norrisnick

No way he signs long-term on the cheap. Agents exist for a reason. The good thing is he's RFA. If he prices himself out we get compensation.

How 'bout one that says we want Hossa and Franzen and Hudler and Bouwmeester and Kovalchuk next season along with Luongo. Salary cap is a *****. The Wings are going to get ridiculously top-heavy unless Marian comes in with an obscene discount. Signing him will mean at LEAST two other players have to move on. Probably 3.

We'd have had a lot more PPs.

That was a marginal 2 minute call and an inexcusable 5 minute call. Guys get rubbed out from behind left and right. Backes' lid popped off and he felt it. He was getting up but Murray was smart enough to have his trainer sprint out there and tell him to stay down a bit longer. The initial call was 2 minutes, but that dog and pony show made it 5 + game, which is why Lilly was pulled out of the box and sent off. And wonder of wonders Backes was out on that PP. If you're going to bump up a penalty because of an "injury" there damn well better be an injury. Embelishment is a penalty the last time I checked.

Hossa. Helm if he's playing.

That rule is only in effect for contracts signed AFTER the player turns 35. And then only for the years after the 1st year of said contract. I'm pretty sure the only players that rule applies to currently on the Wings are Lidstrom, Osgood, and Draper.

History of difficult negotiations? Kenny tried to pin him to a long term miniscule salary contract. He made what? $600K/yr the first couple seasons? You can't blame him for not wanting to lock in that low if there was any hope of him improving his standing on the team. And lo! He did. And even then his "difficult negotiations" only led to a 2 year deal that pays him $900K on average. There is a big difference between not wanting to be bent over the barrel and bending the team over the barrel. Franzen was far closer to the former than the latter. And I suspect he still is.

Nothing that extreme would be allowed. There is a blanket "no circumvention of the salary cap" rule that covers pretty much every aspect of the CBA. Anything that might be construed as shady ways to lower a cap hit isn't allowed. A frontloaded contract taking a player to age 40? Fine. A frontloaded contract that stretches until a player is 50? Not so much.

Jimmy has come on very strong of late. His last 10 games he's 7-3 with a 1.70 GAA .941 SV% and 3 shutouts. His most recent outing was a 43 save shootout shutout where he also stopped all 5 shooters in the shootout. Plus he's already signed for peanuts for 2 more years. No need to bother with Conks who is going to want to cash in at some point as he's never cashed in before.

My stance on running up the score is such. It's disrespectful to the losing team to stop trying unless they stop trying first. Half-assing it is not good sportsmanship.

Same guy, same game.

Slava is and was exponentially better than Sammy. He still holds our franchise record for playoff game-winning goals as well as OT goals. MFer was clutch.

No he couldn't.

At the very least tools are useful.

I see the post coming, so I'll head it off at the pass. If you don't see Fedorov as a lock for the Hockey Hall of Fame, you've lost touch with reality. Doesn't matter who you are.

I just keep dropping the ban hammer on him. He's got to be approaching his 30th username by now.

Fedorov. Opie is out of his mind. Bye Yzy.

One move that might be beneficial is more of a Calder/Williams move. Trade a guy with years left for a guy that's expiring. Say Filppula for Nik Antropov and a pick. Won't hurt us for the one-year window, but frees up $3M/yr for the next 4 years.

That's why the first of Franzen's recent near high-stick goals counting shocked me. It was waived off, but overturned by equally iffy replay angles. The refs/league could have taken the easy way out and pulled the ol' inconclusive card out.

An even better deal is Rafalski for Volchenkov plus whatever would even it out. Raf gets to spend most of his time out on the ice with Nick and that covers a lot of his holes and makes his numbers better. Nik and Raf are pretty much the same type of player but one is twice as expensive and 7-8 years older. I'd move that one.

I don't want to move Stuart, but it can't be ignored that he and Kronwall have had a trainwreck season thus far. The Wings have given up 38 PP goals. Stuart has been on for 20 of them. The 2nd pairing has single handedly sunk our PK on the road. We are the top PK team at home and dead last on the road. The opposition is feasting on Stuart and Kronwall with line matching. Stuart has been on for 17 road PP goals and Kronwall 15. To compare Lidstrom has been on for 5 road PP goals against and Lilly only 6. Kronwall and Stuart are currently solidly ahead of Lidstrom in total goals against. Care to guess the last time Lidstrom didn't lead the team in goals against? 1995 when Coffey edged him out. That a pair of guys that aren't seeing Lidstrom's matchups and aren't seeing his icetime in critical situations are on pace to finish about 15 goals ahead of him is absolutely terrible. They need to get their heads out of their asses post haste.

Conklin = Legace. Babcock better not make that mistake again.

That has to be the greatest sentence in the history of hockey.

I always knew you were my favorite grit groupie.