Rebuild or retool?

[jroc86 90]

Retool. Keep the core, bring in a few kids this year, a few kids next year, and try and pick up a stud free agent and a few "Stop-gaps".

Brunner, Nyquist, Smith this year. If injuries become a concern or a slump happens Tatar and Anderson and Sheahan should also be given opportunties to get games.

Sing Danny Dekeyser this summer. If Edler becomes available jump on him ... if Getz/Perry/Iginla are up for UFA I could see Babs and Kenny having some pull with them after their 10' Olympic experience together. Of course a move like that would neccesitate unloading cap-space or losing a guy like Filpula which I wouldnt want to see.

If it evident we really need some size/toughness/stay-home presence on defense Regehr or D Murray should be available for pretty cheap next summer as well.

Hopefully Pukkinen, Jarnkrok, Sproul, and Oulette all mature quickly and 2-3 of them are on the team in 2 years.

[joshy207 156]

But this year we didn't get kicked out of the playoffs because we got shut down defensively, we got knocked out because Rinne played the best 5 games of his career. we had multiple games of 40+ shots on Rinne, and he was robbing us left and right making blind glove saves on Z, flopping around to make impossible saves etc...

and of course Holland WILL NOT overpay for players.

The Wings DID get shut down by Nashville. They couldn't generate many QUALITY scoring chances because Nashville's D didn't give them any room. The Wings may have fired 40 or so shots a game on Rinne, but most were from far out and/or from bad angles. Those are the easy ones to stop. Then, when the Wings did get quality chances, Rinne was up to the task. Howard did not receive the same kind of help from his defense.

Holland may have his own pay scale, but it is not on par with the rest of the league. You can't base this year's free agent salaries on contracts that were signed 3, 4, 5 years ago. If Datsyuk went UFA this summer, someone would have offered him $9M per year.