Drake_Marcus

Quincey was already signed and he was given all camp and all of the preseason to show the Wings that he was worth the roster spot.

I agree that it's probably not likely, but they still could do it. The assumption would be that no one would take him and he'd go down to GR and remain Wings property. But yeah, if they had no intention of at least giving him a shot to earn a spot out of camp they likely wouldn't sign him. At this point I'd say Oulahen better have the best camp of his life

Well it's not like I expect him to get 55pts this year, I just think that's his upper limit. But I agree with you man. I'm just trying to put Filppula in a realistic light.

Not if it makes me laugh. Once I'm entertained my job is done.

While I think Filppula will put up good numbers this year, just as you've indicated, the comparison to Datsyuk isn't really fair. Datsyuk showed flashes of his offensive brilliance from day 1, he just didn't get solid enough minutes and responsibility. Plus he needed some time to become accustomed to playing the NA game for ~20 mins a night before he really broke out. Filppula just doesn't project as that kind of player. And that's not a knock on him- if he can continue being excellent defensively, strong on face-offs and above average in terms of his offensive production we're golden. A 45-55 pt centre who is extremely strong on the face-off and provides shut-down defense is a very valuable asset. I'd think of him as a sort of "poor man's Datsyuk"-- an excellent centreman who provides excellent defense and good offense.

Here are some TOI/G averages from last season (regular season only): Even Strength: Rafalski 18:12 Kronwall 17:28 Lidstrom 17:26 Stuart 17:04 Ericsson 15:29 Lilja 13:36 Lebda 13:23 Short Handed: Lidstrom 3:27 Lilja 3:20 Stuart 2:49 Kronwall 2:30 Ericsson 1:57 Power Play: Lidstrom 3:55 Rafalski 3:45 Kronwall 2:55 Samuelsson 2:44 Total: Lidstrom 24:49 Rafalski 23:10 Kronwall 22:53 Stuart 20:13 Ericsson 17:40 Lilja 16:59 I think it's reasonable to expect Lidstrom, Rafalski and Kronwall's times to stay consistent. Let's assume that Lilja is either gone or out for the beginning of the season. Give Stuart his PK time, give Kronwall Stuart's old PK time and give Ericsson the remainder (2:30). Next give Ericsson Samuelsson's PP time and keep his even strength time steady. Now you're looking at 20:43 a night for Ericsson (awesome for his development) and 20:44 for Stuart. In this situation the defensive TOI leaders are still Lidstrom, Rafalski, Stuart then Ericsson, so Stuart can't complain he's not getting enough time. In fact he'd be getting 30 seconds more per night on the PK. In all likelihood the split of times would favour Stuart a bit more with Ericsson's TOI/game sitting somewhere near 20mins even. Then again, he impressed when given 17:40, there's no reason to believe he doesn't deserve a shot at the numbers I've estimated here. For the sake of comparison, last season the following rookie d-men got similar ice time: Doughty 23:49 (3:37 PP, 2:58 PK) (Kings) Schenn 21:32 (0:16 PP, 3:05 PK) (Leafs) Alzner 19:25 (0:13 PP, 3:07 PK) (Capitals) Lee 18:53 (1:17 PP, 1:30 PK) (Senators) Goligoski 18:18 (4:00 PP, 0:05 PK) (Penguins) Bogosain 18:06 (1:07 PP, 1:28 PK) (Thrashers) My proposed times for Ericsson next season: Ericsson 20:43 (2:44 PP, 2:30 PK)

The big problem is that Filppula just doesn't project as an elite or near-elite offensive talent. Yeah he'll put up some points, but I have a hard time imagining him topping 55pts in his career unless he uncovers a new source of offensive skill and breaks out like Franzen did. Right now he just hasn't shown glimpses of near-elite offensive skill.

Actually Hudler does want to be a Red Wing, he just doesn't want to take a hugely reduced salary at this point in his career. 3 million a year is very low for a 25 year old coming off a 23g 57pt season with only 3rd line minutes. If you look at comparable players in the league he should be getting something around 4 million or more. I don't give two s***s if he's short, the players he' comparing his salary to are going to be comparible in physical play as well. He stated that the reason why he took the Russian deal was the he wanted to be a Wing and didn't want to play for an NHL team if it wasn't the Wings, that he wanted to make his 10 million tax free and come back to the NHL (fair enough considering this is his first chance to make real bank as a pro athlete) and that he planed to continue with the arbitration process so the Wings would retain his rights. You may feel like this is a betrayal, but it's really not much different than any other RFA or UFA situation between a loyal player and a team that can't afford to pay them their market value. If you've yet to make your big NHL contract taking below market value is much tougher to accept, especially when you're a guy like Hudler who has a bright future a head of him and doesn't want to sign a longterm deal that would have him miss his best opportunity for big bucks when he's at his peak.

Woh. Even in my ignorance I made a great point!

Your wish is my command:

As the Stephan Colbert of LGW I'd like to thank you for that.

No, but my mom did when I was a kid and from what I understand it's tough (my brother was a goalie).

Agreed- the opposition's jerseys will last much longer now that logo hunter is gone!

That's Eklund for ya, taking someone else's news and pretending it's an exclusive from him.

This is what I want to see from Helm. That any s***-tons of hitting. Anything else he provides is just gravy. Speaking of which, I'd love to see the Wings get their greasy hands on Clutterbuck!

Sure, Helm has 20 goal potential if we're talking about how many he'll score in his first 3 seasons combined. I hear ya man.

Ok, watching that video did give me a semi, so it must've been a good pass.

If I remember correctly 07-08 turned out pretty well. I guess that method is as good as any

I didn't act certain he passed his physical. What are the parameters of passing? That he's 100% healthy? Very unlikely for a 30 year old professional athlete-- there's bound to be some distant injury that's nagging him, even lightly, or at least slightly more likely to resurface than with a fresh-faced teen. No, he's clearly going to be evaluated based on what they expect and what would significantly hurt his play. Is he injured? How much? What's the long term prognosis? Are the Blackhawks willing to accept this prognosis? I never acted as if I knew the answer to those questions. I clearly believe that this situation isn't a surprise to the Hawks front office, I expect they did their due diligence. I have a hard time believing they didn't go over him with a fine toothed comb before signing him to a 12 year contract. How can anyone with the information we currently have be 100% sure his injury occurred during the playoffs? A crystal ball? I believe it's highly probable this injury either arose during or just before the playoffs, based on logic and strong anecdotal evidence.

He does sound very promising, but I have a really hard time imagining him bumping an elite NHL goaltender from the starting spot even if he came to Toronto so strong that he looked like a sure bet for the Calder. He'd still be a rookie v.s. an elite NHL goalie. Or are you just lampooning the talk out of Toronto?

I imagine it's a risk/reward type of thing and is based heavily on the opinion of the team physician(s). I don't think it's mandated that they can't sign a contract without a 100% clean bill of health, though, I assume that's something that individual teams would police effectively on their own.

Cleary's injury was actually a bigger blow than most think since he was one of the most important all around contributors on the team this year and his play around the net was the only thing replacing Holmtrom's failure to provide that unique specialization. All in all I think we're really lucky that Cleary's come into his own in that area of the game. Holmstrom's decline would've been much more damaging if it weren't for Cleary. I can't wait to see how a line of Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Cleary produces once they've had a year to develop chemistry.

I'm 25 and I have to wear a compression sleeve on my right knee and right ankle at the gym. Plus I've got scoliosis so I wear a nice weight belt when I do heavy squats (anything over 2.5 plates a side). And I've got the whole cruddy shoulder thing too. I'm anticipating a inglorious trip to old age. Hell, sometimes I feel like an old man even now. (stupid asymmetric body)

Oh I agree 100%. I don't really care all that much about his injury, if he's in the line-up he bares responsibility for the loss that's porportional to: A) His performance, B) His relative place on the team (ie. Hossa not showing up is more damaging than Hudler not showing up and one of the two is paid 7 times more than the other anyway), C) How easy/cathartic it is to blame him. Plus, if Nick Lidstrom can have his nutsack torn open in the WCF and play all 7 games of the Finals, no one in the line-up can whine about being injured. I mean come on- can you imagine how painful skating would be after testicular surgery? You're putting stress on week-old sutures with every single stride! Testicular sutures.

Honestly, with me it's probably safest to assume that I'm speaking tongue-in-cheek if there's any doubt about my tone. In fact, if someone uses the phrase "end in tears" odds are they're being factious.