DSM

No, he wasn't.

I know, BUT you still have to waive them before you buy them out.

Cleary is a UFA at years end..... Bertuzzi doesn't even take up that much cap space, and Ericsson is a top 4 dman on every team in this league. Again, bad argument.

I know all about the new CBA, thanks. All of the players you named could either be traded or would be taken on waivers before we tried to buy them out. Which just makes it a stupid argument is all.

No one can relly answer that except Wisniewski. Maybe he's buddies with someone on the team and wanted to play with them. Who knows? You can't just buy people out to make room for huge contracts. This isn't NHL13.

I do agree to an extent. But I also think Ken Holland is still acting like the best GM. I think not spending a forture on the limited Dmen available this past summer or trading some of our depth and or future was a smart move on his part. Just obviously not a popular one.

You do know the cap is only going to be about $64.3mil next year right?

He didn't have to sign with Columbus. He would've become a free agent if he hadn't have signed and I'm sure he and his agent knew that.

I guess it must be my age then. I was on this forum when Shanahan left for New York and Yzerman retired. Everyone on this forum lost it because we didn't replace them with some wild trade that would've worked on NHL07 or an overpriced UFA. And then we replaced Legace with this awful old guy named Hasek. We simply went with what we had at made it to the Western Conference finals that season and all was well. So I guess I'm resistant to that "sky is falling" mentality... So "Ah, yes, this familiar dance." is correct.

QUICK. Sign Brian Burke!

So then who should Holland have gotten?

Saying that we could've signed any certain UFA is moot. What if Wisniewski didn't want to play in Detroit? Why would Holland want to play Carle or Allen anywhere near what he offered Suter. Suter blows both of them out of the water. And again, maybe they also didn't want to come to Detroit. They both got huge paydays with struggling teams. Especially considering that Carle is a turnover prone one dimensional offensive dman and Allen is AT BEST a 2nd/3rd pairing stay at home dman.

I love how everyone thinks Holland was supposed to have some sort of back up plan in place for Lidstrom's retirement. You can't exactly just stockpile NHL worthy Dmen in the AHL....

Yea, I don't think the Islanders would trade one of there better players for guys that would normally be keeping Detrot's press box seats warm. I don't agree with trading both Emmerton and Mursak, you can't always recall someone. Sometimes players tweak stuff in the morning skate or pregame warmup and you don't have time to fly someone from the GR in. That's where carrying a couple extra guys on the roster comes in handy. Obviously one of them is going to need to be moved, but we'll still have a spot for the other one. I can actually see that. Although if they have a spot open, I can see them giving him the same treatment Hudler got when he was out of minor league options. I agree about Andersson 100% though. Babcock loves the guy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHL_salary_cap#Exemptions_from_regular_waivers_only Nyquist would have to play 62 or more games this season to have to hit waivers, which would be impossible anyway. Otherwise, next season is his last season of waiver exemption. IIRC, This season is Tatar and Anderssons last waiver exepmt season.

I doubt there's anyway we get Bogosian without having to cough up Smith and one or both of Tatar and Nyquist, unfortunately.

We'll see. I'm sure it's not easy when teams know that you're going to have to waive them anyway if you can't find a deal. Mid-draft picks or some sort of organizational depth is all you can really hope for.

I've always liked Hollands approach with young players. Sure we could have Nyquist start on the big club and probably get buried on the 3rd line. Instead, Nyquist, Tatar and Andersson are the top line in GR and get to hone their skills while playing in all situations. I don't see how that hurts their development or the team. I still don't get why everyone is so hung up on Nyquist though. The kid looked good, but he didn't exactly tear it up. He had 1 goal in 22 total games. I doubt he'd be an upgrade over Samuelsson right now...

Could end up like the McCarty situation too. He shows he can play in GR, so we sign him to the big club at the trade deadline when the roster limit is lifted and get some veteran depth for down the stretch and the playoffs. I'm not opposed to that.

In Garth Snow defense though, I'm sure he had no idea that they would turn out this way. Can't blame the guy for claiming a proven starting goalie with a $525k cap kit.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=413665 KHL keeps good on their agreement, and declines Visnovsky's request to stay the rest of the season. It's been clearly obvious that he really doesn't want to play for the Islanders, but it just seems stupid IMO. He's in the last year of his contract, which means he's probably a good candidate to be moved to a contender at the deadline. Plus, he's one and a half seasons removed from an almost point per game season. With the demand for UFA defenseman the way it was this past summer, he could end up with a decent payday this summer if he has somewhat of a bounce back year. Or else you play on the Island for 3.5 months and then go back to the KHL...

Not that I'd lose sleep over it, but I doubt Mursak or Emmerton would clear. Mursak is a good 4th liner on a lot of teams, and Emmerton could be a good 3rd line center for some teams. They're also both young and still have some potential. I'm sure lots of teams would grab them for free. The reason Connolly cleared is because he has a huge $4.75 million cap hit and only mustered 13 goals and 36 points for the Leafs last year. The fact that he is also about as durable as a saltine cracker probably has something to do with it as well.

He must really have no desire to play in NHL anymore. The league will obviously do what they did to Nabokov and make him honor his last year with NYI when he returns to the league so why not just get it out of the way?

I think trading for Komisarek or Bouwmeester this season would be a bad move. Both of them are being speculated as potential amnesty buyout candidates this summer depending on how they play this season. If that's the cas, Holland would be able to sign one of them as a UFA and lose nothing from the roster. Plus they would be cheaper. Depending on whether Calgary or Toronto keeps some salary from either of them in a trade, the Red Wings would absorb a potential cap hit of 3.3 to 6.6 million on Bouwmeester and a potential 2.25 to 4.5 million hit for Komisarek. Not worth it in my eyes, and I also don't see Calgary or Toronto absorbing any of the salaries unless the players coming over were worth them keeping some of the cap hit. I think if Holland does anything this year on D, he'll wait till the deadline. Unless injuries pile up, of course. I can see him picking up a 1st/2nd pair dman that is slated to become a UFA this summer as a rental so as to not take on a future cap hit. This would be for a couple of reasons: 1. He needs cap space because he's going to be busy this summer seeing that he needs to resign or replace upcoming UFA's Filppula, Howard, White, Brunner, Miller and Cleary and RFA's Smith, Kindl, Nyquist, Andersson, Lashoff, and Mursak. 2. A handful of teams are going to have to move some players around to get complaint for the lowered cap, which could put some interesting players on the market this summer. That's just my opinion though. Who knows what Holland will actually do. I'd really like to see how the D we have performs before making any judgements.

He's going with that lines that Babcock had set to start the season, just switched out Miller for Eaves. Probably a pretty good guesstimation too.