YoungGuns1340

The key, however, is that Morrison WON'T be 100% when he starts the season at least. That MCL is going to affect his skating game.

They'll sign Demitra. Hes no better than Naslund, but at least he can play center. And I'd rather have Bernier than Morrison. If they do in fact sign Demitra, the Canucks fare better..

Theres already a rumor going around that they've made him an offer..

Stamkos is going to cut into that 8M considerably..

True. But I thought his offensive talent was superior to anything I've ever seen from Draper..

Why? Morrison is a shadow of his former self, but more importantly, hes rehabing from a nasty MCL tear and IF hes ready at the start of the season, he'll take a while to get back into the swing of things.

Thrashers? Isles? Yotes? None of those teams are really desperate for offensive Dmen, but they have the space to take on Schneiders contract to put them over the cap floor. Then again, Im not sure how many RFAs those teams have to re-sign. But this puts the Ducks well above the cap by a few million at least. Schneiders on the outs it seems..

The reason why everyone hates Hossa is because he basically put his money where his mouth is. Hossa signed a contract with Detroit that says "I am so convinced that Detroit is far and above the best team that I am willing to forgo tens of millions of dollars to be a member of that team." All their little egos are hurt. Nothing more.

I'm more interested in whether or not we can break the 62 win mark this season..

I wonder if this means someones on the outs. I didn't think they needed any forward depth..

Why on earth do people assume that Hossa will be living in the ghettos of Detroit? He'll likely be leaving in Birmigham, Bloomfield, etc. Those are gorgeous places to live that rank up there with some of the nicest suburbs in the country.

Anaheim also has a self-imposed salary cap. I'm not sure what the number is, but my guess is its easily below 56 million.

QFT. It was far from a bad move. And whoever said Helm is a second Draper, thats selling Helm a little short. Draper has suspect hands, one season excepting. Helm, IMO, could be Mike Fisher Lite.

Thats 98 points over 75 games for Zetterberg, and 100 points over 80 games for Datsyuk. Considering thats only a handful of points more for each player, Id say its doable. On the other hand, perhaps having Hossa on the team will decrease their production with not enough ice time to go around..

Hossa leaving the Pens is in no way comparable to the Red Wings losing Fedorov or even Schneider. The Penguins didn't draft Hossa, treat him like a king, fight for his rights in an offer-sheet war, give him ice time, cups, and talented linemates to boot, and then get left for another team simply because he felt he had been mistreated and wanted more ice time and fame. As for Schneider, he was a Red Wing for four seasons, and had already re-upped once with the Red Wings, showing at least some measure of loyalty. And even then, Wings fans complained, but there weren't articles being written in the newspaper and internet trashing a guy who took less money to win. Sure he went to the Ducks, but more people trashed Burke for offering him an overpaying contract than anything. As for Hossa, he was a Penguin for all of four months. He also told the Penguins that he was going to test free agency days before free agency even started, and this was going on while Shero was trying to trade away the rights to fairly significant roster players, and with rumors abound about the Penguins 2nd best player possibly getting traded. The guy wants to compete and yet the Penguins are trying to re-sign him when they have question marks littering their roster. So, no, I don't really have sympathy for the amount and extent of complaining that Pens fans are doing. Do I understand some of the anger? Naturally of course. But I wouldn't go trashing the ethics of a guy who was on my favorite team for not even half a season and signed with a team with no question marks or holes for less money. If you ask me, Pens fans aren't pissed at Hossa for leaving. They're pissed because his signing just added further proof that the majority of the league and its players think that the Red Wings are simply better than the Penguins. Its would've been a lot easier for Pens fans to say "oh well he only left for the money". But in this case, Hossa is basically saying Pittsburgh is not as good as Detroit. And thats what pisses me off about this entire situation. Their little egos are hurt, yet they're taking it out on a guy who actually made a classy move in putting his sport before his wallet.

I'm not surprised. The city of Detroit could definitely use that sort of pull.

Cause they are loaded with mediocre teams, a lot of whom didnt make any improvements or got worse. Atlanta, Boston, Buffalo, NYI, Toronto, Florida, Senators, Capitals, Pittsburgh. The Devils, Rags, Flyers, Canes, and Habs all made slight improvements, and in a few of those cases its debatable. Tampa Bay, the team who was abysmal, made huge improvements on paper, but now have a worse offense than they started out with. Meanwhile, half the West has made improvements, and only a few teams have gotten worse..

Zetterberg is pretty much locked in at anything less than 7.45M.

Haha I was thinking the same thing.

Cleary had his best regular season ever in terms of offensive statistics. And that was on a season shortened by 19 games.

Hes reached that mark 4 out of the 5 past years. He had 70 this year in his shortest season ever played (excluding 94/95 of course). I might agree with you, but having Rafalski as an impressive right-handed complement should make it easy for him to snag 62+

Whats the deal with tickets? Availability? Costs?

It won't be in the arena. It'll be at Wrigley Stadium. Wrigley has a capacity of just over 41,000. And there will be more seats added as well. It could easily be over 50k. The last winter classic in Buffalo saw over 70k in attendance, but football stadiums general hold more...

One year less of interest on that fat paycheck for starters...and its guaranteed money.

Thats because a lot of people on this board are familiar with Rich Winter and how the players he represents have acted in the past. The guy is all about money.