YoungGuns1340

I love this. Hes got 25 points now, and with 32 games left, all he has to do is tag 15 points to hit 40. I called that this kid would have his breakout year this season, but everyone was too convinced hed take the zamboni out for a joy ride, crash the thing, and be out of hockey for 10 months. Its like the opposite with Filppula for this guy.

There is absolutely NO way you can justify Niedermayer and Perry going in over Rafalski and Huselius. The league is a joke though, and it has been for some years now, especially when it comes to the ASG, so its no surprise you have hairbrained picks like these.

Seriously...how the f*** does Niedermayer get to go? Thats freaking ridiculous. Is Rafalski going???? HELLLLLLLOOOOOO Idiots. ******* idiots.

They arent going to get anyonese head GM. They might be able to land an assistant, but none of those guys have any reason to leave their organization, especially Holland and Burker who could be looking at more stanley cups fort heir resumes

Im definitely with you. I really do NOT want to lose Cleary, but if Hossa is doable and Clearys asking for the moon, its the opportunity of a lifetime, especially when you consider Hanks injury history and that we may not have Lidstrom in 2 years. We all know we wont be able to replace Lids, so the answer to that problem may be to pack the offensive punch up front to the point where we have the best forward group in the NHL..Ideally, id get rid of Sammy, Franzen, and then Hudler before anyone else, keep a bottom 4 of Kopecky, Downey, Drapes, and Maltby, and then add a cheap character guy and a griffin to fill in the last 2 bottom 6 spots, and keep a top 6 of Flip, Cleary, Homer, Hank, Hossa, and Datsyuk.

Anaheim - Todd Bertuzzi Atlanta - Ilya Kovalchuk Boston - Milan Lucic Buffalo - Ryan Miller Carolina - Erik Cole Calgary - Robin Regher Chicago - Martin Havlat Columbus - Sergei Fedorov Colorado - Ryan Smyth Dallas - Brenden Morrow Detroit - Henrik Zetterberg Edmonton - Dustin Penner Florida - Olli Jokinen Los Angelas - Alexander Frolov Minnesota - Brian Rolston Montreal - Mike Komisarek Nashville - David Legwand New Jersey - Zach Parise NY Islanders - Trent Hunter NY Rangers - Henrik Lundqvist Ottawa - Mike Fisher Philadelphia - Jason Smith Phoenix - Shane Doan Pittsburgh - Colby Armstrong San Jose - Milan Michalek St. Louis - Lee Stempniak Tampa Bay - Martin St. Louis Toronto - Mats Sundin Vancouver - Roberto Luongo Washington - Alexander Ovechkin

If Cleary asks for too much, i.e 3.5M, I think itd be more likely that the Wings would trade for Hossa assuming they knew 1) if Hossa would be interested in re-signing with Detroit and 2) if they knew Hossas contract demands were within a doable range. I could see the Wings then letting Cleary walk and let somebody else sign him to a 3.5M deal and then using that extra cap space to sign Hossa to a big contract longer term. And yes, its doable assuming Detroit would probably trade Hudler plus extras for Hossa, and assuming the cap goes up about 6M in the next 2 years (its already projected to go up 4M this year)

It depends. If theyre on the cusp and still cant get him re-signed, Im betting they deal him. I doubt management thinks they have a team that can go all the way. They could get a nice return for Hossa and could use that return to build that team into a true contender within 1-2 years.

If you want to make room to re-sign Cleary, then you cut Sammy (trade) and Franzen loose. I dont think theyll let him walk. I think their issue here is what Ken Holland mentioned about them having money at the deadline. Im thinking theyre looking to trade for a player that might not be just a rental, and if thats the case theyre gonna need to know Clearys number beforehand to see if they can take on that salary next season as well, or if they shouldnt put all their eggs in one basket and trade a lot for someone they wont end up re-signing... "I'd be uncomfortable to go out and get a potential unrestricted free agent (via trade) and then have all these players leave. Ideally, we'll have a deal in place with Dan Cleary, and then I know what money I'll have under the cap, and we can set our sights on other things. If we don't have a deal, we've got some decisions to make." Think about it this way. If Detroit is, for example, really serious about getting Prospal for example, then theyll probably want to re-sign him since theyll give up a decent amount for him. If thats the case, they may not be able to do that If Cleary wants 3.5M and they sign him to that salary before they get Prospal. If they do re-sign Cleary to 3.5M, then maybe they go after a guy like Malone instead of a guy like Prospal.

At the start of the season when Henrik Zetterberg was tearing up the league and was leading the league in points, I was pretty impressed, but I didnt think hed be able to keep that pace up much. I honeslty thought hed fall back to being 15ish in the league in terms of points, and at best 9 or 10th, especially with his injury history. I did NOT think that hed be 5th in scoring at the 50 game mark. However, at this point in the season, hes only 3 points away from being #1 overall even though hes played 4-5 games less than all the other guys in the top 5. He leads the leauge in point per game pace as of now and, more importantly, 2 big competitors for the scoring title are injured - Alfredsson and Crosby - and another if you count Heatley. Also, it looks like Kovalchuk and Vinny are starting to cool off a bit. So my question is, does Hank have it in him to win a scoring title this year, or are Kovalchuk, Iggy or Vinny gonna run away with it?

Chelios definitely gets a lot of breaks on this board. He can definitely be a liablity and has made plenty of mistakes this season that have been overlooked. i love the guy and im not bagging on him, but having a little more defensive depth is key. id prefer foote, but assuming Blake has improved his game a bit (maybe to convince the Wings that hes worth picking up?), I dont see why not. That gives Detroit 2 crazy point man pairings with Lids/Raffi and Blake/Kronwall also, and PPs are key in the playoffs these days.

I should emphasize that I meant the Art Ross, not the Rocket Richard.

Id never use contractions if it werent for formal writing.

Im starting to warm up to the Blake addition. Apparently, hes been playing very well over the last 20 games and has been a hitting machine. As long as he isnt the guy planning on making the rushes up the ice, I wouldnt mind seeing him here. Especially since he has a NTC which bascially allows him to decide where hes going. Thats always a plus in trade negotiations.

Oh I didnt mean moving Sammy in a direct trade. I meant like, trading Sammy for whatever in order to gain cap space to sign a player in free agency. Like, sign malone in the off-season and then trade Sammy to whoever for picks, prospects, what have you. Suddenly you have the possibility of creating a line thats Malone-Cleary-Hudler and just like that Hudlers size isnt as big of an issue since he can focus more on being the sniper and less on taking the body, carrying the puck, and digging in the corners which could fall to the bigger guys in malone and cleary.

Honestly, Im far from a Lilja fan, but its probably a safe move to make for several reasons. 1) Chelios is getting up there. Who knows when his age will finally catch up to him, hell sustain a serious injury, or hell only be able to play every other game. Imagine this season not having Lilja and having to go with a bottom pairing of Meech and Quincey when a Dman goes down. Thats a really scary thought. 2) Any Dman available in the free agency pool will either be more expensive than Lilja, or not as good. If he is better than Andreas and less expensive, hes not gonna be available via free agency as hell likely be an RFA or similar youngster. Believe it or not, Lilja is a good #6 Dman that can play Detroits system. There may be other #6 Dman out there who are very physical, but wouldnt know what to do with themselves in Detroits puck posession system. 3) Lilja, as the article suggests, will likely re-sign for around 1.25-1.5M. Thats hardly a substantial chunk of change, which makes him VERY tradeable. Will we be able to trade him straight up for something decent? No. But if we found a trade for a better Dman, a good forward, etc, and we needed his roster spot/salary freed up, he could easily be traded for a pick. Id take Lilja over Hnidy, and he was traded with ease already this season. 4) The Wings management know their players very well. If they thought one of the youngsters was ready to have a full time spot, theyd make that known. And if some young player really wows them in training camp, it wouldnt be too much of a loss to have Lilja take up the 7th spot. Management could very well be banking on trading Meech at the deadline and you wouldnt want Kindl, Ericsson, or Quincey wasting their time sitting on the bench as the 7th forward. Its very possible that management is locking up Lilja because they think theyll be rotating between Quincey, Lilja, and Chelios for those 2 bottom spots over the season. As mentioned above, if the Wings are looking from within to add another Dman, itd be really scary to go with a bottom pairing of Quincey and Ericsson, for example, if Chelios went down and the Wings let Lilja walk only to replace him with a youngster. Bottom line, this is a safe no-risk move that secures a cheap, reliable depth player. If it turns out that re-siging Lilja is a mistake, then its one you can easily get rid of. Absolutely no reason to get your panties in a wad over this news.

ehh hes cooled off a bit. No points in his last 3 games and hasnt had a multiple point game in about 10 games I think. Id bet it would be Vinny of the three I mentioned above. The other two will probably be relied upon to play a lot more responsable, complete game down the stretch run since Calgary and Atlanta will probably be vying for seeds whereas Tampa Bay wont. I could see a guy like Iggy having to play more Pk minutes and both of them having to backcheck their asses off to make sure theyre earning points for their teams in the standings, more so than personal points. Which is a shame, because I dont like Vinny too much, but Im a huge Kovalchuk fan.

and thats stopped Steve Sullivan? Paul Kariya? Martin St. Louis? Marty St. Louis was waved and barely got the time of day at the beginning of his career. Now hes a bona fide first line winger. Hudler is in his 2nd year getting squat ice time and is still a really young guy. With a regular 2nd liners ice time, this guys got 60 points in the bag easy at slight over 1M. And you make his size out to be a lot more of an issue than it actually is. I could give you names of guys who are over 6'3 and get pushed off the puck. Happens to the best of em. Hudler has a great work ethic and has skill and unless some sort of trade comes along where we are getting a guy of equal skill and more size coming back in return for a cheap price, then I dont know why the hell youd want to move him. Every teams got its small players. If Im making room for a bigger guy, itll be at the price of Samuelsson, not Hudler, and itll come via free agency, not in a trade.

I love it when threads like this are made. Theyre always a great jinx. Ducks lose 5-2 to the Stars this evening.

The article suggest a 2.5M two year deal for Lilja. A 250k raise per season for Lilja is nothing. 1.25 per season is more than fair game for Lilja. As for Flip, we have 6 months before he can get an offer sheet, and honestly he would not be my first choice if i were a GM.

3.9 will be a steal if Sharp keeps this up. Hes one of those guys thats floating around just oustide the area of "power forward" in todays NHL terms. He hits, fights, scorts, plays PK, plays PP, and is apparently a great character guy and a hardworker. Hell hit 30 goals easy and has how many shorties already? This is a good deal for Chicago hands down. This guy is just entering his prime..

Actually, I think its a very astute comment. Not only is 6M market value now, but itll be less than market value come next year when the cap is up to 54M as projected. As for 6M being too much...um Mccabe and Kubina both got 5M what? 2 years ago? Thatd be like 7M with todays cap. Look at what Schneider got. Had Schneider been 5 years younger, he probably wouldve gotten 6.5 instead of 5.75, which is still a ton. Look at Hamrlik, landing over 5M. Did he deserve it? Hell no. But he got it. Souray got 5M also, and hes superior to ALL those guys. As for the Shneider/Rafalski comparison, Rafalski is actually the better of the two defensively. Schneider had tons of turnovers too. Same as Rafalski so far, who Id give the rest of the season to fully integrate himself into Detroits system after playing his entire NHL career in a strict New Jersey system. But one thing people are forgetting, or maybe just never noticed much with Schneider cause they didnt look hard enough, but Schneider was NOTORIOUS for pinching at the wrong times. Game in and game out hed either pinch at the wrong time, or play the body of a guy that he couldnt handle and that player would then blow right past him. A lot of times other Wings Dmen would have to cover for that and if a goal/scoring chance for the opposition resulted from that, it made it look more like the fault of the Dman that had to cover for Schneider than it actually being Schnediers fault. In terms of hockey sense, Rafalski has tons of it, and is heads and shoulders above Schneider in that department. However, its gotta be hard to be thinking in certain terms within such a calculated system as New Jersey and then have to hop on over to Detroit where everything is about passing plays.

FYI, the league uses Iggy to promote NHL "diversity" every chance they get.

Haha that kinda made my night..

the only thing good about this loss is that it shows me that Detroit couldve beaten Ottawa had they actually played a full game. We didnt get bet cause we couldnt beat them. We simply just didnt have the drive to.