I_heart_Flipper

Ott at center, with his greatly improved backchecking, Avery with his offensive skills, and whoever else doing more crashing (CromBeen? Barch? ) That is one hell of an irritating, aggravating 4th line. I friggin love it

Since we never did sign Mike Grier, who grew up in Detroit... Or Anson carter, who also grew up in Detroit - two solid power forwards at one time... just maybe one black player since Darren Banks, in a mostly black city, might be a good idea? :blink:

Wow. Thank the (equally ironic) Hockey Gods... I thought it was a buch of square wheels up in here. :!:

I hope you'll forgive me, I'm kinda new here... but do you guys really feel that Andreas Lilja is some kind of defensive force? He can hit well, but he's no Scott Stevens or Mark Tinordi, he's not even Nicklas Kronwall. He's just physical enough when it counts, his crease clearing is suspect, and he certainly doesn't intimidate any opposing forward. And if you think Sean Avery is going to give a second thought about Lilja as he skates around him, you are only deluding yourselves. There's a reason a guy like Lilja gets 1.1 million in an overblown NHL defenseman market. He's a 5th guy at best. Is he decent? Sure. Is he superhuman? Hell no. Unless this is just a big, ironic joke I haven't gotten yet...

In my opinion, Quincy must stay. He's really come into his roll as a physical defensive defenseman, just this last year in Grand Rapids. Everyone would agree he's NHL ready, and I'd prefer it was on this team. Ericsson will probably need another year of polishing in GR, but you don't want to give away size and potential like that. He'll be up and down though, just as long as he makes those safe passes of his. Meech may have to get moved on like Matt Ellis was, there's just too many spots for not enough guys. He'll have good value at the trade deadline. Lebda? He's disposable. Either now, or later - in favor of Meech. I like the guy, and he's made a hell of a lot out of being an invite, but Chelios's buddy isn't a fixture here. He's got his Cup, and he's okay. Then there's Kindl and Kolosov, but they've got the time to develop in our sytem, unlike other teams.

Absolutely. He's still unsigned, and he was there to make sure no on took liberties on Malkin, Staal, and Crosby. Some people say he didn't fight enough or wasn't mean enough, but he did his job - he kept those guys from getting cheap shotted. Some want the Dave Semenko, pre-emptive strike type, because no one touched Gretzky - but the Semenko mold doesn't fit today's NHL. You still need that presence out there though. It's a shame Pittsburgh may not keep him, because he'll be a real boon for anyone that picks him up. And, yes, he skates as well as any 4th line forward in the leaque can. He even saw a lot of second unit PP time in Edmonton and Pitt. He's simply not just a goon.

Yeah, like that McCarty guy. How many Cups did he help us win again? I'd add Kocur here, but you'd dismiss it. Or that Downey guy who was the first to come to Lidstrom's aid when he got crushed. Tell me again, who made Gary Roberts answer to his blindside punch on Franzen? Yeah, don't need those guys at all...

Shanahan could be just what the Wings need. Tell me you don't want his size, hands, and hockey sense? can he work with Babcock? I'm not so sure. Lapointe is too slow now to contribute on this team, not even in the "Drake roll" Tim Taylor has retired, and even had the smarts to turn down a token shift or two in a Lightning game this year. Good guy. Todd Bertuzzi was, and still can be, a dominating power forward. We picked him up as damaged (recovering) goods, and he left to take a payday. I'd take the payday too if I wasn't sure I'd ever be 100% again. As would you. Now if he's at 90% of his old Vancouver self, and willing to play for less than 3 million - I would absolutely take him. Will he ever be a first line guy again? No, but just imagine him on a line with Franzen. And he'd like to come back here... Simply awesome.

At least Godard is out of the west now, and we'll see Hordichuk less - But, overall, the West is toughening up (I'm looking at you PHX). We're really going to need to keep our HW and LHW.