gcom007

It's cool that so many of you guys can't read. Keep it up. Panic? No. Not me. Realistic? Yeah. You say I'm jumping off the deepend? I said "don't minimize it" like so many are doing. I didn't say "we're f***ed." And meanwhile, while you don't even bother to read what I'm saying, you assume the worst about what I'm saying and suggest that I'm panicking. Who's really being pessimistic at that point? Goodness gracious, it's amazing how lacking so many people seem to be in reading comprehension skills around here. Not to mention how ludicrously "black and white" many of you are. Did any of you stop to think that maybe their is a middle ground in it all? Are you really that lazy of thinkers? Ridiculous. Have fun next year when we don't tear through the regular season. I'll be the one saying, "don't worry...what did you expect?" as I always am while 95% of you are truly panicking. Same old same old.

Jager bombs? I f***in' shower in that s***!

Is it really such a bad thing to hope for 10 goals from him and to be more excited later if he scores 20?

My gut tells me we're not going to go far this year, but I think it'll be a successful year all things considered and I think we'll be right back in the hunt the next year. I absolutely agree with you. It's not panic, it just is what it is. We've had 3 deep runs and just took a pretty big hit and have a lot of kids coming up and guys winding down. This will likely be a bit of a transition year and I'm cool with that. Not to say I won't be pissed and hurting if we do get knocked out early, but I'm with you. My expectations aren't sky high heading into this year. I try to see the positive in everything though and I think the Wings will grow a lot to prepare for another era this season and we'll look back on it as important no matter what. These 4 kids coming up are real solid kids that I think have potential to be flesh and blood Wings for a long time. That's going to be exciting to watch. And hell, I love hockey. I just can't wait to watch hockey again. I sure as hell want to win, but I can't wait for the competition again and the excitement. I was joking with some people a day before game 7 about this summer and said, "I don't know what I'm going to do without this anxiety in my life for 3 months!" I thrive on it because I love this game. It'll be great to see how it all plays out.

I sure hope he does and I believe he'll score a lot of goals for us in the future, but I'm not convinced he'll do it next year. Even Datsyuk only put in 11 goals in his first year. I think Leino's got plenty of upside, but these guys are rookies. I'm more than happy to have them and I think they're going to be solid Wings for a long time if they're cool with our money game. But I'm not going to expect too much from them right off the bat. You're bound to be disappointed and it's simply not the most realistic expectation. Keep things balanced and reasonable and if they do exceed your expectations, than life is all the better for all parties involved. But I'm not going to set them up to fail in my head.

From the original post: I'm not a doom and gloomer nor am I panicking. But I'm certainly not about to minimize the loss of these guys either like many are. I'm trying to live in the middle which I believe to be closer to reality. The Rangers comment was just to add a bit of a punch to the idea that this is nothing to minimize but I knew the point wasn't wholly logical in terms of looking at next season which is why I quickly followed it up with "obviously it's not that cut and dry..."

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It's cool, no worries. I'm actually kinda excited heading into this season though. The regular season is going to be a lot more exciting than it's been because I don't think any team that's going to make the playoffs in the West is going to skate in easy. Every team is going to have to really work for it to be one of the eight to go. I think Chicago will take the conference most likely but I don't think they'll finish too far ahead of everyone else. I think we'll see a real even 40-50 game spread between eight and one. That's going to make for good hockey and it's going to make every month count for far more than it has for us in the past.

I think we're screwed if the goal is to win the Presidents trophy. As I've said numerous times, I don't think we're going to be as forceful of a powerhouse as we've been the last few years. Does that mean we're screwed? Only time will tell but I doubt it. I don't see the world in black and white like many here seem to. I think the Wings are going to have to battle it out in a more competitive conference and division with a weaker team. That's a scenario we haven't seen in awhile. This notion that we're better off having lost Hossa and Sammy is hogwash and the sentiment is heightened considering the loss of Hudler. It's not likely that this season is going to be a runaway.

Nobody has suggested that. I swear, half of you people don't read well.

Perhaps it's not worded well. Ultimately what I meant was that I don't think we're going to win 51 games this year. I think 40-45 is more realistic. The West is going to be more of a battle than it's been and we're not going to be as strong offensively next year. It'll be tough to put up the same amount of wins and points that we have the last few years when we had more scoring depth.

Perhaps you misread. What I meant was we're not likely to win as many games this year as we have in years past. I'm not saying we're going to lose more than we win.

Stu Grimson.

Considering it was supposed to drop this year and is artificially inflated and is almost bound to drop next year, I very easily could see it dropping $5-6 million. Time will tell, but don't let this years artificial cap fool you. Next year they'll likely be making up for 2 years in natural digression. This is why the NHL discouraged the NHLPA from making the move they did. It doesn't bode well for what will happen next year.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but the NHLPA cannot pull the same stunt next year from what I understand. Next year if it goes down, it goes down without any arguments or appeals.

I'm thinking/hoping for a 4th or 5th seed. It's a good position to start in anyways in a lot of ways and I think it's pretty reasonable heading in to this year. 3 30 goal guys: Dats, Z and Mule. Upper end of 70-90 points.

Cleary's going to have to be big for us. What worries me most is how this team will handle the pressure and level of intensity it's going to take to win this year. What I think a lot of people aren't thinking about is the momentum aspect. Losing that offense best-case scenario still likely means we're going to lose more games than we've won the last few years. How will the team handle that? Perhaps more importantly, how will our 4 new rookies handle that considering they haven't really had the experience some of our guys have? The head game will be huge next year, no doubt about it. I'm not panicking and I don't think I made any indication of it and even said that I don't think we're screwed or anything. But there are a lot of people around here talking like we'll be better next year without Hossa and Sammy and with the kids. I think that is one of the more ludicrous things I've heard all the more so now that we've lost Hudler. This is most likely going to be a much tougher go around through the regular season than we're used to and while I'm not worried about making the playoffs, I do wonder if we'll have the juice and the tools to go the distance with other teams stacking up and balancing out the Western conference equation.

That's my biggest concern. I'm not convinced our defensive issues are going to disappear with the snap of Hollands fingers. People making the argument that Hossa was a crutch aren't making any sense if you ask me, especially considering the nature of the defensive issues we had last year. And I agree about the kids. Those numbers would make me very happy as well. I like everyone we've got coming in a lot, but I think far too many people here are expecting way too much from them next season which just isn't really reasonable or fair to expect.

I would assume you read the whole post where I addressed this very thing before you start edripping on me for things I didn't say. Right?

Actually, I think it sucks more that you can't read.

I'm sure Osgood wouldn't mind that either! But, ummm, yeah, realistically..........................

See above, but again, at best, there's still a huge difference between the AHL and the NHL.

I'm not saying he doesn't have potential to be a solid guy, but even if he had great AHL numbers, I don't think it's fair, reasonable, realistic, logical, etc... to expect him to put up big numbers this year. Even the superstars need time to adjust to the NHL game and the reality is, this guy's not a superstar. People have got to be realistic about what 3 rookie forwards should be expected to do. It's not a knock on anyone or pessimism, it's just what's absolutely reasonable.

I agree, but I don't see the correlation that some do. We had an outstanding offense, sure, but this idea that it somehow influenced the defense to play sloppy is just lazy logic especially considering the nature of our defensive issues. We weren't pinching. We just gave the puch away in front of our net about a thousand times. That's fundamental stuff. I don't know why it happened, but it did. Stuart and especially Kronwall were responsible for much of it and considering we've really only seen one solid playoffs from Kronwall to justify the idea that he's a steady d-man, I'm a little concerned. I said all along in the regular season the the D concerned me far more than Osgood as I trusted that Osgood could flip the switch as he did but considering the nature of the defensive issues, I wasn't sure it'd be so simple to totally turn them off and it wasn't. Silly mistakes reared their heads more than a few times in the playoffs. Helm, Leino and Abdelkader are gambles. Leino and Abby could produce a bit, but they could just as easily not produce much this year. Don't bet on Flip. Expect similar output to what you've seen. We'll be lucky if we get 5 extra goals out of him next year even with more ice time. He just doesn't have the shot or the fire.