Echolalia

This is a good number, especially on a three year deal (and he's still an RFA when this contract expires??). Like kip said, he's going to be a 20 goal scorer (he almost was last season), and he has that Helm like tenacity and heart, even if he doesn't have the 6'2" frame. The team seems to feed of his energy and he's capable of being an integral part of the team moving forward. The caphit this season will be slightly overvalued, unless he really grows as a hockey player this season, but the following two seasons if he really continues to develop, he just might be able to push 30 goals a season. This is a fair contract for both sides, but the potential deal in the second and third years outweighs any negatives the cap-hit brings.

Hmm I guess my predictions will be: Smith still has a few brain-farts, but he becomes a LGW favorite this season. Babs gives him an opportunity on the power play, and he doesn't give it up. Cleary plays 10 games and is benched for the rest of the season. He then finally calls it a career. Weiss plays 50-60 games, looks much better than he did last year, but still not as good as he could be (and LGW expects). He becomes the new whipping boy. Howard has top 10 stats, half of LGW still argues that he's average. Gustavsson is often injured, and when he plays he is out of position, loses sight of the puck, fumbles the puck in the crease, and will somehow still win us games. Mrazek will play 10-15 games for the Wings this season, and look good in every game. Wings will go on a 3 game losing streak, LGW will implode. Wings will go on a 3 game winning streak, LGW will believe this team is as good as the 2002 team.

If Helm can skate at least 65 games I'll be happy. I can be okay with an early season injury, either in training camp or the first week or two into the season. He also plays a reckless game so maybe another injury somewhere during the season. I don't think this is an unrealistic hope.

I would pay the iron price for those.

This is why our society has dedicated masters and doctorate programs exploring the interpretation and application of statistics. It would be cool to get a Nate Silver like mind into the Wings organization.

I don't want anything to do with the people who were a part of building a team who hasn't won a cup in 600 years. The guy that replaced them, some 20 something year old from the Sault, he sounds intriguing.

I like this. I think I mentioned a while back in another thread that we don't have any players that are consistently fighting for the tough areas in front of the net. Cleary used to be good at it, Abdelkader kinda, but his role on the team is constantly shifting. Jurco and Sheahan maybe as they continue to develop. Franzen? Lol. There's a niche waiting to be occupied, and as you mentioned, Callahan has thrived in the AHL with all the necessary tools.

I just read an article about how Boston has too many defensmen. I wonder if we could move a forward or two for a defender. Other than being in the same division, this trade has potential written all over it.

There's a lot of effort going into blight removal. Duggan has appointed "district managers" to oversee their neck of the woods in terms of cataloging, identifying the owners, tearing down/selling abandoned buildings, and while that's a huge undertaking, the city has already made great strides in achieving their goals. Dan Gilbert is also heavily involved with this project, and has agreed to buy up a lot of these abandoned buildings and tear them down/renovate them. Many others that are salvageable have been put up for auction online, and folks have been buying up these houses, fixing them up, and moving in. So yeah, Detroit has it's problems. Everyone in the world is hip to that, and it's unfortunately become our label. What everyone doesn't know is how much things are actually going right, and how much effort is going into building the city back up, and how much progress has already been made. The blight removal is one such example. The arena and entertainment district will be another, and will be a capstone on years of investment put into both downtown and midtown.

I don't know how the DDA would even have access to money that would go to state education, or vice versa. Maybe any funds not used by the DDA are turned over to the state, if they have no approved project for them? I have no clue.

Excellent point, although I want to say that I read somewhere a while back about the city potentially using money for education to fund this project. Lemme do a google search and see if I can find it.Yeah: http://redwings.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=674634 The article doesn't give us much other than some of the money would have otherwise been used for education throughout the state. I don't know whether anything has been updated or changed since then, either. Anyway, I think most of the criticism started around this point and has since spiraled out into something else, and at this point I think a lot of the complaints aren't really addressing facts, as you alluded to.

I wonder what "not close" means here, because the article makes it seem like "not close" is more that they haven't really started working though this process of negotiating. Tatar is overseas, Dekeyser they haven't spoken with since the draft. Holland gave each of them offers and hasn't heard anything back. It sounds like these guys are just enjoying their summer and aren't even focusing on contract talks right now. But given that my perspective is one of very limited access, who knows what's actually going on.

It put Shelbyville on the map

Hopcat will be on Woodward and Canfield, which is next door to the Whitney.

I love the idea of separated concessions and restaurants. It will be awesome to walk out of the arena proper between periods, into essentially a neighborhood of shops under a starry sky (protected by a glass roof). I'm under the impression that these shops will be accessible from Woodward and neighboring streets as well, which implies that at least some of them may be open for regular hours, instead of limited to during arena events.

I don't expect it will be. Illitch is looking to sell out the arena name to cover some of the cost. Calling it Little Caesars Arena would essentially be paying one pocket with the money from the other. This is likely why they went with Comerica Park instead of Little Caesars Stadium or Olympia Park.

The entertainment center (whatever that ends up being) is being built in a great place. Just on the other side of the freeway, it will be able to expand downtown into a currently blighted area, and just about connect the gap between downtown and midtown, which would make that entire stretch of Woodward healthy and thriving. Gilbert has been buying up tons of blighted real estate with his own projects of revitalization in mind, and it finally looks like Detroit has a competent mayor in Duggan, and he's already done a ton for the city in his short time in office. Detroit has been taking it on the chin for years, but we are on our way back up, and there are several dedicated parties looking to make sure these visions are met. Edit, the post I responded to has been deleted, which makes my post seem kinda random. Anyway, I'm excited about hearing what the details will be about this arena (and entertainment complex), and what it means for the area in general.

I like where your head is at with Mantha on the third with Tatar and Sheahan. I don't know if Jurco is ready for the top 6, but if we're doing a ten game experiment with Cleary, why not not see if Jurco can pull the piano for Datsyuk? I also like the idea of Jurco, Sheahan, Mantha, as a third line, just because of the size on that line. I don't know where Tatar would go, though.

Quenneville also had two first round exits between those Stanley Cup winning Blackhawks teams. Also, prior to joining the Blackhawks, Quenneville has only coached a team past the second round once. That team was the Blues in 2001, and they were eliminated in the third round. I also disagree that Quenneville "did nearly the exact thing to us" during his tenure with the Blues. They never won more than two games against the Wings in any playoff series he coached. Before he had Toews, Kane, Hossa, Keith, etc etc Quennevile did nothing to warrant being a top coach, least of all win Stanley Cups, which seems to be the main focus of your argument as to why he and Sutter are better than Babcock. Sorry but I'm with Harold on this one. I don't think Quenneville is better than Babcock, even if he has won one more Cup.

You really don't think Tatar is worth at least a million? He was one goal shy of 20 in his rookie season, despite not playing the first 10 games or so.I would be willing to give him 1.5, or maybe 1.7-1.8 caphit spread out over a couple years.

I think both Callahan and Nestrasil have to clear waivers now to play in Grand Rapids. I've been interested in seeing both of these guys on the Wings, especially Callahan. With the amount of forwards we have signed, I don't know if either one will be Red Wing property a few months from now...

I didn't listen to the interview, I'm currently in class, so this may have been addressed, but my guess is Cleary will get 10 games so he gets his bonus money, and those 10 games will be Babcock's gauge to see whether Cleary keeps playing. But after 10 games, I don't think Cleary is in the lineup unless he can actually bring more to the table than someone else.

As for Cleary, it's awesome that he does this sort of extracurricular work, and I'm glad that the Red Wings take community involvement, charities, etc so seriously. There are so many organizations that literally cannot function without the aid of volunteers and/or donations. The Wings' organization does their fair share in this regard, and also provides a good role model for others in the community to do the same. Good on Cleary to keep that spirit alive. At the very least, I hope you've followed in Cleary's footsteps and are regularly donating your time and money to those less fortunate than you.

Nobody will be successfully sued for stating fact (which in your case, "the powerplay is worse under Renney than it was under McClellan" is the fact), but postulating as to the cause of the fact, especially when it casts a professional in a negative light, is definitely sue-able material ("Renney sucks", in your case). Regardless of your thoughts on the matter, this is a real possibility and it's entirely within anyone's right to pursue, should they feel their name is tarnished. This, and the other issue I mentioned (establishing yourself as a reporter who casts others in a negative light will likely remove yourself from any future interview opportunities or other journalist access, and it would be quite difficult to be a journalist without these privileges) are likely the reasons who we don't see more beat writers trying to dig up who's to blame because the powerplay isn't as good as it used to be.