achildr1

Nail Yakupov 2:31-2:34. Sick. Can't wait to see who gets to draft that kid. Smith looked good against Mike Camm.

To all the "retire already" Draper-haters, lay off. Drapes looked great this year and worked his tail off when at times most the team was taking nights off. He looked 10 years younger this year and I wouldn't have thought twice about letting Miller walk and letting Draper and Emmerton split his time. I think with how long Maltby was around, Draper got shafted.

If "Winnipeg Jets" was in the blue circle I think id like this much more. Love the "jets" script though.

Both of you guys are prime to lapses in judgement but this one has went too far. If Hudler put up 50 points or more and Filppula played like he does they would be worth more than Semin and Emmerton easy. It would be because the team would be deeper, probably produce the same points, but Fil's all around play would be the tie breaker. That said, the Semin/p*ssy thing was uncalled for. Both of Semin and Hudler play like a Sunday morning knitting group drinking chamomile tea anyway.

Seriously, how awesome would it be after a summer of turning almost every thread into a Hudler bashing bonanza, if he put up 60+ points like his potential suggests and he HAS shown capable of before? I would like to get rid of Hudler, but not for a bag of pucks, and not to replace with Zherdev or even freakin' Alex "Karate Slap" Semin. If we can't get a true, skilled, 100% effort guy in our top 6 then we might as well keep shuffling Hudler in for this last year and see if he's truely useless rather than replacing him with guys who are essentially the same players, even if it means 30 more points. Who would seriously want to see Semin locked up here long term? That's terrifying. As if Franzen and Ericsson refusing to be physical wouldn't be enough for LGW, we then pick up a 155 lbs, Russian slap fighter with a penchant for slacking? No thank you.

Hopefully it'll light a fire under Landon and he'll start living up to his draft position... The stuff I've read about Mrazek is leading more and more to him being our goalie of the future. Makes me happy since McCullom is slipping.

If I'm not mistaken Darryl Bootland put up big numbers in the AHL but look at where it got him. Here's to hoping that's not Callahan's career path.

I wish they'd get Mrazek, unless McCullom decides to play well this year. They look like they'll be a ton of fun to watch. Anyone want to make they're probable lines up for me? Could you imagine Pulkkinen and Jarnkrok on the Griffins too? Would be awesome.

Well they are losing Mursak, Emmerton, Owens, Meech, Tardif, and iFlip I think. I imagine there's still room. They are adding Ferraro, Nyquist, Exelby, and now Connor. Anyone I'm missing?

Yep...I'm awesome, Lol. I'm going to try to talk my Wife into it. We just got back from the UP though and spent a bunch of money so I'm not sure how it'll work out. My daughter hasn't seen the Wings live yet, I'm pretty sure she'll flip when she does though. We took her to a Windsor/Plymouth game in March, I think, and she loved It.

Get paid full time this week and 60% next week too. Not too shabby.

How does one get tickets or whatever? I've got this week and next week off work and a free place to stay close to Traverse but i dont have any clue where all of this takes place and if/how I can attend. I was wondering who that was, he's huge. EDIT: Ok, so.... Development camp When: Today-July 14. Where: Centre ICE in Traverse City Tickets: Today is free; rest of camp is $5 per day Schedule Today: 2:30-4:45 p.m. Friday-Wednesday: 8:30 a.m.-10:30, and 2:30-4:30 p.m. July 14: 8:30 a.m.-10 (scrimmage/skills competition)

I think dealing Smith for Yandle is a mistake. Especially because the deal probably wouldn't stop until you tacked on a couple picks/prospects more. For Doughty though, I'd send Smith packing. Mainly because Smith sounds like a Mike Green-type whereas Doughty gets the Ray Bourque comparisons. I'll take the better DEFENSEman all day.

I'm fairly certain you're correct, E's number will be smaller than most dman signings. I can pretty much assure you that most of those players signed will either be very good at one part of the game or decent at an all around game. Niether game can Ericsson boast, dude doesn't do anything good. His defence is bad, his physical play is limited and nowhere near what it could be, and he ain't puttin' points on the board. Man I miss Jiri Fischer, E probably wouldn't exist if we still had him.

I was thinking about why those type of guys ended up leaving too. Craziness.

@drumshanbo I'm predicting quite a few responses to your cinematic negligence of comedic gold... Super Troopers

Hilarious. These kind of signings are why Chicago couldn't hold on to half their team after winning the Cup. What if Florida made a surprise run in three years with the ton of talent they've accumulated in the last couple drafts? It would probably be Chicago all over again.

Those signings were just rediculous. Sather makes me sick. I wonder how many terrible contracts are fully or partially his fault, whether on the Rangers or on another team because he drove up the price of Free Agents. Here's a game for LGWer's. Let's play "Name all the overpriced/overtermed Ranger contracts you remember under Sather" I'll start with Holik, Redden, Gomez, Drury. Go!!

Pulkkinen. Datsyuk. Jarnkrok Tater. Zetterberg. Franzen Nyquist. Helm. Jurco Mursak. Abdelkader. Callahan ------------------------------------------- ? Guy - Sheahan. Kronwall. Smith Ouellet. Sproul Pyett. Kindl Ericsson. ------------------ ? Guy - Marchenko, Almqvist. Howard Mrazek ------------------ ? Guy - McCullom This is my take. I'm not sold on Sheahan, McCullom, or Alqvist yet. Sheahan seems to be less of an offensive player than his draft position suggests, McCullom is a head case, and Almqvist's build and '10-'11 stats make his progression an uphill battle.

He's my darkhorse. Local kid, probably fits a lot better in our system. Wish he was right-handed though.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2011/06/27/five-teams-you-could-call-winners-at-the-nhl-draft/related Looks like some other people noticed our picks too...

http://www.coppernblue.com/2011/6/16/2224660/marek-tvrdon-nhl-draft-prospect-oilers-pick This was an Oiler pre-draft wish list article on Tvrdon. About half way down it foresees our pick....

That Sproul kid looks pretty promising. Size, shot, looks like a good decision maker too.

Florida is willing to take Campbell's contract from Chicago. WTH. If that happens Chicago can go after almost anyone. The Sharks have Burns now. And we lost a top 4 dman...we need to get going. EDIT: Apparently I'm late with these thoughts. See above.

Were pretty bad with our 1st/2nd Rounders anyway, whatever. We could make quite a who's who of failed picks in those rounds just from Holland's tenure.