Summer 2010: Use Lidstrom's cap space to sign Luongo?

[BlueMonk 102]

I'm of the opinion that you spend your money on, and build your team around, skaters, not goaltenders. I wouldn't break the bank for a goalie; any goalie, even Luongo.

[norrisnick 1]

I'm of the opinion that you spend your money on, and build your team around, skaters, not goaltenders. I wouldn't break the bank for a goalie; any goalie, even Luongo.

I always knew you were my favorite grit groupie.

[Matt 1,049]

I'm of the opinion that you spend your money on, and build your team around, skaters, not goaltenders. I wouldn't break the bank for a goalie; any goalie, even Luongo.

The kicker here is that the Red Wings already have the skaters.

[gcom007 1,465]

No. Stupid.

[elriqo28 2]

I wish people would stop with the ridiculous ideas of us spending tons of money on a goalie! It WONT happen. We spend money on Defense. That way we don't need the ridiculously expensive goalie to come in only to lose because we cant spend any money on defense.

[DMAC 25 18]

Roberto Luongo will be a free after next season. The same time, Lidstrom's $7.45 million salary comes off the books. This presents a rare open window for the Wings to acquire a goalie by the likes they have never seen (Hasek was still great at 38, though).

A few things:

1) Luongo could very well re-sign with Vancouver before hitting the open market. I believe he will enter free agency because it might be the last time in his career he'll be able to, and Vancouver doesn't look like much of a contender.

2) Lidstrom could also return instead of retiring.

3) I like the Wings' current goaltending, but I'm not comfortable with it. I blame most of the current bad defensive play on the defense, not the goalies.

I am of the opinion that spending more than $5 million on a goalie is insane because you can't win when you constantly rely on your goaltender. Luongo is great -- one of the best in the league -- but he still really hasn't proven himself as a winner.

What say you?

man that would be nice to have him in detroit but i dont think we're gonna need him, call me crazy because i said that but i think our goalies in the minors are gonna be our goalies of the future pretty much, give them another year and ozzies contract will be up and howard hopefully will be ready by then because that should be more than enough time for him

[YoungGuns1340 1]

The kicker here is that the Red Wings already have the skaters.

The thing is, losing Lidstrom affects our transition game, which is to say it affects BOTH our offense and our defense. If we swap Lidstrom for Luongo, it may shore up the defensive aspect of things, but our transition game and outlet passing are still affected. I also don't see the point of adding an elite goaltender, but the only way it would really make sense is if we were losing a guy that was an elite defensive defenseman a la Scott Stevens. Then, the case may be made that we need a goaltender to shore that up, given that this hypothetical defense lost probably had little impact on our offense and puck-possession.

[Valas19 50]

Convincing arguments from both sides. I have been on the fence leaning toward Luongo but now I'm leaning toward the the other way. The Wings may actually have the next Luongo or Lundqvist in the minors, they just haven't had the opportunity yet to prove it. That fact alone makes me favor using the money on a proven top D-man or forward and gamble that one of our goalies actually proves to be a solid or even all star caliber player.

Out of curiousity, does anyone know how much of a top prospect Steve Mason of Columbus was? That guy is incredible!

[NeverForgetMac25 483]

But you're just swapping Osgood out for Luongo here, where in reality -- if this scenario would play out -- you'd be swapping Osgood/Lidstrom for Luongo. I think we've all seen the signifigant impact that having Lidstrom out of the lineup causes and there's no reason to expect that Detroit's transition game and effectiveness won't take a hit when he retires. That's obvious.

What makes more sense (assuming Lidstrom retires) -- theoretically replacing Lidstrom with Kovalchuk and having a 38-year old Osgood manning the net or using Osgood as a backup to a 30-year old Luongo?

This I agree with. In all likelihood he'll re-sign. But it is fun to have some idle speculation...

I also don't think its as cut-and-dry as replacing Lidstrom with Kovalchuk and having a 38-year old Osgood manning the net. IMO, no way Kenny uses the cap space that Lids will leave on goaltending or offense. I can see him spending maybe an additional million on the goaltending position, but the rest of that goes right to bringing in the top Dman (or Dmen) to help ease the blow of losing Lids.

Kenny's model seems simple, yet extremely effective in this cap world: Build the best defense possible, supplement it with a solid offense (this year it happens to be great) and bring it together with a capable goaltender. This is the formula that has kept the Wings successful in the Cap era. I just can't see Holland deviating from it.

Now...as you and NN said, this is all dependent on when Lids retires because I'm also not 100% convinced he's done after next year.

The kicker here is that the Red Wings already have the skaters.

The problem though is that their defense will have been severely depleted. Matt, I know you know the value of Lidstrom, and I just don't believe that replacing him with Luongo is enough. Sure, Lidstrom is only on the ice for 25 minutes a night and Luongo can account for 60, but when the team defense as a whole is massively reduced since almost all of Lidstrom's money would likely be used on bringing in Lou you can expect a fair amount of pressure on the backend that wasn't there before.

I just truly believe it would be much more cost effective to sign a top-tiered defenseman, add another million to your goaltending and let it rip than it would be to sacrifice defensive quality in hopes that goaltending can/will make up for it. The Wings have added elite FA goaltenders in the past only to see their numbers drop due to a reduced workload. Why are we so sure this won't happen to Lou?