Drake_Marcus

The price seems a bit high for his age and the term. I'd hope for a 2 million dollar cap hit but this is really a matter of Holland rewarding the loyal, hardworking guys.

This. I definitely think he's better off with more limited mins until he's back skating like he normally does, though. I wouldn't mind seeing Tatar get his shot on the 2nd line (the poor guy's had two call-ups nixed during the pre-game skate). I definitely like Fil better on the wing but with a little time he'll get back into the centre groove. Leave Hudler's foot speed alone. Once Holmstrom retires the guys nursing sore legs will need someone to skate with at practice.

I can't help but say the following:

You clearly weren't paying attention when they waived him. Q played his way off the roster while Meech was playing much better.

Piche isn't an NHL d-man. So he's a throw-in that doesn't hurt the Wings in the slightest. This is a late, late, LATE (we're talking 26th overall max) 1st rounder for Quincey. Q's on pace for 33pts last time I checked and is an instant upgrade for our third pairing and 2nd PP unit. Hudler can move to the wing on the 2nd pairing, sliding Quincey into his place beside Kronwall. Don't forget that Quincey really bloomed as an NHL player since being waived by the Wings. Last week when I was scouring his stats (I made a case in a forum post for the Wings to trade for him) he was leading all Colorado d-men in ice time per game, points, goals and shorthanded points.

The Preds GM saw Brett Lebda's Cup denting ass recently-- when acquired him from the Leafs and promptly waived him.

If we're going to pick apart the still-warm corpse of the Blue Jackets what do you guys think about Fedor Tyutin? He's big, experienced, and reasonably productive considering the circumstances. The only problem is: starting next season he's signed for six years at 4.5 mil with a modified NTC (assuming the NTC applies after a trade... it could be similar to Carter's clause and phase out if he's traded before the start of the contract). He'd be an upgrade on Stuart defensively but I haven't really seen him play enough to know much more than that. His +/- is s*** but it's hard to judge that when he's playing on the league's worst team.

Gill's a pylon but he's a useful guy to have in the playoffs. Huge guys with Cup experience and a love for blocking shots always help in the postseason. Nashville obviously thinks they can get by without more scoring. And why not? They've managed to get by without it for as long as I can remember. I'm a bit surprised they didn't try to work andrei kostitsyn into the deal. He's unhappy in Montreal right now and as you said-- they could use the scoring up front. Plus he owns a sweet looking powder blue top hat.

If Statsny wasn't being overpaid right now he probably wouldn't even be a subject of trade rumours. He's still a productive NHL player so the Wings would have to be willing to eat his salary based on the hope that he'd bounce back and return to form as a point per game player.

I'd be pretty annoyed if they pissed a 2nd away on Kubina. Although it'd give people someone to rag on instead of Ericsson.

The only reason why Gill got that kind of return would be his recent playoff experience. And I guess they value guys who are long enough to lay down in front of shots and block the entire net. You must've watched him on the Marlies.

In terms of prospect rankings, if you go by Hockey's futures they rank Geoffrion as a 7.0C and Emmerton a 7.0D. In their system the number is a measure of the player's talent and the letter is an estimation of their chances of achieving their NHL potential.

Geoffrion is a guy who's failed to really produce at the NHL like he did at the University of Wisconsin (6g 5a in 42 NHL games over the last two seasons) and he's really struggling this season: 0g 3a in 22gp. Slaney's an undrafted 23 year old character forward that Hockey's Future didn't even rank among Nashville's top 20 prospects. So really it's an underachieving mid to top level prospect and a 2nd rounder for Gill. Slaney for a conditional 5th is a wash so I factored them out. IMHO the Canadians came out slightly ahead here but it's far from a raping.

I certainly hope he's superior to Hudler. He makes nearly triple the salary and was selected 1st overall in his draft year. Hudler's a sub-3million dollar cap hit, complementary player. The fact that you can even make favourable statistical comparisons between Jiri Hudler and Rick Nash speaks volumes about how poorly Nash's year has gone. If Columbus's GM were to call Holland and say "How about a Nash for Hudler swap" we all know Holland's response would be "LULZ, sweet dude. I'm in!". Also I think I should summarize Eva's post for some of you:

The interesting thing is you could apply your quote to any of the Predator teams we've seen over the last 5 years and it'd be equally true. It makes you wonder if the long-term need for a certain type of player seen for some franchises (goaltending in Philly, Scorers in Nashville) has more to do with their system/organization than their talent pool. Look at Lindsey Ruff's teams-- it seems like he usually manages to get his players to produce offensively at a level that's above their career averages (with the exception of the s***show going on in Buffalo this season).

I'm not sure Hudler could produce better numbers in Nash's position (the team's #1 forward, always the focus of the other team's best defensive players, etc) because Hudler thrives in a complementary role, but I see what you're getting at. Let's put Rick Nash's cap hit into perspective here guys: http://capgeek.com/leaders.php?type=CAP_HIT&position=-1&limit=25 He's got the 5th highest cap hit in the entire league and sits 70th points (behind guys like Micheal-freaking-Ryder). Nash has only had one season over 70pts and that was in 08-09. In his last two seasons he produced 66pts and 67pts. Those aren't the kind of numbers you'd expect from a guy making almost 8 million a season. At a minimum he should be producing at a point per game level. I don't care how bad his supporting cast is. When you carry the 5th largest cap hit in the league and are signed until 2018 you better produce. On top of this he's never had a chance to prove he's a playoff performer at the NHL level (NHL Playoffs: 1g 2a in 4gp). I'm hesitant to sign a life-time contract with a guy who's historically an underachiever at his paygrade.

Another possibility is the Wings re-acquiring Quincey. Back when he was claimed off waivers I remember reading a that Holland commented to Kyle that he'd like to get him back into the fold at some point in the future. Adam Dater's speculated that Quincey could be a candidate to move at the deadline. Quincey is making 3.125 mil this season and will be an RFA this summer. He's on pace for 33pts this year (a 4 point jump from last season but below his career high of 38pts achieved in his first full NHL season). One big argument against this idea would be that Q is leading the Aves in time on ice per game and averaging more than 2mins on their pk and pp units so it's unlikely they've soured on him given how much he's being used. Statsny is another Ave who's been dogged by trade rumours this season and over the summer. His production is the worst it's been (in terms of points per game) as an NHL player and he had a significant dip last season, it's possible a change of scenery would benefit him. Johnny Oduya is a pending UFA on the Jets that I could imagine the Wings kicking the tires on as a depth guy.

I really don't think it's a matter of Babs disliking Commodore but a simple log-jam on defence.

I wouldn't worry about Conklin being traded. Waived on the other hand...

I think it's adorable. Like when kids get a novelty Time magazine cover for their dad with "World's Greatest Dad" on the bottom.

I really hope Tatar gets some playing time on the top 6... He's one of those guys who shine with talent around him and could use the confidence boost after a pretty mediocre (by his standards) sophomore season in GR.

Thank god! 7.8 mil until 2018 is too much to be committed to long term with Zetterberg and Franzen tied up to infinite contracts.

A) Hudler's better than anyone on that Philly list by a huge margin. B) No one (publicly) knows the details of Ericsson's NMC, although it's presumed to be one of those "pick x teams you refuse to be moved to" ones. Is it an ironcald clause or one of the looser ones? NTC's haven't been too tough to work around for teams in recent years (the Campbell to Florida trade comes to mind).

Honestly, I don't think waiving Conklin presents any more risk than keeping him does. We'd be just as screwed if either of them had to be our guy in the playoffs due to injury, so why not keep the guy who's playing better now? The drop off between Howard and those two is enormous anyway. The Wings are carrying extra forwards, an extra D and if they kept both Conks and Joey up they'd be carrying an extra goalie. On top of that they have a pair of short-term injuries to forwards... something has to give. I won't be Mursak or Emmerton just yet because Cory's shown some flashes of potential recently and Mursak's got untapped potential with the caveat that he's just getting back into form after a serious foot injury.

If I'm the Canucks I'd offer Luongo in some sort of package involving Nash. Sound crazy? Well Schneider is outperforming Luongo (consistently) and is a younger, cheaper player who's not signed to an enormous contract. Nash's enormous contract is more palatable if you're switching it for Luongo's bigger contract (even if the cap hit is larger for Nash). Luongo's playoff struggles are an unnecessary distraction for the Canucks (in my opinion) considering how good Schneider's been for them over the last two years. Right now the Canucks have a younger guy in Schneider who looks like he can be a legit #1 goaltender, so why not shed Luongo's contract and enormous baggage? Luongo, on the other hand, gets to escape the constant pressure of playing in a Canadian market with extremely high expectations and he gets to 'start over'. The Canucks probably hope Luongo can return to being a dominant postseason player like he was the year he had that epic series against Turco/Dallas, but if even if he can, how much better is that Luongo over Schneider + Nash? Both teams would be taking a risk but at least it's a star player for star player trade where the financial baggage is relatively equal (as is the talent).