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Cut back a few? You can't just kick teams out of the league, or say "ok, we're dissolving the Coyotes, Thrashers, Islanders, and Panthers" and have it be ok. The Coyotes are a steward of the NHL currently, and could potentially face that fate, but every other team is a privately owned business which is part of an organization. A team could be removed from the league if the NHL's BoG decided to, but it's unlikely to happen. If the NHL did want to eliminate teams, the NHL would have to purchase whichever of those 10 teams are for sale they want to eliminate and eliminate them. And then the NHL loses any current or potential new interest in that market. That is more of a revenue drain on the NHL than keeping them around.

That was Kerry Fraser, not McCreary. McCreary wore a helmet long before they became mandatory.

Yeah, it tells us all "Replacing an elite talent with a fourth-liner will make your team less effective." Say the Wings keep the current roster next year, save for Lidstrom due to retirement, and Meech is named the 7th defenseman... how do you think that would work out in the standings? Division champs? Top 4? Top 8? Bottom-feeder? Datsyuk being out is big, but it's not like all of the other Wings are just sitting there saying "Hey Pav, go do something." as you make it. And having a top center like Datsyuk out is a HUGE blow to a team, whether he is their MVP or not. Having Lids or Z out for that much would have been just as bad.

Mike Richards provides a talented goal scorer, physical presence, and defensive center. He's also a good playmaker and on faceoffs. Shea Weber... has already been spoken of. Great at both ends, great physically, good skater. Love to have him. Cam Ward is a young goaltender who has proven he can play at a high level and brings his best when his team needs it.

People who have been saying "well of course it's Datsyuk, (winning percentage stats)" are ignoring reality. How well would the Wings have done had it been Z out instead of Datsyuk during that time frame? If the Wings just kept plugging along at a .650 or .700 or whatever it is, that would be a fair argument for Datsyuk not being an elite center. Zetterberg is the team's MVP this season. His performance has carried the team both as the best player and as the leader. If you look back, the notable bad games the team has had are all times when Z had a bad game. St. Louis most recently. Z carried the team offensively when Dats first went out, and if not for the lack of defensive structure and the goaltending failures, the Wings would be in a much stronger position due to giving up far fewer goals and thus having won many more games.

Canada, as a whole, is generally arrogant when it comes to hockey. The "You can't win without Canadians" attitude, the "We own the game" attitude, the "Canadians are more naturally skilled hockey than every other country" s***. A great majority of the most highly skilled players I've ever seen play are not Canadian. Having better access to training facilities doesn't make one more naturally skilled. Who knows what someone like Housley or LaFontaine could have done with better hockey programs at a younger age? As for the CBC and HNIC...there is absolutely a bias. Of course it is understandable, it's a Canadian station. But it's a neutral station and is not supposed to display a bias. Simply having Cherry on exudes bias, let alone the undertones of the rest of the on-air broadcast team. And before the "Well, bias happens on American stations too!" when have you seen NBC or Versus display bias in favor of American teams? They don't. Local networks are one thing; they are broadcasting to a specific group from a certain point of view. National networks, like CBC and NBC, are sending the same broadcast to the entire nation so giving the "us vs. them" point of view that local networks do, and CBC sometimes does, is unacceptable.

The big difference? Drake was effective in his role the regular season, even if he was unpopular on LGW. He was brought on the be a veteran grinder and defensive presence, and did it well. Modano came in for depth scoring, but has been invisible when it comes to the scoresheet. Pretty useless so far. Maybe Modano will score 20 goals in the playoffs and we'll all eat crow. But given the fact that he has only once scored better than a point per game in the postseason, compared with ten times in the regular season, pretty much shows that his offense sort of goes away in the playoffs; he has scored at about 85% of his regular season rate in the postseason. That would suggest that he is going to score 1-2 points per series based on his current scoring over the season. And he was playing much more early on; he is the team's #12 forward now. Is he really going to make much of a difference?

Hmm... At a HHOF level? Maybe Hossa, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, some of the other high end players of the league who are in or near their primes and have shown versatility. Chara perhaps, but he might be a bit slow to reach that level as a forward, although his size and shot certainly have the potential to make up the difference. Any player in his prime who can play at a HHOF level and is a two-way player could do it, the problem is there aren't really many of those right now.

That's only the result of a number of factors. The other day Modano set Abdelkader up for a gimme tip in on the backdoor on a rush, and Abby whiffed in the crease trying to one-time it instead of just redirect. There's more to an assist than just being a good passer. The goal has to be scored. The passing play is equally if not more important (Abby, had he redirected, would have been far less important to the play than Modano's pass) but you can't just rate a passer on their assist count. Especially with guys who are like Janney who are great passers but don't get top line time because that's their only asset. Imagine Janney as the second line center on a team that doesn't have many scoring forwards? He'd have nobody to pass to. Maybe he gets power play time, and is labeled as a PP specialist. But he could be much more useful with even a moderately talented finisher. What makes a great passer is the ability to get the puck to its destination, even through or around obstacles. What makes a great playmaker is the ability to use passing skill, which is basically required to be a great playmaker, to create scoring chances or improve already existing chances. A great passer can make a breakout pass to start a rush going in the other direction which can change the momentum of the game, or find a weak spot in the opposition defense and get the puck there across the ice through multiple defenders to the recipient for a one-timer or scoring chance. A great passer certainly will pass normally quite often, but the difference between a great passer and a 'normal' passer is the ability to execute these tasks. Great passes do not always result in goals. Great passers do not always end up among the league leaders in assists. They are still great passers. I will again bring up Scott Gomez. He has always been an excellent passer, yet he has not been leading the league in assists. He's still a damn good passer. Better than almost anyone on the Wings.

I don't agree with this. What if we take Yzerman, Fedorov, Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Crosby, Sedin, Jagr, Lindros, Roenick or anyone else of that kind of level or greater and send them back 50 or 75 years with the same ability? They would be a dominant player. Brad Stuart would be a top defenseman. Jiri Fischer? He would have been legendary. Chris Osgood would have been a star goaltender. The overall level of players has improved; the league has a much deeper level of talent than previously existed and there are still dominant players; by extension this means that the dominant players are also better than what dominated the league at a similar level previously. Chris Osgood is a good example of this depth. He was a Vezina contender several times, and a consistent winner even on bad teams, but never actually won a Vezina. In previous eras, even as recently as the 80s, a goalie as good as Osgood would have been considered a dominant netminder, the kind teams just wouldn't want to play.

Forget about Ebbie Goodfellow? And, although he didn't play a ton, Fedorov did switch to defense in Detroit, Columbus, and Washington and was extremely impressive. While he may not have been HHOF level by the time he was a Cap, he was certainly playing the position at that level for the stretch he played in Detroit. He was better in his time on the blueline than any defenseman's single season since the lockout.

Hmm.. We've got what GMR posted, which is ultimately one of our best options. But to try and shake things up, let's go off the board for a second and put our three top scorers on three different lines. Maybe we could use this setup: Holmstrom/Zetterberg/Eaves Hudler/Datsyuk/Cleary Franzen/Filppula/Bertuzzi Modano/Helm/Draper While the fourth line isn't as much of a grinding line with Modano instead of Eaves, it has great speed and would make for a good fourth line to clear the puck out and maybe Modano's speed can help take advantage of Helm's millions of breakaways. Alternatively: Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Hudler/Franzen/Bertuzzi Modano/Filppula/Cleary (Cleary/Filppula/Eaves) Draper/Helm/Eaves (Modano/Filppula/Draper) I am not a huge fan of Franzen at center, but it's more for matchup purposes; having that big center who can match up against a guy like Thornton or Getzlaf is a huge asset.

Starting to do so? Yeah... that happened a while ago.

Lidstrom is good, but Coffey was a magical passer in his prime. Without his speed and passing from the back end in Edmonton, those teams would have been seriously crippled. He was IMHO the second most important player to that dynasty. Janney was average at best for a first line center in his best years, but he was an absolutely amazing passer for most of his career. I love Ronnie Franchise, but Janney was able to fill Oates' slot in St. Louis as only a minor downgrade. He was about as good at putting the puck in the net as Ruslan Salei, he was s***ty defensively, and he was weak physically, but he kept a top-six job most of his career just on his passing alone.

Oates belongs in the top five, and anyone who argues against that never saw him play. Brett Hull won a Hart trophy, but it should have gone to Oates because only a handful of players in the league at the time could have set Hull up the way Oates did. And then Cam Neely, to follow up. Oates is perhaps the greatest pure playmaking center ever; a center whose entire purpose on the ice was to set up the play, and get the puck to the scorer. Beyond that... Zetterberg, Leetch, Lidstrom, Jagr, Krecji, those guys are all excellent passers and playmakers ...but this is a different level. If we're bringing them in, we'd have to bring guys like Gomez and Getzlaf, as well as a lot of other skilled guys around the league like Toews, Stastny, Kopitar, Malkin. And ultimately even Hudler, because while Z is better at making players, Hudler might be the better passer. Savard and Weight, those are two excellent names I didn't put down. Weight was one of the top passers in the league in his prime.

Not disputing his speed, just his defensive awareness. He always seemed kind of lost in his own zone. Jussi's not quite as fast, but a much better overall player.

Hmm... Some names that come to mind in recent history are Gretzky, Oates, Lemieux, Janney, Housley, Coffey, Yzerman, Fedorov, Datsyuk, Crosby, Forsberg, Turgeon, Thornton, Zubov, Larionov.

This is exactly why I place Fedorov so high. Jagr had great size, and was quick with very good hands and great reach, Bure was ridiculously fast with amazing hands. But Fedorov had the advantages of both; he was a big center for his time, very strong, and just as fast as Bure with the same kind of puckhandling skills. Fedorov also possessed the massive heavy shot that neither Jagr nor Bure had.

What about most seven-goal losses in a month?

Stuart has been riding Lidstrom's offensive performance, and has had his worst defensive performance as a Red Wing this season. Put him back with Kronwall already. Chris Osgood was a Vezina contender and Cup winner, and challenged for the Conn Smythe. Plus IIRC he had a better winning percentage than Ken Dryden. It's rare for goalies to be as good as Osgood was at 27. Howard could be a 300 game winner if he's a starter for the next ten years and wins an average of 30 games, but comparing Howard to Osgood is not really fair because Osgood was 22 when he became the Wings' starter (the first time) and was 24 when he was a Vezina finalist and named to the NHL's Second All-Star Team (and should have been First-Team, and Vezina winner) while Howard wasn't even good enough to play in the league at that age. That much is pretty clear. Since he's taken over the defense, it's been disorganized and inconsistent. It hasn't been able to adapt quickly to player losses or to changes in opposition offense, all things it could do before. I'm wondering why you a) included Abdelkader, yet b) left out Cleary. Seems like you were just sort of tossing out names. I'd like to see Hudler on the list, but with the first 30 games you can't really argue in his favor given his skill set and what he should have been producing. If you just look at the second half, he's been one of the Wings' best players.

You do realize that Jamie Baker retired eleven seasons ago, right?

John Scott said he would kick the s*** out of Thornton if he came up and "chirped" him. I would imagine Scott already held that opinion before the skate incident as well.

Hudler was scoring at a great pace for 30 games, and he was just demoted to the fourth line because Babcock wanted to put Franzen in his spot, and the other lines were playing well. How would you like it if you were at your job, one of the best performers over the past couple of months, going for a promotion, and suddenly you are told "This other guy who hasn't been doing well, but was doing well a while back and every now and then has a good day, is getting that promotion instead in the hopes that he starts performing the way he used to." That's crap.

Given the number of Finns to pick from I am knowledgable about, I would put both on there without a second thought. Kurri did play with Gretzky, but he was WILDLY skilled on his own. A first line of Kurri and Selanne flanking Olli Jokinen is what I would use; his size provides a dimension the Koivus don't have. I would also dispute the inclusion of both Ruutu and Kapanen. They're not bottom six players, even in international hockey. We've already added Tikkanen, so let's put in Jussi Jokinen, who is much better defensively than either Ruutu or Sami Kapanen. Move Hagman to the fourth line in Sami's place, with Tikkanen joining the third line and vastly improving it. Finally, the second line would be J. Jokinen/Koivu/Koivu. Pick your own Koivu to center the line; but it would probably be Saku.

I don't get the putting Hudler on the third or fourth line. Hudler was playing with Datsyuk and Cleary. While that line was together, for more than ten games, all three were on pace for about 100 points. Before that, for another 15-20 games, Hudler was on pace for around 70 points playing on the second line. Yes, Hudler has not been scoring close to that recently. Why? He got dumped down to the third or fourth line (depending on the game) for a good stretch, just because Franzen is a lazy f*** who shows up once every seven to ten games to score a goal or two, and is no better defensively than Hudler despite having started his NHL career as a defensive specialist. Since Hudler/Datsyuk/Cleary was separated, because Babcock wanted to get Franzen going: Franzen: 10 GP, 1-6-7 Hudler: 11 GP, 2-2-4 This is with Franzen averaging about four more minutes per game. Hudler has kept up his strong play despite the line being broken up, his ice time simply was slashed and he was typically placed with linemates who couldn't benefit from his offensive play the way Datsyuk and Cleary did. Yes, Hudler benefited as well, but that's the way good scoring lines work.