StevieY9802

Not really. They need some bottom 2 line wingers. Yes it would be nice to add a scorer but hard to find one at a good price. Your top 6 are probably, in no order: Dats, Hank, Homer, Fil, Franzen and Cleary. I know a lot of people here think Leino should be in the top 6 but he needs to prove it first. And Cleary had a hell of a playoffs and Homer playls better on the top line. So the bottom 6 is Leino, Helm, Malts and Draper. They need 2 guys down there. Abby probably isn't starting on the big squad if they can help it. Someone said Grier will have to take a big paycut, my guess is he will no matter where he goes. Guys who have been on the market this long most of the time do.

Maybe. I wouldn't mind giving him a shot. I'm guessing not soon after the hearing we might see some action.

When I translated the article it doesn't say he's signed yet.

I thought you could only have one player on your team that takes up 20% of the cap. So what if the cap goes to like $52mil? 11mil is more than 20% of that

Not surprised and that's fine. If he comes back he'll have to play for less than what he probably would be getting 2 years from now. While I wish they could keep his offense they have money to spend on guys who will cost much less. Some of the guys out there will for sure have to take less money than they did last year. The advantage of waiting.

Oh I'm with you 100%. This team never really engaged, to use Babcock's word, through most of the regular season. It was like "we know this isn't when it counts" kinda thing. They would have games like against the Sharks early in the year smacking them 6-0 and then the first game against the Pens where they blew a 5-2 lead with like 15 minutes to go to lose 7-6. I sure hope they don't let that happen again. It wasn't fun to watch. Sounds weird coming off a season where they finished 3rd in the league but I like when they play good d. They played much better, as did Ozzie in the playoffs but their PK still needs a lot of work.

McCollum? a while. He's only 20 and they won't rush him I don't think. He seems to be the one with the most promise but ya know how that goes. Larson I don't think will be down there too much longer. Howard will get his chance this year and they'll see how that goes. As for Ozzie, I don't think Ozzie has as bad of a season as he did last year. He knows he wasn't ready and I think that's the key. But the D also needs to play better. They have up way too many quality chances. how many games did they blow leads and how many games did they have to win 5-4 or 6-4 and it wasn't all the goalies cause Conklin had a decent season and there were games he was left out to dry. As for the OP's question Ozzie would probably start but be on a short leash if Howard does have a GREAT season. Ozzie has 29 playoff wins in 2 years how do you not go with him unless he just isn't ready physically? They've seen a goalie have a good regular season and fall real quick in the playoffs, Manny I'm looking at you, I don't see them lettin that happen with Ozzie here.

It's not coming from him he's posting news from another website, and ESPN is now reporting it. I know he's full of crap most of the time but maybe actually read the article first.

Right on man. As for Hossa I always thought something was wrong. As you said there were a few times after a hit he skated right off the ice. I believe game 2 against the Ducks it happened for sure. EK makes a good point in his blog about Hossa getting a physical. "Before they agreed to the deal on July 1?" It never happened until after he signed. If I was the Hawks I would say have surgery and we'll deal with it until December. Cause what if he plays on it and then in Jan or Feb he hurts it badly and he's done for the year? The Daily Hearld blog I saw some saying it was Tallon's fault. Well if McDonough wasn't pushing to sign Hossa then it wouldn't have been a big deal.

Mike Milbury made a good point on CBC last season about Yzerman and him taking over as GM somewhere, I forget where, and he said he had talked to Steve about it and he said with his girls all in school he would not want to uproot them at this point of their lives. It seems like a good point and I think it's the same right now, even with Chicago being so close. Also I think everyone in the NHL knew that Stan Bowman was next in line in Chicago with Scotty there.

This is how I feel. I don't really know if he would be great on the top line. You can throw stats out all you want but stats can be shown to prove your point but until you actually see it you won't know. As for SHOULD he have been playing on the top 2 lines? This team finished #1 in the league in 08 and won the Cup with Hudler on the 4th line pretty much. Last year they finished #3 in the league and lost in game 7 of the Cup Finals with him on the 3rd line. I don't care about HIS stats but this team won with him in that 3rd or 4th line/PP role. So I liked him there. I said it before, on certain teams guys have roles and that was his on this team. If he didn't like his role and that along with the money is why he left then so be it. But I'm not gonna second guess it and say he should have played more to keep him now. One Cup and if the team was healthy probably another one.

McCollum got my vote but I used to excited about Jimmy too and I'm not so much anymore.

That wasn't a very good read. The Tigers still bring in around 35K to a game and are selling out games. 3 years ago went to the WS and are #1 in the division. 6+ years ago I say they would have an argument, while a bad a one, but not today. Attendance down while still in the 30's is not gonna move any team. Sadly the Isles could move before the Coyotes if Bettman has his way.

Couldn't the Wings accept the rulling and still let him walk technically? Then if comes back in 2 years he would have to play for what the arbitrator ruled?

That was an awesome goal by Franzen. I was at that game and it happened right infront of where I was sitting. The only real thing you could cheer for with them down 3-0 at the time and not playing well. O'Byrne had a crap two games. Got schooled by mule there and scored on his own empty net the game before. The Hagman goal was also amazing.

I've said it before, I don't mind VS but I hate NBC. VS might not pick the best annoucners in the world but they give them 2 games a week plus at least a game a night during the playoffs. NBC cut off game 5 of the ECF's between the Sens and Sabres in OT to show the pre-race coverage of the Kentucky Derby. Pre-Race? Come on. Then Conan got preference over the Finals so NBC picked up the first 2 games instead of the last games like they had in the past and started the finals in back to back games for the first time in close to 50 years. Then Bettman comes out and says "they were planning on it for a while." Yeah sure you were. I said it a while the NBA wouldn't have that happen NBC would have started Conan a few weeks later or just dealt with it. And NBC gives almost no coverage during the regular season and don't start covering games until January and last year they had a whole 9 games on not counting the Winter Classic. Plus you never know what game will be on because they are "flex games" so NBC can just pick a game not too far before the game. The game against the Wild was one of those game so that could have been one less. Now I don't mind having Ken and Mickey instead of Doc and Ed but if you really want to market this game you get it on nationally more than just a 10 times. While ESPN didn't treat the NHL very well I remember in the playoffs there were times I could watch the Wings, a game on CBC, a game on ESPN and a game on ESPN 2. Now I watch the Wings and VS and that's it because NBC only has weekend games in the playoffs before the Finals. The players even want it back on ESPN. They brought it up at the meeting the PA had with Bettman in Vegas. All he did was do his sideways talk about how great the deal is with NBC. One player was quoted as saying "He was giving a sales pitch about NBC." Now I have to deal with 2 more years of Pierre Maguire giving me useless information from inside the glass.

As someone said, Dally wouldn't have scored 40 goals during the season, so the Wings would have finished lower because I don't think he would have magically made the Wings play better D last season or made Ozzie play better during the regular season so minus 40 goals, even if some guys stepped up a little more, would have been hard to do. And while Hossa didn't score much in the playoffs his goals came in important games, minus the 4th game against the Jackets. How big were those 2 goals in game 4 against the Ducks? So maybe the Wings don't even get to the WCF's. You switch out thsoe two and I think the season is toally different. Could be a Cup, could be a 1st or 2nd round exit. Also I think Hossa stayed in Pitt and didn't go to the Oilers had he not signed here. He gave up 50mil over 7 years to take a 1 year deal so I think he would take the 7.5mil from the Pens over the 9mil a year from Edmonton, or at least I would.

This is a great post. I have to say I didn't see Hudler leaving but I did see the others leaving, how could you not have? Is it hurtnig them now being loyal with guys like Draper, Malts and Homer? No not really. Those guys off the roster this year frees up money THIS year. That could be less players with more cap space taken up if you can keep Hossa and Hudler. So they 4.8mil without those guys, actually less than that cause of buyouts. Does it keep them Hudler? I dunno. I think they made a pretty fair offer to him for what he does for THIS team. An extra few hundred grand I don't thnk keeps him. You have to remember that he would need to be making 7-8mil on this team to be around the 5mil tax free mark in Russia. And really the only guy of the 3 older guys I might want gone is Malts. Draper is still a great faceoff guy and if Holmstrom stays healthy this year he is still effective. And what do you do buy them out and take a smaller cap hit over a longer time? I say you deal with it now and have all that cap space later, any little bit helps. Too many people here think in the short-term. This team will still be good this year and will have money to spend later and room for the young guys. While otehr teams are spending big money like Chicago, they will have to trade guys away next year while the Wings won't.

Holland might have asked for that to help get it out of the way. I'm pretty sure he did that last year, granted they didn't go to Sweden but he wanted the West Coast trips out of the way as early as possible. While it sucks I want it out of the way for myself.

Wasn't he the GM when they traded for Shanny? And traded Shepherd for Larionov. Signed Kocur and traded Greg Johnson for Tomas Sandstrom? And traded for Larry Murphy? Holland was the Asst. GM then so I thought Scotty was making the player decisions those year.

yup. And as for playing time, some guys have roles and I think that was his role on this team. It's not like he wasn't being productive with those minutes. And it's not like the Wings top two lines weren't producing and needed him up there. I know someone will chime in and say well Holmstrom wasn't up putting up numbers up there but if you put Holmstrom on the 3rdline and Hudler on the 2nd then you are taking away scoring from the 3rd line. Not many teams have a guy like Hudler on the 3rd line. While you may want to play more and feel you should, the team was winning while you were on the 3rd and 4th lines over the last 2 years.

Doubt it would happen. Plus his work ethic has been trouble.

That's a twist. This is getting stranger by the minute. how long before he jumps ship though? I think he'll get a gig and head out as soon as possible. Just my opinion and probably what I would do.

I'm with you on them not letting those guys go. I mean you never know cause someone could offer up 8mil a year over 10 years or some crazy crap but we'll see on that one. But I think they keep those guys but will have trouble finding support players because they'll have to trade guys like Versteeg and such cause they won't be able to unload Campbell. You are right teams want to sign middle of the line players for bigger money but teams never seem to want to give up picks or players for them. Weird how that works. You are also right on with them trying to win it now. They better, imo, because once you have to try to get the rigth support players with not a lot of money it can tough. They won't have this stacked of a team next season that's for sure. Ask the Wings.

Can't wait. And not just that it's Hossa. It's a good team coming to town and it's the home opener. All kinds of goodness rolled into that one.