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See, now there's some value going up! Soon it'll be a $50 gift card at Applebee's!

Franzen returned to the lineup against Anaheim. That game and the next game (the SJ game you mention) the HDC line played together sporadically as well as Franzen/Datsyuk/Holmstrom seeing a good amount of ice. Marleau's goal that made it 3-1 was scored with the Franzen/Datsyuk/Holmstrom line out. And the thing is... you say "Hudler spent plenty of time with Hank." No he didn't. Filppula was a common linemate, Franzen and Cleary occassionally, and Abdelkader, Miller, and Eaves all too often. I have never said Hudler is a victim. But I will again use Franzen as an example. People use the fact that Franzen whips out amazing playoff performances to justify his negatives. What about Hudler this season? He put up a season that was, on the whole, second-line worthy. He did it by pulling out an amazing second half that LGW simply refuses to acknowledge. So what do you say? Is the ability to do something enough, even if you don't do it? The Franzen example says yes. The Hudler example says no. Pick one and make a decision.

You have a few thousand posts to contribute to this forum before you can start suggesting things like that.

I never suggested Meech as a top four defenseman. I suggested him as a top six role. Playing with Lidstrom makes him top four? No it doesn't. Niklas Kronwall was the team's #2 at ES, but his partner was Ruslan Salei - who was the team's #6. Jonathan Ericsson played more at even strength per game than Nicklas Lidstrom, Brian Rafalski, or Salei. For example; Larry is the #1 defenseman. Bob plays 15 minutes with Larry. Fred and John are the #2 and #3 defensemen. They each play 5 minutes with Larry and 15 minutes together. Al and Jim are the third pairing, and they play 18 minutes together, and Bob plays one minute with each of Al and Jim. What happens? Bob plays almost all of his ice time with Larry. Larry plays more than half of his with Bob. Yet Larry is the #1 defenseman and Bob is the #6.

Drew Miller was picked up by the Wings on waivers from Tampa in the same season he had previously been waived by Anaheim. Detroit had the last claim at that time. Why did nobody else want him? He must be an AHL player. And I agree, a top-6 where Kindl isn't good enough to make it is certainly better than what I posted. But it's not realistic. Kindl had basically taken Salei's job at the end of the season, and only missed out on the playoffs because he was a rookie.

Kindl was effectively guaranteed a roster spot this past season. Same as Mursak next year and Smith the year after. I would take Janik over Salei because Janik is a solid, reliable defender who plays a good physical game. Salei is no longer that. Salei was on the roster this season for his defense, and he often made costly mistakes but rarely made excellent plays. Janik may not be a star defender, but one thing he can be relied on for is relatively mistake-free defense. He won't bring you much offense, and he's not going to shut down the Sedin twins on his own, but he'll do his job and he won't f*** up very often. And that's what I would expect from a #6/7 stay-at-home type. Osgood will probably be re-signed to back Howard up. Based on play last season before Ozzie went out, we'll see how long that arrangement lasts. As I've said before; I think Ozzie sticks around long enough to get close to or pass Sawchuk's Wings and career numbers, but not much beyond if he passes them. He likely retires after 12-13.

I'm fine with the roster I posted, but I would like to see an extra $3m appear somehow from the contracts of Pitkanen, Lidstrom, and Laich. In that situation, the Wings can pick up an Ehrhoff, Bieksa, or Wisniewski, or even a Greene if the $3m doesn't show up, instead of going with Meech.

Babcock suddenly dumping Hudler, who had the team's hottest scorer in February, to the fourth line for the last couple weeks because Franzen couldn't do anything offensively is not a matter of Hudler playing poorly. It's a matter of "f***, we 'need' Franzen to be in playoff mode." And it never happened. Hudler outplayed Franzen even after he was taken off of Datsyuk's wing and Franzen was put back there. And in the playoffs. Franzen was terrible for the last few months of the season including playoffs.

Renaming a team in the same location isn't losing a team. Otherwise we'd have to include Toronto and Oakland/California as well as the Cougars/Falcons/Red Wings.

If the Wings don't go after two higher-end defensemen, I think Meech is a good fit to take on a lot of Rafalski's duties in the Wings' top six. He's a solid all-around defenseman with good offensive skill and great speed. He'd be a good complement to Lidstrom with other pairings of Kronwall/Stuart and Kindl/Pitkanen. Janik would be the 7th. As for Salei... I would rather have Janik. And as for Janik "earning" it... Meech has "earned" it more than Janik has. Meech has put his time in, played the role of #7, and Kindl being the hot prospect who couldn't get sent down this past year is the only reason Meech wasn't still on the NHL roster.

I disagree. If Holland wanted to get rid of Hudler, he'd have been gone at the deadline because he was as hot at that point as any Wing was all season. Babcock wasn't using Hudler in a top-six role, so trading Hudler for a top-pairing shut-down defenseman and simply replacing Hudler internally in the bottom six with a grittier, more defensive forward like Miller or Draper would have happened. Holland, and perhaps even Babcock, think later December through the end of February is what they can expect from Hudler going forward. Not what they saw at the start of the year.

Assuming high-end contracts for UFAs and a cap of $62.2m: Johan Franzen ($3.954m) / Henrik Zetterberg ($6.083m) / Daniel Cleary ($2.800m) Brooks Laich ($5.000m) / Pavel Datsyuk ($6.700m) / Jiri Hudler ($2.875m) Tomas Holmstrom ($1.875m) / Valtteri Filppula ($3.000m) / Todd Bertuzzi ($1.937m) Jan Mursak ($0.550m) / Darren Helm ($0.912m) / Patrick Eaves ($0.975m) Justin Abdelkader ($0.787m) / Cory Emmerton ($0.533m) Nicklas Lidstrom ($5.000m) / Derek Meech ($0.550m) Niklas Kronwall ($3.000m) / Brad Stuart ($3.750m) Jakub Kindl ($0.883m) / Joni Pitkanen ($6.000m) Doug Janik ($0.512m) Jimmy Howard ($2.250m) / Chris Osgood ($0.750m) CAP PAYROLL: $60,679,544 CAP SPACE: $1,520,456 Yes, that's a fair amount of cap space. But it can pay for a high-end player at the deadline; we're talking someone worth $5-$6m. You may wonder why I have Meech with Lidstrom. There is a perfectly logical reason. The outgoing defensemen from the top-six are Rafalski, Ericsson, and Salei. Incoming are Meech, Kindl, and Pitkanen. While Lidstrom did not play with Rafalski outside of the power play last season, he played mostly with him the prior few seasons. Meech is the most similar to Rafalski in playing style, so it should be a good match. Also, it allows for the development of potential long-term pairings in Kronwall/Stuart and Kindl/Pitkanen. At forward, I wasn't really sure how I wanted to lay out the wingers, outside of two facts; Holmstrom should not be opposite Hudler, and Bertuzzi should flank Filppula. Given Hudler's success alongside Datsyuk, and the fact that Homer seems to perform better with Flip than Z, that settled three of six. I'd be perfectly fine with Franzen/Zetterberg/Laich also, however Cleary and Hudler seem more comfortable playing the right side than Franzen or Laich. The fourth line I am most certainly comfortable with, and determined to see cause havoc this coming season. As for special teams, the defensemen I would expect on PP would be Lidstrom, Kronwall, and a rotation of Pitkanen, Kindl, and Meech. On the PK I would expect Kronwall, Stuart, Lidstrom, and Pitkanen. Look for Janik to get significant time here in games he dresses.

There's no bias there; the only defensemen in the world who were at his level during his career were Bourque, Fetisov, and arguably Coffey, Chelios, and some might put Stevens or MacInnis in that group but they weren't challenging for the Norris every year during Howe's career. What's your induction criteria? Top 30 forwards, top 20 defensemen, top 10 goalies? Top fives maybe? You can't cut Howe out unless you ignore all of the times he was a Norris finalist, Norris contender, and postseason All-Star. It would be like keeping Mike Modano out because although he had some great years, there was always someone who clearly outshined him - be it Lemieux, Fedorov, Yzerman, Gretzky, Messier, Lindros, Forsberg, Sakic, etc. Howe has belonged in the Hall since he was first eligible.

Hmm... That twitter feed has this tweet: Anyone ever hear of the Quebec Bulldogs? Montreal Wanderers and Montreal Maroons? Holy s***. That means that until this summer, only large French-Canadian cities have had this happen twice. New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Hamilton have all lost teams as well.

I already know I will catch flak for this, but I voted $3m+. This is not a statement saying Holland should go out and pay him that much; however, Hudler's performance relative to other forwards in the league would rank him just above the $3m mark in value. He scored as a top-six forward (top 180 forwards) despite playing less ES/PP than others with comparable numbers or even lower. It's plainly clear how skilled Hudler is. Also fact is that the cap could be raising to between 62.2 and 64.4. So a player who is worth $3m in 2011-12 is only worth between $2.767m and $2.865m this past season. Matches up nicely with Hudler's salary, and the fact that he was felt to have underperformed a bit; Hudler was supposed to be a UFA right now, and if you assume his past two seasons to make up for the performance in 09-10, he would likely get a deal well clear of $3m. And while Hudler is only a secondary player on the Wings, it's been pretty much the consensus here that he would produce far more on a top line on another team. And isn't that what value is all about?

Mark Howe, Sergei Makarov, Adam Oates and Tom Barrasso

Meech was the Griffs' best defenseman last season, not Smith. And everyone seems to want Smith in the top four. Meech is capable of NHL-level play at both ends, while Smith's defense is still a little shaky. So pick your own depth guy I guess, but cheaper and better is how I roll. Smith will be better soon, but he can keep playing in GR, and he won't be top six unless we have a thin defense. Meech is gone if he's not in the bigs. I'd like to keep both if possible.

Parise is one of the few players where a "Hudler-plus" trade actually makes sense for the Wings. New Jersey gets a skilled offensive forward for under three million, Detroit gets a high-end two-way forward. There are probably picks involves, at least one first-rounder. Hudler's skill set complements Kovalchuk very well. Kovalchuk provides a top end finisher who could take advantage of Jiri's playmaking skill; see: Savard/Kovalchuk. Stick Zajac in between them and that's a damn good first line. Tedenby and Elias flank Zubrus on line two, and Rolston centers the third line with Clarkson and Palmieri. The big thing is, New Jersey will soon lose their headline goaltender, and there's no guarantee of a starter. So even though Brodeur isn't top-end anymore, they probably require a top-end prospect coming back. So we're looking at no less than Hudler and at least one 1st, plus McCollum/Larsson. Smith or Kindl may have to be included as well. All for Parise and maybe one or two low picks. The deal probably ends up helping both teams out pretty well.

I figured you probably slotted them there intending for a Quebec move.

Rafalski was fine. He was a great offensive defenseman who contributes a bit defensively. Stuart was supposed to be a shut down guy in his own end, but he was trying to be Rafalski. If Stuart plays the game he should be playing, then that's great. But he has been performing worse and worse over the past three-plus seasons, and that may or may not be tied to the fact that he has been trying to become an "everything" defenseman, which he simply isn't.

Lidstrom had just captained the Wings to the Cup, and won his third straight Norris trophy in 2008. And he took a pay cut of $150k per year over two years. Then in 2010, he took another cut of $1.25m. Even though he was a Norris finalist. So now that he is the likely winner, you think he'll demand a huge raise?

Fixed. Sort of; Dallas ends up in the East because they're a logical fit for the Southeast if you take Washington away.

Stuart is overrated because he is viewed as strong defensively based on some of his past performances, and LGW members would rather look to lay the blame for a play on a forward, or Ericsson or Kindl, than on a defensively oriented vet like Stuart. Also, Salei is much more of the classic "stay-at-home" type, especially given that Stuart was letting Lidstrom play the defensive role in the pairing. Lidstrom only scored five more points than Stuart at even strength, despite outscoring him by 42 overall.

Fixed it for ya. As for a breakout season... Hudler scored 57 points from the third line in 08-09, remember? More points than Franzen scored this season and only two shy of Franzen's career best, which was posted the same season. Franzen, however, played 38% of his ES time with Zetterberg, 31% with Datsyuk, and about 18% with Hossa. This came while Hudler spent most of his time with Filppula, Samuelsson, Draper, Helm, and Kopecky.

Swap Cleary and Eaves; they're similar players but Danny is clearly the better player. Alternatively, you could swap Cleary and Bertuzzi. That second option also takes away the "leftovers" feel of the fourth line. As for Ericsson... I think I would really, seriously rather have Derek Meech or Doug Janik. Ericsson's potential is better than theirs, but it shocks me for him to seriously be considered a top-four level defenseman while guys like Meech and Janik have trouble getting in the top 7.