Heaton

As for Strachan's contention that Burke had a Stanley Cup winning team handed to him by Murray, here's a post that was originally posted by someone on the Flames board. I'm bored so I'll nitpick a few of these again to the point of how Holland was nitpicked in '98. - Todd Marchant is an irrelevant move and had little to do with their success. - Brad May was a good character move and added some character, that was a decent move. - Teemu Selanne wanted to come to Anaheim, he contacted them. - Chris Pronger trade was good but if I remember correctly, Anaheim was a select few who he was even offered to. - Travis Moen was a good trade for sure. - Scott Niedermayer was handed to him by a silver platter. Any GM who had Rob Niedermayer was getting Scotty. - The Fedorov trade was quality. - Jackman, Huskins, DiPenta, Hartigan, and Motzko were irrelevant as their contributions were almost non-existant. - Sean O'Donnell and George Parros were good because they were players who fit into their system and Parros especially since he exemplified their message. Bryan Murray had the base there, Burke did some fine tuning, but nothing to validate his recent "Best GM in the World" praise. Every team Burke has been a GM of has been worse when he left and this will be no difference. When Burke leaves at the end of the year their payroll structure will be in shambles with many players still without contracts. To qualify this though, yes Burke is one of the better GM's and is one of the better hockey minds around today but the myth of Burke is more successful than the actual GM.

Defensemen.

Sure did. Their defense and offense was more consistent during that series and in the end it was the difference. There's no such thing as sending a message during the playoffs, especially in a situation like Game 5 during the Calgary series. The series was basically over and the Flames knew it so they decided to act like idiots and in the end it wasn't anything more than hair pulling. The Holmstrom hit by Pronger and Niedermayer is another thing but in the end while it could've been worse it really wasn't. When it gets down to the late rounds in the late games especially when you don't have any reserves left the idea of either playing someone who can only play 2-3 minutes isn't smart and having someone who can actually play sit in the box is detrimental. Same thing for the regular season, while the Wings will have one or both of Downey and McCarty for the most part the teams who may want to goonn it up are larely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The Wings will have guys who can answer but the bubble has burst on the myth that if you try and intimidate the Wings physically it'll work, because it hasn't. Anyway, another fun thread. I'll say it lasts one and a half more pages.

Actually, Kronwall shot it at the appropriate angle that would usually put the puck in the corner but Adam Hall skated by at the exact second and the puck banked in off of him and into the net. No reason to kill him on that, probably his only real mess up of the finals.

Cup contenders don't trade young defensemen who are already their 3rd best defender on the team after being arguably their best defensemen while winning a cup for picks and prospects.

That and it's only a one-year deal.

Because he's more useful on a top line than he is on a 4th line.

Hossa - Datsyuk - Holmstrom Franzen - Zetterberg - Samuelsson Hudler - Filppula - Cleary Maltby - Draper - Kopecky

Expecting that is unreasonable, not even Scott Stevens laid people out on a daily basis.

Kronwall believer and defender since 2004.

He lived up to it in the finals.

Do as I say, not as I do.

There's no rush to sign any of them really. I highly doubt Downey or McCarty have recieved any interest from any team and Holland knows if they sign them there's no risk in waiving them as if another team wanted them they had all summer to sign them for the league minimum.

Scotty has too much loyalty and respect to the Red Wings organization to go to the Hawks and give away all of the Red Wings secrets, that's not how it works. That's not to say he won't give advice based on some of his knowledge as it pertains to the situation but being giving info like he was a spy won't happen. The fact of the matter is if the Red Wings and Mr. I thought it would be a huge detriment or would put the Wings behind the 8-ball, they wouldn't have let Scotty go, sort've like how the Wings won't let Jimmy D or Jimmy Nill go. Bowman will help the Hawks for sure, but thinking that he'll hand over a How to beat the Red Wings file while considering he'll probably be there for only 3 years is overreacting a bit.

Exactly. Holland knew on a two year deal Filppula would've gotten 1.5m from an arbitrator. Vermette wans't going to sign a 5 year deal because he knew that in a few years someone on the open market will pay him a ton more.

How so? The Hawks team is set, Bowman had no say in that. He's not going to coach them and their team philosophy is going to stay the same unless they start to regress. Bowman is taking with him a plethora of knowledge but the scary part is he probably would've know everything about the Wings regardless. It's a great move by the Hawks, they're going to be getting invaluable opinions and guidance but it doesn't make them any closer to being a contender than they were prior. They have a lot of growing up to do before that happens and Scotty won't be there longer than 5 years.

Unless someone gets injured prepare to be disappointed this year. Filppula isn't going to get 50 points in ES and short handed situations, there's no room for him on the PP. Filppula is a kind of guy who's getting paid for things that don't show up on the stat sheet. 3m is about 500k more than we all would've liked, Holland included, but I'd rather have the risk taken now instead of having to pay more in 2 years if his progession continues at a high pace. Even with Filppula signing a 1.5m contract the odds that Hossa would re-sign were slim. Say 16m to re-sign Samuelsson, Hudler, Kopecky, Franzen, Zetterberg and Hossa. We also have to get a backup goalie if Howard is still not ready. Let's say Holland wants to re-sign everyone like he usually does (these will be on the high side) - Samuelsson gets a raise to 2m, Hudler gets a raise to ~2.5m, Kopecky at around 800k, Franzen gets 4m, Zetterberg at 7.3m and Hossa at 7.3m. Even subtracting Samuelsson and maybe rounding down a bit, it was going to be tight no matter what.

All of that is probably true, but he wasn't running anything since he stepped down, he wasn't consulted on every move the Wings made and he didn't make any decisions. Holland has said that he lets players do their jobs, the coaches coach the scouts scout and the players play. Holland has a council, as he calls it, who he goes to and talks about potential moves. Nill, Jimmy D, Bowman, Stevie ect.. are all in it, but at the end of the day it's Holland's call. Scotty did build the Wings and shape them to what they are today, but he built a well-oiled machine and made sure he was surronded by the best mechanics. It's a loss, but nothing is going to change.

Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Or maybe he wanted to work and be closer with his ill son.

He just watched hockey and gave his opinion, his role was really passive. While this may look worse than it is, losing Bowman at this time isn't really that much of a loss at all. He was a good sounding board for Babcock and I'm sure the front office learned a lot from him over the years but he didn't make any decisions for the Wings nor was he someone that our success hinged on. Seems like his role will be almost exactly the same in Chicago, watch the games, doing a little scouting and give his opinion.

Not sure if he wants to play in Europe because no team in the NHL is going to use a guy like Downey more than Detroit would.

Chelios signs between 500k-600k, Quincey signs for 600k and plays in GR, McCarty signs for 550k with a two-way deal and no idea about Downey, not sure what his wants are.

I don't, I said they're not 1st unit guys so they aren't going to be getting 3-4 minutes of PP IT like the big guys do. Sammy's ES IT will probalby go down to around 10-11 minutes with 1-3 PP mins a game.

Yeah, PK.