Heaton

First of all, third line minutes for Filppula will still be around 16 minutes a night and secondly, Holland isn't expecting Filppula to reach his full potential by the end of this season. The front office isn't projecting Filppula to be a career 3rd liner and had Hossa not signed here it'd be Filppula on the 1st line with Datsyuk and Holmstrom.

Lilja is our 2nd best PK dman, Rafalski is our 5th behind Lidstrom, Lilja, Kronwall, Chelios and Stuart. I also completely disagree that Quincey would be lost immediately if exposed, I think there's a good chance he'd clear.

Ok, the Wings have approx. $151,667 in cap space as it stands right now, they still need to re-sign Quincey and McCarty. Let's say for arguments sake both Quincey and McCarty both sign two-way deals for ~550k each. The forwards who are a lock to be in the lineup for opening day goes as follows: Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Hossa, Franzen, Filppula, Cleary, Hudler, Samuelsson, Holmstrom, Draper, Kopecky, Maltby,* Lidstrom, Rafalski, Kronwall, Stuart, Lebda and Lilja* with Chelios and Meech on reserve. Osgood and Conklin as well. That leaves Leino, Helm, Downey, McCarty, Quincey and Howard possible players to be waived and assigned to GR - they obviously will want to have enough room to bring up Quincey, Downey and McCarty multiple times a year (so when they are assigned to GR and people freak out it'll be overreaction.) Since that's the case, Helm's #'s will go off along with Quincey's and Downey/McCarty's will go off as well. The Wings won't have a ton of wiggle room but if we're needing to add an impact player at the deadline that means one of Datsyuk/Hossa/Zetterberg are injured and they're irreplaceable anyway. While moving a Samuelsson or Lilja frees up more room, I don't think it's necessary considering they're better players than anyone else that would be moved and the Wings are going to push hard to win the cup again so you don't move your better depth if you don't have to and I don't think it's absolutely necessary. *may not be a lock but he's close to it.

If Holland really needs to move ~1m in cap space why does he insist on saying he only needs to move between 100-300k?

And he's still better in a limited role consisting of mostly minutes on the PK than Quincey or Meech. Odds are that even though Chelios is signed, Meech and Quincey will each play at least 40 games each.

As much as Cheli downplayed it, he was too injured to keep up. Now that his knee is scoped (the same procedure that allowed him to keep trucking the last 5 years) he'll be fine for this year at least. 46 years old + an injured knee is a bad combo to keep up even on a 3rd pairing.

Chelios will be needed if Lilja is let go and even if he isn't Chelios is good to have around just for taking up minutes on the PK. Holland has said that he wants to get Meech some big minutes this year so he won't be traded. Quincey may be waived but I doubt anyone would claim him and other than that Chelios really isn't blocking any young defensemen from coming up. The guys the kids need to beat out are Lebda and Lilja as Chelios is a reserve player. I don't know about you guys but I'd feel a lot more comfortable with Chelios as the #7/8 going into the playoffs than Kyle Quincey or Derek Meech.

Try reporting the messages then or sending PM's.

It can work both ways. While I'm perfectly happy with having Hossa on Datsyuk's wing I could see Hossa doing wonders for Filppula's confidence and long term development. Hossa scored 100 points on a line by himself in Atlanta, he's shown he doesn't "need" an elite center to produce a massive amount of points but that's not to say it won't enchance him. Since I'm not going to take a stand one way or the other I will say this again, while Holland didn't sign Filppula based solely on his point production his point production isn't going to see any drastic improvements with his linemates he currently has. On that same token, he is better suited to play on the 3rd line with our current lineup - but people better temper their expectations and not be disappointed when he still ends up between 35-45 points. No one is going to produce a ton playing on the 3rd line with vitually no PP time. I really don't know where the venom is coming from towards Filppula, we won the cup with him centering the 2nd line and no he wasn't the focal point of offense on that line but no one ever should've expected that out of him. His speed, defense and determination is second to only a few on the team and that coupled with probably a cut off point of 55-60 points a year is right in his wheel house. This is a long term contract, Holland isn't expecting him to be worth his value by training camp.

Snowballs chance in hell.

Pretty simple really, Patrick Roy brought the Canadiens back to glory, they owe him this much.

This year is different than any other year. Filppula was getting his contract regardless but with Hossa signing the top 6 got a lot better but moved down guys who were projected to be or stay there. Wanting Filppula there instead of Hudler is one thing and I can see both sides to that coin, but wanting him there to justify his contract isn't how the Wings do business. It's not like his role will be any different this year and it wasn't like we needed him to step in to a bigger role either, we just won the cup with him on the 2nd line and 2nd PK. He's already a cog in our lineup and that won't change. Guys like Cleary, Filppula and to a lesser degree Samuelsson are what other teams strive to have but rarely achieve. I'm not a basketball fan but these guys are like the 6th men of our team, they're in elite company for being the "#7" type forwards just outside of the top 6 by a hair. They're both so versitle that they can play in any role asked of them and fill in nicely. This is a good problem to have.

Based on your reasoning shouldn't Cleary be moved up as well? Who moves down? Franzen makes the least out of the top 6 so he should be moved down until his salary catches up to his production. Trying to label our 3rd line as a usual 3rd line really dilutes the line of thinking. Had Hossa not been signed it's probable that Filppula would be in his spot instead but since Hossa did sign the best way to make the team better is to pencil Filppula in on the "3rd" line to start the season. He's still going to be getting 16-18 minutes a night in the big games, he's still going to get shuffled around into different and more offensively minded positions but the way these lines are shaking up you could throw any of them out against any other line and at worst it'd be even money. The "problem" the Wings have is that they have too many good players and not enough icetime and spots in the top 6 to go around. My expectations for Filppula this year are roughly the same amount of production offensively, his offensive game won't see a huge jump this year but his contract wasn't 'given' to him based majorly on what shows up on the scoresheet. Ken Holland has admitted that the biggest mystery of Valterri Filppula is how high his offensive potential actually goes.

Besides, even with Hudler on the 2nd line he'll be used more like Holmstrom than like anyone else. He'll get 11-13 minutes ES and 2-4 on the PP. The Red Wings don't have a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th lines in the classic sense. Every game will be different based on matchups.

Who are the other 13 players who slow up and give up? Helm is going to be a very good player for the Wings and while I'd like to see Helm continue to be on the Wings I can also see the benefit of him playing 18-20 minutes a night in GR. If he plays on the Wings this season he'll max out on 8 minutes a night on average if he's lucky.

I don't know how it's possible to hate these lines. Switching any of the interchangeable parts is why our team is so good, where ever the guys play they're going to make the team better.

http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2008/08/ho...ct_to_hear.html

We don't and I don't like the idea of trading Lilja because of the wear and tear it would put on the penalty killing defensemen during the regular season. Quincey isn't a top pair PK defensemen and for the past two seasons it has been Lidstrom, Chelios and Lilja racking up the big minutes. If Quincey is lucky, he'll end up being slightly better than Lilja. Meech isn't a defensive defensemen and neither is Lebda. Lilja plays a role that the team needs for the regular season and the playoffs. Stuart will take some PK minutes but it makes more sense to let Lilja take the punishment since he's already shown to be able to flourish in that role. Lilja may be one of the best #5 defensemen in the league.

Promoted over Nill? It would make more sense for Jimmy D to take over Bowman's old role as consultant, Holland get promoted, Nill take over as GM and Yzerman into Nill's role.

It's either the Red Wings or Europe, he has no other options.

I guess my shot at humor was a little too subtle.

It's actually October 10th and you missed first game. Your punishment is to buy everyone Red Wings 2008 Champion car flags.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's Jay Mohr, he hates hockey.

http://www.nhlpa.com/WebStats/PlayerBiography.asp?ID=6680

Aaron Downey re-signed, so I can assume we're done here.