Drake_Marcus

Osgood deserves no blame though- you have to admit he was amazing in games 6 and 7- if we had won he was the guaranteed Conn winner. Zetterberg had a productive series against the Pens but chose the wrong two games to get cold. Franzen was kind of disappointing against the Pens.. he had an open net on two seperate occasions and either whiffed it or couldn't raise the puck a few inches. If Franzen made either of those shots the game would've been in the Wings' hands.

Osgood deserves no blame though- you have to admit he was amazing in games 6 and 7- if we had won he was the guaranteed Conn winner. Zetterberg had a productive series against the Pens but chose the wrong two games to get cold. Franzen was kind of disappointing against the Pens.. he had an open net on two seperate occasions and either whiffed it or couldn't raise the puck a few inches. If Franzen made either of those shots the game would've been in the Wings' hands.

This.

From what I've read it's a "safety contract" in case he can't get something agreeable with the Wings. I hope it's just a rumour or some BS from the Russian club based on their having talked to him (wouldn't be the first time that's happened). If this turns out to be true I've lost some respect for Hudler.

While that's what you hope for, it's not what you plan for. For example, Zeterberg's regular season year this year was s*** compared to his regular season year last year. Hossa's playoff year last year was amazing. His year he cost us a cup. (if that f***** could've scored once in any of the four games we lost in the finals we would've been golden, but no he s*** the bed when he was the only 100% healthy elite player on the team) I'm just saying- not everything goes to plan. Plus if I were you I'd hope Kane and Toews paly comparitively badly and other players pick up the slack next year. I was happy this year that Z's numbers were down before he signed his contract- helped keep him a bit cheaper.

I just don't get the Hawks. They were supposed to be in rebuilding mode. Last year they went out and threw money at older players-- saying "hey fans, don't wait, you'll see a better product TODAY". Ok, but that hurts your ability to keep those young players later. This summer they basically did the same thing. So the quesiton is, why didn't Tallon stay the course last summer? Toews and Kane are both so young right now, give them more than 2 seasons under their belts before you say "ok guys- this year is our best shot at the cup, have at 'er!" They made it to the WCF, so that's a big plus, but that should've told the management that the youth is working, not that they need to sign more outsiders to change the dynamics of the club.

No cap no Hossa for the 'Hawks. He really wanted to be a Wing and would've signed before the playoffs for us were it not for the cap

A highly anticipated prospect AND a Maple Leaf? His rookie cards will be pretty inflated going into this season. Schenn's rookie cards were similarly inflated, so I expect no less. (hey, there are so many Leaf fans out there the demand is always high for Leaf rookies)

Sounds good to me. The 2008-2009 Red Wings were the best scorers in the league but were in the bottom half of the league defensively. They made it to game 7 of the Finals. The 2007-2008 Red Wings were among the best scorers, but not the top team, and were among the best defensive teams as well. They won the Stanley Cup in game 6 of the Finals. What was the difference between the winning Wings and losing Wings? Defense. We don't need to be the top team in the league in scoring, we need to have the lowest GAA and the best PK.

On defense we have Kolsov, who just had an impressive rookie season in Grand Rapids. He was their most improved player over the course of the season that just ended. He's still raw and definitely won't be a big point producer but he's got some good traits: --> Loves to hit --> Hits hard --> Mean as an underfed pitbull --> Has a mature attitude and can step up and play a steady game when someone goes down (did that in GR) --> Loves to hit --> Willing to mix it up (although he's not a huge fighter as far as I know, he's more like Lilja- willing to fight if necessary) --> Loves to hit --> Strong defensively for a rookie --> Also he loves to hit He's probably another 2 years away, though.

Yeah, he injured his hip in the third week of March. I assume he'd be ready for training camp in September... that'd give him 5 to 6 months of rehab time. In my opinion Oulahen is the perfect choice for the 12th forward because he's so good on the PK, but it looks like Holland is leaning toward a veteran free agent who's willing to come in cheap. If he can't find someone like that, at least Oulahen is a good option.

To be fair, anyone on the Wings would gladly take that injury if it meant winning game 7. I'm sure Talbot is perfectly happy with how this postseason turned out, injury or not.

Quoted for truth. This stuff happens pretty frequently... The Leafs didn't even land the Sedins, so wouldn't it be "intent to tamper"?

Great news!

Agreed 100%. Drives me nuts. Red Wings Central is the #1 source for prospect info in my opinion. Good point.

That's a terrible method of birth control.

The 7th defenseman will undoubtedly be Meech (given his utility and price). I guess the only other thing we could hope for is Holmstrom retiring? *shrugs* It'd be s***ty to see him go, but he doesn't seem to have much left in his body at this point. Who knows though, he might be fine this year if he can stay healthy. He spent a long time playing hurt and on the disabled list. To be fair, those long periods of scoring trouble in the AHL were spaced out by long periods of crazy scoring, but I know what you mean. 25-30 goals is a dream rookie season in the NHL. If we can get 20-25 out of Leino we're golden. That is his potential, though- given how impressive his 13 game stint in the bigs was last year.

While I wouldn't give up on Kindl yet (he's still packed with potential), I am disappointed with his lack of consistency and his inability to mind his defensive game. This coming season will be make or break for Kindl. If he can't pull together a consistent effort without turning the puck over half a dozen times a night his status within the organization will plummet. The real joke of it is that he's been outplayed at every turn by Ericsson, but prospect rating sites like "Hockey's Future" still rank him as the organization's top prospect and Ericsson about ten spaces lower on their list. Why? Because sites like HF lean heavily on draft order instead of performance. I can't help but laugh when I read their rankings- it's almost like they just put the players in draft order and shuffled them a little bit afterwords.

The poster who put that up was mistaken. Mlive quotes the contract like so: I'll repost my response to that blog post here on LGW: "I don't understand why you'd suggest paying for a 13th forward then dumping Meech. Using Meech as the 13th forward AND 7th defenseman is clearly the most economical option. Abdelkader isn't going to get a chance to play more than 8 mins a night, so send him to GR. Oulahen is out of options in the minors, so re-sign him to the minimum salary increase according to the CBA-- $574,750. Give Hudler 2.5 million for 3 years and trade lebda. You've got a full roster and $153,382 of cap space. A tight fit, but trading Lilja and keeping Lebda opens a huge gap and allows either 750k of space of 250k and a salary of 3 million for Hudler."

Exelby is a HUGE hitter. He's a Burke type of player. I'm pretty sure Burke targeted him for just that reason- to make the Leafs harder to play against.

You'd put Exelby on the third pairing? Switch him with White.

Schenn? Kaberle's going to be traded, I'm almost possitive he'll be gone before October. I think you'll see: Komoisarek-Schenn Beauchemin-Exelby Finger-Stralman

Something tells me that Kopecky was part of the sales pitch to Hossa.

Yes they will, but something's got to change between now and October. Someone is going. Campbell? Good luck finding a sucker to take that laughable contract.

This doesn't explain it at all. His NHL salary was 875K last season (FYI), and according to the CBA his new salary was supposed include a 5% raise. That makes the qualifying offer amount (supposedly) $919,000. The question here is how Holland could sign him for less than his NHL salary last season. Now there are two options: 1. Because he didn't play a full rookie season last year this 5% raise doesn't apply 2. Holland spread it out so the payment in year two was less and the average hit is 800K. The question isn't why Leino would accept less, the quetion is why the CBA raise rule for RFA's doesn't factor in here at first glance.