dobbles

Bouwmeester is not an elite defenseman. He can eat minutes and he's durable. Those are his main strengths. He's below-average offensively and average defensively. The team can absolutely afford to be without him, especially given that the current market will vastly inflate his price.

... and he won't. He'll trade Bouwmeester for a forward and another quality defenseman. Bouwmeester is NOT worth that.

im sorry but you are just wrong.

in the first 4 seasons after the lockout with florida, he was 23rd, 24th, 24th, and 21st in defenseman scoring. consistently being in the top 25 in the league in scoring is NOT below average.

sure he has had lower totals with calgary, but who doesnt? just for transparencies sake, he dropped to 55, 69, and 45 with them.

in his 7 seasons since the lockout, he was in the top 6 in scoring for his team 5 of those years. another year he was 8th. the only year he wasnt one of his teams top scorers was 10-11.


i am not saying he will be our savior, replace lidstrom, or even get traded. but people are undervaluing him. 3 summers ago he was the ryan suter of his free agent class before calgary dealt for his rights just before july 1st.

Filppula, Samuelsson, Bertuzzi and 2013 1st to Buffalo for Tyler Myers.  Franzen, Kindl, and 2014 1st to Tampa for Hedman.

Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Brunner
Mursak-Helm-Emmerton
Eaves-Miller-Nyquist
Tootoo-Abdelkader-Cleary

Kronwall-Myers
Hedman-White
Smith-Ericsson

Howard
Gustavsson

That defense would be killer.

this isnt nhl12 on playstation. teams dont just trade away young potential stud defensemen for spare parts.

its impossible to take you seriously when you always propose these absurd trades.

if we can't land a top pairing guy, i think we just go with what we have. only sign a veteran if he is there to be #7. i think we need to give our guys a chance to step up. we need to give them more than a few preseason games. we need to give smith and kindl their chance to play every game. we need to give ericsson the chance to play top 4 and earn his contract. if we go signing a veteran guy, all it will do is cause us to second guess every time a young guy makes a mistake.

to me, thats the exact mistake we made with quincey. we only gave him these short little windows to perform. once he went to LA, he showed that if got minutes, he could play. while we certainly cant just give guys minutes because we want them to succeed, we also have to give them fair chances. i dont feel we've done that in that past because of our love for bringing in veterans. its time to find our next generation of players. sink or swim; s*** or get off the pot.

then if half the season goes by and someone isnt living up to expectations, thats when we bring someone in. but give them a decent chance not just training camp.

i guess i can understand the ranking dropping if you take out smith and nyquist. they were indeed 2 of our best prospects. its not to say our cupboard is bare, but we have to remember that all teams have guys they are excited about. and unfortunately, outside of lottery players, you cant get truly excited about a player till he is at least in the ahl and playing well. fans too often cite numbers from juniors as some garuntee players will make it.

people continue to over react.... the wings arent rebuilding. the roster is simply changing. lidstrom wasnt going to be around forever. he is the only player that cant be replaced. white was servicable in rafalskis place. quincey is slated to replace stuart. will they be exactly the same? of course not. (also note, i too thought quincey was terrible after the deadline, but i think he will be better going forward)

every year, fans are clamoring for the wings to get younger and try out new players. well some of that is finally happening. thats not rebuilding. thast reloading. its not about parity or finding gems in the draft or anything else. the wings lost earlier than expected in the playoffs; s*** happens. this year they ran into a hot goalie. its the same thing that happened when they hit kiprusoff in 04 and giguere in 03.

people think because we lost in the first round that suddenly the wings run of success is over.... let me remind you of something:
after winning back to back cups in 97 and 98, the wings won only 2 playoff series the next 3 years.
after winning the cup in 02, the wings won only 1 playoff series the next 3 years.
after winning the cup in 08, the wings won only 2 playoff series the next 3 years.

There saying Cody Eakin and a pick.

eakin and a 2nd i believe.

glad to see ribeiro go to the east. dude is a giant ******.

I was being sarcastic.  The stat is absurd because it doesn't take into consideration quality of line mates, quality of competition, offensive vs. defensive zone starts, etc.  It's a s*** stat.  But by looking at it you would have to conclude that Hudler and Franzen score more often then Zach Parise.  Except Parise's 69 pts. to their 50 and 56 pts. (respectively) would suggest otherwise.  A stat like that actually penalizes a forward who draws tougher matchups and who frequently is put on the ice in the defensive zone (e.g. is defensively responsible and therefore a better player).  

What's I'm trying to say is...it's a real neat stat.

while there is merit to what you are saying, i would contend it only has a small impact in this case. all players were top 6 guys all year. all the guys had other great linemates and were often targeted by other teams as lines that needed shut down.

additionally, another thing that would need to be taken into consideration is east vs. west. while i certainly dont want to open a can of worms about which is better, its hard to deny that all the offensive firepower was in the east. 9 of the top 10 goal scorers and 9 of the top 10 point getters were in the east. goal scoring by east teams was in their favor 3480-3264. the top 3 scoring teams were in the east and the bottom 4 were in the west. so really stats should skew towards guys like parise and semin.


in the bigger picture, all stats need context and no 1 statistic is perfect. but to me the stats looking at how many goals per minute have value. is helps people to remember that hudler and franzen have value and that parise isn't going to suddenly solve all of our goal scoring problems.

at first i felt like it was a bit high, but considering how many bad contracts are going to happen in a couple weeks, i guess it is good to put it into context. i am also happy with the 4 year term. i think that makes the higher cap hit worth it.

glad to have him on board for 4 more years!

I don't think that this stats sells Hudler short.  It actually elevates him and Franzen to the level of Zach Parise, which they clearly aren't.  I'd say it actually gives them more credit than they deserve.  And this is coming from a guy who has repeatedly defended Hudler and Franzen on this forum.

i wasnt saying the statistic sold him short, but that other posters sold him short even though his even strength production was better than any of those other 3 guys.

like you, i dont go so far to imply hudler is as good as parise, i just think a lot of people keep dogging him when he had a pretty darn good year this year.

Semin scored a goal every 61 mins od ice-time this year
   Parise scored a goal every 56 mins of ice-time this year
Hudler scored a goal every 50 mins of ice-time this year
Franzen scored a goal every 47 mins of ice-time this year

if you look at only even strength, its:

Semin scored a goal every 58 mins of ice-time this year
Parise scored a goal every 63 mins of ice-time this year
Hudler scored a goal every 47 mins of ice-time this year
Franzen scored a goal every 63 mins of ice-time this year

while any statistic gives only a partial view, i find it funny that hudler was the most productive scorer 5v5 out of the 4. sure it all depends on linemates and other factors, but i just find it funny people continue to sell him short. (pun intended)

i am not pro hudler by any means, especially if he wants too much money. but the dude was a great contributor last year. only 20 forwards in the entire league scored more even strength goals than he did.

http://www.nhl.com/i...&viewName=goals

to me that is a VERY important stat. even strength scoring is where you really make a difference. sure hudler has his flaws, but so does every single other potential replacement. i would love to see parise signed as his replacement. it would be sweet. but its not a likely scenario. so if it doesn't happen i would welcome hudler back at a moderate salary increase.

I am not directing this at you but it somewhat bothers me that Holland said that statement. Holland knowing that Lidstrom's time was coming and that Stuart would most likely be gone so he signs Quincey? What af****** joke. I mean I don't have a problem for Quincey but knowing both of those pieces are most likely going to be out of Detroit and you bring him in? Uhh okkkkayyy.

whats so bothersome? he was working under the assumption he might need another top 4 D. quincey had established himself as that the last couple seasons. in his mind, quincey was a reasonable replacement for stuart. i don't think that was too far fetched when the move was made. (with how he looked once he got here it does bring that into question) replacing stuart isn't the problem, its trying to get suter as a replacement for nick that is the key.

come back in a year or two and see how the kings are doing before worrying about if the wings need to be more like them...

they have been on a great playoff run. however, it really helps when a defensive team like them gets to play totally s*** offensive teams in the playoffs. all they have to do is grind out a goal or two and lock it down and let quick look amazing. (and yes i know they played the canucks who were a top offensive team, but they were also missing their best goal scorer most of the series)

not to mention, when you have a goalie playing lights out it masks a LOT of mistakes in other areas. so now all of a sudden their role players look amazing. but do you guys really think that long term guys like lewis, stoll, king, etc are guys that will continue to contribute like this?

fact of the matter is that the kings are a team that won less than half of their games this year. they were next to last in goals. they are on a hot streak thanks to an amazing goalie. they are the 2004 calgary flames all over again with a few more sexy names on the roster.

I think the expectations should be reasonable.  He was brought in to be a 30 goal guy, which was slightly under where he landed in the end.  I agree his playoff performance wasn't good, which is why I think a B would be fair to give him.

i guess we just differ on what we think franzen should be doing. to me his role is more than just a 30 goal scorer. i would put him at the 40 goal target given his salary, minutes, and linemates. he also needs to be able to generate more of those goals on his own and not just rely on datsyuk making amazing moves and getting him the puck 4 feet from an open net. because of his salary and role on the team, he needs to be an on ice leader. and you can't be that when you float around half your shift and rarely play in your own zone. he often is able to hide in the regular season due to his rep as a playoff performer. as stated in my last post, he was weak down the stretch and invisible in the playoffs this year. thats why he deserves one of the lowest grades on the team.

our defense has been pretty brutal in this series, but lidstrom isn't the problem. while he is not up to his normal standards, he is still playing pretty well.