Dabura

Knowing Holland, he's waiting for this summer's UFA class. Which is great, but, if that's the case, he should've told Alfie to go to Boston.

Yes, I know Brunner's story. And I'm well aware of NJ's struggles. (I'm ten minutes away from Trenton.) Doesn't mean I can't miss Brunner.

Speaking of [D]evils...I still kinda miss Brunner. And I've always been against signing Jagr, but he signed with NJ for, what, 2 million? I would've gladly taken him over Cleary.

Yep. I guess the implied point I was making, re: his later days, is that he'd successfully changed his game, the type of player he was - which is a fairly impressive accomplishment, especially when you consider just how effective he really was as a power forward and then as a sniper. I see Iginla trying to make essentially the same transition, and it's not going quite as well for him. And that makes me appreciate Shanny's ttly mad skillz that much more. Now, Mantha. I don't know if it's really fair to use PS (Prime Shanahan) as a projection for Mantha. The pure scoring ability seems to be there, but the snarl and "compete" that PS had...I don't see any traces of that in Mantha's game right now. Now, admittedly, I haven't seen a whole lot of Mantha. But I think it's fair to say that, at this point in time, SS (Sniper Shanahan) is a more realistic comparison-projection.

So...would Holland just keep him and try to waive/trade the next guy in line (likely Eaves)?

Interesting.

Dear Edmonton Oilers, You need a Mikael Samuelsson. He's a veteran Cup winner, has good size, plays a gritty game, is defensively responsible, can run the PP, has a rocket of a shot - WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE??? Sincerely, LGW

I remember Shanny in his prime and I'm relatively young. So don't feel too bad about that. Shanny - in his prime - was a force to be reckoned with, just an absolute beast of a player. If the Coffey trade doesn't happen, we probably don't win either of those back-to-back Cups. I think one of the most remarkable things about him is that he was still scoring 30-40 goals when he was way past his prime. If any one of our top scorers (so...um...Datsyuk or Zetterberg) were to score 40 goals this season, we'd call it a miracle. As for Mantha, I'd like to see him on the Wings ASAP. Have Babs tell him that he needs to score 50 goals in his rookie season or his NHL career will be finished.

Holland went on to say, "Gus has zero points for the Wings so far this season. Frankly, that's not good enough. It's possible that we rushed him into the NHL before he was ready, and that falls on me."

I was just about to make some of these points. Mainly: Cleary and Samuelsson are, in fact, more valuable than Tootoo. (At least, in the way Babs utilizes them.) Tootoo gets about five minutes, and that's when he's not a healthy scratch. And none of those minutes are ever especially important, e.g. special teams. Tootoo could be a regular on other teams. The hope is that he gets picked up by one of those teams.

Yep, I'm pretty sure you're right. My math was wrong, left someone out when I was adding things up.

srsly I mean, I get that he's good for 20+ goals or whatever. But we do have Tatar and Alfredsson, and sooner or later we'll have Nyquist again. Point being, he's not exactly indispensable. (IMHO.)

I don't know why it wouldn't be Nyquist. Seems pretty clear-cut to me. Unless Holland's got a deal in the works. (Doubt it.)

It must be pretty awesome being Bob McKenzie and knowing anything and eveything you report will be taken as fact, truth, official confirmation. I'm not being snarky at all. I totally mean it. The guy's a media demigod. Dan Girardi Nyquist?

Not happy about this, but we all knew it was coming. Cleary and Samuelsson next plz kthxbai.

Sarcasm. I feel like we've been hearing about Valtteri Filppula's ZOMG INCREDIBLE POTENTIAL for twenty years now.

Jurco is one of our most tantalizing young talents for the reasons you've mentioned. A power forward with sick skillz.

"We feel that getting Nyquist back into the lineup is like adding a big deadline acquistion."

Also, I want to add: if we keep the same young, inexperienced blue line, we're basically asking it to win the Cup on only its second run. Which is ludicrous. "OK, you guys learned a lot last time, right? So you know now what it takes to win the Cup, right? Great! Getter done!" It's not that I don't like our blue line. I just don't see it winning a Cup any time soon. Now, maybe if we were a high-scoring team I wouldn't be so critical. But we're not a high-scoring team, so the blue line matters that much more. And actually, as I've said before, I firmly believe our scoring problems are directly tied to our back end, specifically in our lack of quality puck movement, first passes, etc. Add a P.K. Subban to our corps and the defense improves, the offense improves, the power play improves, and we have a really good shot at the Cup. All of this isn't to say I'm opposed to bringing in a scoring winger. But, defense wins Cups - and our D needs teeth.

If it were up to me, I'd pair Kronwall with DeKeyser, Ericsson with Kindl, and...oh damn it all.

My big concern is also the threat of serious inury. If we lose any of our top guys for a significant stretch of the postseason - and you have to assume we will - it's really going to hurt us in the "long run." I don't want to say we got lucky against the Ducks and 'hawks. Because we didn't. But I do think we overachieved. Bottom line, I do not trust our blue line (minus one of our top guys, because you know it'll happen) to win the Stanley Cup. Win a round and then push the second round to seven games? Maybe. But winning the Cup, that'll take more than what we have on the back end. It's just not happening. I'll gladly eat crow if I'm wrong, but hopefully it doesn't go that far. Hopefully we snag an elite offensive defenseman with a great first pass, making a statement that we really are deathly serious about winning this year, with Alfie on board for his last hurrah and the Euro Twins not getting any younger. Broken record, I know.

Thanks for this. I feel like he should be coaching our D. And I guess he sort of is. But I mean in an official, every-day capacity. WHAT'S TO STOP CHRIS CHELIOS FROM MAKING A COMEBACK

I wholeheartedly disagree. Kronwall - Ericsson DeKeyser - Kindl Quincey - Smith That. Scares. Me.

That is exactly what scares me about them. We're generally great against the best teams, the teams we know will spank us if we don't come to play. But anything less than the best and it's almost a crapshoot, a coin flip which Wings team will show up.

It's pretty crazy how tough the Western Conference is. I mean, it's always been the better conference, but...man...we got out just in time. Sucks to be the Oilers. (And Jets.) If things keep going at the pace they're going in the East, we should fit comfortably into the playoff race. But, once there, I'm not sure I like our chances against a highly motivated Penguins team, a highly motivated Bruins team, a highly motivated Leafs team, a highly motivated Senators team, a highly motivated Canadiens team, a highly motivated Lightning team, a highly motivated Islanders team....There's a whole lot of motivation in the East to make up for recent failures, disappointments, embarrassments, and all-around suckage, etc. And what better team to make a statment against than the Red Wings? blahhhhh We need an elite defenseman. We need one so badly it's not even funny. The thought of Kyle Quincey, Brendan Smith, and Jakub Kindl getting top-four minutes in the playoffs almost makes me want to just stop following this season right here and now so as to avoid the inevitable postseason heartbreak.