooke's season can end, also. And at the deadline, he'll just start trading picks for every player in the league who has played for the Wings while he's been GM. The Wings end up getting guys like Kopecky, Hossa, Leino, Quincey, Lebda, Whitney, Williams, and so on. Most of them end up having to be waived to make room for other guys Holland keeps bringing in, but Holland doesn't really care. After he finishes with all of his trading, he manages to trade coaches and acquire former Wings coaches such as Dave Lewis and Todd McLellan, and then trades himself to Tampa Bay for Steve Yzerman. Mike Ilitch then appeals to the league, stating that Holland had been under mind control by a fan forum and was not making decisions of his own will. Any trades involving the Wings at the deadline are nullified, Holland is admitted for treatment, and Jim Nill is named acting GM. However, Mike Ilitch didn't know that Nill's minor was in Musical Theatre, and Nill constantly sings songs from "West Side Story" when playing Winnipeg or Phoenix, and is always belting tunes from "Cats" when in Miami or Nashville, while sailing through "Annie" when at Madison Square Garden.