Heaton

The one thing I've learned on this board is that these players who leave aren't nearly as bas as their reputation. Odds are Lang will probably get close to 70 points next year.

When we have a need for another bottom 6 guy. His age.

Ellis is going to compete for a spot on the big team since he'd have to clear waivers to be sent down.

Remember how good they looked the few games at the end of the playoffs split up?

Another problem people may not be thinking about is that if we sign a Sutton or a Markov to more than a 1 year deal in one seasons time they could be looked at as unnecessary and vastly overpaid. For instance, this year's top 4 is Lidstrom, Rafalski, Kronwall, Chelios? Lilja? Regardless, the #4 defensemen isn't going to be asked to do much, just keep it simple and if Lilja can do the same thing he did in the playoffs, use his body, focus on defense and penalty killing, he's a legit top 4. Anyway back to my point, Kindl is about a year away, he's not going to be staying in the AHL for years and when he comes up he's not going to be a bottom 6, he's too good for that. So after this year we'll have: Lidstorom, Rafalski, Kronwall, Kindl, Chelios, Lilja, Lebda, Quincey, Meech (possibly) Ericsson ect... So what I'm getting at is if Markov or Sutton wants to sign a 1 year deal at whatever price, then great, but if then it gets sketchy, because I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather not have a 3.5/4m 5th defensemen.

Horrible? Pitkanen is like 23 years old, any time you can get a player of that caliber for what they gave up, you do it.

Probably because Hudler wouldn't sign a deal for the same price after scoring 15 goals in limited time and getting offers to go to Russia to play for more? If Hudler was going to be traded, he would be gone.

Which team in the Western Conference is better this year that will have any significant impact on how the Wings do this year? Colorado? They didn't make the playoffs last year and Ryan Smyth/Scott Hannan aren't going to put them over the top. St. Louis? Nashville gets worse, St. Louis gets better, call it a wash. Anaheim? Worse. SJ? Worse defensively. LA? Dan Cloutier. Vancouver, Calgary, Minnesota? Added no impact players. So far I count 1, possibly 2 teams who got impact players, but in reality neither will do anything to hurt the Wings chances.

Andy Sutton is asking for 2.5m? You're confused, he's asking for what Markov is wanting right now as in 4m/yr. Not sure if you worded it wrong or whatever, but I'll assume you did. If Markov is being greedy and Sutton is basically the same player, how is Sutton asking for 4m a better deal?

He should be signed right near around the league minimum, this move doesn't make much sense at all, but it's not really going to change anything either way.

HAHAHAHAHAH <INSERT THIS IS OUR TOP 6 WINGER JOKES> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Have any more examples? Have you read why Comrie wanted to go to Long Island? I'll assume no. Comrie wants to be a #1 center, would he be a #1 center here? No. Therefore he has no incentive to sign here. As for Comrie liking to hit? He had 44 hits in 67 games this year and 30 in 80 games last year. That's liking to hit?

There's a difference, Rafalski was playing north of 25mins a game and still had nearly 30 LESS turnovers than Lang who was playing TEN less minutes than Rafalski. Lang was a defensive liability, but not all of his turnovers were backbreakers.

Just curious, what else does Lebda bring outside of his speed? I understand speed on the backend is a valued commodity. But honestly, he's average at best offensively and defensively, only plays at even strength and if his speed is compromised just the slightest bit he's almost completely ineffective. He played 8 minutes of PK time all year and not much more on the PP. His saving grace is that he makes 600k a year, but he's extremely expendable. As crazy as it sounds, Lilja is more important to this teams success than Lebda is.

Yes he can, both Quincey and Meech are still waiver free, there was some confusion earlier on.

And if we get an injury in the playoffs? We need some more scoring depth, but I don't think it has to be right now.

I think this is your main issue because I get the feeling if we would've won the cup you still wouldn't have been fully happy.

Did it affect Hasek? I don't care what Hasek "thinks" as long as he stops the puck and wins games. I never said this team is perfectly fine, I just don't think it's such a disaster like you do.

And what happened afterward because of it? And what happened after McLennan hit Franzen? Seriously, who cares? What do you think fighting the guy who does the dirty deed is really going to accomplish? More team unity? This teams seems pretty cohesive as is, I doubt "sticking up" for Hasek by fighting some St. Louis no name player is going to do much for team morale that winning games wouldn't. You really think the Wings are "*******"? Go to training camp and tell them how you feel, seriously, do it. See what they have to say. Or better yet, call Holland directly like that guy did when we got Bertuzzi. I just think it's funny how you sit up there on your high horse and not realize that literally every team last season has had more than few incidents where injustices happened and they did nothing about it. Kiprusoff was getting run left and right last year early on and the fans were incensed.

At this point with what our team is, it'd be foolish to get rid of a 20 goal scorer who makes 1.2m unless we're getting another offensive player back.

I don't disagree and I'm not saying Anaheim got "lucky" anymore than the Wings got "lucky" to win their 3 cups. You need breaks to win the cup, more breaks than the other teams. Anaheim got the most breaks and they were ultimately the best team in the game last year. While I agree with you I was going with the majority opinion that the lemmings think around here. Calgary has less toughness than the Wings do upfront, obviously their toughness is almost all on the back end.

I'm pretty surprised, though I guess I shouldn't be, that people are still believe that the Wings are the "softest" team in the league, especially after last season. We blitzed through Calgary and San Jose without much trouble and had it not been for a few bounces in the Anaheim series we probably would've won the cup. We played the 3 "toughest" teams in the league and beat 2 and barely lost to the third. I think it's foolish to even think that the Wings are any less "tough" than last season. Losing Markov was a bit of a blow on the backend, but I don't think it is such a major blow that we're going to go from tough enough to beat Calgary and San Jose to 1st round exit, sorry, I liked Markov but he didn't make that much of a difference and neither did Bertuzzi, who I also would've liked to see re-signed at a reasonable price. If toughness defined is what Calgary is or San Jose is then I don't want to be that because their philosophy doesn't translate into very much at all. If Anaheim is the definition then fine, but our philosophy and gameplan seems to be enough to get us where ever we want. Our players are now battle tested and they know what it takes to win, a lot of our losses were addition by subtraction. We've gotten tougher by losing players. Anyone who thinks the Wings are the "softest" team in the league really need to re-watch the playoffs from this year. Every team could always get bigger, stronger, faster, but we're tough enough to compete with anyone.

Question - Why didn't Edmonton sign him? Not like their roster has players all better than him. The reason you probably didn't know that he was a Free Agent is probably because 4th liners don't make a lot of headlines.

http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-bl...v_resign_k.html

In a perfect world where everything works out the way it should and everyone reaches their fullest potential here's mine lineup: Datsyuk - Zetterberg - Holmstrom Hudler - Filppula - Grigorenko Samuelsson - Cleary - Franzen Maltby - Draper - Kopecky Lidstrom - Kronwall Rafalski - Chelios Lilja - Quincey Hasek Osgood But alas, things rarely work out perfectly.