Drake_Marcus

Anyone who thinks the Hart is more prestigious than the Pearson is just flat out wrong. Like others have said- it means a hell of a lot more for your pears to say you're the MVP than a group of journalists that don't even play the game. As for Pearson vs. the Con Smythe? Well that's a really tough call. On one hand regular season success means nothing compared to post season success, but on the other hand you're up against everyone else in the league for one and in a select group of people for the other. The real knock against the Hart/Pearson is that it's so stats based. Defensemen and goalies are rarely considered for either trophy because goals and points are more glaring examples of dominance.

If anyone's interested, I found a great thread with 80+ pictures of the prospects right after the combine. Gives you a good idea just what kinda of build some have and just what scouts mean when they say these kids need to put on muscle! Photos Original Thread on HF Boards

Agreed. Leclaire is a franchise goaltender and Nash is definitely a franchise forward. Anyone that doubts Nash's ability based on his numbers on that god-awful team should watch his international play. Nash is just freaking awesome.

And any other quality of a drafted player is a sure thing? You draft a player for their strengths and hope it translates over. If a player scored bunches of goals in junior he's more likely to score them in the NHL too. Guess what- Dan Cleary did eventually adhere to that philosphy- hence he was able to put up back to back 20 goal seasons for the Wings. Did I say kids who score in the minors automatically score in the NHL? No I didn't. But I'll say this- scorers in the NHL were scorers predraft in 99.9% of the cases. Even Franzen was a scorer as a kid before being played exclusively on the checking line on his later Swedish teams. What do you advocate then? Draft a D-man because he's more likely to not surprise you? BS. A skilled forward is no less or more likely to make the NHL than a skilled D-man. The difference is we have cupboards full of great defensive prospects, checking and character forwards. There are very few scoring prospects in the Red Wings system. So, as a result I suggested that the Wings look for kids with real scoring talent in the draft. Pointing out that being a scorer pre-draft doesn't always translate to the NHL is as pointless as it is obvious. I never said drafting a proven scorer from the OHL means you get a proven scorer in the NHL. But I'll tell you this much- a kid that scores 40 in the OHL is a hell of a lot more likely to score 20 in the NHL than a kid that struggled to put up 5 in the OHL but plays a strong checking game. I never, at anypoint failed to recognize the inherent uncertainty in drafting so there's zero point in pointing out the obvious. If you're afraid a kid won't keep growing along the same path he's been on all his hockey career then how the hell do you draft? What's the point of scouting these kids and looking at their past achievements if you can't put some stock in those achievements? Edit: Grammer.

I can actually see them signing Sundin on a fat one year contract. Sundin's old enough that he's a one year at a time player anyway. The Wings showed real interest in him at the deadline (had a deal in place before Sundin decided he didn't want to waive his NTC). Sundin's really hungry for a cup and the Wings offer him his best chance to get it and his only chance to get it alongside so many Swedes. Sundin's a proven clutch perfomer who can put up impressive offensive numbers, especially alongside decent linemates. I'm sure he'd put some fire in that locker room next year.

Of all those players the only potential rookies next season are Helm, Abdelkader and Leino. Neither Helm nor Abdelkader project as scoring forwards at the NHL level. They're both 21, so I'll give you that they're young. Leino's a completely unknown as far as the NA game goes but he could be a goal scorer. Here's the Org's stock of scoring forward prospects: Jan Mursak (age 20) Cory Emmerton (age 20) Dick Axelsson (age 21) Ville Leino (age 24) Mattias Ritola (age 21) Evan McGrath (age 22) Of those kids we know that Ritola and McGrath have struggled to put up impressive offensive numbers in the AHL. Mursak and Emmerton have had good season in the OHL and will hopefully start scoring when they make it to the AHL full-time next year. Axelsson and Leino are unproven commodities in the NA game. The Wings need proven scoring prospect far more than they need more defensive prospects- they've got tons of defensive gems coming up the pipeline. Will they ignore defense this draft? Of course not, but I'm simply saying they should focus more on proven scorers this one draft.

That's right- TSN will be playing the Hockey Night in Canada song- not CBC. CTV's purchase is outright- meaning they own the song in perpetuity. TSN Story That's a bold move by CTV. Expect CBC to put up a stink along with hockey columnists throughout Canada.

Agreed. I can't count the number of times I commented to my gf on how fast Helm was. Fast, tenacious and hardworking. Exactly what the Wings value in a player. I'm loving the Hudler Helm combination. Throw Kopecky in there for his grit and you've got: a talented puck handler, a speedster who can retrieve the puck and a hardworking bruiser who's young enough to keep up. Sounds like a good 4th line to me! Abdelkader played fantastic in his call-up. He's been fantastic for his college team but he's yet to experience the rigors of an 82 game, two games in two nights type of season. He's not Hank or Pavel- he projects as a checking winger with some potential for offensive upside. Give him the GR treatment and see what he does with it. Hopefully he steps it up in GR and knocks the socks of the Red Wings' brass.

The chances of Howard not playing backup to Osgood are slim to none. Honestly- there's a better chance that Howard takes Ozzy's job than there is of him staying in GR next year. Howard's got one year of waiver exempt status left. Larsson is a fantastic prospect that needs a chance to get accustomed to the NA game. If Howard doesn't back Oz up this year Larsson doesn't get tested in NA before he's forced to take over the reigns for Howard in GR. If Howard doesn't get a year in as a backup next year the Wings will only have the 09-10 season to evaluate Howard before they're forced to decide on Ozzie's replacement (his contract is up in the summer of 2010). I assure you guys- it will take a miracle for Larsson to end up the backup next year. Howard's more ready, Larsson has zero NA experience and very little seasoning. The Wings are high on Larsson, and hell- so am I, but it's foolish to push a goalie prospect in too early. There's a reason why Howard is the Wings number one prospect- he's widely regarded as a bluechip prospect even outside the Wings system and he has an impressive set of personal achievements for a young goalie who hasn't played in Canada's national system. EDIT: Someone mentioned the Wings letting Liv get away. The truth is he had an outstanding record in Sweden but he struggled in GR so much they sent him back to Sweden to keep developing. No one wants to see this happen again with Larsson.

Agreed. It's the same situation as we saw last year with Drury and Brier- the Sabres took their sweet-ass-time negotiating contracts and as a result they failed to retain two key components of their team. This sucks for CBC but it was hardly out of their hands! Smart business move for CTV, dumb move for CBC in letting their contract negotiations extend this long.

I love this quote from the article: One time, in the mid-1990s, Andersson saw a Swedish forward who crashed the net all the time. He was a maniac. But he was also 165 pounds and not much of a skater. A year later, a friend mentioned that the kid was now 200 pounds. If he would battle like crazy at 165, how good could he be at 200? Andersson went to see him. And that's how the Wings landed Tomas Holmstrom. Holmstrom still wasn't much of a skater. But he made up for it with his work ethic. One time, Holmstrom's coach told the team to take Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off. Holmstrom got so grumpy on Christmas Eve, his dad told him to get out of the house and go practice. Holmstrom could not even stand to take Christmas Eve off.

There's no other option but to trade someone if any two of Chelios, Stewart or Lilja comes back. We have 4 defensemen already signed. Meech and Quincey have no minior league options left. Meech can't sit around for another season as the 7th defenseman and expect him to develop at all. Ericsson will be playing as one of the top 6 d-men in the 2009-2010 season. He's an AHL all-star d-man with enviable size (6'-4"), puck poise, and a >100 mph slapshot. He's arguably our second best prospect and most definitelty in the top three (I'd argue he's actually our top prospect simply because Howard's a goalie and goalies either sink or swim when they move up to the NHL- there's no real room for error). The Wings won't let his development stall in his first NHL year unless they absolutely have to. All this means one thing- the Wings need to get a good look at Meech and Quincey this season. Here's the realistic line-up: Lidstrom Rafalski (1st pairing) Kronwall Stewart (2nd pairing) Chelios ______ (3rd pairing) _______ (Depth d-man) Inside those two blanks we have: Lilja, Lebda, Quincey and Meech to chose from. That means two of those players have to go. The Wings will sign Quincey because he's worth too much to let walk for free. If they sign Lilja they have 2 d-men they have to trade or give away via waivers. There's a definite market for d-men this summer and the Wings defensive system is highly respected so I think the Wings can get a good return on whoever they trade. To top it off Lilja and Lebda played excellent hockey in the finals. If it were up to me I'd trade Lebda and let Lilja go on his way. Let's say they rest Chelios eveyr other game. That leaves one spot always open and one spot open half the time. In other words- there are 123 games spots to split between two men. Give Meech 62 games and Quincey 61 games.

Thanks for bowing out at the right time and staying classy Dom. I'll miss your crazy Gaborik-flipping antics! Stay flexable and try not to beat too many people up when you're playing roller hockey back home.

Quoted. For. Truth.

Please don't stop posting here Loo! We've all watched our heroes retire over the years but most important part of the jersey is the logo on the front.

There's no need to jump off the deep end dude. I think he's just trying to say that it'd be nice to have another Shanny type of character in this team's future. Franzen is fantastic- I'm dying to see his McFarlane action figure on my shelf (who knows when that'll happen- they have a kinda slow turn-around time and haven't stated intentions to do a Mule figure yet). But I'd still like another big power forward like him to replace Holmstrom on the first line when he retires (since he's going to be retired long before Dats or Z). Is that feasible in the first round at #30? I dunno- stranger things have happened and this is a deep as hell draft. Still- I wouldn't be surprised if the Wings traded down for a couple of high 2nd round picks so they could pick up the other Staal kid and some other tempting prospects. I suggest people read the Hockey News 2008 Prospect edition- it's a very interesting read.

If Kronwall didn't shoot the puck off Hall's skate and into the net there wouldn't have been a game 6. I saw that Fleury mistake as evening out the karma- especially after the two completely BS goalie interference calls in OT, the phantom hook by Datsyuk (that lead to a goal, even though replays showed it wasn't even close to being a penalty- the pen player fell into Dats on his own), the two bs calls on Hudler at the end of the game. Thinking back about games 5 and 6 I can say this: never in my life have I seen so many questionable calls made in the final minutes of a potentially cup-clinching game. I watched the games on CBC where they were incredibly Pens biased and even they were shocked at those calls. No matter how biased towards the Crosby show the CBC announcers were they all recognised that the Wings completely dominated the Pens in 5 of the games, with Fleury stealing one of those games too. That being said- you Pens fans should be far happier now than you were after game 1 and 2. Fluery was amazing- he really impressed me this series. Crosby was relentless- I was especially impressed with his one man show in games 1-3 (even if the Wings did shut him down in games 1 and 2 he was the best Pen on the ice). Staal played fantastic defensive hockey and was pretty physical too. Orpik layed some great checks out there and really stepped his game up. The Pens deserve real props for coming back to play in games 3-6. They showed lots of guts. But the series was pretty lop-sided towards the Wings if you examine it period by period. Without Fleury the series would've been over in 4 or 5. Fleury was by far the Pens MVP. I'm not saying it wasn't a good series- it was nail-biting at times, and the stress of game 5 probably took a year or two off my life. I'm just saying that overall, the Wings were the dominant team.

Pre-accident? Dude- I hope Leino's that good! Grigs won an MVP at the World Juniors pre-accident. He was a blue-chipper before his near-death experience.

HAHAHAHAHA! Yeah- who wants a 40pt 4th line player? I mean s***- the rest of our bottom 6 put up way more than that. Oh yeah- I forgot. That's utter bs. Hudler was I know he's small and streaky in his goal scoring but he's been able to put up a 25 pt then a 42 pt season in his first two years all while playing on the bottom two lines. Hudler was tied for third place with Cleary in forward scoring this year while only having 13:10 average time on ice. He also had an explosive month at the start of the season where he was second only to Z in team scoring. Oh and Hudler was 4th overall in Red Wings playoff pts this year. All while playing 4th line minutes. So, I guess, maybe you should try to be less wrong when you post incoherent hatred for a key member of this team. If Hudler's line wasn't constantly pressuring the opposition's 4th line the Wings would've had a much, much tougher go of it. If Hudler wasn't cradling the puck while gaining entry to the zone on the 2nd pp our 2nd pp unit wouldn't have been as effective. Or, in summery, my response to your post is thus: FAIL.

Damn it. Hossa was their most dangerous forward out there at times. That in itself makes this bad news for us.

My local search in New Brunswick came up empty yesterday. I was told I'd have to wait 1-2 weeks! Man I wish I lived in D-town right now. I guess I'll have to order online.

Yeah- because the Wings have a real log jam of NHL ready scoring wingers in the system. Hudler's not going anywhere unless there's a free agent scoring winger signing in the works or some kind of trade along those lines.

Woh woh woh there buckaroo. Kindl is far from being NHL ready. He's had a really rough season in the AHL and looked just terrible down there for most of the year. Kindl needs time to get his stamina up to NHL standards and adjust better to the quicker pace of the NA game. He's still years away from playing in the NHL based on his progress this year. Kindl's definitely a bluechip prospect as far as the sheer amount of talent that kid has, but he's still a work in progress. Good thing he still has a few years of waiver exempt status left! Ericsson is 100% read for the NHL. He was just plain dominant in the AHL- making the all star team and leading the Wings' prospects in scoring until he was called up to play in February. On top of his huge size, >100 mph slapshot (second fastest at the AHL all star game) and polished game he's got a huge fan in Babcock. Note that Ericsson was the last person to be sent back down to the Griffs when our D came back from the injury bug. Babcock's also made a point to praise Jonathan as often as possible. All that being said- there's a log-jam of D-men in the Detroit system right now and Jonathan is among the few prospects who can play in Grand Rapids waiver free next season. Quincey's far from the golden prospect many here wish he was based on his play in last year's playoffs. He's solid physically and strong defensively, yes, but he's yet to show why he's going to be anything more than a third pairing stay at home d-man. If the Wings didn't have such a serious lack of big physical d-men in their system Q would've already been traded. Note that Quincey was looking very good in training camp this year but struggled in GR after getting injured at the camp and being sent down. Of all the prospects who should've made a drive to impress this year he's probably one of the more disappointing stories. Hopefully he'll step it up again this summer and impress in camp. Regardless- I think either Quincey or Meech will be traded if Stewart, Lilja and Chelios resign. Meech, like Quincey, has no more options left in Grand Rapids. That's why the Wings kept Meech around all season when he would've benefit from actually playing somewhere. Well it looks like we've got the same problem next season except now it's Meech and Quincey warming the pine. Something will have to give. Much like Quincey, Meech made himself very interesting while filling in during a string of injuries, impressing the brass with his poise and smooth play in February. Hasek should go this season. Howard does need some time playing backup and the plan seems to have been to make that happen this year. However, the winning formula this year might throw a wrench in the works. I don't think Hasek's been strong enough down the stretch to show that he won't decline further in play next year. He's an awesome goalie, but his stock dwindles as age gobbles up his durability. Hasek's wild style of play is just too taxing on an old body and the Wings will need to give this time as a backup to Jimmy. Daniel Larsson is poised to take over Howard's position in GR, and with good reason- this kid needs a chance to play in NA and prove to the Wings brass that his play last season was no fluke. Abdelkader, regardless of his rugged play in the last games of this season, is too young and unproven to crack this squad barring some substantial retirements upfront. He's yet to play a long season so I'll bet we see him in GR next year unless he really knocks some socks off in training camp. Jan Mursak was impressive in Belville this season and will probably play in GR next season, although I've yet to hear something concrete one way or the other. Emmerton had a disappointing season after getting mono but should bounce back in GR (assuming he stays there). He wasn't spectacular when he played on an amateur tryout for GR at the end of the year, but then again few players are in their first handful of games in the AHL. Hat-trick-Dick Axelsson should have a great season in GR next year based on his steller start to the season this year in Sweden. Expect to see some great offense out of this kid- he's probably our best purely offensive prospect right now (although Mursak has great hands too). Ville Leino throws a bit of a wrench in the works because he's expected to get a strong look at the start of the year. He's sure to get a long look during training camp and at least a top six role in GR.

WHAT? Sundin is not a money hungry player with no heart. Go look at what he's done for the Leafs. He had a chance to come to the Wings this season at the deadline- the deal was structured and awaiting his approval, but he nixed it so he could stay with the team he loved. The Toronto media had a field day with Sundin but in the end it was junior who gave him the no trade clause. I'm sorry, but I've got nothing but respect for Sundin- he's a classy player with tons and tons of heart.

Thanks Matt! You've definitely given us one of the best fan sites on the net.