YoungGuns1340

Hahahaha...what a joke. All kinds of Wings standing around and Hanzal running free..

But thats the thing - physical and finesse aren't mutually exclusive. In fact when you have a good mix of both, it tends to rub off on one another. Then you have physical 4th liners who can make a nice pass or score a pretty goal, and you have skilled top sixers throwing their weight around. Thats the best brand of hockey, and for this Wings team right now, its incredibly one-sided. Now, to clarify my point, because I know someone like Sandman will come in here to call any critic a hater, I DO think Wings hockey is exciting. I always will. But that doesn't mean it couldn't be more exciting or, at the least, a bit more varied from game to game.

If youre not a hardcore Wings fan, or a Wings fan at all, I can totally see where you'd find their style of play boring. I'll think Wings games are entertaining even if they're employing the trap for an entire season, just because they're the Wings, but I can totally see where you'd find their style of play boring if you're a casual Wings fan, or not a Wings fan at all. This team has no balance. Don't kid yourselves - Cleary, Franzen, Draper, Maltby and Kopecky aren't natural energy guys at all, or anymore, depending on the case. They won't bring that sort of game on a regular basis. Apparently, the same can be said for Kronwall and Stuart on the back-end. These are guys who can be gritty, physical, and energetic, but they don't want to be. I have faith they'll bring at least some of that game in the playoffs, but I don't expect it out of them during the regular season. The popularity of the Wings in the past 20 years piqued when they had a balanced squad. Pretty goals, nice passes, skilled plays....and big hits, great energy, and momentum-changing fights. The latter is missing almost in its entirety on this squad. IMO, if you want this team to be exciting again without relying on Hossa, Datsyuk, and Zetterberg to spice things up, then its starts with adding some nastiness on the back-end, and revamping the 3rd and 4th lines. Guys like Lebda, Kopecky, Draper and Maltby are all either hasbeens or wannabes. Two of them used to be good at bringing the energy, now they're just old dogs. Lebda and Kopecky, on the other hand, would both prefer to be lesser versions of offensive defenseman and skilled top-sixers, instead of making themselves irreplaceable but bringing constant energy and agitation that makes their presence known each and every time they're on the ice. Bottom line - this team would be a lot more exciting if it had a handful of guys on this roster who knew that their bread and butter was bringing energy, grit, nastiness, physicality, etc. I question whether theres a single guy on this team - except for maybe Helm - who doesn't see that role as secondary to making pretty passes and skilled plays.

I love vanilla pudding - much more than Chocolate too.

I think what hes basically saying here is "we should've kept Quincey instead of Meech." With the logjam we had, Ericsson being waiver exempt would've meant he'd be down there anyways and Lebda would've remained in the top 7. Really, it would've be nicer to have Quincey as an option than Meech, who is ridiculously similar to Lebda. But at the same time, I still don't see Quincey being the same guy as a 6/7 in Detroit as he is right now in LA.

I didn't say trade Stuart for White and picks. I said trade Rafalski for White and a pick/prospect, then trade Stuart for a pick and bring up Ericsson full time. Rafalski may produce points, but his paid first and foremost to play defense. At any rate, any trades are conditional, and giving up Rafalski and Stuart would only happen if the Wings thought they could land a good goalie, or could be in play for Bouwmeester, or could compensate for his loss. As much as I'm not a big fan of Kronwall these days, at half the price, a younger age, and a more physical game, I'd keep him over Rafalski in a heartbeat. Regardless, I'm really interested to see what happens when the cap goes down in the coming years. I think people will be surprised at some of the measures taken. Last time the Wings had to reduce salary drastically in order to become cap-compliant, they bought out their then #2 Dman and one of the biggest fan favorites in the past decade.

Without doubt, this team is going to look really different at the start of next season. Now, this isn't a "lets give up on this season and look towards the next" thread, its just a place to discuss something different. Who goes? Who stays? Do we add a goaltender? A defenseman? Chris Neil? Lets hear some opinions. To start, I think the Wings are at least contemplating a Hudler or Filppula + Howard, etc. package for Harding, now that Minny has Backs locked up for 6M per for the next 4 years.

Thats one of my favorite Hasek moments of all time. Hilarious stuff. Even funnier considering the back story behind it, about Crawford's kid wanting a signed Hasek stick, so Hasek purposely signs and sends him an illegal one.

I hate to rain on the party here, but you don't think the Wings know they need to work on those things? And you don't think they have been? They have the statistics and the tape. They see the game from ice-level and from the cameras. They pay people entire salaries to break down their performances and analyze the hell out of what they did wrong and right. One phrase can summarize this entire topic: Easier said than done.

Hopefully this is a blessing in disguise if the Wings management likes Ericsson enough to put him in the lineup over Lebda/Meech for the playoffs. For some reason, I think Ericsson could end up being the missing piece to our defense. Not so much because of talent, but more because flukey things like that tend to happen in the playoffs, where the most unlikely players become heros. I think he has the potential to play a role similar to Beauchemin in Anaheim's cup run.

I'm trying to think of another variant to past situations. Naming the back-up the starting goaltender prematurely blew up in our faces. Starting the ice cold pathetically performing should-be starter also had to be revised. So I'm going to go with either waiting til the absolute end of the season / start of the playoffs to name Conklin the starter, or putting Osgood in in game 1, and then pulling him for game 2.

This kind of thing always strikes me as dictatorial. The Habs roster is riddled with players who are notorious floaters, underperformers, and/or lacking in work ethic. Hard workers on that team are in the minority. No coach was going to motivate this pathetic roster. And of course, now the guy thats responsible for putting together a pathetic team is coaching it. Good luck.

Yes - In addition to pursuing a goalie instead of Hossa, they would've traded Filppula for Krejci, sent an offer-sheet Mike Green's way instead of re-signing Stuart, and retained Quincey. Because, naturally, they knew that Osgood's best season in his career would be followed up by the worst season of his career.

Who said either would get 4M? They're RFAs, and considering arbitration is based primarily on 1) stats and 2) your role with the team, then neither guy has both. Harding is in a secondary role, and Lehtonen doesn't have great stats. 3M is much more reasonable for both on a 1 or 2 year contract. At any rate, you're overlooking the need for goaltending at this point. Holland's claim is now only applicable retrospectively. Yes, he won't pay a lot of money for a great goalie when he has great team defense and a decent goalie, but now he has neither, and this has been established for almost an entire season. And what are the prospects for the next year? Osgood, Rafalski, and Lidstrom all another year older at at least 36 years of age, and Kronwall and Howard who have failed to live up to expectations of really "taking over." As for your assessment of what Holland says, I agree - we won't keep both Hossa and Franzen. But I'm well past that already. I'm saying in addition to letting one of Hossa or Franzen go - likely the more expensive Hossa - the Wings would be well-served to trade Filppula.

Is it? Is hunger and motivation not the ultimate difference where cup wins are concerned? I would think the difference between the 2005, 2006 playoffs and the 2007, 2008 playoffs would've spoken to that quite clearly. And Stuart may have been a key cog in the playoffs, but Fernando Pisani was also the greatest thing since sliced bread for the Oilers too and Francois Beauchemin looked like Chris Pronger version 2.0 in '07. Historically, various veteran players have raised their game for 20-25 games in the springtime to a level that isn't reproducible during the potentially monotonous regular season, and the salary cap age, its always a danger to reward it. Especially to a player whos known role on this team was to be a #4 defenseman - hardly "key", considered how we managed without him to reach that post-season point. Similarly with Filppula, he was re-signed at a time when Helm, Hudler, and Franzen had all "broken through", so to speak, in various ways, and the Wings had already signed Hossa. Not only was he not a key forward to begin with, but even less so at the time he was re-signed - a time when Holland knew full well that Franzen, Hudler, and Zetterberg were in line for raises on the sub 5M they were collectively earning at the time. Replacing Filppula and Stuart with new blood would've hardly been "key" losses, last off-season as much as now.

I agree Harding and Lehtonen are big question marks, but is it more of a risk to take on Lehtonen or Harding at the cost of Filppula+....or is it more of a risk to lose better forwards by retaining Filppula and going into next season with a goaltending tandem of Osgood and Howard, or Osgood and an established career back-up a la Conklin, who we likely won't be able to afford after his season. If you ask me, taking a chance on Lehton and Harding is a well-calculated risk. Lehtonen was able to pull out 34 wins when Atlanta was a respectable team. And as terrible as they are, hes still retained a respectable .912 career save percentage. Considering how weak Atlanta's defense has been historically, its also fair to say that his performance isn't inflated or insulated by poor percentage shots. Harding is more problematic, as he has played in an insular system for his entire short career, yet his stats aren't merely good as a result. Although he only has 2 wins this season, in 16 games this season - 12 full games, 4 partial - he has a 2.20 GAA and a .930 save percentage. Even despite Minnesota's system, those are great numbers. Also, his on-ice performance - statistics aside - supports the notion that hes a good goaltender. Now, I'm not claiming that either is sure to be a great goaltender when wearing a Red Wings uniform - far from it. But the possibility remains. More so than with Osgood who'll be another year older and Howard who has yet to wow this organization despite being just a year younger than Lehtonen and the same age as Howard? Yes, you can make the claim that Howard hasn't had his chance to really get his feet wet at the NHL level, but you can also say that he hasn't made management give him that chance. Even in the midst of our goaltending woes, the Wings brass is still using valuable cap space to call up forwards as opposed to Howard. The bottom line is, if Harding and Lehtonen DID come with some sort of guarantee, then the Wings wouldn't be able to re-sign them, and they likely would have to offer more than Filppula+ or Hudler+ to get him. The fact that Harding and Lehtonen DO come with at least some risk makes them all the more practical targets. Think of it this way: The Wings are going to have to trade SOMEONE off their roster if they want to make key re-signings. And if they DO make a cap-clearing trade, they'll likely want picks, prospects, or entry level players in return. Are those picks, prospects, or entry-level players going to be any more guaranteed or low-risk than Harding or Lehtonen?

I'm with you - I can't say I DIDN'T want Stuart re-signed, but I was definitely apathetic. But that had more to do with the thought that we would be heading into the new season with exactly the same roster that we had that won the cup. That was a mistake from the beginning in my eyes, and ultimately its had the expected outcome - lack of desire, motivation, and work ethic. I would've like to have seen the Wings either bring up Ericsson full time last year and let Stuart go or replace him with a guy who wasn't satiated by a recent cup victory - Commodore would've been nice, and then trade Filppula when he was still an RFA and add a gritty 4tt liner or a 3rd line energy guy just to shake up the roster a bit.

Its pretty feasible, really. You hear it all the time. Kubina, Kaberle...I'm blanking on some other names, but players are frequently asked by their GMs to prepare a list of teams they would consider waiving their NTC to be moved to. The trouble with Rafalski is, his home is here. I think Stuart would be more likely to accept a trade to a California team - Anaheim might be that destination this time - as he has connections there. But Rafalski would be tough. I think the only place he'd consider would be going back to the comfort of New Jersey, but you never know. Fortunately, New Jersey might find Rafalski to be a palatable acquisition, as they really aren't deep on the back-end when it comes to offensive defenseman. In fact, thats really their weak link. Oduya's leading the pack with 28 points? Give me a break. And to be honest, Rafalski hasn't really been a fan favorite since being here. Looking at NJ's cap space, its actually incredibly realistic that they would take Rafalski back. They only have 40M tied up next season, with the only major pay increase being for Zajac and Oduya. All their other guys will either leave, retire, or take paycuts, and those are mostly secondary or depth players - not the core guys. The Wings would likely have to take on some salary in return though. Ultimately, if the Wings could talk Rafalski into accepting a trade to NJ, and Anaheim or LA wanted Stuart back, we'd be in business. Like I said, NJ could desperately use an offensive Dman and veterans on the back end, and have the space to acquire him. Similarly, Anaheim only has 2 Dmen tied up for next year - Pronger and Whitney - and Stuart might look appealing if they lose Niedermayer and Beauchemin. If Blake retires for San Jose, or Gauthier leaves LA and O'Donnell becomes the 7th guy, then both teams might take a look at Stuart, although I'd think it'd be least likely for SJ and most likely for Anaheim to take him. 1. Rafalski(6) for Martin(4.83) or White(3) + a pick or prospect - I'm guessing NJ will offer one of these guys to balance out the salary. My guess would be White. 2. Stuart to Anaheim (possibly LA) for a 2nd rounder and a C-level prospect, or a 4th round pick and a B-level prospect. But even then we might have to let him go for nothing more than a pick since teams know our cap situation. White could then effectively replace Stuart at the #4 position. That gives the Wings 6.75M in extra cap space - a few extra hundred K might put us into play for Bouwmeester, or we could simply ride the year out with Lidstrom, Kronwall, Ericsson, Lilja, White, and Lebda/Meech.

If the Cap drops far enough, then so many big salary players are going to have to be moved that small market teams aren't going to be able to consume all that salary. Even teams like Anaheim and Dallas have internal salary caps and budgets - imagine what kinds of budgets the really small market teams are going to have once the effects or a poor economy are realized. If revisions aren't made to the Cap in agreeance between the NHL and the NHLPA, then you'll probably see a combination of trades and buy-outs, in which case theres still a fair chance that players with bought-out contracts would be willing to sign with a different big market team. At a reduced price. Maybe we'd have to buy out Rafalski or Hossa (if re-signed) but I'm guessing similar hard-to-move contracts would offer up some decent names faced with the reality of having to sign for a lesser paycheck. Guys like Blake, Redden, Gomez, Drury, Timonen, Campbell, Richards, etc. etc.

Ahh, I see what you're saying. Good points. I'm inclined to cut Holland some slack on Rafalski for the money because he looked a lot better in the New Jersey system, it being so insular, but at the same time, I would think Holland would take that into account. Like I said, I like Rafalski better than Schneider, but 6 X 6 was too long for a small, skilled 33 year old Dman.

Rafalski did not take a "massive" discount. It was a couple hundred K - about 600 to be exact, according to Rafalski the day he was signed by the Wings. The rumored "discount" he took - which was reported by Kahn, not Rafalski himself - was basing numbers off of ONE year of the contract, not the cap average of the contract. With that said, Rafalski is STILL overpaid at 6M. A defenseman's first assignment is defense - not scoring. If we wanted a 50 point guy who plays average defense out on the ice with our 3 forwards, we'd put Hudler out there and be done with it.

To add to that, Steve Mason was perfectly positioned on a penalty kill to stop a shot that had been deflected at the side of the goal. In other words, the 2nd goal that was scored on Osgood that was "deflected" - you know that "unstoppable" one - was actually stoppable where Mason was concerned. Things like that have been the difference all year between the other teams net and ours.

Actually, its more like tens of dollars for some, and hundreds for others. Money that most Americans would spend on pizza, soda, and porn anyways. And its a good thing. Because according to CBC, if the auto-makers fail, Detroit will be relocated, don't you know.

I love, just LOVE that we have nearly 10M tied up in untradeable, overpaid defenseman.

And the irony of it all, is that the folks Obama is bailing out are without a doubt Republicans.