Dabura

I like that I'm not the only one who calls him Nike. Even though it's technically a female name. (lolz girly euro amirite?) I think he's a bit more valuable and would fetch us more. He's a pretty legitimate top-six playmaking winger with some nice goal-scoring upside. Tatar is, I feel, less proven, more of a question mark. He's raw, plays like what he is: a goal-hungry rookie. And we love that about him. But you know what I'm saying. Nyquist alone wouldn't get us anything great, but packaged with a pick and a prospect, that might do the trick.

Some combination of Nyquist/Tatar, Smith, Quincey, Kindl, Almqvist, Marchenko, Ouellet/Sproul, and a 1st for Justin Faulk. Boom. I just saved Christmas.

I want to bring up Justin Faulk again, since that apparently got no traction on the previous page. Smart, young, right-handed offensive defenseman who plays a surprisingly mature, well-rounded game. A ton of upside. Has had to step up majorly for the 'canes with Pitkanen being out, and hasn't looked out of place on the top pairing. Will represent the States in Sochi. Basically: a younger, smarter, better, right-handeder Brendan Smith. Rutherford would be a fool to give him up, but crazier things have happened. Smith and something? Ouellet/Sproul and something? Something something something?

TBH, Franzen + Jurco + 1st might actually be enough, if only because Garth Snow is Garth Snow. But even then, I absolutely wouldn't do it, because there's a very good chance Vanek will go elsewhere this summer. So, we'd be down one of our better forwards, one of our better prospects (who's a roster player on any other team), and our first-round pick, and likely all for nothing. Vanek would probably just replace Franzen's production, which means we'd have essentially the same roster we had before the trade, which means we'd still be a long shot for the Cup - and winning the Cup is the only reason you'd add a big-name rental like Vanek in the first place (which is why it's weird that Snow went for Vanek. The Isles aren't a serious contender, even with Vanek. I guess he's counting on his charm being able to win Vanek over, long-term.) If I'm Garth Snow, I'm doing my best to make Vanek happy, keep him as an Isle. And yet, at the same time, I'm making a list. That list is titled "What I Could Get 4 Vanek." It's a list so tantalizing it borders on pr0nographic. Which is why it's a mental list, existing only in my head.

Good point about Snow. Not that his job is ever in jeopardy, of course, but I have to think he and everyone else knows this Vanek situation is basically impossible to screw up. It's an easy win-win: Vanek stays, or you get a king's ransom for him. If Snow were to somehow drop the ball on that...maybe, for the first time, his job really would be in jeopardy.

If you're talking about this season, there's two big issues: 1) he's on an expiring contract, so he'd be a rental (would probably bolt for a different team in the offseason. And I doubt we win the Cup while he's here), and 2) we'd have to clear a fair amount of cap space (more than what Franzen and Jurco would free up). Also: Franzen's going to be very hard to move because of his contract, age, and health concerns, while Jurco is potentially a Hossa-level star in the making, i.e. he's not getting moved. Oh yeah, and Snow probably wouldn't make that deal. At the very least, that pick would have to be our first-rounder. (BTW, welcome to the boards, SerenityNow!)

Actually, not necessarily. He showed he could score while playing with pretty much anyone on the Isles. (Babs isn't the only one who put likes putting his lines in a blender.) And, what I really like about him - he can score in a variety of ways. It's not like he's always tipping pucks in or on the back door waiting for some superstar's patented pass. You don't score thirty goals three seasons in a row just because you have great chemistry with someone. IMHO. (OK, fine, maybe that's a little dishonest. But I've watched Moulson play. I think he's a goal scorer, with or without Tavares.) And there's really nothing wrong with Ott. You hate him, but that's exactly the point. He's a "super-pest." He'd automatically be the most gritty, physical player on our team, by a very wide margin. He'd make us harder to play against. You'd put Sheahan on the wing? I'd considered this. Andersson wouldn't have to be cheated out of a spot.

You know who'd be nice? Justin Faulk.

Cool. Next: change the name of the arena.

Also: there's the school of thought that says an elite scorer could be a stone that kills two birds for us. Basically, if we're scoring more goals, that takes some pressure off the D. In theory.

To be clear, I'm not saying I have any reason to believe that Thomas Vanek wants to be a Detroit Red Wing. I just think it'd be a good fit, for both sides. For us, again, he's a big-bodied, right-handed natural goal-scoring winger who might be able to pot 40+ playing on Datsyuk's wing. And, at 30 years old, he's still pretty young. (And he's Euro-born!) That's about as close to ideal as it's gonna get for us in our never-ending search for that Big Scoring Winger - and he wouldn't even cost any assets, just a lot of coin and a lot of term. So, I imagine Kenny will pursue him pretty fiercely, provided there's anything to pursue (i.e. provided he doesn't say, "Thanks, but I know where I'm going, and it's Minnesota. Yes, I'm absolutely sure. No, I won't reconsider. Please let go of my arm, you're cutting off my circulation.") From Vanek's perspective, well, let's be honest: we don't really know what he wants. All we really know is that he doesn't want to be part of a full-on rebuild of one of the worst teams in the salary cap era. That doesn't necessarily mean he wants to be a Penguin (though my gut says that's were he'll end up, somehow, some way). And, true enough, it doesn't necessarily mean he has any interest in joining the best-run organization in hockey, maybe in all of sports (that's the Wings, ftr). So: Why, then, did I say the Wings would be a good fit for him? Because it's true. He's a supremely gifted goal-scorer, we're loaded with supremely gifted playmakers. (He could play on any of our top three lines and he'd have at least one linemate who could get him to 35 goals.) He's supremely skilled with the puck, we play - or would like to play - a rare and proven brand of skill-driven, possession-centric (or skill-centric, possession-driven) hockey. He wants to play on a contender, we're about a Vanek and a solid defenseman away from cutthroat Cup contention, bolstered by one of the better prospect pools in the league. We have arguably the best head coach in the league; arguably the best GM in the league, arguably the best ownership in the league, arguably the best scouting and player development guys in the league; and even one of the best medical/training teams in the league. And it's a great hockey market without being a fishbowl. And it's a storied O6 franchise. And we're getting a new arena. (I realize what I've just done is kinda sleazy and shameless. I wrote a big long novel in the Next Season thread about why we're semi-doomed, and now I'm turning around and making essentially the opposite argument. AND I REGRET NOTHING!) But I think maybe most of all it's his personality/attitude/character/demeanor. I actually met him once, and I've a friend who's met him a few times. It's easy for a Wingnut to say this, but, really: he strikes me as the classic Red Wing. Polite, unassuming, even-keeled, yet...clearly very special. Pipe dream? Yeah. But not the utterly impossible kind. And even the utterly impossible is sometimes possible. (See: Alfredsson, Daniel.) So, Vanek is My Guy this summer (assuming Dan Girardi decides to be a bum and re-sign). Do we need a Dan Boyle more than we need a Thomas Vanek? Yes, and I've even argued as much. But, like I said, I don't see any of the top free agent options changing teams. I mean, maybe one or two, but that's it. So, the thinking would be: sign Vanek and decisively address the need for a right-handed first-line winger while leaving the D issue up in the air, or solve neither problem. tl;dr vanick is going to the wild gtfo dabura

As for defensemen... It goes without saying that I'd love Girardi, because that's my shtick. I don't see the Rangers letting him go, though. In fact, I don't see any of the top options changing teams. Timonen (hungry for a Cup. Might he pull an Alfie?) or Salo (pursued by Kenny before) might be interesting one-year stopgaps to sort of buy our kids some development time - but, again, I don't see any of the top options changing teams.

(Also: while Gaborik is a right-winger, Vanek is right-handed. So, Vanek is a big-bodied, right-handed winger who's capable of scoring thirty goals on a horrid Sabres team. Yes plz!)

I change my mind about these things every week, so that roster is now in the trash! Not sure why I wanted Almqvist up over Ouellet. I posted this in the other next season thread: Henrik Zetterberg Pavel Datsyuk Tomas Jurco Johan Franzen Stephen Weiss Gustav Nyquist Tomas Tatar Darren Helm Daniel Alfredsson Drew Miller Riley Sheahan Justin Abdelkader Niklas Kronwall Danny DeKeyser Brendan Smith Jonathan Ericsson Xavier Ouellet Brian Lashoff Jimmy Howard Jonas Gustavsson I think that's about as good as we can do with zero new outside acquisitions. Like I said in the other thread, it's far from ideal. But I guess it's nice knowing that we should have a pretty good team, even if we can't add an all-star. If we do add a big name in the offseason, my guess is it would be Moulson. He has no real allegiance, and I get the sense that he's sort of waiting for someone to come along and say they believe in him and they're willing to show it and give him a real hockey home. I think Kenny could knock that kind of pitch out of the park, so to speak. I think Gaborik will change teams, but I don't see Kenny being able to justify a 7.5-ish cap hit, given that Gaborik seems to be made of glass and we're injury-prone enough as it is. I can actually kind of see Vanek coming here, and I have no idea why that is. Maybe it's just his personality and the kind of player he is. I feel like he'd be a really good fit on a classy, Euro-heavy "skill team." But I'm not getting my hopes up.

Doesn't really work that way with concussions. Or, at least, it shouldn't.

I think both of these are debatable. Mostly the latter. How many NHL games have been threatened by terrorists, let alone actually hit? I mean, moot point, I guess. But I just wanted to say.

You're really reaching. Most of our recent losses were very hard-fought games with heavily banged up rosters. We lost to the Ducks by a goal. We lost to the Rangers by a goal. The Blues game was a disaster, but whatever. We beat the Kings twice. We beat the defending Cup champs in epic fashion. The Habs tried to come in our building and push us around, and we dug in, pushed back, and embarrassed them. We should've won the game on Sunday, but, again, not a lifeless, lazy, we-have-zero-grit-and-that-is-why-we-lost loss. The game last night - we didn't have a chance. This literally was an AHL roster. Would I have liked some more emotion? Yeah, I guess. But I'm not about to say that someone needs to be fired because we're not working hard enough or whatever. You know what could've really helped us? Having any one of Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen. Not to mention our second-line center (bad though he'd been) and our starting goalie (shaky though he's been). Again, Joakim Andersson was our first-line center. Joakim Andersson. We were an embarrassment before we'd even hit the ice.

What I wouldn't give to have Blake Wheeler on our team. Huge, fast, goal-scorer, right-handed, right-winger, young, American. It's not fair.

Come on, it's not THAT bad.

I still think Ott might be interesting. He'd probably have to play wing, but he can play all three forward positions, so that wouldn't really be an issue. You'd like to see us do better than Steve Ott. But I just don't see it. Maybe an Ales Hemsky (can't have too much scoring depth), but it's doubtful. Actually, re: Hemsky/EDM - Why wouldn't "Mac-T" be interested in Kindl and Quincey? Each is a defenseman with two arms and two legs. That'd be a major upgrade for the Oil, no? Then again, parting with either Kindl or Quincey would put our already iffy D corps back an NHL defenseman, unless we'd be getting a defenseman in return.

Agreed. And yet, the weird thing about this season's inuries is that age doesn't really seem to be the main issue. I mean, it certainly doesn't help. But plenty of our younger players have been bit by the bug as well. It's weird.

Guys, I just did the math. Turns out, this really is all Kyle Quincey's fault.

The one thing we have going for us, asset-wise, is our prospect pool. We have one of the better collections in the league. Jurco, Jarnkrok, Pulkkinen, Mantha, Ouellet, Sproul - it's good stuff. Of course, we also kind of need as many good kids in the pipeline as we can get. Tough situation. Agreed. If we're going to have a chance at a really big name, we're probably going to have to part with Sproul or Ouellet, even if it's a forward we're bringing in.

Good post.

Add to that the fact that Philly felt they had something to prove, and it's absolutely, positively no surprise that we got blown out tonight. My anger lies with the injuries. It has to stop.