DatsyukownzU13

It's really just a depth signing. He won't beat out Tangradi and other prospects unless mass injuries occur.

Click for buzz kill: http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2010/08/no_mike_modano_has_not_yet_dec.html Edit: Just noticed the time of the article, so maybe this doesn't hold much water anymore.

Anchors discussing the viable possibility of Modano finishing out his playing career on a 1 year deal in Detroit. Saying it makes sense and that he fits the system as long as he can deal with the possibilities of Babcock benching him. They weren't even suggesting that this was being rumored about, just that they would like it to happen. I think it's a good idea if the price is right. Gives us some PP options if things aren't working out well.

As a former high school teammate of this poster, I can fully vouch for the legitimacy of his run-ins (literally) with opposing team's goalies, haha. The fans usually didn't appreciate it at the away games, to say the least.

What I would love to see given our cap space (obviously dependent on what these players want on the market and what our RFAs/Potential 6th D end up getting). Option 1 (defensive-minded): - Sign Evgeny Artyukhin (RW, right-handed, Previous Cap Hit: 1 million) - Affordable, huge, fast skater who throws some huge hits and will drop gloves on occasion. Not neccesarily defensively-responsible, but adds a ton of energy to an already speedy, energetic 4th line. Also, allows Cleary to stay on the 3rd line, who is more defensively-responsible than most UFA's that would take his spot. Zetterberg - Datsyuk - Holmstrom Franzen - Filppula - Hudler Bertuzzi - Abdelkader - Cleary Eaves - Helm - Artyukhin *I am fully aware that Hudler does not play right wing, just a hypothetical situation where I'd like to see him getting second line minutes (either on his off wing or someone else having to do that). Option 2 (offensive-minded): - Sign Marek Svatos (RW, right-handed, Previous Cap Hit: 2.05 million) - Should probably have a lower cap-hit due to injuries, lack of production last year... but he's about a point per every other game type player with a great shot and some offensive potential that has been seen at times). Zetterberg - Datsyuk - Holmstrom Franzen - Filppula - Bertuzzi Hudler - Abdelkader - Svatos Eaves - Helm - Cleary Add a player with goal scoring potential to the third line, making the top 3 lines all legitimate scoring threats. Svatos could be a nice option on the second PP unit, as well. If he has Jason Williams syndrome half way through the season: Promote Cleary and dress Riotla.

Maxim Lapierre hat trick = 2 Dives and a Goal

I agree for the most part, but I'd change a couple (mainly giving props to the grinders): Datsyuk - A- (great when it mattered toward the end but he was rather unspectacular in the early games) Lidstrom - A- (defensively more suspect than usual, especially in the losses) Eaves - B (provided a ton of energy and enthusiasm, does the little things right when he isn't producing points) Miller - B+ (similar to Eaves, provided the intangibles that you need to wear down a team) Helm - B (drew a few key penalties, continually hit and forechecked) Eaves, Miller and Helm aren't expected to produce points (though they do on occasion), so judging their performances by stats makes things a bit ambiguous. They played their roles well and constantly forced turnovers and wore down the Phoenix defensemen.

ahhhhhh stop all the jinxes!!!!!!!

Kovalchuk is obviously a bit of a pipe-dream, unless he is extremely serious about winning the Cup (enough so to take a pay cut that he wouldn't need to take on other teams with legitimate cup chances). Unless he loved his time in the Olympics playing on Datsyuk's wing (where they both weren't as impressive as I would have expected), I don't see him losing out on cash to go to a team that isn't as dominant as they once were. More realistic UFA's that I would love to have would be: - Tomas Plekanek (26 years old) - Last Contract: 2.6 million: We already have a plethora of capable centers and are in dire need of scoring wingers, so I doubt this will happen. I would be surprised to see Montreal let him get away regardless. - Alexandre Frolov (27 years old) - Last Contract: 4 million: A little expensive, but I could see him fitting in decently on Datsyuk's wing if we could fit him in. Solid 2-way player who hasn't reached his alleged offensive potential completely, but has reached 30 goals on two separate occasions. - Alexei Ponikarovsky (29 years old) - Last Contract: 2.5 million: Big, scoring winger that is good defensively as well. Stuck in the black hole that is Toronto for a while, which may have limited his offensive capabilities (although he isn't doing any better for Pittsburgh) but he still put up respectable numbers. - Evgeny Artyukhin (26 years old) - Last Contract: 1 million: Obviously not as offensively talented as the previous three, but he is massive, fast and likes to throw big hits. He has talent if he can put it together and we all know players have a tendency to over-achieve when they play with the Wings. If Lidstrom leaves: - Paul Martin (28 years old) - Last Contract: 4.5 million: Sound defenseman with some inherent offensive instincts. I think he's more of an unknown due to the lack of publicity that the Devils get (until recently with Kovy), but he seems very reliable and would have a respectable salary. - Zbynek Michalek (26 years old) - Last Contract: 1.5 million: I've heard that he's a great defenseman for 2 years now but was among those guilty of never watching the Coyotes. I've watched him a couple times during the season this year and in the playoffs (hasn't been as good as usual) and he definitely lives up to the hype. He's going to get a big raise, though. - Dan Hamhuis (26 years old) - Last Contract: 2.5 million: Seems like he's been around for a while but he's only 26 years old. I thought he was great when he was a rookie and 2nd year player, but haven't watched him as much recently. Solid first pass and trustworthy in the defensive zone. - Anton Volchenkov (27 years old) - Last Contract: 3.2 million: Great shot blocker and open ice hitter. Would probably solidify our defense as the most physical in the NHL (weird considering our perception in that area a couple years ago). Probably going to get a hefty raise, but he'd be a nice get. Obviously none of those defensemen can fill the void left by Lidstrom (no one can besides maybe Drew Doughty or Duncan Keith for the time being), but they would round out our defense and give us three good pairings. Hopefully Kindl can live up to his draft hype.

You don't watch him, do you? Just because he shoots a lot does not mean he's a puck hog. He has one of the most elite shots in the league and is a scoring winger, that's his role. He is a great passer and runs the power play extremely well. Anyone who doesn't want Kovalchuk due to anything other than monetary reasons is being silly. On top of the skill, he's also one of the most passionate players I've ever seen play in the NHL.

I think comparing him to Tobias Enstrom is getting carried away as it is. Enstrom is a premier player in the NHL, he's just stuck in a black-hole of a franchise that is Atlanta (yeah, they've been decent this year but his skills are often overlooked). Sure he seems to have great hockey sense and playmaking ability, which is comparable to Enstrom, but Enstrom has much more strength to his name and obviously has proven abilities at higher levels than the SEL. With that said, for our last pick of the draft he seems to have potential steal written all over him. Luckily for us, with the help of a personal trainer he could easily bulk up and we have no instant need for him so that will give him a nice amount of time to progress in the SEL.

It's basically saying that whatever he did say was in reference to those players. For example, he could have said "...guys like Drapes, Lids, Rafi and Ozzie" and for whatever reason the writer chose to put their full names instead of the nickname. Not really sure why he didn't do the same for Draper, but maybe that nickname is close enough to the real name that he didn't feel like it needed clarification. It's just a way for the writer to make a quotation more clear without directly changing the words that came from the player's mouth.

By some chance, I hope Babcock took notice of the other teams in the olympics defensive play. - Raflaski is much better when he is the defenseman that is relied on in his pairing. - Lidstrom and Kronwall play well together. If these things were noticed, I think it would be pretty cool to try out something like this: Lidstrom - Kronwall Rafalski - Stuart Ericsson - Lilja

This reminds me of a great story. My friend and high school hockey teammate (a poster on this site), was locker-boxing the day of a college interview (want to say it was Stanford?) and he somehow managed to chip a front tooth or two and had to go to the interview like that right after. Not sure if that's the way you want to present yourself to an elite school, unless you were going on a hockey (or maybe an agricultural) scholarship, haha. I'll keep his anonymity in tact for the time being, but let's see if he want's to own up!

seconded... that's what I came on here to see. I've watched about 5 minutes and he's looked solid but it's hard to tell with that sample size. Anyone with some input?

If a contract extension was agreed on before the trade with Kovalchuk, I would definitely be willing to part ways with 2 of Cleary (assuming he would waive his NTC)/Filppula/Stuart and add Leino. Throw in one highly-touted prospect (Tatar, Nyquist, Smith) or a 1st-rounder and I think Atlanta would take it seriously. I would even consider a prospect and a 1st-rounder with the Wing's draft history and the fact that Kovalchuk is pretty young if that's not enough. Atlanta gets 2 roster players (top-6 forward, top-4 defenseman with playoff success/experience), 1 borderline roster player with pretty high potential that could step into a powerplay/top 3 line role if needed right away and a prospect that has high potential or a pick that could be that (or both if necessary). Our powerplay would be insane. Datsyuk - Zetterberg - Kovalchuk Lidstrom - Rafalski or Datsyuk - Zetterberg - Holmstrom Lidstrom - Rafalski with a 2nd unit with some combination of Kovalchuk, Franzen, Kronwall, Williams and whoever isn't traded between Fil and Cleary.

It's the most overlooked statistic for a reason. +/- is not a very relevant stat and thats why not many novice fans, or more experienced fans for that matter, shouldn't pay much attention to it.

I've been watching most of the Slovakia - Canada game and I haven't really seen Tatar out there much... any reason for that? Thought he was considered one of the best players on the team along with Panik.

I know that there has been a lot of talk about all the injuries, but if it has not been done before (didn't take the time to check so sorry in advance if that's the case) we should have an official thread to update with all the injuries and projected returns. Here's a rough estimate for the returns of our injured players from what I put together from injury reports: Late December: - Filppula - Kronwall - Rafalski Early to Mid January: - Zetterberg - Williams - Cleary February/March: - Franzen Indefinitely: - Lilja Any official word on Ericsson? I never really saw anything when that all went down. Looks like we may actually have a semblance of our real team by the end of January.

I'll gladly eat crow at the moment. I don't want to get overly-excited but he has exceeded my expectations lately. If he can give us a 2.5 GAA and a save percentage of around .910 for the season I will be pleasantly surprised and content with him being a backup or involved in a tandem like he currently is. In my opinion, he is our starting goaltender at the moment and has proven enough to be considered this for the time being.

I give him props... Rick Rypein is one of the best pound for pound fighters in the league and May stuck with him for the most part.

Beat me to it.

I love how Eaves has played for us. He's never going to be a prolific goal scorer or point producer, but he does all the intangibles and can chip in a few (he does have apparent offensive talent that could show up in a bigger way as well). He seems like a real team player and kind of reminds me of Cleary. Anybody else notice that Eaves went right after Hejda after he dropped Datsyuk in the 1st? Not only did he lay him out in the corner but he caused a turnover that led to the Draper goal. He doesn't show up on the stat sheet for something like that but it was a great play for both reasons. Backed up our superstar and caused a costly turnover, two great reasons to go out of your way to lay a hit on someone. If you missed it click on Draper's goal here http://www.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?hlg=200...51&fr=false.

Nathan Horton would be a great pickup for our team, but we would definitely have to give up a blue-chip prospect and some to get him. The only real blue-chip prospect we have at the moment is Jakub Kindl, which I have a hard time believing Ken Holland would give up. The only other big prospect we have is McCollum, but the Panthers already have solid goaltending and Markstrom is on his way up as well. McCollum is certainly not going anywhere with our goaltending woes, either. I don't really see what we have to offer Florida unless they are looking for something that would reap immediate benefits (i.e. Filppula + a prospect/draft pick). That would end up being a pretty lateral move, anyway. I think he could flourish on our team and he's got a reasonable contract which I think is around 4 mil. I guess the only question with him is his inconsistency with his effort. He's got a ton of potential/talent and he's good for 60ish points and some hits each night, but at times he looks lazy and lost. He's only 24 and we all know what Detroit's management can do for these types of players so it would be worth a shot. It's still early in the season, but if this trend of play continues I think we could definitely need a little mix up with the roster.

If they mesh it would be great to be able to throw a top 6 consisting of this for the playoffs: Datsyuk - Zetterberg - Bertuzzi Leino - Filppula - Franzen That's a lot of talent and a good mixture of speed and size on each line.