Drake_Marcus

It is a difference. But it should be noted that Hudler's market value is around 3M, and the biggest difference here is that a Hudler deal at 3M would either be ridiculously long or very short. If it's short you're paying for the luxury of not committing to a long contract and Hudler knows he'll be able to renegotiate a contract while in is prime. If Hudler signs a really long contract he'd be crazy since he's trending upwards and has a reasonable projected value at his prime of more than 3M. He's a 57pt scoring 25 year old. He has plenty of upside. If someone offers him a sheet it will likely be 2.5 million, in which case the Wings would match it. I don't see many teams taking a bigger risk on Hudler given the recent history of offer sheets and their success.

It probably was him. That page is gone now... Looks like (via google) various sites including Eklund had picked up on that account and were posting links to it. And a few hours later it disappears? Sounds like he was told to shut up about it. Haha. He only had 50 something followers when I clicked your link at the time you posted it, so odds were that his rumour cracked that account open to the public.

The luxury of matching the offer would still belong to Holland. If we dump Lilja and substitute Lebda in for him the Wings can afford to match an offer up to 3 million on Hudler. Furthermore, the cost of the 12th forward plays a big part here, and 500k guys can be had. Regardless, RFA offers are few and far between. If a team thinks Hudler is worth 3 million to them odds are Holland might believe that too, or he might decide not to match it. It's not an act of brilliance on the offerers part. The more they offer Hudler the bigger risk they're taking. Futhermore, if Holland could make this roster work with a 4 million dollar Hossa (the generally accepted value of the hit of his rumoured offer to Hossa), he can make it work with Hudler.

Leino's production should offset the loss of Samuelsson. Who's going to pick up the slack for Hudler? The point is that we can't dump a guy like Hudler AND A guy like Hossa and expect some scrubs and rookies to stop the team from sliding- if you could do that then no team would worry about losing UFAs.

I'm a big Leino fan, but to expect him to step in as a rookie and replace a 57pt player is crazy.

No, actually, you can match a 2.5 million dollar offer for Hudler while keeping Leino (assuming he signs for $875,000) AND Abby: If you pay 2.5 million to Hudler you can have the following roster Zetterberg Datsyuk Cleary Franzen Filppula Hudler Leino Helm Holmstrom Maltby Draper Abdelkader Lidstrom Rafalski Kronwall Stuart Ericsson Lilja Meech Osgood Howard BUT this roster goes over by $86,868. You can reconcile that in a few ways: Dump Meech, switch Lilja for Lebda or find someone cheaper than Abdelkader. Signing Hudler to something in the 2 million to 2.25 million range is the sweetspot, though.

Depends on what Hudler wants. If he's willing to sign short term for 2 million we're golden. Filppula took 3 million over the long term, so the selling point for Hudler is that he'll be able to renegotiate for a bigger amount once he hits his prime. If you sign Hudler for 2 million $, Leino for $875,000 and trade Lebda we've got: Zetterberg Datsyuk Cleary Franzen Filppula Hudler Leino Helm Holmstrom Maltby Draper X Lidstrom Rafalski Kronwall Stuart Ericsson Lilja Meech Osgood Howard With 1.15 million dollars left to sign Mr. X.

My evaluation of Leino's non softness was based on his willingness to go to the rough areas (and pay the price), play along the boards and take hits without coughing up the puck. He's still go the European finesse for diving sometimes I guess, but nearly everyone does selectively now. It's true that Filppula wasn't very soft in the playoffs this year, but he has a tendency to get shut down by enough hitting at times (not so much this post season). He's definitely getting better for that, though.

Cheer up champ- the Wings got better on paper when they added Hossa but they were still better in 07-08. This isn't the Atlanta Thrashers, losing Hossa won't crush the Wings.

Assume that Hudler and Leino are re-signed. I'll bring Abs up for this list, even though he won't be here in October Datsyuk -Finesse, not soft Zetterberg -Finesse, not soft Holmstrom -Grinder Filppula -Finesse Franzen -Grinder/Finesse... possesses grinder traits, he's just a bit of a ***** Cleary -Grinder Hudler -Finesse Leino -Finesse, not soft Helm -Grinder Draper -Grinder Maltby -Grinder Abdelkader -Grinder Lidstrom- Finesse, not soft, doesn't really hit at all, in a league of his own (not with Rosie O'Donnel) Rafalski- Finesse Kronwall- Grider/Finesse Stuart- Grinder Ericsson- Grinder/Finesse Lilja- Grinder So... Forwards: 7 of 12 are 'grinders', only 2 softies Defense: 4 of 6 are 'grinders', only 1 softy (you have to be able to hit Lidstrom to call him soft ) I was fairly liberal with my labels, and assumed that Abs will be here (which he won't, at least not at the begining). But you get my point. This team isn't as 'soft' as people say. They just don't have fighters. There's a huge difference between those two things.

But with a 2nd round pick you might get lucky and draft yourself a new Hudler (who will be availible in 5 years). That's a brilliant trade!

We're about 80 pages short of reaching their epic thread from last summer.

Not going to happen man. Under the new RFA compensation chart we'd get peanuts for Hudler unless he signed a deal valued greater than 3.16 million dollars a season. Drafting a kid like Hudler requires a 1st or 2nd round pick (the 2nd rounder being if you're lucky like we were). Leino and Helm combined will be lucky to net the points Hudler will next year. Leino will probably reach 30-40 points next season if we're lucky and Helm will hopefully reach 20 points. Hudler put up 57 last year, so he's good for something in the 60's or even low 70's this season coming up. Simply put- losing Hudler would needlessly hurt our depth now that Hossa's gone. Hudler's 25 years old man- and he's already hit 57 pts. He could realistically hit the 70's or 80's in his career. Why dump that just because he's small? Not everyone on this team will be big or a hitter. We don't need 12 grinding forwards, there's room for finesse players.

Cool. Depth wins championships. We've got enough elite players, we need to make sure the Wings aren't icing a half NHL half AHL line-up, and that means bringing Hudler back to increase the scoring depth. Hudler's good for 60+ points next season (he's always trended upwards and scored 57 pts last season), that won't be easy to replace. w00t! Come back to Detroit Hudles.

It is, but he would be making 6 million at the least, so they aren't overpaying by a large amount. This all depends on what kind of numbers he can put up over the next few years...

Calgary just got substantially better. Who knows what this means for the playoffs. If I remember correctly, Bouwmeester's only played in a single playoff game since junior (possibly a single playoff 'series'). If they trade Dion it's a bit of a wash. Their PP will be less dangerous but they'll end up a stronger defensive team. They should play it smart and keep Dion, he's at his lowest point in terms of trade value anyway and they don't need more high-end scoring forwards- they need more team chemistry and scoring depth.

Can Orr play hockey better than a guy like Downey? I know Neil is better than Downey, but I really don't know much about Orr other than that he was a legit heavy weight at one point.

The other guys guessed right- I was thinking of Drury and Redden. Both are laughably overpaid.

Yes, Stuart has a no trade clause.

Ferraro isn't NHL ready yet, and even if he was he wouldn't be making this year's roster. We're already walking into October with 4 rookies- that's practically unheard of in Detroit. If Holland wanted to go with 5 rookies you can bet Abdelkader would be the next man on his list.

I really hope Lids is seeing a top-notch physiotherapist. His elbow definitely hurt him last season (it's hard to believe it didn't effect his game). This could be something that haunts him the rest of his career

Honestly, I'd prefer to have Ericsson play as many minutes with Lidstrom as he can before Lids retires. Same goes for Kronwall. Kronwall had a brutal playoffs, and defensively he had a brutal year. Ideally, I'd like to see Kronwall get some more time with Lidstrom before Lids retires, but at this point I think it's more crucial to get Ericsson as much Lidstrom time as he can get. The 'problem' lays in how deep this team is at defense. It's hard to justify to Rafalski and Stuart why they're getting fewer minutes and Ericsson's getting more than them, even as a rookie. Although I suppose you could just point out to them that Ericsson outplayed both of them in the playoffs (although Rafalski was injured). I don't really care how much he's making, the pairings should be about what's best for the team. The tougher argument here is whether this move would be detrimental to morale. Stuart's going to be a more valuable piece when Lidstrom retires than he is right now. Here's what I'd like to see: Even Strength Lidstrom Ericsson (note that the top pairing had more balanced minutes compared to the 2nd pairing this season) Rafalski Kronwall Stuart Lilja Power Play Lidstrom Rafalski Kronwall Ericsson (or possibly Stuart, but I'd like to see Big Rig get some PP time, now that we're short on Right handed shots all bets are off for the second pp) Penalty Kill Lidstrom Lilja Kronwall Stuart (with Ericsson switched in for Kronwall depending on how well Kroner is playing defensively) I know this is Ericsson heavy, and you all probably expect that given how much I like him, but my logic here was to maximize Big Rig's chances to learn from the better d-men on this team. Plus, I've based these pairings on how well the respective players played in the playoffs this year. Ericsson needs as many mins as they can give him to develop, he's already walking in at age 25, there's no time to slow-track him (and no need to, as his play this postseason showed).

Huh? That's pretty crazy. He'd be on the top pairing in some other cities, and certainly in the top 4 anywhere in the league, but #1 d-man? Not a chance.

Ah, so overpaid, underperforming centre is traded for young, promising but slowly developing centre. An ok deal for the Canadians, to be honest. Although Lang was a good #1 centre for them last year, if he recovers from his injury they suddenly have good depth at centre, which is important given how lame Thomas P is as a first line centre. Rangers look like the winners right now because they got to unload one of their worst signings in recent years (other two are still in NY).

I'd rather they extensively renovate the Joe (even if it amounts to a glorified rebuild on the same lot) than build a new rink. There's too much recent history in the Joe to move right now. New rinks are for teams in rebuilding mode s***, Steve hasn't even had his HoF induction ceremony, it's too early to tear down the rink he earned that spot in! That being said, I can see the reasoning for building a new rink instead of renovating. When it comes down to it, very few renovations are going to give you a better building than you could make if you started over. You're basically sacrificing long term worth/usefulness for nostalgia... or simply due to a lack of an appropriate lot to build the new structure on, luckily (well, unluckily for the city of Detroit) there's tons and tons of great downtown lots begging to be used in the motorcity. Still, a project like this could be very helpful in the short term for the city's economy.