canadian wings fan

I'm off tomorrow. Hell ****ing ya. Bring it on

 

 

I HATE this question.  I hear it all the time on LGW, as if it was some clear A vs. B choice.  Nobody ever says "Why did we keep Zetterberg or Kronwall instead of Hossa", even though those guys have more comparable contracts - they only want to compare the two LH-shooting Euro power forwards.

 

Here is why I lose ZERO sleep over the Hossa vs. Franzen thing:

 

• Hossa was a known mercenary from the day we signed him.  He was a mercenary for Pittsburgh, and he was a stopgap solution for us.  If both sides had been so committed to keeping Hossa here long term, he would've gotten more than the glorified "Alex Semin" one-year deal that he got in July 2008 from us (1 year, $7.45 mil, IIRC)
• Franzen and Hossa were roughly the same age (both born in 1979) and have similarities in their game, so spending $10 mil + on the same type of player would have been superfluous when we needed to sign goaltending and defense at the time.
• At the end of 2009, Franzen's reputation was as a clutch playoff performer, whereas Hossa had a disappointing playoff performance, which soured the fanbase on him.  (The same fanbase, btw, ignores the fact that Datsyuk scored all of 1 goal in the '09 Playoffs on a bad foot, and celebrates Lidstrom's toughness for his "groin" injury, while ignoring played all 23 games with a destroyed shoulder)
• Franzen's contract was FAR more favorable heading into an uncertain CBA situation.  Not only is the cap hit about $1.3 million less, but it's a year shorter, and notably less egregious in terms of circumventing the CBA with "backdiver" provisions, which was a growing concern of the NHL at that time, as they cracked down on the Kovalchuk deal
• While both are "power forwards" (and Hossa's defensive game is admittedly better), Franzen seemed the more likely of the two to assume the role of "guy who stands in front of the net, screens goalies, and picks up garbage goals.  Holmstrom was on his way out, and the Wings really hadn't been absent a player of that type dating back to Ciccarelli in the mid-90's.  Hossa is a better overall player, but (particularly in the '09 Playoffs), he plays more of a finesse game and stays on the perimeter a bit.
• Amnesty buyout.  This whole conversation basically became moot anyway in the 2013 CBA.  If Franzen's contract is so bad, they can just buy it out, rather than keeping it until 2020.  If they don't do that, and elect to keep him despite the lower salary cap and other changes in the CBA, that tells you that they probably still view it as a pretty good contract.
• The Hossa signing only "worked" for Chicago because they had to bend and twist the 2005 CBA in every way possible.  It was perceived at the time that it might cost them one of their other core players down the road, like Duncan Keith.  What they did instead was bury Huet in the minors (which you can no longer do) and thin out all their role players, which led to early exits in 2011 and 2012.  They have since rebuilt those lower lines, so the Hossa experiment has "worked", but it's not clear that it also would have "worked" for us.

 

Holy **** dude incredibly well put.

/topic

Emmerton's out tonight eh interesting. Lets go Detroit! 

We can do this! lets go wings baby

Lets go wings!!!!!