gcom007

And nights like last night and especially tonight make me feel better about standing pat in saying that I think the Wings are still going to make the playoffs, despite everything that's gone on this season, especially the last couple months. I still think the team has been poorly managed; I think Holland's done a terrible job in the offseason by signing guys we don't need and not strengthening the D which is where we really need guys. I'm still really worried about the future if he doesn't change his ways. But so long as Dats and Z are around and playing pretty well (hopefully the next 2-3 years past this one), I think we're still a consistent playoff team and a potential contender, albeit a dark horse one. Hopefully watching some of these kids play the last couple seasons and seeing how much money he's throwing away on guys that aren't even playing, he'll change the way he does things. Let these kids play and while their contracts are cheap, find better high-mid talent to supplement them, especially on D. Stop blowing money on Samuellsons and Clearys and Tootoos. Three guys that aren't playing or contributing and we might as well overpay for someone who will! Holland's strengths in the market are finding cheap guys that bring a tremendous amount of value; guys like Miller and Eaves. With the cap going up and the lack of mid-level let alone high-level talent on D, he's got to strengthen that area this summer, via free agency or trade, and continue to work at it through the season. The following two summers and seasons, you've got to find at least one top-end forward to bring in to help transition this team when Dats and Z stop having a major impact and/or retire. With the cap going up, the majority of his signings mid-level signings blowing up in his face, the kids playing well, and the concerns about Z's back plus Dats career winding down, he's got to change his strategy moving forward. While the kids are definitely more NHL-ready than the Wings typically seem to think, we realistically can't expect all of them to continue to play at a higher level moving forward, hence the need to consolidate some spending on impact players as opposed to again mid-level guys that almost always make too much and cost too much, if they even play. Having more impact guys around will make the young guys better and smooth out the learning curves as well. After all, we've seen too many examples of young guys come up from Grand Rapids, play great when they're filling holes and running on the excitement of playing in the NHL, and then when they go on to make the team out of camp, they struggle once they're a regular-regular. I'm optimistic about a lot of our guys and I think Tatar and Nyquist are legit talent that'll only get better, but everyone else is a wildcard next season. Some will be better, some will be worse, but all would benefit from upper-mid to high-end player to carry some of the load and lead as opposed to three guys making way more than they are to do nothing. I believe in the core of this team now, and I want to see the core maintained moving forward. Keep a strong core, keep the kids flowing in maybe a bit sooner than you used to, supplement the core with better players, and fill out the roster with those $1-1.5 million gems that can play important roles better than most $2.5-3 million mid-level guys seem able to. I don't think it's a difficult concept, and it's only going to be easier with the cap going up. I love this team, I love having a chance to make a run at the Cup, and I love winning as much as possible. There's just no reason it can't continue if we just get better at putting money in the right places. They're going to pull it off.

If Dats is healthy in the playoffs, the kids stay strong and Weiss comes back and plays halfway descent, there's nothing stopping this team from making a run this year. I'll say it again and again: when you have guys like Dats and Z around, you've got a chance every year. We've been lucky to have the injuries in some ways because it got some of these kids taking on bigger roles that they're ready to battle into. We're a better team with our kids than we are with the scrubs Holland keeps signing. The D needs work, no doubt, but they've been better than they probably should be. Jimmy is capable when he's on his game. There's no reason they can't do something this year if at least Dats is truly healthy in the playoffs. Z isn't going to be, but if he's around, he'll help; he'll be a strong leader and push the guys around him to be better, and he could surprise us. He's that type of player. But we can't rely on that. Dats is going to have to be big.

Legwand took the idea for a good line and turned it into a monster. I can't believe they just started playing together! And this is game 2 for them. They are only likely to get better together. But my concern is how Franzen will respond once Dats and Z are back. The guy seems to find a way to elevate his game when the big guys are out but goes back to mostly disappearing when they return. If he can work around that and this line stays hot, once the playoffs roll around, if we have Dats and Z back with Alfie on the top line and the Franzen-Legwand-Nyquist line 2nd, this is a team that can make a stink. Franzen will have to be at his best though because it's highly unlikely that even if Z is back, he's not going to be in top form.

Hate to see him go but I'm glad he's going to get to play. I still think he's underrated and if he can avoid more freak injuries, he could still develop into a really solid mid-level player. I'd love to have him back on the Wings if the opportunity allows, but if not, the guy needs to be somewhere he can play. He deserves that.

Not walking well...I'm not any sort of expert, so I'm not suggesting that I'm offering a valid perspective at all, to be perfectly clear. But it's hard to imagine him coming back this season after seeing that.

I can understand people frustrated with what we gave up. I hate to see Eaves go, though I get that he wanted to play. But anyone hating on Legwand, especially given our current situation, is misguided. I wish him well here, and I think he'll be able to help a lot.

Hossa called Holland. Then a year later, Holland made the colossal mistake of letting Hossa go. Rafalski wanted to come home. I'm glad we had them and all, but these weren't situations that you could say Holland hit out of the park based on his own efforts. I mean, Hossa pretty much negotiated his own deal. And besides that, the real problem has come up in the years since 2009 when the reality of the Cap started truly affecting the team. When he wasn't getting away with paying Zetterberg $2 million a season, he struggled to build a team around Dats and Z. And it's not even just that he's not luring better players here, he's signing mediocre players to terrible deals. That's the problem.

I was really hoping Datsyuk would be a week, maybe 10 days tops. 3 weeks with this schedule is brutal.

I can't imagine we gave up much. If we did, that sucks, but I doubt it given some of the other things that did and didn't happen at the deadline. But again, this really can't hurt in the present given our injuries. Oh s***, never mind. We gave up Eaves, a prospect and a 3rd rounder. f*** this trade.

It all boils down to what we gave up. Getting anyone who can really play cannot hurt right now. Long term? Eh...

Anyone who actually thought Mantha could be moved was out of their damn minds.

I'd go with 5c or 5s as it features the new screen aspect ratio plus LTE. It's a much more modern phone than the 4S. The 5c is basically an iPhone 5 with a plastic case (infinitely nicer than you would think when you hear the word "plastic"), a slightly bigger battery and a better front camera. I've had the 5 and the 5s and while I love my 5s, the 5 was a great phone and plenty capable. The 5s has the Touch ID which is great and the camera is definitely better. As for speed though, these phones are getting so fast that the difference between the 5/5c and 5s, while certainly measurable and at times noticeable, is not as big of a deal as it was in years past. It shouldn't be too hard to find a 5c for $50, and I'd say it's well worth the money over the free 4S. If you feel like splurging on a 5s, it's certainly a great phone as well. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you have any more specific questions and I'll do my best to answer them or point you in the right direction.

Yeah, just read that. Not good at all. I still think Wings will make the run needed for the playoffs with or without Zetterberg so long as Datsyuk keeps playing, but again, every new back flare up Zetterberg deals with terrifies me a little bit more than the last one, and if this is bad enough that he'll need surgery...it's a depressing night.

Well, let's hope this is a terrible rumor and bad reporting and a bad translation. That's really the last thing this team needs. And if it's that serious, like I said above, you really have to start becoming more concerned about how effective he'll be able to be long term. Back issues never just go away fully.

Just got the notification ruling him out of the rest of the tournament. Must be a major bummer for him. I don't blame him or anyone for going at all as I love the Olympics and have no problem with NHL players, especially the Wings players, participating. That said though, I hope he's dropping out because he has a long term commitment to the Wings and doesn't want to chance it as opposed to it being more serious. It sounds a big ominous to me given the tonal change between earlier when the injury was initially announced and now. As much as I love and respect the Olympics, given his history of problems and his NHL contract, he should definitely not be pushing through the pain and risk it becoming a more serious injury to play in the Olympics. Ugh... Every time his back flares up though I get more and more worried about his long term effectiveness. He'll be a great leader as long as he plays no doubt, but this is the kind of injury that's hard to iron out and it's likely to either greatly inhibit and/or shorten a career as time goes on.

They absolutely have potential. This is why it's so frustrating to see Holland make some of the moves he does these days. Trim some forward fat from the middle-tier that doesn't play or contribute (and who generally get outplayed by the so-called lower-tier guys) and sign some help on defense. There's a lot of positives about this team and anytime you have Dats and Z, you've got a fighting chance to make something happen. We've really got to stop squandering the remaining years we have with Dats and Z leading this team.

Just want to echo the "wait and see" approach with Weiss. I get where those who are frustrated are coming from on some level, but given the injuries, his younger age and adjusting to a new team, I think it's fair to suggest that Weiss might end up being fine down the stretch. If he continues to struggle with injuries and be invisible, then he should be taking more of a beating from fans than our old guys; he'll deserve it maybe next year.

Let's also not forget that Eaves has a great attitude and work ethic and comes from a good hockey family. He's also got a lot more skill than many realize. If not for injuries and a wildly inconsistent role, I think he'd likely have more impressive offensive numbers at this point than he does. I hope we trim some of the mid-level fat this summer and keep Eaves with this team, and in a way that will allow him to have a consistent role if he's healthy. If he sticks around and stays healthy, I think he'll surprise a lot of people the next couple of years. But again, I don't say any of this to take away from Miller. I like Miller a lot at his price point and I'd absolutely be doing all I can to keep those guys Red Wings for the long haul. They're both really solid role players at great price points that stand to be important parts of this team for some time to come.

Eaves, any day. I like Miller a lot, and I'd rather see both in the lineup at their price points. I'd like to see more money spent on top line guys that will actually play, contribute and make players around them better, and less spent on the mid-level guys that don't produce much more than guys like Eaves and Miller, are possibly more one-dimensional, or the latest trend, aren't even good enough to crack the lineup. We used to be good at getting top end talent and getting a lot out of our cheap talent like Eaves and Miller. Our cheaper guys played more like mid-level guys, and again, still oftentimes do. But the last few years, we continue to sign mid-level guys that just don't contribute enough to justify their price tags let alone their roster spots in some cases. It's a practice that really needs to stop.

You feel bad for him given how lousy the D is, but now that he's making the money that he is, yeah, you've got to expect him to be able to rise above the play of the D more consistently.

I have little to no faith in a team that just scored it's 5th goal of the game. That says a lot. Also says something about the other team and what kind of problems these teams scrapping for the playoffs are dealing with.

I remember in the 90s, more than now and then, Bowman would get rid of guys or sit guys because they didn't have what it takes. What is that exactly, especially to someone like Scotty? No one but Scotty knows exactly, but a couple guys I remember him really having a problem with on those pre-Cup Wings teams were Coffey and Primeau. I can't remember which one of them, but he flat out said "we'll never win a Cup with _______ on this team." It was one of those two, and I was too young to fully understand it, but looking back, and in talking to people about it over the years, I think one of the things that just made Scotty Bowman hate guys was a sort of resigned complacency and lack of killer instinct. There just wasn't a fire in some guys, or maybe as some guys aged, like Coffey, who'd had a lot of success already, maybe it just got weak. Certain guys though just didn't have that spark and couldn't get on the same page as the team; and they certainly couldn't find that extra gear for when things got tough and for the playoffs. In any event, all of that reminds me of almost the entire team we have currently. You said it very well when you said they have no identity. They absolutely don't. They're a roughly spun-together patchwork team for the most part that's been running on fumes from Dats and Z since losing the core of our defense in the span of a year. Holland has done a piss poor job of putting a team together for some time. I don't care that we make the playoffs still (and I absolutely believe we'll still make the playoffs this year). When you have Datsyuk and Zetterberg on your team, the playoffs are all but a given. This isn't a testament to the brilliance of Holland's managerial skills in the cap era, this is the benefit of having two of the best players at both ends of the the ice on your team and for many years before last, the best defenseman in the world. But what's Holland given Dats and Z (and Lidstrom beforehand) to work with the last 4-5 years? Mostly crap. He's made numerous regrettable signings. He's let guys go that he shouldn't have, and no, I do not mean Parise and Suter. That anyone can't acknowledge his shortcomings over the last 4-5 years when the Cap actually became something he had to deal with is unsettling, yet some still leap to defend him. And you know, I get why they signed Cleary. I got it then, and I get it now. When you talk about identity, Cleary is a guy that on some level gets that. He has a fire in him. But his body is broken, and whatever offensive output he has tends to boil largely down to luck anymore. That we have to go to the well of Dan Cleary at this point to find a guy that gives a s*** and seems to at least have emotions is profoundly pathetic. And I generally like Dan Cleary, and on a more balanced Red Wings team, I'd be fine having him around at the right price. But the role it seems he has on this team as practically the only loud mouth who plays through pain is ridiculous. But that said, I don't know what scares me more: the 2013-14 Red Wings with Dan Cleary as the one emotional loud mouth or the 2013-14 Red Wings with no emotional loud mouths. What's tremendously unfortunate is that we happen to have a lot of good role guys that should have more stable spots on this team, but due to so many terrible moves by Holland, things are always in flux. Guys like Eaves and Miller are bargains at their prices with lots of upside and plenty of potential to exceed what most would expect of them in the right roles. But instead, we've gone from leaning on them too hard to waiving them to sending them to the minors, and when not having to deal with injuries, these guys end up frustrated in a press box every other game because Holland signs too many s***ty mid-level guys that are too expensive to bench. Oh, except now we even have overpaid mid-level guys that are so non-essential that we'll bench them or ship them to the minors because we can't take the cap hit. No one's feeling sorry for ol' Sammy, but you've got to imagine that this hasn't gone at all how Tootoo expected it would, and I can't imagine him being very happy about it. Remember when we valued our checkers and didn't call them checkers or 4th liners? Remember when we actually didn't have a checking line or a 4th line? Remember when instead we had The Grind Line? What other teams had 4th liners who had their own t-shirt? It's not that Maltby, Draper and Kocur/McCarty were the most talented guys or most charismatic guys. They were just The Grind Line. That's what they did. That was their role. That was their identity, and they leaned into it and they became an incredibly important part of this team. But even without injuries, we'd struggle to ice a consistent 4th line that could have that kind of impact because we have serious cap issues, and the worst kind of cap issues. Not cap issues because we signed big time impact players, cap issues because we signed too many mid-level and utterly inconsequential players. Some keep saying that it won't stay like this, but what proof do we have that Holland really knows how to navigate out of his managerial rut with this team? This is the same guy that in the last 4-5 years... Signed Franzen at a descent cap hit but for a million years after essentially one good season, Let Hossa go to a team that got him at a $5 million cap hit, a team that also has own two Cups since that time, Let Rafalski and Lidstrom retire and Stuart leave while only bringing in the great Kyle Quincey as any sort of defensive replacement before getting geographically lucky and snagging DeKeyser to help a bit more Signed Sammy again for real, actual money, Signed Cleary when he needed defenseman and already had cap issues along with too many forwards, Signed Weiss long term for Hossa money, and while Weiss could turn it around, thus far he's been a total dud followed by becoming the injured 24/7 locker room hoodie guy. Perhaps his best recent signing is Alfredsson, but he's on a farewell tour and clearly not a long term asset. And half these kids aren't even supposed to be here! (Though maybe some should be and if we planned for that, we'd allocate money differently and pursue different players, but who thinks that differently just because the cap has fundamentally turned managing a team upside down?) You add it all up, and it's not hard to see why this team has no identity and no fire. It's barely a team, because even without all the injuries, it's tough to know what the team would look like given the complexities brought on by the cap issues and underachieving mid-level guys. This club is a big mess with tremendous potential still at the core, but it's potential that's being squandered because for 4-5 years now, Ken Holland hasn't had what it takes to build a winner around two of the greatest players of any era. And I barely talked about the defense. That's just too depressing to really go into...

When people wonder why I don't have faith in Holland in the cap era, it's because he continues to struggle and ultimately fail to fill holes left by important veterans. People defend him because we still make the playoffs, but what worries me is that we're largely still a team that can compete because of Datsyuk and Zetterberg, and we're really not going to have those guys playing at their current level if they're even still playing in 3-4 years. And this team has been all too capable of falling apart even when we've had them in the lineup! If Holland can't figure out how to bring in top-end talent before they hit the age of 40, games like this won't necessarily become the norm, but they'll become a lot less irregular. This team will be profoundly more lost than they are now when Dats and Z leave or lose their current effectiveness, and that day isn't nearly as far away as it once was, and the more we struggle in the meantime, the harder it's going to be to sell guys on this team. And I'm not bringing it up now because we lost 5-0. I'm bringing it up now because we lost 5-0 in a game without Datsyuk, Z and Franzen while most of the guys we've spent descent money on signing for depth the last few years still aren't even in the lineup, while the ones who are playing are generally terrible. Something is seriously wrong when you're spending millions on guys that aren't contributing at all and sweating money and getting cheap when it comes to signing bigger name guys that could make a real difference and be leaders and make guys around them better.

As much as I tend to think that at some point Holland will crack and really get his hands dirty making moves in the cap era, perhaps for better or for worse, I don't really believe it will happen anytime soon. I don't think the prices will be right and I don't think we have the assets to move in order to bring in anyone meaningful. We've got quality role players that we literally haven't been able to give away this year. What makes anyone think they're suddenly going to have trade value? We can't/won't move any of the better players we have. I just don't see much happening this year, nor do I see us having a big off-season. I really think our best case scenario as far as "deadline moves" as Holland defines them is getting Weiss back and him actually getting things going and if Franzen isn't out for the year. That's a rough best-case...

Not a Sammy fan and I don't doubt the whispers about them wanting to buy Sammy out if not for the injury, but this whole mess stems from countless bonehead moves by Holland. This guy's current standing as a top GM is running on fumes. Maybe he's got the skills, maybe he's got the know how, but he hasn't shown it in the cap era. He's overseen the ongoing decline despite being able to carry over a great core at a cap hit that should allow him to make better decisions than he's made. And oh, too many of those decisions he does make hurt just hurt, if you're not just already numb to it all. I barely felt Sammy. When I heard it, a largely sarcastic "OF COURSE" came to mind. And then I became a tired character in an long burnt out sitcom reduced to playing a cartoon crying himself to sleep.