wings4thecup06

You know, that's not a bad return, considering. By all accounts Markstrom will be a very good number 1. Plus they get to dump Lou's salary, which may be the only reason Gillis keeps his job, even if he did drop the ball with Schneider. I guess this deal keeps Florida above the floor next year!!

Kesler for a 1st, Quincey, Kindl, Andersson and Samuelsson?? I'm just dreaming here I know and I doubt the Canucks would ever do that - for the record I haven't looked at the cap logistics of that because I know it won't happen….

I have no issues with Ozzie really, but he just has a bit of a monotone voice. But it's his first year, I'm sure he'll improve. I was really bummed when I heard that they let Murph go, really enjoyed listening to him, especially the excitement surrounding dollar hot dog night! I had completely forgotten how excited he used to get over that!

Somehow in my dream last night we ended up with Callahan and Moulson. No idea who we gave up or how, but it was all good until i woke up.

I agree. At times Bert has been quietly effective this year, most prominently on the PP as just a big body screening to goalie. But yea I feel this may be his last go round if he wants to try and stay in the lineup

So quick to judge man, the guy signed a four year deal and had hernia issues during the first half. Cut him a little slack maybe and judge him when he's actually healthy and can be the kind of player he was signed for. I know its frustrating, and I would have rather seen the money spent elsewhere, but now that he's here at least let's give him a chance to prove what he can do.

Excellent! Now we can also assess how much of a 'floater' he is!!!

From a surgical perspective, it is not worth doing such an invasive surgery when the problem is not causing serious risk of long term damage. Either way, I don't blame him nor Holland for any of these decisions. Injuries happen and they are part of the game. Yes it's unfortunate he couldn't have waited til the offseason, but a compressed spinal nerve is painful as hell. If he comes back for the playoffs then awesome, if not we'll have to live with it.

Hang on a minute, are you insinuating that Cleary is a lazy player? Or am I reading this incorrectly?

I've just re-read this entire thread purely from an entertainment perspective (and because I'm procrastinating instead of working, but still) and have found myself enlightened. To summarise: A rather crazy suggestion was made that we should buy out either our franchise icon at present, our best player and captain, leader, heart and soul guy, or a guy who has firmly established himself as a 30 goal scorer in this league, a guy who is one of the most dominant offensive threats in the league when he's rolling and on his game. Subsequently, the statement was made that we don't have goalscorers, and that to overcome this problem we should trade either of the two aforementioned, who have combined to provide the Wings with 1/6th of our goals this year. As us fans often do, we look back retrospectively at what could have been, and thus the last 3 pages of this thread have been spent lamenting the fact that we didn't get Bobby Ryan and thus our entire front office is 'lazy', just like Franzen and even Bobby Ryan himself! Thus I feel compelled to add my 2 cents: No we shouldn't buy out our captain or Franzen, what kind of a message does that send to the rest of the players in the league for a start, to both players? Can we scrap this 'floater' term to describe a player who is lazy? Is annoying and wholly inaccurate in terms of describing a player's tendency when they're on the ice. Franzen IMO, is worth that much more than Vanek. 1. He has great chemistry within our team. 2. He's proven to score when we needed it most (see 08 playoffs). 3. His contract is an absolute bargain, in a league with a cap that will forever go up, once again driving up salaries and leading to another lockout when Gary can't face the fact that the Panthers are losing more than just the $100,000 a day that was rumoured this past week (and just to avoid another 'fact' argument here's the link with proof! http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2014/02/19/pols-support-panthers-bailout-plan-co-owner-says-team-is-losing-100k-daily/) and doesn't want to have them fold or re-loacte them to Quebec City Franzen may be infuriatingly inconsistent at times, but he's not lazy or a 'floater'. Surely most of us here have gone out there and played hockey on a regular basis (or any sport for that matter) and just had an 'off' game, when it doesn't all fit quite right and you know you haven't got it that day. You can argue they're paid to play, but everyone is human after all. And when he's hot, like he was for a lot of this year, it's incredibly exciting. I still believe in this team, with or without Z for the remainder of this year. You could classify me as being optimistic perhaps, but if Franzen and Weiss come back and are healthy and productive, with Howard getting his game together, and the kids staying up, why can't we squeeze into the playoffs? I see no reason why not.

Sorry, but no. Like his playing style, but 7 years at $5.25m? Pass thank you very much

No. Just No. That is all

Personally I wouldn't trade Miller. Damn good PKer, feisty at times, kind of grinder type player that takes it on the chin and doesn't complain and brings it night in night out. May not be worth much offensively, but still, I wouldn't ship him out. I agree with trading Kindl, but not Smith. I think Lashoff has somewhat surpassed Kindl in most areas. Smith on the other hand, isn't going anywhere I don't think. While first round picks aren't sacred, he has a ton of potential, and we've seen flashes of greatness at times this year, and really all he has to do is iron out the kinks. I may be wrong on both counts, but just my 2 cents.

That's the thing. He's great on the PK yea, but how many guys have we got that can kill penalties? Miller, Helm, Glendening, Cleary (although you can strike up the one dimensional argument here, but thats for another time and place), Emmerton, Z, Datsyuk, hell I reckon Sheahan would be a good PK guy if he was given a shot. This just re-enforces the point. While he's valuable in that he plays well defensively, I agree, Sheahan has far surpassed him this year. I'd like to think they would package him in a trade to upgrade us elsewhere, but who knows what the brain trust is thinking. One can only dream…..

I agree. With Z potentially out long term, if this team is going to go anywhere, it needs a productive push from Weiss here.

I'd be happy with that (Ott for Andersson that is). I don't really see where he (Andersson) fits in this team going forward, or maybe that's my skewed/biased look at the situation. just haven't been as impressed as I was last year by him, and I feel it's time to give some of the others from the plethora of young guys/3rd/4th line guys we have in the organisation

hmm. The way I see it thus far is that no team has metaphorically stuck their hand up and emphatically said 'I'm the best team here'. Sweden have been brought down mightily by the loss of Z, and thus struggled to win 2 games they should have cruised. Lucky for them I reckon they've got a ticket to the SF, because I can't see them losing to either Austria or Slovenia. USA look great, but, IMO they got badly outplayed by the Russians, and were lucky really to win that game. Canada can't find their offence and don't seem to be clicking cohesively as a group. That said they're still my favourites - too much talent on that team. Russia I can't quite fathom. Their D has been much better than I expected, as has Bobrovsky in net. But there's something about them so far that makes me uneasy. It feels like they're forcing it maybe? I just don't see them getting by the Fins in the QFs if both teams get that far. Finland I thought, were dead and buried when they announced they'd lost Fil, Koivu and later Barkov, but wow did they ever push the Canadiens. If they play this organised and well defensively, they'd give anyone a hard time. They're currently my underdogs.

You don't care for the Alfie signing? No offense but I'm glad you're not our GM. He's been one of our better, more consistent forwards this year, 3rd in team scoring, and has that bomb of a shot. Oh, and he's right handed and not named Mikael Samuelsson. Seems like a win win to me. That said, I agree with you on the Weiss signing. I still don't and didn't like it, but I'm thinking if he's had the hernia since the start or very early into the year, he hasn't been up to snuff. I'm leaving my judgement until after the season, possibly next.

Ever the optimist, while I see that Z has literally picked this team up and onto his back and carried them as far as he could take us pre-Olympics, I still think we've got a shot. The good I can see coming out of this would be the fact that we get the kids to stay up for longer and continue their great play. If Weiss can come back and actually be the player the Wings thought they were getting when we signed him, then that will surely help, and if Pavel can get healthy, with Jimmy looking like he's found his game, I still wouldn't count us out, even without Z. I know you're all probably going to trash me for this, but until we either make the playoffs or are officially eliminated, I'm not going to give up hope. Maybe KH will make a deal to get us some offensive help? Maybe he'll acquire Edler. Who knows. Either way, I have no qualms about Z playing in the Olympics. Like others have said, his back would have gone out anyway Olympics or not. He had to opportunity to Captain his team to a Gold medal they had a great shot at, so I don't blame him. (aside: Sweden didn't look the same today against the Swiss without him).

Here's hoping Russia don't make it past the group stage…….

I voted no for the following: 1) No Alfredsson. I find it hard to imagine the Wings would let him walk/he wouldn't want to come back for another season 2) Glendening should be in that lineup. 3) I'm starting to feel that there isn't a place for Andersson in this lineup. I'm struggling to fight through the fog of our bottom 6 players and wonder whether its worth shipping him elsewhere and letting the kids play. 4) Not enough grit either for my liking. Needs a tough guy/power forward in there that can score a little and get his nose dirty. 5) I'm overly concerned about Mule - you've seen how long guys have been out with post concussion syndrome, and how will it affect his game? Will he shy away from contact completely in fear of getting hurt again? 6) I said this to myself at the time, and I hope I'm wrong, but I still don't like the Weiss deal. Hernias are a ***** I know, and if that's brought him down this year then I'm willing to wait until we have a proper assessment of him. But my gut feeling was this guy was too small and hasn't shown enough to warrant that kind of contract. Besides that I'm happy. EDIT: regarding Andersson, I know he's relatively young, but I just haven't seen a reason to have him in the lineup when IMO there are players who would better plug the hole in the bottom 6…...

Yea I agree. Those first 5 or so games once he came back from the Cowen hit he was turning the puck over, making bad decisions and not dangling like he usually did. And when he tried he failed. That said, after that I thought he was back to his old self personally. Now I don't know the extent of his injury, but it seems a bit strange for them to be like 'he'll be out a couple games' and then for them to keep saying that the past two weeks. With todays medical technology it would be easy enough to predict when a player should be able to go with a groin tear, so I doubt its that. Either way this team needs him back pronto. Watching that Flyers game made me thoroughly depressed. At least last night was a little better effort

Cannot wait for the Olympics to follow everyone. Gonna be some great hockey - will be interesting to see how the KHL guys are doing (Kovalchuk, I'm looking at you!) and how everyone adapts to the big ice.

Bloody hell! That is ridiculous!! On a lighter note though, clearly Sheahan and Jurco are headed back to GR once Andersson and Datsyuk are healthy. But what happens to Glendening when Weiss returns? I have liked the way both he and Eaves have played, so it's an interesting quandary when everyone gets healthy….

Sad to see things end like this, because IMO his last stint with the Wings was good. But yea, bad decision by Holland. At least he's done something about it now. I'm hoping that KH actually tries to shift someone at the deadline to clear some space out. Maybe Tootoo? I don't want to see him get traded, he would be in my lineup, but as he doesn't seem to be in favour with Babcock we could do with the space. Most of the ppl here would like to see Kindl moved but I would keep him around. Call me crazy if you will, but he's made strides with his game the last two years. Much more pro-active with offensive transition, more confidence carrying the puck up the ice and leading the rush at times. And every Wings defensemen has made bone headed plays this year, so it'd be unfair to call him out for that. Just saying', I wouldn't move him. Andersson? Probably.