chriskzoo

Is there anything preventing the Wings from a Zetterbern type deal - let's say they give Hossa $6M a year for the first 6 years, then $1M a year for the next 6 - so you have a $42M contract over 12 years, but give Hossa the option to opt-out in the first year once the $1M/year kicks in...I'm not sure how the NHL cap works, other than the cap number is the average of the contract (i.e. can you even do opt-outs)?

I trust Holland with whatever he does, but they can't be too short sighted. They could buy out Homer for I think $700k and that would free up another $1.5M in space this year. Combine that with Lidstrom's contract running out after this year ($7.5M a year) and hopefully resigning for $6M or so, and that's another $1.5M available next year. With Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Hossa, and Franzen on the team, the Wings almost guarantee themselves of having the top 2-line combuination in the league.

Ottawa is trying to trade him, but he counts $7.5M against the cap. What is everyone's thoughts on Hossa vs. Heatley? If they go for Heatley, I can see seomthing like trading Homer and a lesser player or two to relieve some of the cap burden.

That's funny, because today he said, and I quote: “I have no regrets. I’ve been on both sides of it, and it’s not fun being on the losing end. But it doesn’t change anything. You still shake hands no matter what.†What's curious is that every other Penguin made it through the line and the first 6 or 7 Wings in line and Crosby was over blowing Bettman or whatever the heck he was doing. I'm actually glad he did it because it gives the Wings motivation to annhilate him next year.

Yeah, Homer is a great guy, but once Franzen emerged last year on the PP while Homer was out, it rendered Homer almost a luxury on the PP second unit.

See, I don't buy that. Yeah, his production wasn't huge in the Finals, but when Datsyuk and Lidtstrom were out, he stepped his game up to push the Wings past the Blackhawks in 5 games (then again, maybe 6 would have been better!)

I think it's time for Holland to call for some tough love and that means that Homer, and Maltby all need to be gone for the long term betterment of the team. It's pretty clear to me what the lines should be: Cleary - Zetterberg - Franzen Hossa - Datsyuk - Hudler Helm - Filppula - Leino Abdelkader - Draper - (cheap free agent) How does the NHL interpret the cap number - that is key for the Hossa signing. If they just average out the deal, I don't see how the Wings can sign him because they only have like $3M under the cap. If they can do it like the NFL where you can specify what gets paid in what year, they can probably do a reverse of the Zetterberg/Franzen contracts and backload it a bit more. Unless the money is a HUGE issue, I just can't see Hossa going anywhere else and putting even more pressure on himself. The Wings are the perfect organization for him - he doesn't need to be "The Man" every night and appreciates everyone buying into a D oriented gameplan.

Anyone know if Don Cherry (who I love) showed the Ericcson/Perry fight? I know he had a big segment a while back saying that if you wear a shield you should never fight a guy without a shield and wondered if he would show that with a Canadian wearing a shield and a Euro not wearing a shield.

Is Hudler a free agent after this year? I think next year we'll probably see lines like this if he's gone: Homer - Z - Datsyuk Mule - Filppula - Hossa Cleary - Lieno - Kopetsky Helm - Draper - Samuellson Lidstrom - Rafalski Stuart - Kronwall Ericcson - Meech/Lebda