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WingedWheel91

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however you still need to take advantage of other teams not improving and improve yourself weather that means going hard for a reasonable move or signing a goal scorer to try your best to get you better seating in the playoffs or past the 1st round

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Quincey isn't as bad as people say and he was one of the better guys available. He's still not worth close to that much. It's like going to the prom with your cousin so you don't have to go alone. The only way the D will improve now is if they trade Dekeyser, Ericsson, or Smith in a package for a legit top 4 guy and/or they move Kindl or Lashoff to make a spot for a rookie and use the guy who stays as the 7.

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While you've probably opened another can of worms within which people can keep the fire Holland trend going, I have to say, I couldn't agree with you more. As one of the few people around here who seem to actually be optimistic about this coming season, it's refreshing to see other with a similar opinion.

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Quincey isn't as bad as people say and he was one of the better guys available. He's still not worth close to that much. It's like going to the prom with your cousin so you don't have to go alone. The only way the D will improve now is if they trade Dekeyser, Ericsson, or Smith in a package for a legit top 4 guy and/or they move Kindl or Lashoff to make a spot for a rookie and use the guy who stays as the 7.

They may trade Smith but it won't be DeKeyser or Ericsson.

Guys,

I am as pissed off as most Red Wings fans today out of our lack of ability to sign (any) big name free agents, and even more pissed off that our only substantial move was re-signing Kyle Quincey to a contract that pays him as much money as Jonathan Ericsson, more money than Johan Franzen and only 0.5 Million less than Nick Kronwall makes (still a top 10 defenceman in the league).

But as much as we can complain about Quincey, and predict that next season will be a complete disaster - I am seeing more and more tank for McDavid posts - I ask myself when did Matt Niskanen become worthy of a 7 year contract? Isn't Dan Boyle 37 years old coming off a 36 point season on a great team where he was a -8? Why did the world end when we didn't sign these two? Lets just try to use some perspective before we completely turn our backs...

Last season, in a 16 team conference - we finished 1 point behind 6th place PHI and 3 points behind 5th place NYR (who eventually played in the Stanley Cup Final) while having an historically bad (by our standards) record of 5-9 in the shootout. More importantly, we also had our top 3 forwards (when measured by salary) D, Z and Weiss miss 37, 37, and 56 games respectively. I hate to make excuses, but of the 6 teams in our conference that had more points than us last year, not a single one of them could relate to our injury situation (in terms of man games lost to star players). For ex. the top 6 scorers on the Boston Bruins all played in atleast 78 games, and 5 of them played in 80 or more - please don't tell me this would not have helped us or improved our position in the standings.

If we look ahead to next season - what do we have to be optimistic about? Well, we haven't really gotten worse since last year... No we haven't signed any big names either, but we still haven't lost anyone yet. (Alfie remains to be seen). Can you say the same about...

#1 BOSTON - Subtractions: Thornton, Iginla, Meszaros, Moore. Additions: None.

#2 PITTSBURGH - Subtractions: Jokinen, Vitale, Orpik, Glass, Engelland, Niskanen, Conner. Additions: Comeau, Ehrhoff.

#3 TAMPA BAY - Subtractions: Lindback, Aulie, Desjardins. Additions: Nabokov, Boyle, Blunden, Stralman.

#4 MONTREAL - Subtractions: Briere, Gorges, Vanek, Gionta, Blunden, Dubnyk. Additions: Parenteau, Gilbert, Malholtra.

#5 NEW YORK - Subtractions: Pouliot, Stralman, Richards, Boyle, Bickel. Additions: Hunwick, Glass, Kostka, D. Boyle.

#6 PHILADELPHIA - Subtractions: None. Additions: Jones.

The point here is that outside of Tampa Bay, the 5/6 teams that had more points than we did last season have not improved either - and to take it a step further, I certainly feel that Boston, Pittsburgh, Montreal, and the NYR have all regressed. In terms of teams within striking distance who have also improved, NJ and WSH certainly stand alone.

When you consider the possibility of a healthy team, the emergence and continued development of our younger players, the cap room and prospect pool we have to acquire pieces (which Holland MUST use at this point) and the lack of improved teams conference wide + number of teams in our division who have taken a step back (BOS, MTL, TOR, OTT,) I don't think the sky is falling as fast as it seems.

Obviously the Wings thought so.

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Quincey isn't as bad as people say and he was one of the better guys available. He's still not worth close to that much. It's like going to the prom with your cousin so you don't have to go alone. The only way the D will improve now is if they trade Dekeyser, Ericsson, or Smith in a package for a legit top 4 guy and/or they move Kindl or Lashoff to make a spot for a rookie and use the guy who stays as the 7.

Dekeyser is probably a top 4 guy right now, and if not, will definitely be next season. Smith will also turn into a top 4 (I know some people disagree, but the guy has only played one full season in the NHL).

I don't see, in the long run, how it helps by trading away 2 top 4 D men to get 1 in return?

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But as much as we can complain about Quincey, and predict that next season will be a complete disaster - I am seeing more and more tank for McDavid posts - I ask myself when did Matt Niskanen become worthy of a 7 year contract? Isn't Dan Boyle 37 years old coming off a 36 point season on a great team where he was a -8? Why did the world end when we didn't sign these two? Lets just try to use some perspective before we completely turn our backs...

Because:

The cap floor and ceiling are linked to league revenues (stupidly) which means that the cap continues to escalate. As a result, this gives the bigger teams more money to re-sign their top stars, further elevating their salaries. Meanwhile, all the s*** teams that can't afford to attract top talent (see Florida, Buffalo) then have to overpay mediocre players or middle of the road guys (See Bolland) just to make the floor so they don't get penalised. Which drives up salaries across the board - those guys who deem themselves to be on that same level now have a bargaining chip that says 'if so and so is worth this much, so am I'. Those guys who are a notch above the middle of the road guys don't want to take the ego hit that is having a salary that could be less than the middle road guys. So they ask for me and get it.

The second stupid reason is that it was an extremely weak free agent market for D men. And as we know, less supply drives up the price. This isn't helped by league parity, which means that multiple teams can bid for the services of 1 or 2 players.

The other thing is that GMs, owners etc have no control. Our spoiled society is very much driven by the 'what have you done for me lately' culture, and thus there is immense pressure to constantly improve, constantly get better, produce results, otherwise you're out of a job.

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Quincey isn't as bad as people say and he was one of the better guys available. He's still not worth close to that much. It's like going to the prom with your cousin so you don't have to go alone. The only way the D will improve now is if they trade Dekeyser, Ericsson, or Smith in a package for a legit top 4 guy and/or they move Kindl or Lashoff to make a spot for a rookie and use the guy who stays as the 7.

Don't kid yourself, Quincey is every bit as bad as people say. The most positive thing you can say about him is that he chews up minutes. He certainly doesn't make a team better or give you upside potential. He also doesn't fill the need that the Wings know they have - a top 4 right-handed shooting defenseman. Quincy will continue to be what he has been - a space filler.

I'm optimistic that next season won't be a complete wash-out, but I'm not sure the OP is pointing to the right stuff... Boston may have lost Iginla, but they didn't lose much else. They also have several players who are continuing to develop and get better. The same is true for Pittsburgh. They are going to move on without Neal, Niskanen & Orpik, but they added Hornqvist and Erhoff and will likely use rookies like Pouliot to fill gaps. Maybe not 'better', but certainly not out of playoff contention. We also have to look at the improvements that Washington made yesterday and New Jersey looks to be improving as well. Flordia and Buffalo may not be immediate contenders either, but they both improved more than what the Wings accomplished on Day 1... The Wings still look like a fringe playoff team IF (big if) everyone stays healthy. We can't rely on huge performance from rookies every season.

I was disappointed to even hear that Holland tried to sign Boyle and even more disappointed that Niskanen couldn't be landed. Being forced to re-sign Quincey is a huge letdown and Holland has to think of ways to kick start some kind of 're-design' (I agree that a rebuild is taking it too far). Eeking into the playoffs shouldn't be good enough for the Wings and a change is going to be necessary. We're getting beat up by all the GMs around the league that we trained but they went to find jobs elsewhere (Tampa Bay, Dallas, etc. etc.).

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Just to add to the "our lack of ability to sign (any) big name free agents" comment. None of them were really big names, just over priced due to the lack of any actual big names becoming available. All the big names are signed long term!

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Dekeyser is probably a top 4 guy right now, and if not, will definitely be next season. Smith will also turn into a top 4 (I know some people disagree, but the guy has only played one full season in the NHL).

I don't see, in the long run, how it helps by trading away 2 top 4 D men to get 1 in return?

One of them. Something like Smith and Kindl for a good RH D.

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Just to add to the "our lack of ability to sign (any) big name free agents" comment. None of them were really big names, just over priced due to the lack of any actual big names becoming available. All the big names are signed long term!

Dude, I agree with your general point which seems to be "don't freak out because we've still got some reasons to be optimistic" but I think you're underselling just how good some of these guys are in order to make that point. Niskanen is worth every penny of 5.75 million. Even if he never improves his point production (and he probably will), you're still getting a 27 year old defenseman who can give you 40 pts., run a powerplay, log big minutes, AND is actually good at playing defense for under six million. Ditto for Ehrhoff (except the age part). These are VERY good players for their salaries. Are they Doughty or Subban? No. Do they get paid to be? Nope.

Boyle, Stralman, and Robidas are a different story and we should be glad we didn't over commit to them. But you do have to wonder what's up with Holland's concept of value if Quincey is worth 4.25 mil for two years, Boyle is worth 5.5 mil for two years, and Niskanen is worth 5.5 for seven years.

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Boyle, Stralman, and Robidas are a different story and we should be glad we didn't over commit to them. But you do have to wonder what's up with Holland's concept of value if Quincey is worth 4.25 mil for two years, Boyle is worth 5.5 mil for two years, and Niskanen is worth 5.5 for seven years.

I'd have probably been ok over committing to Stralman. Holland's concept of value has been off for a couple years. Remember, we're only one offseason removed from giving Stephen Weiss $4.9M a year for 5 seasons... Quincey was a 'tilt' signing and that's never good to see.

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Screw it...I say, I do like our kids and all 25 of our top prospects...along with the last few years of drafting...I just hate #KFQ so much! I hate Kindl... I think I hate them more than Franzen...maybe.

I say, pull that belt to 10 more notches tight and lets do this rebuild!

I do feel bad for Pav though...

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Dude, I agree with your general point which seems to be "don't freak out because we've still got some reasons to be optimistic" but I think you're underselling just how good some of these guys are in order to make that point. Niskanen is worth every penny of 5.75 million. Even if he never improves his point production (and he probably will), you're still getting a 27 year old defenseman who can give you 40 pts., run a powerplay, log big minutes, AND is actually good at playing defense for under six million. Ditto for Ehrhoff (except the age part). These are VERY good players for their salaries. Are they Doughty or Subban? No. Do they get paid to be? Nope.

Boyle, Stralman, and Robidas are a different story and we should be glad we didn't over commit to them. But you do have to wonder what's up with Holland's concept of value if Quincey is worth 4.25 mil for two years, Boyle is worth 5.5 mil for two years, and Niskanen is worth 5.5 for seven years.

Holland knows Quincey’s only worth 3M tops.

He also knows how to be desperate.

The real question is: do the Iliitches know or even care how their money’s being spent?

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I try to stay as positive as possible, but we were a bubble team and we're bringing back our same roster. You shouldn't be looking at the top contenders in the east getting worse. Look at the rest of the bubble teams, most of them improved in some way or another. It is going to be (regardless of if we lose 300-400 man games again) another scratching and clawing season for the playoffs. It sucks, but this is becoming the norm. A change for the Red Wings, I hope, at the very least, we give roster spots to kids. They deserve to play, no more crap stop gaps.

Edited by Detroit # 1 Fan

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My biggest fear, honestly, is 1 more year older for Datsyuk and Zetterberg. I can't see that as being positive at all in terms of staying healthy and even if they do, they will, without a debt, be slowing down.

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I'm a bit more concerned about Z than D, even though he is a couple years younger. I'm not overly confident of him being an effective player to the age of 40. It's very rare that you have a player play until he is 40 anyway, but Z has struggled with back issues and it's gotten worse as he's aged over the past couple years. We'll see how he recovers from his recent surgery though.

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Niskanen is worth every penny of 5.75 million. Even if he never improves his point production (and he probably will), you're still getting a 27 year old defenseman who can give you 40 pts., run a powerplay, log big minutes, AND is actually good at playing defense for under six million.

Niskaanen got his 46 point playing top PP minutes with Malkin and Crosby in his contract year. The last time he scored similar point was his another contract year (36pts). They are going to pay him 6M. Career wise Quincey production is close to Niskanen's except for the last season. A lot of things depends on the team and how coach uses his players.

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I started the topic because I was annoyed of hearing about how bad we were when we didn't sign Boyle or Niskanen, or that no-one wants to play in Detroit anymore. To me, this represents an approach we as fans believe in that is simply unrealistic, because in the (hard) salary cap era - no team can/will compete for the Stanley Cup on a yearly basis. Not only does the hard cap hinder the money we can spend on free agents every summer, but the 7 year contract also limits free agency availability and allows the best players every year (who aren't ever elite) to receive inflated contracts because of the demand for them.

To be honest, I would rather have Quincey for 2 years at 4.25 Million than Niskanen for 7 years at 5.75 Million. Yes, Niskanen is a better Defenseman - but his contract is a representation of 1 decent year he had while playing the majority of his minutes with the top scorer in the NHL. When you consider he was on the 1st PP unit and took the place of Letang for most of the season, 46 points on a top 5 scoring team isn't really that fantastic.

Last year at this time (after losing in the 2nd round to the eventual Champs) we were ecstatic about the season we had and the kids who were coming up (we followed it up by adding 2 of the top 3 available free agents on July 1st) - this year injuries completely derail our season... yet we still make the playoffs... have even more kids develop in between... lose in the 1st round the best team in our conference... and the world is ending? What if we had gone for (arguments sake) 8-6 in the shootout instead of 5-9, we would have had the 5th most points in the conference and played a much easier first round opponent... What if we had won that series and then gotten back Ericsson, and a fully recovered Z? The outlook would be much different I'm sure...

For future reference - this is our lineup without Franzen, Weiss, Kindl and Quincey.

ZETTERBERG - DATSYUK - MANTHA

NYQUIST - HELM - JURCO

TATAR - SHEAHAN - PULKKINEN

ABBY - GLENNY - MILLER

KRONWALL - SMITH

DEKEYSER - MARCHENKO

ERICSSON - SPROUL

Please explain to me how we have nothing to be excited about?

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Guest DeGraa55

I started the topic because I was annoyed of hearing about how bad we were when we didn't sign Boyle or Niskanen, or that no-one wants to play in Detroit anymore. To me, this represents an approach we as fans believe in that is simply unrealistic, because in the (hard) salary cap era - no team can/will compete for the Stanley Cup on a yearly basis. Not only does the hard cap hinder the money we can spend on free agents every summer, but the 7 year contract also limits free agency availability and allows the best players every year (who aren't ever elite) to receive inflated contracts because of the demand for them.

To be honest, I would rather have Quincey for 2 years at 4.25 Million than Niskanen for 7 years at 5.75 Million. Yes, Niskanen is a better Defenseman - but his contract is a representation of 1 decent year he had while playing the majority of his minutes with the top scorer in the NHL. When you consider he was on the 1st PP unit and took the place of Letang for most of the season, 46 points on a top 5 scoring team isn't really that fantastic.

Last year at this time (after losing in the 2nd round to the eventual Champs) we were ecstatic about the season we had and the kids who were coming up (we followed it up by adding 2 of the top 3 available free agents on July 1st) - this year injuries completely derail our season... yet we still make the playoffs... have even more kids develop in between... lose in the 1st round the best team in our conference... and the world is ending? What if we had gone for (arguments sake) 8-6 in the shootout instead of 5-9, we would have had the 5th most points in the conference and played a much easier first round opponent... What if we had won that series and then gotten back Ericsson, and a fully recovered Z? The outlook would be much different I'm sure...

For future reference - this is our lineup without Franzen, Weiss, Kindl and Quincey.

ZETTERBERG - DATSYUK - MANTHA

NYQUIST - HELM - JURCO

TATAR - SHEAHAN - PULKKINEN

ABBY - GLENNY - MILLER

KRONWALL - SMITH

DEKEYSER - MARCHENKO

ERICSSON - SPROUL

Please explain to me how we have nothing to be excited about?

So wait Weiss and Franzen have more years left the. Dat and they're not in the lineup but dat is?

Do people not know how to make a proper lineup?

It like expecting mantha to be on the team to start this year? WHEN HAS THAT EVER HAPPENED WITH HOLLAND? It's ok to hope but history and his track record sort of show it won't happen.

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Guest DeGraa55

I started the topic because I was annoyed of hearing about how bad we were when we didn't sign Boyle or Niskanen, or that no-one wants to play in Detroit anymore. To me, this represents an approach we as fans believe in that is simply unrealistic, because in the (hard) salary cap era - no team can/will compete for the Stanley Cup on a yearly basis. Not only does the hard cap hinder the money we can spend on free agents every summer, but the 7 year contract also limits free agency availability and allows the best players every year (who aren't ever elite) to receive inflated contracts because of the demand for them.

To be honest, I would rather have Quincey for 2 years at 4.25 Million than Niskanen for 7 years at 5.75 Million. Yes, Niskanen is a better Defenseman - but his contract is a representation of 1 decent year he had while playing the majority of his minutes with the top scorer in the NHL. When you consider he was on the 1st PP unit and took the place of Letang for most of the season, 46 points on a top 5 scoring team isn't really that fantastic.

Last year at this time (after losing in the 2nd round to the eventual Champs) we were ecstatic about the season we had and the kids who were coming up (we followed it up by adding 2 of the top 3 available free agents on July 1st) - this year injuries completely derail our season... yet we still make the playoffs... have even more kids develop in between... lose in the 1st round the best team in our conference... and the world is ending? What if we had gone for (arguments sake) 8-6 in the shootout instead of 5-9, we would have had the 5th most points in the conference and played a much easier first round opponent... What if we had won that series and then gotten back Ericsson, and a fully recovered Z? The outlook would be much different I'm sure...

For future reference - this is our lineup without Franzen, Weiss, Kindl and Quincey.

ZETTERBERG - DATSYUK - MANTHA

NYQUIST - HELM - JURCO

TATAR - SHEAHAN - PULKKINEN

ABBY - GLENNY - MILLER

KRONWALL - SMITH

DEKEYSER - MARCHENKO

ERICSSON - SPROUL

Please explain to me how we have nothing to be excited about?

So wait Weiss and Franzen have more years left the. Dat and they're not in the lineup but dat is?

Do people not know how to make a proper lineup?

It like expecting mantha to be on the team to start this year? WHEN HAS THAT EVER HAPPENED WITH HOLLAND? It's ok to hope but history and his track record sort of show it won't happen.

Also a fourth liner injury prone helm as a number 2 center is TERRIBLE he needs Minimal minutes.

Edited by DeGraa55

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