norrisnick

Horse s***. There's nothing straw about it. My argument was and is that Rolston would be going from a primary role to a secondary role. His three years in Minny he's been #1 or #2 in TOI for forwards. The three years before that in Boston he was top 3. That will not continue. He won't get anywhere NEAR 20min+/gm like he's seen for the past 6-7 years. And he won't get over a minute more PP time than the rest of our 2nd unit. He's not going to kick Nick, Raf, or Nik off the point and that's what he's been playing. And that's where he's racked up 39 of his goals the last three seasons. His role and icetime will be drastically reduced. If you don't think his numbers will reflect that, you're deluding yourself. And as far as strawmen go, the bolded section is a delicious bit of irony.

He's scoring 30 goals playing well over 20 minutes a night with Minnesota. He won't get anywhere close to that in a secondary role with the Wings. If guys are looking to cash in on primary role production with lesser teams they need to find themselves teams where they'll be primary players. The Wings aren't going to keep winning if they give aging role-players $4-5M/yr. Especially 35 year-olds who base their game on blazing speed and a blazing shot. The wheels will come off sooner rather than later.

Then Rolston should expect $2-2.5M/yr like the other role players we have. He's not going to get a bigger role than guys like Homer, Fil, Cleary, or Franzen. No need bringing in a mid-range guy looking for $4-5M/yr. It's those players and those contracts that you need to avoid in the cap world. We've got 4, soon to be 5, guys making north of $6M/yr. No one else is or will be making more than $3M/yr in forseeable future. That's how we're successful. We've got elite guys and we've got the young and/or cheap secondary guys. Bringing in relatively expensive secondary guys like Rolston or Malone (on many people's wishlist) isn't going to help us now or in the long run.

You can't take the production a guy gets playing 20+ minutes on the 1st line/1st PP elsewhere and expect the same getting maybe 15min here on the 2nd line/2nd PP unit. Remember Ray Whitney? Check his stats before and after Detroit.

That is bad news for the Wings. Don't get distracted by 2nd tier forwards. Go big or not at all. Don't tie up money in mid-range guys. He's 35 and looking for $4-5M/yr. In a year or two he won't be any better than Franzen, Fil, or Cleary who would be making as much as $2M/yr less.

Don't get blinded by the big hits and big goals. Jay is significantly better defensively. He's been stuck in a hockey abyss for his entire career thus far, but Bouwmeester is elite. He had an off year this past season, but if given a choice between the two it's Jay without a hint of doubt in my mind.

If you want to cut us mods a check and make us professionals, we'll promise to try and behave ourselves. Somewhat. Maybe. Or not. Whatever...

Dion Phaneuf recently signed a 6 year $6.5M/yr extension. Jay Bouwmeester is the better defenseman of the two.

That was his weight when he was drafted 4 years ago. I'd say there's not a chance in hell he's below 200lbs at this point. Here he's listed at 6'3" 202lb. http://www.eurohockey.net/players/show_pla...gi?serial=58002

I found the clip and am uploading to youtube as we speak...

Faster Hatcher without the soft hands.

His career highlight is completely obliterating some American kid at the WJC when Belarus managed the upset and beat USA. I believe that's Belarus' lone win at the WJC in a long long time. There used to be a video floating around, but I'm not sure if you can still find it.

A friendly reminder that there is nothing in the rules preventing Holland from moving older players should it come down to it. If push came to shove it wouldn't be Fil, Franzen or Cleary being moved. It would be Draper or Holmstrom. That said it wouldn't get that far.

The first bolded part is simply not true. You're creating an either/or situation that doesn't exist. There is absolutely no reason one of our younger core players have to be moved or let go. None. Second bolded part is tricky but nowhere near impossible. Give up on a big money #4 and let the kids play, sign Hossa, sign/extend everyone but Zetterberg this summer while they are still relatively cheap. Then sign Z next summer after his contract expires. If you wait on Z's deal we have plenty of cap space for '09-'10 and we don't run into the tagging problem.

I was off by a year. 5 years $5.5M/yr. This thread on HF references an MLive article that doesn't exist anymore. http://hfboards.com/archive/index.php/t-266172.html

This picture is pure awesome.

Jimmy is the backup. If we don't figure out what we have now, we'll be in quite a bind next summer when Howard is out of AHL options and we still don't what he's capable of at the NHL level.

Adding one player will not tear the team or its chemistry apart. The problem in Tampa is two-fold. 1. They had an internal budget lower than the cap ceiling. 2. They spent a s*** ton of money on offensive forwards with no team defense or balance to save them. Neither of those would be issues in Detroit.

If we lose a goalie or defenseman and they need to be replaced mid-season we'd have to pay high value in a trade for them regardless. And this season there would be very little if any cap squeeze (depending on what kind of replacement we'd need to bring in). It's next season where the cap becomes an issue. I still don't get this facination with the concept that if we sign Hossa that it would have to be our best players and the young up and comers that might potentially be forced out the door. It's ridiculous to presume that adding Hossa would mean one of Z or Pavel would have to go. You don't make cap room by getting rid of your best players. We didn't buy out Lidstrom and let Z and Pavel walk coming out of the lockout. We bought out Hatcher, Cujo, Whitney, and McCarty. A similar principle would be applied in this case. Though IMO it would never have to get that far barring a disaster, but that's what LTIR is for.

I'm going to spin off this point a bit. Sure we don't need Hossa. But by adding him, he makes a lot of other options unnecessary. With a guy like Hossa we can go young for that #4 defensive spot. Not only because he provides a lot of extra goals, but also because he's a top 5 two-way forward along with Z and Pavel. He'd be a seemless integration into our team defense scheme.

There is nothing stopping Kenny and Z from agreeing to a number, but just not putting it on paper until July 1st 2009. If we can get the negotiating out of the way, but hold off signing Z, the tagging issue would be a moot point.

We were a hell of a lot tighter cap-wise when Kenny made a 6 year $5.5M/yr offer to Patrik Elias a couple summers back. Kenny would be stupid to not even try, especially since he'd have a full year to work something out.

And the Wings use loaded dice.

You make no sacrifices. We'll be spending close to $28M on four guys next season anyway. If you have the right kind of players you can get top heavy. Nick and Rafalski are two of the best two-way defensemen in the world. Z and Pavel (and Hossa) are top 5 two-way forwards. If your expensive guys are multi-dimensional you're not going to be hurting too much. The Western teams couldn't handle us this past season. All we would be doing is adding Hossa. How does that make us any easier to stop?

And his birthday. #87 8/7/87 $8.7M/yr