Last Year's Off Season

[hooon 1,089]

I've been curious for a while to see what you guys think about our off-season acquisitions last year.

Last year I recall names such as Grier, Moen, and Prospal on the list of potential Wings.

We picked up Williams, Eaves, and Bertuzzi, May... and Miller once the season started.

When the off-season began last year, we knew that we had a lot of goals to make up for, and there were a few names available that every one at LGW was excited about.

I guess all I want to know is...

How happy are you with last years acquisitions, and would you have rather had us go for a different free agent?

[Z Winged Dangler 2,082]

I've been curious for a while to see what you guys think about our off-season acquisitions last year.

Last year I recall names such as Grier, Moen, and Prospal on the list of potential Wings.

We picked up Williams, Eaves, and Bertuzzi, May... and Miller once the season started.

When the off-season began last year, we knew that we had a lot of goals to make up for, and there were a few names available that every one at LGW was excited about.

I guess all I want to know is...

How happy are you with last years acquisitions, and would you have rather had us go for a different free agent?

maybe moen. prospal will always be a big ??? whether he shows up or not. grier is not as effective as most people think. eaves and miller were great for the wings and bertuzzi pitched in with some decent offensive production. williams is a plug...nothing more. may can pick fights and hit a little, but that's as far as his effectiveness goes.

the future of the wings is bright. huds is coming back to play for the wings again and there's some good prospects like ritola, nyqvist, smith, tatar, kindl, ferraro and mccollum/larsson among others that are going to be pushing for spots on the wings in the next few years.

the best part of this summer is some contract we all want gone are gone. that's something we didn't really have last year. we wanted all the guys to resign, but Z's raise came in and there wasn't enough money for holland to sign them and we all know how that story ended.

all in all, there's not much that could have been done last summer. with this summer hinging on what lids takes if/when he stays, this summer could get interesting too. the loss of all the players last summer was amplified by the lack of production and injuries by every wing this past year.

[Z and D for the C 712]

Thanks to Hudler, Holland didn't have a very god selection. He did a great job with what he had.

[GMRwings1983 8,794]

Only one that was a true bust was Williams.

I wish Holland went after Moen instead of Williams. I think it would have made us tougher to play against. Williams made us easier to play against when he was in the lineup, as he's not a 3rd or 4th liner.

[dobbles 252]

i agree with GMR. williams ended up being the only bad call. though i also recall a lot of folks were pretty high on afinogenov. he ended up having a great year and if i recall signed a pretty reasonable contract. no idea if he was interested in detroit at all, but would have been nice to make that happen instead of williams.

[Carman 387]

I can only blame him for Williams. I don't recall one person being excited about it.

Wish we got Moen instead...

[Z Winged Dangler 2,082]

I can only blame him for Williams. I don't recall one person being excited about it.

Wish we got Moen instead...

seems we all agree on that. good to see the feather duster getting cut loose. hope he's not back again in 3 years...

[CenterIce 83]

I can only blame him for Williams. I don't recall one person being excited about it.

Babcock.

I think the only reason we got him was because of the right handed shot on the power play. Hopefully, Stuart and/or Eriksson can take that next year.

[Pucks 66]

The Williams signing was epic fail from the start. I can't remember anyone on any Wings board that thought it was a good idea. It was quite puzzling indeed since we had all viewed that movie before. He was not worth what he was getting paid the first time we traded him away. His game had not changed or evolved in any way. Yeah the guy was cheap, but a lot of guys were cheap at that point in the off season.

Please oh please can we stop with this damn forward on the blue line s***, it's retarded. It was stupid with Williams the first time, stupid with Sammy, stupid with Willims the second time. C'mon.

[Broken 16 381]

I tried to remain optimistic about Williams but he was terrible. Eaves and Miller practically fixed our PK by themselves and popped in a couple goals. No complaints there. Bert... meh. Aside from being eternally frustrated that he won't use his size as effectively as he could, he was worth the money. Easily. Hopefully someone will talk him into using two hands on the stick more often if he comes back next season.

[Pucks 66]

I tried to remain optimistic about Williams but he was terrible. Eaves and Miller practically fixed our PK by themselves and popped in a couple goals. No complaints there. Bert... meh. Aside from being eternally frustrated that he won't use his size as effectively as he could, he was worth the money. Easily. Hopefully someone will talk him into using two hands on the stick more often if he comes back next season.

Honestly that whole one hand on the stick really pissed me off. Our defenders also do it as along the boards trying to free up the puck instead of using their positioning and size to separate people from the puck. It's something they could all improve on and one of the biggest reason teams can cycle at will in our zone. Not to mention that one hand on the stick will get you extra trips to the box.

Edited May 14, 2010 by Pucks

[Broken 16 381]

Honestly that whole one hand on the stick really pissed me off. Our defenders also do it as along the boards trying to free up the puck instead of using their positioning and size to separate people from the puck. It's something they could all improve on and one of the biggest reason teams can cycle at will in our zone. Not to mention that one hand on the stick will get you extra trips to the box.

Right. There have been many, many times that a strong play on the puck with two hands would have earned possession and instead they wrap the guy up and poke at it like sissies. I hope that practice changes by next season.

[Buppy 1,720]

Looking at all the adds last year, including Helm, Leino, Ericsson, and Howard, I can't say there were any I really disliked that much. I thought Kenny did a nice job for being in a tough spot with the cap.

I wanted Malhotra. Could have been in place of either Bert or Willy. I didn't like the fact that Willy was going to play the point, but other than that I didn't mind him. He had a decent season the year before. Bert kept Flip from starting out in the top 6, so I didn't really like that, but again no real complaint.

Howard was my only real worry, though I knew we had to give him a chance. I didn't think he'd make it even as a backup though.

[Miss Wing Queen 154]

maybe moen. prospal will always be a big ??? whether he shows up or not. grier is not as effective as most people think. eaves and miller were great for the wings and bertuzzi pitched in with some decent offensive production. williams is a plug...nothing more. may can pick fights and hit a little, but that's as far as his effectiveness goes.

the future of the wings is bright. huds is coming back to play for the wings again and there's some good prospects like ritola, nyqvist, smith, tatar, kindl, ferraro and mccollum/larsson among others that are going to be pushing for spots on the wings in the next few years.

the best part of this summer is some contract we all want gone are gone. that's something we didn't really have last year. we wanted all the guys to resign, but Z's raise came in and there wasn't enough money for holland to sign them and we all know how that story ended.

all in all, there's not much that could have been done last summer. with this summer hinging on what lids takes if/when he stays, this summer could get interesting too. the loss of all the players last summer was amplified by the lack of production and injuries by every wing this past year.

Thanks to Hudler, Holland didn't have a very god selection. He did a great job with what he had.

The difference this year will be that Holland won't be dangled along in a disrespectful manner like last summer because Lidstrom has much more class than that. We'll know by July 1st, and Holland can make moves accordingly, if necessary, instead of a month before training camp.

[Statts 4]

Looking back, Afinogenov would have been a good pick up.

[miller76 463]

Last year I remember wanting the team to look at a guy like Cody McCormick to replace Kopecky. Other guys like Marchant, Saku Koivu, Satan, Joel Ward, Taylor Pyatt, and Alexandre Burrows.

D-men, I liked Greg Zanon, Scuderi, and Woywitka.

Goalies, if any I really wanted Craig Anderson, or retain Conklin.

[king_malice 17]

Why does everyone blame Hudler when it was Hossa that took so long to decide if he was staying or going and by that time Hudler,Samuelsson,Kopecky,Conklin were all gone, personally i think it was easy to decide we won the cup without Hossa so why try and sign him when we won it with all the guys we let go.

[miller76 463]

Why does everyone blame Hudler when it was Hossa that took so long to decide if he was staying or going and by that time Hudler,Samuelsson,Kopecky,Conklin were all gone, personally i think it was easy to decide we won the cup without Hossa so why try and sign him when we won it with all the guys we let go.

Hossa was signed July first by the Hawks. I thought Hudler's situation wasn't known until much later. I think The Red Wings were a little blindsided by Hudler bolting to the KHL. Because he was a RFA, and Detroit really had the upper hand in the deal. The problem with all this, was the team was already near the Cap, Sammy's was up for a raise, and Hudler dragged his feet in all this. Holland later stated that in an interview on xm radio, if he had known Hudler was planning to leave, he was okay with it. He kind of had to be. But this is in turn spilled over into Samuelssons contract. He basically stated, and I am paraphrasing here. He would have offered Samuelsson a pretty fair increase, and most likely would of retained him. But the timing was off.

I thought the writing was on the wall for Hossa, once they inked Franzen after the Zetterberg deal. It was pretty common knowledge, at least on lgw, that Hossa was gone by deadline day, and he was, that or the day after. I can't exactly remember.

[Kira 451]

I was the happiest with Eaves and Miller. Those two were absolute godsends. I hope we can find a way to keep them both. Bargain basement gems, if you ask me.

[king_malice 17]

im not positive but i think i remember hearing thats why they couldnt offer the other guys anything because Hossa was still negotiating

[wingsdiehard13 33]

im not positive but i think i remember hearing thats why they couldnt offer the other guys anything because Hossa was still negotiating

No... Hossa's agent was allowed to talk with teams a week before July 1st because Holland felt he owed it to him for taking the risk of signing a 1 year deal with Detroit. Detroit was never hung up because of Hossa.

[Datsyerberger 279]

I'm of the belief that Hudler's whole thing was either planned or at least agreed to; it saved the Wings cap space in a year they needed it and made Hudler $5m low tax dollars. Win for both parties.

I consider it a rather successful offseason, really. Noone expected to come too strong out after last year, the org included, and they met their stated goal of reaching the 2nd round in the playoffs. Bert was a good risky pickup who turned out to be someone worth keeping around for the contract. Williams sorta blew up in the POs, but he did what he needed in the season.. I won't miss him, but he was a decent stopgap measure. And two things being in a rough spot helped us with for a change: 1. We finally got some of our young guys plenty of playing time in the big league, and 2: we went out and took a risk on picking up a coupla young grinders for a change (Miller and Eaves). Both of those acquisitions panned out quite well.

Yea, a cup win would've been nice and worthy of an A+, but A+s are for unrealistic goals being met anyhow.. I'll give this an A-.