Wings gave Rich Winters Permission to talk to other teams a week ago

[Frozen-Man 144]

According to the Edmonton Journal:

The Wings, who were squeezed by their salary cap, offered 10 years for $40 million for the forward. But they knew they likely wouldn't get him and gave his agent Ritch Winter permission a week ago to talk to other teams. They did it out of the goodness of their heart because they could have tried to trade his negotiating rights as Florida did with Jay Bouwmeester; but they felt they owed Hossa for signing with Detroit last year and leaving lots of money on the table elsewhere.

Here is the link

I'm not sure if this is true but it wouldn't surprise me from this organization. Treat players great even when they know they can't re-sign them. I'm sure other players will remember this and it might be the push one of them needs in the future to agree to a deal similar to what Hossa did for the Wings this year.

[Opie 308]

Another class move by the org if true, and I am with them, he played here for relative peanuts, he turned down nearly 10 a year(I think edm's offer was 10 but I could be wrong) to play in Detroit. He did nothing but praise and good things to say about the org. Played his ass off in the regular season, played great defensive hockey with no goals and a lot of posts to show for it. Oh well, you can't win them all, but Detroit sure likes to try! And I love that my team is always trying to win and get better!

As much as Maltby, Draper, Homer, etc.. deserve respect and consideration so did Hossa. He did the Red Wing thing, he took far less money to be a Red Wing. I think if the Wings had been able to do 50 over 10 he signs.

Good luck Hossa, except when playing the Winged Wheel!

[egroen 384]

This one is a little "too classy" for me -- Hossa owed more to Detroit than was owed to him. No hard feelings, but he got his chance and did not come through when the team needed him to... he was also well-compensated for it.

My only complaint with Holland is he is very poor at squeezing value out of outgoing players - frequently losing them for nothing.

[dat's sick 1,002]

Wow, that is incredibly classy if it's true.

But didn't Kings GM say that they and 2 other clubs were the only ones granted permission, and if they managed to sign him the Wings would get compensation?

[Opie 308]

Egroen,

I think Holland had no option, everyone knew they were up against the cap and needed a Grateful Dead style miracle to get him on the team. After back to back to back WCF and back to back SCF I have a feeling no one wanted to help Det, not ever Lowe was going to throw an offer at Hudler, because as much as that could help EDM it definitely would help DET. And no one wanted to be the guy with Hossa' s rights. Nobody had a clue what he wanted.

Now with Hossa gone it will be interesting to see if Huds gets a sheet, I doubt it as he did not have a Dustin Penner 07 kind of year and he is not Tomas Vanek either.

Other than Quincey (replaceable) what did Holland really lose recently for nothing, that would have made the roster?

Loses this year

Sammy? got more out of Sammy than the Wings ever put into him (not that he is gone yet)

Hudler, they may lose some future value, but I will argue they are smart enough drafters to make up for that as there never seemed to be top 6 minutes consistently for him.

Hossa, as much as I wanted him around, he was not fitting and I can not blame him for leaving. This team made the SCF game 7, and Hossa as Helm, Leino etc.. were all a part of getting there and all a part of coming up 2 goals short.

Kopecky, meh no beef with the kid, but Helm is better IMO.

Lebda/Meech (With a healthy Lilja ) no big loss again due to Ericsson.

Maybe Holland sees it as what he has(In the system) is cheaper and equally talented to what he is losing. Obviously not Hossa.

Abdelkader is waiting for Malts to be gone, Leino is waiting for Sammy to be gone. To me the Wings are still the deepest team in the league, if not they are near the top,

I see your point though as Quincey walked away for nothing, not even a low draft pick and Hossa, Sammy appear to be doing the same.

BTW NOT ARGUING WITH YOU! more brainstorming.

[Frozen-Man 144]

This one is a little "too classy" for me -- Hossa owed more to Detroit than was owed to him. No hard feelings, but he got his chance and did not come through when the team needed him to... he was also well-compensated for it.

My only complaint with Holland is he is very poor at squeezing value out of outgoing players - frequently losing them for nothing.

I see what you are saying but I think that Holland did come away with quite a bit. He might have been able to get a third round pick (at most I would think) if he had traded the rights to another team exclusively. This way however, he gave Hossa a reward, got to keep making his offer (who knows how close he was to staying), and most importantly I think that it builds up a lot of good will and impresses other players when they are free agents. If you know that the team is also looking out for your interests that is somewhere you want to play more than a team that doesn't give a rip about players. It is actions just like this that make the team a desirable place to play (lets be honest there are other cities that have a lot more to offer - climate, stores, beaches, etc.) and if their actions influence another player to take a "home town discount" or one year deal like Hossa did it is a huge win.

[Guest Shoreline]

This one is a little "too classy" for me -- Hossa owed more to Detroit than was owed to him. No hard feelings, but he got his chance and did not come through when the team needed him to... he was also well-compensated for it.

My only complaint with Holland is he is very poor at squeezing value out of outgoing players - frequently losing them for nothing.

Have to agree.

[egroen 384]

Bouwmeester's negotiating rights garnered a 3rd round pick and Leopold from Calgary -- I just find it hard to believe Holland could not get something from Hossa's, especially when the timeline is now over a week ago -- and not 24 hours or so before free agency.

Quincey could have been handled better, IMO - and with the benefit of hindsight was a better option than both Lebda and Meetch (though I thought as much at the time).

I am also still bothered he lost Osgood to waivers, and Ellis was lost to waivers as well.

For as much success as Detroit has had with late round picks, they sure seem to make very little effort in obtaining more of them.

But these are such minor concerns, and my only other beef with Holland is the Draper contract. Complaining about Holland is like complaining your Ferrari gets poor gas mileage.

Edited July 2, 2009 by egroen

[Opie 308]

Bouwmeester's negotiating rights garnered a 3rd round pick and Leopold from Calgary -- I just find it hard to believe Holland could not get something from Hossa's, especially when the timeline is now over a week ago -- and not 24 hours or so before free agency.

Quincey could have been handled better, IMO - and with the benefit of hindsight was a better option than both Lebda and Meetch (though I thought as much at the time).

I am also still bothered he lost Osgood to waivers, and Ellis was lost to waivers as well.

For as much success as Detroit has had with late round picks, they sure seem to make very little effort in obtaining more of them.

But these are such minor concerns, and my only other beef with Holland is the Draper contract. Complaining about Holland is like complaining your Ferrari gets poor gas mileage.

Draper and malts contracts both bothered me. especially the Malts one, he was on the decline before he signed that deal. I would have like to have seen a 2 year deal or a succession of one years.

But like you said:

Complaining about Holland is like complaining your Ferrari gets poor gas mileage.

apparently a lot of people on this board don't like the mileage in their Ferrari!

[Frozen-Man 144]

But these are such minor concerns, and my only other beef with Holland is the Draper contract. Complaining about Holland is like complaining your Ferrari gets poor gas mileage.

QFT

Bouwmeester's negotiating rights garnered a 3rd round pick and Leopold from Calgary -- I just find it hard to believe Holland could not get something from Hossa's, especially when the timeline is now over a week ago -- and not 24 hours or so before free agency.

I'm not sure we could have gotten as much as Florida got for Boumeester because of our cap problem. Florida got the third and Leopold but Leopold was set to be a UFA so really what they got was the rights to negotiate with him before free agency. Basically they traded the rights to negotiate with Bouwmeester for a 3rd round pick and the rights to negotiate with Leopold (who Calgary wasn't going to keep so it was a throw away for them). That would have been of very little benefit to Detroit unless they had a $1-2M player that they really wanted badly. They just don't have the cap space to sign a new guy (especially assuming that they keep Huds and try to keep Sammy).

[xBrave_Heartx 0]

Not getting anything in return isn't bothersome, Gratz to keeping it classy Detroit.

[10 Minute Misconduct 104]

Seems liek its true. Here is what the Kings GM has to say:

LOMBARDI: "Obviously we went into this for wingers. Like I've said, it's one of the positives of being in our situation now, as opposed to three years ago, when we were looking for everything and signing seven guys. The No. 1 guy we targeted was Hossa. I got permission to talk to Hossa at the draft. There were three teams, us and two others. Detroit gave me permission, and we started the dialogue at that time. Detroit, if he got signed, they would get compensation.

http://www.insidesocal.com/kings/2009/07/l...y-1-quotes.html