eva unit zero

Tellqvist is older than Stefan Liv and is not as good. If you want Tellqvist, just ask for Liv.

I'm gonna throw my NEW list in here (for those who don't recall, I had posted a list a while ago) The previous list in top-20 form, minus players HF does not have as 'eligible' any longer. As for the new top-20-esque list and ratings, I'll lay them out like so. Niklas Kronwall 9.0B Igor Grigorenko 8.5B Jimmy Howard 8.0B Jakub Kindl 8.0B Jiri Hudler 8.0B Evan McGrath 8.0C Valtteri Filppula 7.5B Tomas Kopecky 7.5B Kyle Quincey 7.5B Justin Abdelkader 7.5B Miroslav Blatak 7.5C Johan Ryno 7.5C Drew MacIntyre 7.5C Joey Macdonald 7.0B Johan Franzen 7.0B Brett Lebda 6.5C Matt Ellis 6.0B Darryl Bootland 6.0B Sergei Kolosov 6.0B Anton Axelsson 6.0C

quincey gets the edge because he's proven he can play in the NHL In that case, Lebda is our second best defense prospect. And Kopecky had the best looking tenure this season of any of the prospects, so clearly he's our top forward prospect, right?

Wow...Lebda jumped from a 3.5D to a 6.0B!!!

Maybe we have more solid prospects than you think?

What about McGrath?

Nicklas Lidstrom 66 GP, 69 pts, +13, leads all defensemen Bryan McCabe 58 GP, 60 pts, -3 That's not even close. Bryan McCabe 58 GP, 60 pts, -3 Mathieu Schneider, 65 GP, 54 pts, +27 That one is closer than Lidstrom/McCabe...but I don't know if it's as close as Lidstrom/Schneider is.

According to the chart the griffins rank 9th in the league at only 6000 people a game approx. So its bad attendance around the UHL all around? You would qualify 6000 as bad attendance for minor league hockey? Considering that's double the SELLOUT CAPACITY of many UHL arenas, I'd say that's a pretty solid number for minor league hockey. The worst team for attendance in the AHL gets better than 3000 per game. Many UHL teams have to sell out to clear 3000. Of ten UHL teams, 8 are at 3774 average or lower this season. Only five of twenty-seven AHL teams fall below that mark, while Fort Wayne, a former IHL team, is one of only two UHL teams above the AHL average of 5357, the other being Quad City, averaging 5479, less than 50% capacity of their 12000 seat arena. Another former IHL team, Kalamazoo, averages just over 2000 per game, about 40% capacity, and have the second-worst attendance figures of ANY professional team in the US or Canada. The worst figures belong to their in-state rival, the Port Huron Border Cats, also of the UHL.

This is just sickening. Kitna is an upgrade over Garcia, sure. But McCown is a downgrade from Harrington. There better be one hell of a supporting cast if McCown is what they plan on putting out there.

I have been saying it for a couple years now..Liv will be the backup come the 06-07 season. Legace will have to do really well in the postseason AND reject any open market offers (Such as Toronto 5m per year) for him to return. Osgood's return is highly likely. With Howard in the system, Liv is not an absolute need to have around. He will still be signed, but it's not nearly as much of a loss if Liv goes on waivers as it would have been if the Wings didn't have Howard. And with Legace's return questionable, and very few starter-caliber goaltenders available on ther market, Osgood becomes the most likely veteran in Detroit next season because he's a solid tender who won't cost much and won't ***** about not playing if he is the backup but has shown that he can play in a starter role and do very well. That and he is probably the most well-suited "mentor" type available, and we'll either have to go for someone like that or for a younger starter goalie and just hope either Howard pans out when we need him or the guy we pick up stays around and plays well for a while.

Larry Murphy. Jamie Macoun. Bob Rouse. Mathieu Schneider. And now Cory Cross. What's the connection? All were in Toronto and dealt away due to disappointing play. Murphy, Macoun, Rouse, and Schneider played very well. We'll see if Cross can continue the pattern.

Delmore was basically a B version of Woolley. Consider that Lebda beat Delmore for a roster spot. Consider that Rivers beat Delmore for a roster spot. Consider that Cross was brought in to upgrade over Rivers, and Lebda was sent down because of the Cross acquisition, those two moves alone suggest Cross is ALREADY doing better than Delmore ever had a chance at doing.

One thing people are forgetting; This will be the first playoff year under the new rules, and the first in almost seventy years with no two-line offsides. There is no way to predict how Cross or Witt or anyone else would alter our chances; Giving up a big piece of the future for a totally unkown factor would not have been a good move. Holland got the Wings bigger and tougher without sacrificing much.

Cross is an upgrade over Rivers. Cross has shown in the past he is capable of top-four level play, but all we need him for is as an injury replacement. Rivers is a CAREER MINOR LEAGUER who has never been in a team's top six in the NHL. So we lost three rounds in the draft in the change of picks....Cross is worth that much of an upgrade. As for those of you saying we should have grabbed Witt...Witt is not significantly better than Cross, and certainly not worth a first and/or Hudler, etc. Unless you think giving up a first pick or top prospect for an overpaid fifth defenseman who will leave at the end of the year is a good deal?

What's that on the label there? "Producto de Puerto Rico"..hmm.... No wonder it's free!

This argument always makes me laugh. People talk about how great the defense was for Osgood. These same people also talk about how terrible Anders Eriksson is/was. Well, which is it? Is Eriksson terrible, or did his replacing Konstantinov in Detroit's top four improve the Wings as dramatically as many seem to suggest. I'll put it this simply; Holland felt that Detroit needed to upgrade on defense in 98. Dmitri Mironov was acquired. Mironov was BEHIND Eriksson on the depth chart. Osgood was second in Smythe voting and led the team in three-star selections in the playoffs. He was by no means the 'peripheral piece' Ozzie bashers like to suggest. He was MORE IMPORTANT to the 98 Cup than Fedorov, Lidstrom, Shanahan, or anyone else who didn't win the Smythe that year. Yzerman won the Smythe because he was UNREAL, and it should have been his second in a row. Unless of course you are suggesting any decent goalie can be the second most valuable player in the postseason for a repeating cup winner? Oh..and you may have forgotten, but Osgood also was robbed of the Vezina in 96. It's hard to argue that anyone saying he is good is doing so based on his Cup considering he was a Second-team all-star before ever being a cup winner. He also was 10th in Vezina voting in 95 as a backup. Face it, Osgood was and is a good goalie. Just because he's not Patrick Roy or Terry Sawchuk doesn't mean he sucks. There's a HUGE difference between those categories.

It's the perfect example of one-man offense. Ovechkin has been directly involved with 45% (76 of 169) of Washington's goals, and has SCORED over 24%. Brett Hull's showing of 27.7% of goals scored is the highest percentage of his team's goals in modern history, and it won him the Hart and Pearson. Joe Malone's 38.3% in the first year of NHL competition obviously trumps it, as does his 12.8% of ALL league offense...and for reference, 12.8 percent of all league offense in today's NHL would be over 900 goals. 38.3% of an average team (3 GPG) would be an NHL record 94 goals. As for the 45% number...it's only a couple percent off of Yzerman's Pearson-winning 49.5% (now THAT'S a crazy number) in 1988-99, when he scored 155 points. Yzerman had a higher number of assists ('only' 20.7% of his team's goals came from his stick) Ovechkin has a strong case at winning the Pearson with numbers like that. One thing though...both of the guys I mentioned had a linemate who made the Second-team All-Stars (Oates and Gallant, respectively). Does anyone seriously think anyone on the Caps other than Ovechkin is even first line material, let alone an elite player in the league?

To get Havlat, we'd have to at least give up a scoring forward of pretty solid caliber. Datsyuk and Zetterberg are the only ones we have who MIGHT get him outright. Ottawa would probably not do a Datsyuk/Havlat deal straight up, and the Wings would be crazy to trade Zetterberg in such a deal. So we are talking Williams and/or Hudler. Williams is a huge questionmark, and Hudler is a prospect. Hudler probably has more value than Williams, especially after the way Williams' season collapsed. Assuming Ottawa is in the market fort insurance, Ozzie and Hudler probably isn't enough to get Havlat; Unless Hasek is out for the playoffs and Ottawa figures trading Havlat for Osgood (Hudler may or may not play this year if that trade were made) is the thing that puts them in better position to win the Cup, that wouldn't happen. And the question here; Why are we trading away our top center prospect and a playoff-proven goaltender for a guy who may not be around in a year or two, all while we have a huge questionmark for a starter and no ready backup? The Wings were eliminated in 99 because they had no quality backup goaltending and their starter was injured and missed four games. The Wings advanced past the first round in 04 because their backup goaltender played excellent after coming into a series which Nashville had taken over.

Shut up.... What if the Lions cant sign anyone even with Martz as our offensive coordinator? Is he good enough to make us better with the talent we have? I mean, I see an offense on the field that should be pretty good, at least against the weaker defenses, but they always look so damn inept. Martz has already improved our offense by removing the WCO. Harrington and co. are skilled players who were playing in a system that did not utilize their strengths. Hopefully Martz is able to open that up ad use the guys we have in ways that will utilize their STRENGTHS instead of highlighting their weaknesses.

That site says nothing about prospects in its ranking system...and some of the rankings are out of whack with everything else I have read on the involved prospects. It seems to read more as a rating of current ability than of future potential. Also, for what it's worth, Penner is rated a 6.0C at hockeysfuture...meaning his top-end potential is third line grinder, and he's certainly no lock to hit that. At 23, Penner, is starting to play some of the best hockey he will ever play. in 04-05, Penner scored 28 points in 77 games. He has a total of 89 points in 117 games in two AHL seasons. He has 7 points in 18 games at the NHL level, total ice of 214:36 playing an average of 2 minutes on the PP and 12 minutes total ice time per game. Hudler, by comparison, has played 28:52 in four games (average 7:13) and less than a minute per game on the PP. Hudler has 81 points in 60 games and last season had 34 in 52. That's 115 points in 112 games. Hudler does not have the NHL numbers because he has played less than 30 minutes at the NHL level. Penner's points to ice time ratio would average out to less than a point in 28:52. Penner is also a year and a half older. The only thing he brings to the Detroit Red Wings is size...and that could be acquired for less than Hudler.

I am just telling ya what I read. His age was brought up in the discussion, and people were still pretty certain that he would have to clear waivers from the Islanders to sign with another team. Obviously, I dont know all the specifics. He would have to clear waivers to play in the NHL, no matter who he signed with. Had Kovalchuk played in Russia past opening night for NHL, he'd have had to go through waivers too.

Jordan Leopold would be the third, perhaps even fourth best offensive defenseman on the Wings. And of those four, he would be the worst defensively. Only Nick Lidstrom is less physical out of those four. Robert Lang is more helpful to the Wings than Leopold would be. But he would be a TON more helpful to the Flames. Leopold barely cracks the Flames' top four and is not a huge factor....Lang would provide major offensive punch to a team that needs it. Yes, Leopold would be a solid pickup for the Wings' future plans, and Lang is rather old. But the Wings can get a decent young defenseman without seriously strengthening a rival a month before the playoffs, when that defenseman would not be an asset in the immediate future. If we traded Lang for a young defenseman, I would rather see a Lang trade picking up someone from the East, or a non-playoff team from the West. And I would rather see a defenseman more in the style of Fischer...a big, strong guy who is solid defensively. If possible, mobile like Fischer with puck skills like Fischer...but that is not too common.

Let's trade a potential future star and our best center prospect for an old guy whose best season was more than ten years ago!! That so far has been suggested involving two different players in this thread. The other involves us trading a potential future star and our best center prospect to get a few weeks out of a fragile winger we could pick up off the UFA market this summer. Somehow, I don't think either of those deals sound too great.

Samuelsson has never been able to score at the NHL level or hold down an NHL job as anything more than a reserve winger. Scoring 30 on this Wings team would not be huge bargaining power as he would still be 4th or 5th on the team in goals and has no productive past to call upon. I think 1.3m sounds like a fair salary for Samuelsson to sign at given those facts. Legace has good numbers, but he has also been injury prone and has shown a tendency to place his own desires ahead of the good of the team. Plus, who is going to go out and sign Legace for more than say 1.75 or 2m? Teams that might be looking for a goalie are Edmonton, Phoenix, St. Louis, Toronto. Edmonton won't offer more than 2 for Legace. Phoenix would probably be able to resign Cujo for 2.5 or less. The Blues have almost 3m tied up in Lalime, they won't put that much down on Legace. Toronto might put more than 2 on Legace, if Belfour retires and they can't get Fernandez for less. And Detroit wouldn't match Toronto's 3m for Legace, given the fact that several other solid goalies will be available. One question....How the hell does Legace put his own desires ahead of the team??? He is the best damn goalie in the NHL and has been for a couple years now. He deserved the #1 spot when he was backing up Cujo, who any team would be better off with 6 skaters and no goalie than 5 skaters and him. Legace is the man and he is going to prove it by backing the Wings to another Stanley Cup this year. Would you rather have Ozzie or Legace in goal for the Wings during the playoffs? I would rather have Ozzie. Legace has been good, but the team has also played more solid defense in front of him...the difference in stats is a wider gap than the difference in their actual play. Plus, Legace has NEVER shown that he can handle high pressure situations...while Osgood has always played his best hockey in high pressure situations. Currently, the biggest achievement in Legace's career was getting suspended for the Calder Cup finals because he lost his cool. While he hasn't had the opportunity to cost his team a championship in the NHL, his mental game still is certainly lacking and he has a tendency to get rattled more than most starting goalies. And let me ask you this...you say Legace deserved the starting job and has been the best in the league a couple years now...yet he wasn't the starter in Detroit and the Wings kept picking up players instead of giving him the job. And you think he would turn down an extra million or more as an outright starter to stay with a team that was reluctant to make him starter because they didn't feel he could handle it? You are dreaming.