haroldsnepsts

Someone who can crack an NHL lineup? Janik didn't look too bad last season, but he was only up for 13 games. He's got good size but is 30 years old and has only ever played a couple full seasons at the NHL. Stranger things have happened, but if he hasn't established himself in the league yet, I don't know that he'll ever be much more than a plug who's not awful when the Wings have a lot of injuries. He was behind Lebda, Meech or Lilja when they were available, so it would hardly be an upgrade. beat to the punch. Basically what F.Michael said.

Agreed. There's a lot of unknowns on the defensive side of the ice. And I don't care what people say, the Modano signing absolutely impacts how much money is left to go after a stay at home defenseman who will clear the crease. And clearing the crease has been one of the Wings major problems, especially last season. They were constantly outnumbered around their own net and players often had free reign. Lids neutralizes guys but can't really move them. Stuart is ok. Ericsson has the size but doesn't seem to realize it. Three scoring lines is certainly great, but if Holland goes into the season with some variation of the current defensive lineup, I'm scared for our D, especially if anyone gets injured.

Well, he's never cracked 80 so expecting 80 or 90 might be a bit much, but you're right. Even 70+ points would sure help putting up with his douchiness.

I agree. But then when I think about it, that is pretty much what Maltby in his prime did, and I've grown to like him. Granted he's shown tons of heart and sacrifice over the years to help outweigh those qualities. I'm not sure Perry would, but I guess it's possible.

No, you're definitely not alone. Modano has the upside of giving the Wings three scoring lines, which they're gonna need because right now their bottom defensive pairing is suspect, and if a D man gets injured this season it's gonna be big problems. And all of that in front of a sophomore goaltender. I like that Modano makes three scary lines for the Wings, I just think it only leaves money for a plugger on the bottom pairing instead of a guy who we could've had for a few years and would've been a slight upgrade.

Confirmed. http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=329351 Too bad. I would've liked to have him or a guy like him on the blueline. Looks like we're getting Modano on the third line instead.

Well, Sutton signed with the Ducks, so that's become a moot point. 2 years, 4.25 mill total. http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=329351

I hear ya, but honestly I'm okay with that if they would sign him for the right price. Useless offensively is fine for a bottom pairing guy, especially if he would clear the crease and punish guys around the Wings net. They desperately need that. Hitting and dropping the gloves on occasion would be great too. If he did those things, he's pretty much an upgrade over Lilja. Plus I hear he's an expert with reporters. That's sort of what I was wondering. The injury thing is a concern for sure. But it would be with Lilja too.

For 3 mill it's definitely not worth it, unless he's got qualities I'm unaware of. $2 mill a year or under though and I'd definitely be interested...

I haven't seen him play a ton, but Sutton seems to fit the bill for Detroit's defense. I wonder how much he'd cost though because he made over 3 mill last season.

Perry wouldn't be the same kind of player on the Wings and would likely be less effective. There's not really anyone on the Wings to help back up all his agitating and smack talk. On the Ducks he's got plenty of guys to cover him in scrums if someone wants to go. On the Wings he wouldn't, so he wouldn't likely play as big, which is I think a necessary part of his game. To be clear, I think he's a ******. But a ****** that's a better fit with the Ducks than he would be with Detroit, douchiness aside. Good hands. Not afraid to go to tough areas of the ice. Douchebag.

Can Malik even read? The only thing to take issue with is Dater positioning Lidstrom at #4 (and as much as like Doughty, #1 is a stretch). Dater is a dumbass, but he doesn't say that Lidstrom is slipping fast. The actual quote, again: I guess that's where Malik gets "slipping fast?" The fact is, Lidstrom is advancing in age. To me it sounds like he's making the opposite point. Saying yes he's getting old so you'd think he should be dropping, but he isn't. Everything Dater says from there on out sounds pretty accurate. I have no problem with how he describes Lids. Only his rankings. Doughty should be near the top, but not number one. And Pronger should certainly be above Myers and also over Chara. He seems to be favoring heavily towards potential, or performance handicapped for youth, rather than actual play. If he were actually following his criteria: effectiveness with the first pass or decision with the puck in their own zone, then there's no way Lids should be lower than #2. Doughty is great but young and still makes some mistakes in his own end. And Pronger should be moved up then too. He's often thought of as a mainly a physical defenseman, but he's got a great first pass. The fact is, these young guys are great for their age, but still make more mistakes in their own end than Pronger and Lidstrom.

Stevens was a devastating hitter, and almost all the time his skates were glued to the ice and his elbows were tucked. People talk about how Kronwall "follows through" when his elbows are coming up. Stevens was a helluva lot cleaner hitter than Kronwall and a lot of other guys in today's NHL are. And a lot of those hits seem late because they're playing at super slow mo. As for targeting the head? Maybe. He certainly had a sixth sense for when a guy was vulnerable. Kozlov, Kariya and Lindros were all headshots, but they were also guys with their head way down. Guys get away with jumping into hits too much today. Stevens demonstrated how you can crush guys and still hit properly. And man he was a mean, intimidating SOB. I remember someone on the Wings caught Stevens once with a great hit and knocked him to the ice. He was slow getting up and I was hoping to hell he was hurt. He looked rattled and definitely was shook up, but got up laughing.

hey, thanks again for the condescending judgment of my post without actually discussing the topic at hand. I bear no responsibility to reflect all sides of an issue in every single post. This is not journalism school. If you have a point to make about this topic, why not make it instead of just lecturing people on how they post? You must be fun at parties too. Standing there along the wall making comments about how all the people actually participating at the party are doing it wrong.

Hey, thanks for the lecture dad! That's exactly what I was doing. Supporting the players because it's easy and ignoring the owners, in a deliberate attempt not to shed light on the issues. You're quickly catching Crymson in terms of condescending commentary on people's posts instead of actually participating in the conversation. I wasn't writing an all-encompassing post on the lockout, but pointing out some things I think people forget. The owners locked the players out. And I think the owners did win the media war and it came off as greedy players. And it's also pretty true that some owners have shown they cannot manage a team well, cap or no cap. Of course it's a two sided issue, though the players inherently have less control because they do not manage the franchises. Though they have power through collective bargaining, they have relatively little control and say relative to the owners. Which is why it was a huge concession that their salary be tied to league revenue, when their performance can hardly influence that in any direct way (relative to the owners). If you notice, I also ended my post by saying Bettman plays a large role in the tone he sets. He should function more of a facilitator and arbitrator between the two sides, acting in the best interest of the entire league, instead of as a puppet for ownership. In terms of avoiding another lost season, he's probably the one who can make or break it. Or at least someone in his position should. But I'm not sure why I should bother elaborating. Your post was hardly intended to elicit discussion, and you seem to disagree with anything I say simply as a reflex, probably from our interactions in the political discussion forum. Which is another argument for closing that forum. Perhaps without our debates there, you wouldn't immediately respond with a condescending analysis of my post here and might actually have an open mind and discuss the subject at hand.

To be clear, in 2004 the players didn't sit out as a bargaining tactic. They were locked out by the owners and prevented from playing. At the time the owners did a great job of painting the players as greedy and killing the NHL, but even under the cap it's become pretty clear that several owners are just unable to control themselves when it comes to contracts, and others just don't know how to ice a competitive team in spite of the cap and revenue sharing. Here's an interesting point from the article: More than even the new NHLPA president, I think it's up to Bettman if we lose another season. Last time the tone he set was divisive right from the get go. They were intent on breaking the players union and nothing short of a lost season would've done that.

Riiight. I'm sure that's why Bowman brought in Grimson and brought back Kocur. Because they were such multi-dimensional players. He at least knew it was a necessarily evil. Of course the ideal is a guy who can play and fight. What Holland doesn't mention is he hasn't made that a priority either.

I don't often agree with Scott Burnside, but I think he's got some great points regarding Modano. http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=burnside_scott&id=5403991

Hatcher was a mean SOB who could've had a penalty called for him practically every shift. On paper, he was exactly what the Wings need. A big, mean, nasty defenseman. Unfortunately with the recovery from the torn ACL and the new NHL, he just couldn't keep up.

Well I don't believe it. Any actual quotes in the press and my memory of the time was more about him wanting to get back to playing hockey. The act of signing the offer sheet was pretty offensive, but I have no memory of him ever doing anything like demanding the Wings not match. As for who's better, that's a semantics argument. Yzerman had the heart, drive and hockey sense to compensate for his injuries and age. If I had to choose between the two of them at the time, I'd pick Stevie. But Yzerman at his best was not as good as Fedorov at his best. And I don't think he ever said he didn't want to be here. Here's the best link I could find with some details of what actually happened at the time. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1208/is_n10_v222/ai_20382950/?tag=content;col1 Link? source? Because all the stuff I heard from Feds was about how it was hard leaving Detroit and that it was the only home he'd known since Russia. His career with Detroit was a contentious one, but frankly, you're just making s*** up or at best skewing what actually happened.

He demanded Detroit not match the offer sheet? I don't remember that happening at all. Holland was low-balling Feds, trying to keep his salary under Yzerman's, much like he did with Lidstrom's salary as a benchmark for the last few seasons. Sergei was worth more than that on the open market. And that deal was also very much about the Carolina owner sticking it to Illitch, especially the way he structured the offer. The holding out and signing an offer sheet somewhere else is definitely hard to take as a fan of the team, but it happens. Sakic signed one with the Rangers. But I never heard anything about Fedorov demanding Detroit not match. And he had turned down an offer sheet earlier in the season from the Rangers. Part of this had to be forcing Holland's hand. Also as has been well documented on this site, the deal with the Ducks wasn't as simple as taking less money. The Wings had pulled an offer off the table, Fedorov was allegedly getting divorced. Fedorov was a moody f***** for sure and his contract negotiations were contentious, and took nights off which was infuriating given his ability to dominate games. But you're oversimplifying his two deals. And to a small extent, I can understand some of his moodiness. He was the best player on the Wings during the Cup years. He probably should've won the conn smythe for that first Cup, yet he wasn't getting the salary, or sometimes even ice time that really reflected his value to the team.

I suppose it's good someone's making a hockey movie. I just wish it was a good director. Kevin Smith is funny and a pretty good writer, but he's an awful director. He pretty much peaked with Clerks.

Definitely better than both of them. Hank is closer in style to Fedorov than Dats is. Fedorov had a whole gear though that even Hank doesn't have. He could take over games. Datsyuk has crazy dangling talent, but Fedorov still just had the size speed and skill to dominate. I'd also argue that Yzerman wasn't particularly physically gifted, which makes his career all the more impressive. Aside from the bad knees, he wasn't particularly fast, wasn't big, and he wasn't slow but he didn't have blazing speed. He just made up for it all with hockey sense, skill, and heart. No one's hockey sense surpasses Lidstrom though.

That likely was the case with Hatcher given how slow he was even before his torn ACL, but Pronger has still been a force in the post lockout NHL.

The Devils were basically daring the league to stop this deal and lost. Aside from signing a player until he's 44, this part is pretty ridiculous too: That's pretty obvious they were trying to reduce the cap hit.