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Hudler is with Carter because Carter is a pure goal scorer. You put playmakers with goal scorers. If we get Carter for Flip (plus), which is the most likely swap, and put Z with Dats, who would you put as Carter's playmaker? Cleary? Helm? Draper? Hudler is the answer. Franzen on Emmerton's wing was primarily to allow for three strong scoring lines, but perhaps you can make one of these switches: Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Holmstrom (or Bertuzzi) Hudler/Carter/Franzen Cleary/Helm/Eaves Mursak/Emmerton/Bertuzzi (or Holmstrom) Miller Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Hudler/Carter/Cleary Bertuzzi/Franzen/Miller Mursak/Helm/Eaves Emmerton Perhaps even: Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Cleary Hudler/Carter/Franzen Mursak/Helm/Eaves Holmstrom/Emmerton/Bertuzzi Miller. Do you like those any better? And what wingers would you put with Carter that provide the goal-scorer a playmaker? I'd love to hear your answer. The Wings, assuming Flip and Abby are traded for Carter, would have three top-end playmaking forwards. Z, Dats, and Hudler. So again: If Z and Dats are together, you put Hudler with your best remaining goal-scorer. Carter. If you like, you can put both Carter and Franzen on that line. Could be pretty wicked, especially as a second line.

Boucher is about as good as you'll get for less than what Howard makes, unless you want to get into the trade game. And the chances of picking up a goalie better than Boucher who makes in the $1m range via trade without giving up anything of consequence are slim.

Tradeable top-six forwards the Wings have right now: Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Filppula, Franzen, Hudler, Holmstrom Z and Dats won't be traded despite Philly's desire. Homer won't be traded, and Philly won't be interested anyway. Leaves Flip, Mule, and Huds. Flip is the logical core of a trade, because Franzen and Hudler are better suited to wing, while Flip is equally strong in all three spots. There would be a remaining core forwards of Richards, Briere, Giroux, Hartnell, Versteeg, and Van Riemsdyk, plus a possibly returning Ville Leino. That would add up to seven top-six level forwards capable of 40+ points. Flip would, of course, not be the only piece in the deal, but would provide a faceoff man equal to Carter. Faceoffs are a key point as to why a Filppula/Abdelkader deal might work for Carter. Philly wouldn't trade away their only good faceoff man for a winger like Hudler, who is below average on faceoffs. Blair Betts, at 50.3%, and Claude Giroux (50.046%, or 548 wins and 547 losses) the only player signed for next season other than Carter (54.7%) who was better than a flat 50% who took more than 10 draws. They will want a faceoff man back. They also can't take too much cap hit back because they need to clear space to sign Bryzgalov. Granted, the numbers being tossed around include both Bobrovsky and Leighton, one or both of whom will not be on the roster, so that's a bit of freedom. But sending Filppula, Abdelkader, Kindl/Smith, and a 1st might bring back Carter and one of Coburn/Carle/Meszaros. The reason I include Abby is because Philly desperately needs faceoff help. This deal allows them to sign Leino simply within the cap relief it provides, and they will have a full roster signed underneath the cap. Thing is, in real life they probably would have to make a deal like this, and then also either trade off Versteeg or not sign Leino, Or perhaps trade two of Carle/Coburn/Meszaros. They have about $4.5m, give or take, under the cap right now (assuming Bobrovsky is the backup). They have to sign Bryz, Leino, Carcillo, Powe, Nodl, plus O'Donnell or a replacement. Probably looking at the neighborhood of $13m total for those six guys. So... clearing up $8.5m from the cap, are we? Versteeg sounds like a good bet. send him off for a pick and a depth forward or prospect. Cut $2.5m. Now we're at $6m. Let's make that Carter/Filppula deal. Say in the Steeger deal it was a prospect, so we can make Abs work as the replacement for him. Flip and Abs together cut about $4.5m from Carter and Versteeg. Kindl is a savings of $2.5 to $3.25 over Carle/Coburn/Meszaros. So now, all that needs to be cleared up is another $750k-$1.5m. Maybe cut Jody Shelley from the roster and you've got the difference and you drop one of the league-leaders in leaving his team shorthanded. If Carter IS traded to the Wings in the kind of deal I proposed, I'd like to see a lineup as such: With Draper: Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Hudler/Carter/Cleary Bertuzzi/Franzen/Mursak Draper/Helm/Eaves Miller/Emmerton Without Draper: Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Hudler/Carter/Cleary Franzen/Emmerton/Bertuzzi Mursak/Helm/Eaves Miller. Yes. I realize that I put Emmerton on the third line and Helm on the fourth line. I'm not crazy. Emmerton is more suited to being a playmaking center for Franzen and Bertuzzi, and keeping the DHE (or the MHE, as it were) together as a checking line while putting a playmaker of Emmerton's skill on the third line is better than having no real checking line.

The problems with the Hudler/Modano/Cleary line were as follows: 1) All three players had terrible starts to the season; the fact they were all on a line together only magnified this. 2) The Hudler/Modano combination working was extremely unlikely. Modano's offensive style was to take the puck on a rush and get off a quick shot, and possibly a second shot, which didn't work while with Hudler's average speed. Hudler worked best on long-term puck possession in the zone setting up a high-quality shot, which is something that didn't work well with Modano's tendency to take a shot whenever he had a clear line. Cleary, meanwhile, was having serious trouble handling the puck (I think he may have been injured) and this led to complete ineffectiveness from that line. Hudler and Cleary were very effective together when together with any other center. Drury is much more similar to the team's current centers in offensive style than Modano, so the chances of that line working well would be much greater. Especially with Hudler and Cleary likely to have better starts to their seasons.

It stings... I am forced to plus you and agree with most of what you said. Why must you do this to me?

I know I'll get torn up for this, but everyone on that line was playing poorly, and the Hudler/Modano combination (as I've said before) was about the worst combination you could put together for chemistry because their play styles clashed so much. Hudler started off poorly because he had not been playing in NHL rinks. Modano started off poorly because he wasn't used to the Wings' system (and ultimately, he refused to ever actually play within it) while Cleary seemed to be having serious trouble handling the puck for the first ten or fifteen games (he couldn't receive a pass and when he tried to pass, it was either completely off-target or tumbling end-over-end). Babcock needed to break that line up sooner than he did. The team winning because one line is playing well doesn't mean you can't try and shuffle the other lines to get them all playing well.

No, please dear GOD no. At no point in his career has Jovanovski been worth that much. As for right now? You do know that while Jovanovski started the season as the Yotes' #4, they acquired Klesla during the season (who played ahead of him) and rookie David Schlemko passed him on the depth chart? Would you pay $5m for the #6 defenseman from a team that had the third-worst SA/G and the fifth-worst PK? A defenseman whose ONLY purposes on his team (Jovo scored 14 points in 50 regular season games, and did not play the PP) were leadership and defense/PK? I sure as hell wouldn't foot that bill. He's at least learned that his defensive zone exists, though, even if he still isn't very good there. Jovo might be a good fit on the third pairing to replace Ericsson. He's got some speed, he's physical, and he's as good defensively. But I wouldn't pay him more than $1.5m to do it. Past that you can get much better players. Hmm. Filppula+Franzen+1st+Axelsson for Getzlaf+Fowler+Blake+3rd Anaheim gets two solid top-six forwards, a 1st pick, and a high-end prospect while Detroit gets a top end playmaking center, a solid defenseman, a decent winger, and a good pick. Anaheim gets rid of a bad contract, and acquires a combination of two forwards who have excellent chemistry while also cutting $4m in cap space by dumping Blake's deal, and can now replace him with a cheaper, but equally or even more skilled forward - likely a playmaking center as they now have four skilled scoring wingers in Perry, Ryan, Franzen, and Selanne.

A Franzen for Burns trade would be more in Detroit's favor than the players involved would suggest. First of all, Burns is still getting better, while Franzen is probably about as good as he'll ever get and is only going to get worse. Franzen is a skilled goal scorer, but his totals have shown to vary widely depending on the quality of his center. Franzen also would be expected to play more of a defensive style in Minnesota. He would likely be looking at mostly 20-25 goal years with the occasional 30 goal year sprinkled in as you fill out his contract. Burns would be the anchor of a Stanley Cup-winning defense, and possibly win a Norris.

Horton was looking where he was passing while Rome was setting up his hit. Horton might have had time to get his arms or stick up (shaft, not blade) but he still would have taken by far the worst of it, as Rome was putting a full bodycheck into him and he had just taken a stride towards the offensive zone. Rome gets, at worst, knocked down by Horton trying to fight off the check. Which is more than a worthwhile trade for the Canucks; third-pairing defenseman for top-line forward on an offensive rush? Make that trade every day. Hudler had no reason to expect Brown was going to hit him on that play, and Brown's hit was a cheap shot to the head that came significantly late. Brown is racing back to follow the play, and although he is on a line past Hudler, he alters course to throw an east-west head shot at Hudler even though the puck left the area before Brown got there, meaning he had absolutely no reason to throw a hit like that other than to try and injure one of the Wings' top players. Maybe he hit him high because he's so much taller. You know, Pronger Physics. Rome skated along the blue line while Horton went through the middle. Rome planted in front of Horton as he got to the line, and jumped into him, shoulder-to-head. While the actual contact may have been north-south, that's not a north-south hit because Rome was coming from the side and Horton couldn't have seen him until the last second unless he was looking to his right.

Ok coach, how does Horton avoid this one? He's gliding into center ice while Lucic is lining up to receive the pass and Rome is lining up to hit him. He is moving pretty slowly and couldn't get out of the way if he tried to. Which, of course, would have required his knowing that the hit was coming. Just because Rome's final motion was to hit Horton towards center ice doesn't make this a north-south hit; he was skating east-west for a good distance directly before he threw the hit. That makes it a blindside hit. Whether Horton should have seen him is irrelevant; especially as Horton wouldn't have been able to avoid him anyway.

It's an unfair comparison, because you are comparing a roster including a deadline acquisition of a top player who played more games for Nashville that season than the players (combined) he was acquired for. I was referring to what Phoenix's roster is expected to look like, assuming they don't sit on their hands. They have 13 players signed from their active roster, with $28m+ in cap space. Ekman-Larsson probably takes Jovanovski's roster spot if he doesn't return, and at a similar price. So that means $26.5m in cap space to sign a starting goalie, Keith Yandle (probably in the $5m range), leaving eight forwards to sign, at least four of whom would be new or returning UFAs. Let's say it's an average of $750k raise per RFA forward, four in total, cutting us down to $23.5m. Still UFA would be Vrbata, Fiddler, Belanger, Ebbett. That's two of the team's top five scorers, including the first line center. Belanger played in all situations, and Fiddler also was quite useful on the PK. Vrbata is an asset on the PP. But the team can go out and pick up a couple guys on the cheaper side like Morrison and Kopecky, and hang on to Vrbata, Fiddler and Ebbett. Leaves you the options of Bissonette and Ebbett as the spares for a fairly deep all-around roster. For example: Stempniak/Hanzal/Doan Whitney/Morrison/Vrbata Korpikoski/Kopecky/Pyatt Boedker/Fiddler/Turris Bissonette/Ebbett That's pretty solid, and is close to the cap floor with a full complement of forwards and defensemen, plus a backup goalie. Now all we need is a starter. Vokoun? Heck, I estimated Morrison at around $2m... bring in Vokoun and Richards? Whitney/Richards/Vrbata Stempniak/Hanzal/Doan Korpikoski/Kopecky/Pyatt Boedker/Fiddler/Turris Bissonette/Ebbett

Between Yandle/Jovo/Bryz that's $11.95 in cap hit from last year. Say they keep Yandle for $5m and Jovo for $2m. That gives them $4.95m to simply stay even. Cap projected to increase by $2.8m, and that makes for $7.75m, if you assume they are trying to stay around $9m below the cap and not at an internal cap. Which means that, assuming UFAs and RFAs and re-signed or replaced for a relatively equal cost, the Coyotes could compete to sign Richards. Whitney/Richards/Doan on the first line anyone? I'd say replacing Bryzgalov with Roloson/etc. and adding Richards is better than keeping Bryzgalov, both on and off ice.

Tomas Vokoun? Phoenix is as good as Nashville ever was when he was there, and has a solid young roster. He should certainly be interested. Chris Mason will also probably be available via trade. Boucher, Roloson (if he doesn't retire or stay in Tampa), Leighton or Bobrovsky via another trade with Philly, Giguere, Harding, Hedberg, Theodore, Auld. Sure, most of those guys aren't Bryzgalov. But none of them, except possibly Vokoun, carry his price tag.

You need to watch the video again. Rome hits Horton in the head or at least very close to the head, in a manner which suggests that he was targeting the head. 4 games is just fine. Bruins should be happy he got anything, though, given their previous arguments this season about what suspensions should be for head hunting. Hitting someone hard head on is fine. What Rome did is hit Horton from the blind side, completely east-west hit while Horton was moving north-south. He also targeted Horton's head, and hit him well after Horton had passed the puck. You two seriously need to learn how to play hockey. I get that you like watching huge hits, but that's not a good hit. That's an illegal hit, and an unsafe hit. Even if Horton has his head up and looking forward, he's just looped around the neutral zone and he's barely moving at that point, so Rome still wastes him. He jumped into the hit. That's TEXTBOOK charging. Horton was in a helpless position regardless of whether he was looking at Rome, Lucic, or the hot dog guy. Sometimes a guy just gets flattened. And if the hit is late, and to the head, it might cause injury, and it might get a guy suspended.

Before Boston traded for Adam Oates, Neely scored 255 goals in 564 games. After Boston picked up Oates, Neely scored 140 goals in 162 games. That said, Neely was named a Second-Team All-Star four times and had three fifty-goal seasons, and scored 395 goals in only 726 games - one of the best goals-per-game ratings of all time. So he's definitely got an argument. Lindros, however, was a dominant player from his entry into the league, and only at the tail end of his career with the Rangers and Leafs did he play with a high-scoring future Hall-of-Famer, and those players were not in their prime either. Both Neely and Oates were in their primes in the early 90s in Boston.

I disappeared? Over a response that only highlights my point? Franzen scored 11 goals in the second half. Five of them came in one game. What does Johan Franzen do if he doesn't have an all-world center? Realistically? Franzen without a Datsyuk or Zetterberg scores what, about 20 goals on a full season? He certainly wouldn't get the "just being there" assists he got this season. You can forget 55 points. Do you really think Franzen would break 40 points playing third and fourth line all season? I don't think so.

There's a 23-man roster cap. Which is fine, because Tatar and Smith will be in Grand Rapids and don't have to pass through waivers. You do seem to be a pretty good GM otherwise, because you've traded Jiri Hudler in a three-way-deal for Milan Lucic AND Sergei Kostitsyn. Truly a magician. Realistically though... 1) Nashville won't just let their leading scorer sign with someone else, especially Detroit. He also will cost more than $2m. 2) Boston won't be trading Lucic. For Hudler or anyone else. You'd be looking at two of Franzen/Filppula/Hudler plus one of Kindl/Smith and maybe a 2nd or 3rd round pick. Something along the lines of "Trading a bunch of good players for one guy" and Holland isn't going to do that for Lucic. He might do it to get Crosby or Ovechkin, but not Lucic. 3) Ehrhoff will be making closer to $5m. Maybe higher. 4) Babchuk will probably be in the $2.5-$3m range. 5) Ericsson won't be staying for less than $2m, and won't be staying if he's not in the top six. 6) Osgood will be making about half that much if he comes back. So let's drop Lucic, Kostitsyn, put Hudler back, and drop Smith. That cuts the roster by the necessary amount, and raises the available cap space to about $4.46m. Bump Ehrhoff to $5m and Babchuk to $3m. Now we're looking at $2.06m. Cut Ozzie's salary in half. $2.61m. Now bump Ericsson's salary up to $2m, and we're back down to $1.71m in cap space. So that's not so unrealistic there, except for the question of the cap space. Would Holland be happy with that roster and having that cap space? What if Tatar spends the year in Grand Rapids and Emmerton gets that spot (up to $2.02m) and then you replace Miller and his $1m with a better forward, like Jussi Jokinen?

Pitkanen and Bieksa? Pitkanen and Wisniewski?

No, it proves that Hartford is full of Bruins fans. Hartford is slapped right in between Boston and New York, and even when the Whalers were around the Bruins and Rangers held strong followings there as well. Hartford compares roughly to Toledo, which is a little bit north of halfway between Detroit and Columbus, and is of similar size and would likely see the same effect where a majority of hometown fans are not of the home team. The Islanders also suffer this effect, as did the Nordiques.

Is it a hard on now because I've been saying for over a year that the Wings should sign him this summer? Not intelligent forethought? I suppose being a common target of personal attacks will get you that change.

Not unless Franzen is going the other way. Too much cap space locked up for too long otherwise.

Well, if we divide it exactly in half it divides between January 7th and 8th. This places Hudler and Franzen with the following second-half stats: Franzen 36 gp, 11g-12a-23pt Hudler 37 gp, 7g-19a-26pt So offensively, Hudler's second half was better. As for my comments about Franzen? In the last 32 games of the season, Franzen scored 2 goals. Hudler scored six in that time frame. If I had the time to waste (maybe someone here does) we could go through and pick apart box scores to figure out which of Franzen's 55 points and Hudler's 37 were influenced by Datsyuk, Zetterberg, etc.

The Coyotes have had 7 seasons with 15k+ and five more with 14k+. Before the move, the Jets peaked at 13,550. That's only 88% of the Winnipeg Arena's 15,393 capacity. The passion may not have driven the Jets away, more likely the size. Winnipeg was a metro area of approximately 650k when the Jets left. In an arena that seats 15,393 for NHL hockey, that's 630k tickets. The GTA is about eight times as large yet the ACC only seats 20k. and the Leafs don't sell out every night. So Winnipeg hockey *can* work. And obviously, we're about to find out if it will work in the new NHL.

Pitkanen is just as physical as Brad Stuart or Niklas Kronwall or any of the defensemen being mentioned in his place. So he doesn't have a right-handed shot... I guess he won't be able to shoot because he'll be looking at the boards. Or he could just position himself properly on the ice. left-handed or right-handed shot isn't like having a lefty and righty pitcher. The only effects your shooting hand has are where you shoot/pass from, where you receive the puck, and how you take faceoffs. If we're talking about specialty needs, the Wings need a righty faceoff man (Steve Yzerman!) before they need a righty point shot.

Ok, fine, it's Sven, Stephane, Steven, Alexander, Alexei, Vyacheslav