YoungGuns1340

Realisitically, Maltby should be pushed to the 13th forward. I think Maltby has actually been the better player between he and Draper this season, but Draper has too much of a stake on this team to ever be demoted. Its a different story with Maltby. If the Wings can buy out Dmac, then they can scratch Maltby. Then add a vet UFA who actually has something left to offer and bring up a guy like Abdelkader. And thats just one of many options.

The only big thing that keeps Ovechkin from being the best all around or most complete player in the NHL is his defensive game. Other than that, what doesn't he do? Skill wise, hes a great passer, the best goal scorer, a great skater, has good speed, he's big, he's phsyical, he hits hard and often, he backchecks, and he's creative. Considering the intangibles, he's a leader, hes passionate, he wears his heart on his sleeve, never takes a shift off, always confident, and has an incredible work ethic. And the best thing about Ovechkin? If he was asked to be the most complete player in the league, he could be, and he would be. But the Caps need him to be the offensive powerhouse that he is, and leave the defense to the other guys. In fact, Ovechkin simply being on the ice IS defense. There isn't a forward in this league he could go head to head with and be overtaken by. If Ovechkin ever becomes a regular contributor on the PK, meaning one of the top 4 PKing forwards on his team, then he should be considered the most complete player ever to play the game. I only wish I had seen Goride Howe in his prime. I imagine Ovechkin could give him a run for his money.

And a pair of goals against the Wings?

Huet was one of Washington's best players in the playoffs last year. The fact that they didn't do anything had everything to do with their lack of depth all over the ice. Roloson was traded to the Oilers on the 8th of March. Whats your opinion of his cup run with Calgary? I'm not saying Anderson is some mystery ingredient or that he'd even be the starter for the Wings in the playoffs - I think we all know Osgood is going to be starting that first game no matter how much logic dictates otherwise - but Conklin is a career back-up. Anderson, at worst, is no better than Conklin. At best, hes a late bloomer that could turn out to be the next Dan Ellis and steal a couple playoff games for us. Low risk, high reward.

So because no one has picked one up and gone on to win the cup means the Wings shouldn't improve on their goaltending? The Wings goaltending has never gone along with what "history tells us" in general. When was the last time a team held the 3rd seed overall, yet had the worst starter in the league?

Hasek aged greatly between June and October of 2008. And Hasek was one of the greats. To quote Mickey Redmond from yesterdays game "when it goes, it can go fast boy." You also seem to forget that Osgood wasn't great in the 06/0 season. Hes had hot and cold seasons throughout his career as it is. And finally, Osgood is the 5th oldest goaltender in the league out of 80 guys. The only guys older are Roloson, Cujo, Kolzig, and Brodeur. Outside of Brodeur, there isn't any high end talent that in the 35 and older category.

I agree that defense is our biggest issue, but you can't excuse our goaltenders from their performance. They give up a soft goal every game. Of recent memory, the 3rd goal against Conklin last night, and the third goal against Osgood in Dallas. Have people forgotten that giving up soft goals is not something that is supposed to happen every game? Every once in a while, yeah, its gonna happen. This is the thing - if your defense makes a mistake, it is the goaltenders JOB to make up for it. This year, when our defense has made a mistake, more often than not its in the net. Goalies around the league make up for their teams shoddy defense. Conklin and Osgood - on most nights - haven't been able to do that. Also, the point that everyone seems to be missing in this goaltending vs defense debate is the fact that its a lot easier to change ONE guy than it is to change SIX. Especially when our goaltending tandem combined makes less than any of our Top 4 Dmen. But you get what you pay for, I guess.

I don't see how you got anything straight in that post. 1. Anderson is playing better than hockey than both our "solid" goalies - and is, in general, a hair or two better than Conklin and still improving. 2. Who said anything about abandoning goalie prospects? They'll still have a chance to prove themselves before the start of next season. Larsson can sit in GR another year. And if Howard doesn't work out next year, as a 25/26 year old, then he gets traded. 3. You think trading for Anderson is a risk? Our goaltending couldn't be much weaker than it is now. 4. The only reason Anderson doesn't have any "long-term proven ability" at the age of 27 doesn't mean much in this league. Neither did Ellis. Or Chris Mason. Or Bryzgalov. Or a slew of guys I mentioned before. Its hardly crazy to think he has breakthrough potential, especially when hes been able to keep those great stats great despite seeing more and more ice time.

Thats YOUR inference, not what I'm saying. Tell me, kind sir, how many options does Detroit have to improve this team? We have goaltending issues, defense issues, and a shoddy 4th line. We can't improve them all, and we sure as hell aren't going to be making big moves like trading off Stuart or Kronwall. We have to make nominal improvements where we can. If I REALLY thought the goaltending was the be all and end all, I'd be proposing we trade for Backstrom, not Anderson.

a) Filppula, with a 3M contract and with 20 minutes a game (14ES, 3PP, 3SH), should get 20-30-50, which would not be a risk for a GM who clearly needs Filppula enough for him to be an integral two-way top sixer. b) all players, who need 20 minutes per game to get 20-30-50 on the season, are not worth 3M a year. Hope that clears things up for you.

Its a little up and down because many of the last several "games" you were looking at were partial games. Over the 8 games you listed, Anderson played 4 full games, took over 3 games after Vokoun got pulled, and was pulled in one game, with Vokoun taking over. Sounds more like Vokoun is the inconsistent guy. The thing with Anderson is, hes 27 years old, and hes posted great numbers the past few years while slowly playing more and more games. Thats what you might call "development." Conklin, on the other hand, is 32. Hes a known commodity - a career backup. Anderson could still turn out to be a 1B kind of guy. Kiprusoff, Ellis, Chris Mason, Fernandez, Bryzgalov, Roloson, Backstrom, and Toskala are all guys that found their NHL stride between 26-29 years of age. Now, there are only one or two goalies in this bunch who are bona fide #1 guys, but the rest are serviceable 1B guys that can split games, or take on 50 games a season and do a perfectly good job of it. Anderson could be that kind of guy for the Wings, and if our goaltending isn't winning us any games right now, theres no better time to find out than around the deadline this year. At worst, our goaltending remains mediocre with no loss in talent, but at best we could not only find ourselves with an upgrade in goaltending that has basically zero effect on our cap space, but also the potential to sign a strong guy capable of splitting or taking on 50 games for Osgood if we find that Howard still isn't good enough. I mean, is there a more common story in the NHL today than the late blooming goaltender that comes in and saves the day? Roloson with the Oilers, Bryzgalov with the Yotes, Ellis with the Preds in the playoffs, Kipper with the Flames, Backstrom with the Wild. Hell, Mike Smith is turning out to be a god-sent for the Lightning this year, and he'll be 27 in March. Low risk, high reward. And still plenty of cap space and assets to add a guy like Chris Neil.

It could be a lateral move, but its more likely to be enough of an upgrade to make a difference. Anderson has played in 22 games, facing an average of 30 shots per game, yet he still has a .930 save percentage. Thats a lot of shots to face on average, and the fact that his save percentage statistically says hes on average only going to give up a 2.1 goals for every 30 shots against, I'd say thats pretty good. Conklin, on the other hand, is statistically giving up 2.4 goals for every 27 shots against. Osgood faces an average of 26.5 shots a game, and is statistically giving up 3.0 goals for every 26.5 shots against. Technically, if Anderson were facing 27 shots a game like Osgood and Conklin are, he'd be giving up 1.9 goals for every 27 shots against. It'd be hard to say that even with the way the Wings defense has been playing, that Anderson is benefiting more from the Cats defense than he would be from the Wings defense. And personally, an upgrade of 0.5 goals over Conklin per game and an upgrade of over 1 goal per game on Osgood is a sizeable difference - enough to make on impact on the outcome of a game for a team that is prone to losing by a goal. In my mind, Anderson looks like the next Dan Ellis. Nothing special, but enough to steal a few goals when his defense lets him down.

I'm not advocating firing McCrimmon, but McCrimmon has a TON of talent to work with that is underperforming like crazy. Bedard, on the other hand, has a back-up and an inconsistent starter past his prime to work with.

Bouwmeester anyone? If you're trading Kronwall and Flip for something, then pass off Stuart to someone and take the hit in the weak return, as you wouldn't get much for Stuart. But that would open up the way to sign Bouwmeester, then just promote Ericsson, and you're all set

People got carried away with his play in the playoffs, because of the hype, but a tiny step back to look at the bigger picture and it was still too early to call him the next big thing. As it stands, that playoff performance - in particular his physicality, but more importantly his defense - were an anomaly. I've always been an advocate for Kronwall's offensive game, and always said he could easily be a perennial 40 point defenseman, but that goes by the wayside when your decision making skills aren't there. I question whether he ever even had that intelligence in the first place. Instead of being a poor man's Lidstrom, he may turn out to be a poor man's Souray. The big problem I have trading Kronner, however, is then how do you justify paying Stuart 3.75M per year? I like Stuart overall - he makes mistakes, but hes a #4 Dman, not a #2. But at this juncture, hes overpaid. If you trade Kronwall, I feel like you might as well trade Stuart.

It would be hard to structure Hossa's contract that way, though. If the rumor is true and Hossa wants an average of 7M a year, then you're looking at paying Hossa 7M well into his mid to late 30s. 9,9,9,7,5,5,5 is 7M at 7 years, but you're still paying Hossa 7M at the age of 37. Hossa may be worth 7M at 37, but that means Detroit is paying 13M to two players over the age of 35. Do you know how nice thats going to be when we can't afford to pay the likes of Jakub Kindl, Daniel Larsson, Brendan Smith, and Darren Helm their dues when they're 26, 27, 28 years old and in the prime of their careers? And this is assuming we don't have or draft some kid who in the next 5-7 years COULD be another Zetterberg or Datsyuk thats looking for their first RFA contract post-entry level and have a good case for being worth 3 or 4M dollars.

Dan Cleary got 2.85M. And the reason Cleary got so much money had a lot to do with his intangibles, and especially his 06/07 playoff performance where he was arguably our best forward. That, and he had 40 points in 71 games, followed up by 42 points in 63 games. All in all, Cleary was on pace for 45 points, and last year on pace for 55 points. Combine that with his hard hat attitutde, work ethic, physicality, and defense and he had a great case for 2.85M per year. In fact, hes not a bad option for a full time spot on the 2nd line next year if it comes down to it. Last season, Cleary only saw 12:22 of ESTOI. This season he only sees 13 minutes even - less even strength ice time than Val Filppula - and yet on a full season he'd be on pace for 46 points. It all depends on the contract length with Hudler, but I don't see him getting more than 3M, assuming the Wings don't match any overpaying offer-sheets. And I doubt any team offers 4M for Hudler, unless they're a desperate team thats lost out on the UFA catch - and if thats the case, then they're 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round picks are likely going to be high ones. If the Wings can talk Hudler into taking a discount, then I could see them getting him signed to a 2-3 year deal, in the 2.8ish territory. It allows the Wings flexibility, gives Hudler a little security, but it also allows him not to be stuck with an underpaying contract if he really breaks out and shows hes capable of 70 points.

Flip gets 2nd line ice time. He ranks 6th among forwards in even strength ice time, only 20 seconds behind Marian Hossa at even strength. He gets more even strength ice time than Homer, Cleary, Hudler, and Sammy.

Just because another team overpaid some guys doesn't mean Val is worth 3M. And for the record: Marchant - signed that contract after a 60 point season Calder - The year before he signed that contract, he put up 59 points Pisani - signed that contract right after he was the playoff MVP to the Western Conference Champs Cullen - signed that contract after a 25G, 49P season Sullivan - Don't know why you included him unless you don't know who he is, because hes a bargain at 3M per. He signed his contract as a perennial 60+ point producer. Regardless, I'll play along, the only difference being I'm going to use comparable guys in age and production when they signed their contracts. Oh, and all these guys currently have more points than Flip: Brooks Laich(2) - Ryan Kesler(1.75) - Lee Stempniak (1.8) - Curtis Glencross (1.2) - Andrew Ladd (1.5) - Rene Bourque (1.3)

The player I was comparing Filppula too was making 2.1M a year just 3 seasons ago after proving to be a perennial 45-55 point guy. Most guys around Flips age and production aren't getting paid 3M a year, and thats excluding guys on entry level contracts.

These two statements really don't go together. A GM isn't really taking a risk on a guy that is getting paid 3M longterm to be, like you suggest, a 2nd line center. In 20 minutes a game, Flip is likely a safe bet to net 20 goals, 50 points. He just has to be on a team that is going to give him 20 minutes a game. On a team where our #1 center doesn't even get that, it wont happen here.

I disagree. But then again, the nature of the PK is generally that you're out of position when the team scores. Comes with that whole one extra man to cover thing. I've seen Lidstrom out of position on more PK goals against this year than I have Lilja, to be honest.

My question is, which is the exception? if we've played 39 games of crappy defense and 10 games of great defense, thats pretty telling. We've been missing Stuart (is that a bad thing), and the game against CBJ where we were without both Lids and Stuart hurt us, but its possible that these 5 games are just the Wings up to their old tricks again, without the potent offense to bail them out. Those 10 games where we played great defense, you could say, is akin to a mediocre team going on a 10 game winning streak. And I should mention that when I say defense, I'm including goaltending in that. My point has remained since, basically, the start of the season: This team needs a few roster changes. Nothing huge, but an upgrade here or there and this team is a different beast altogether. Until then, I simply don't see this as a team that is in the same league as Boston and San Jose, but rather a second tier team among the likes of Calgary, Philly, and New Jersey.

Yeah. It can be said every year. But it can't be said every year that the Wings are just another one of the pack.

Scotty Bowman once said, the best formula for finding out who the best teams in the league are is to average the ranking of your PK and your PP. The teams that have both a top PK and a top PP are the best teams, according to Bowman, a pretty smart hockey mind, don't you think? It makes sense. A good PK and a good PP requires both strong offensive talent, and a strong offensive game, but also strong defensive talent, and a strong defensive game. The most important stats you listed reflect exactly what this team is - a great, deep offensive team, but also a team that ranks in the bottom 3rd in the most important defensive categories. What happened to all the "defense wins championships" slogans thrust in the face of the offensively inclined Pens last year?