Berry

I'm swiss and I know Brunner very well. He has been the best player for the last couple of seasons. Apparently, he has a very good work ethic and he is a good finisher too.

The gap between NHL and Swiss National Leaugue is big, but he has great skating abilites and he is fast with the puck. He never had problems playing against physical teams.

MLive and Detnews say that Brunner will sign with the Wings, but Swiss sites are more neutral (as Switzerland is : ) ). We have to way a couple of days before knowing if he is going to sign. Apparently, he is not allowed to talk to the media because he still have a contract with Zug (until july 1st).

I'll let you know!

As swiss, I'd love to see Brunner wearing the winged wheel!

In our league he is one of the best. He is young, he can skate and he has good hands.

Come on Kenny!!

Here's mine: F*** you Weber !!!

Some thoughts…

Red Wings have now lost 4 in a row and things do not seem to get better. At the beginning of the season Holland, Babs and all the players said that they liked this team.

It is a few seasons now that I think that our team needs a big change. The players don’t change, the way of playing doesn’t change… this is pretty weird. In the same all the other teams are making changes.  

In this team we only have 4-5 guys which can make the difference in every game: Lidstrom, Z, Dats and Howie and sometimes Franzen.

All the other guys are simply average NHL players. This team is full of players which play well 1 game and then vanish for the next 3-4 and this is unacceptable (if you want to be a cup contender).

I’m sick of hearing: “this will be Flip’s breakout year”, “Huds is in shape and he will score 70 points”,  “Commodore and White are better than Rafalski”, “we lost tonight because we played 2 game in a row and we were tired “ etc.

Kenny Holland should change a little bit his mind. Sometime you need trades to improve a team!!! Hope this will happen soon.

By adding Semin, this team could easily go to the conference/stanley cup finals and beat them all.

But I don't think this will happen (adding Semin). In fact Holland is already thinking about next year's free agents (especially Kronner -> his salary will increase) and about the salary cap that will probably go down (that means the we'll loose some players).

Hi guys.

During the first weeks of febraury 2012 I'll make a trip to the United States (tourist). I'm a Red Wings fan and I'd like to come to the Joe to see a match.

Can everyone tell me the procedure to purchase tickets in internet?

Thanks a lot! See you at the Joe!

So let's summarize a little bit what we said during these gloomy weeks...


In order to have a stanley cup potential, the wings need:

- a 2nd line center/winger who can score and handle the puck well (Richard'd be perfect)

- a 25 minutes solid Dman (Weber is a dream...), 2 if Lids retires

- Eaves, Drapes (min salary) back and a solid 3rd line Dman (similar to Salei)

- trade flip or hudler

- keep Joey Mac

The lines would be:

CAPGEEK.COM CAP CALCULATOR

FORWARDS
Jiri Hudler ($2.875m) / Pavel Datsyuk ($6.700m) / Johan Franzen ($3.954m)
Henrik Zetterberg ($6.083m) / Brad Richards ($7.000m) / Daniel Cleary ($2.800m)
Todd Bertuzzi ($1.937m) / Darren Helm ($0.912m) / Tomas Holmstrom ($1.875m)
Justin Abdelkader ($0.787m) / Kris Draper ($1.583m) / Patrick Eaves ($0.750m)

DEFENSEMEN
Brad Stuart ($3.750m) / Shea Weber ($7.000m)
Niklas Kronwall ($3.000m) / Nicklas Lidstrom ($6.200m)
Brendan Smith ($0.875m) / Jakub Kindl ($0.883m)

GOALTENDERS
Jimmy Howard ($2.250m) / Joey MacDonald ($0.550m)

CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(these totals are compiled without the bonus cushion)
SALARY CAP: $62,200,000; CAP PAYROLL: $61,767,044; BONUSES: $0
CAP SPACE (20-man roster): $432,956

Isn't it a dream team??? Up to you guys....

FORWARDS
Brooks Laich ($2.066m) / Pavel Datsyuk ($6.700m) / Johan Franzen ($3.954m)
Joel Ward ($2.500m) / Henrik Zetterberg ($6.083m) / Daniel Cleary ($2.800m)
Todd Bertuzzi ($1.937m) / Darren Helm ($0.912m) / Patrick Eaves ($0.750m)
Tomas Holmstrom ($1.875m) / Justin Abdelkader ($0.787m) / Tomas Tatar ($0.870m)

DEFENSEMEN
Nicklas Lidstrom ($6.200m) / Niklas Kronwall ($3.000m)
Brad Stuart ($3.750m) / Zach Bogosian ($3.375m)
Brian Rafalski ($6.000m) / Brendan Smith ($0.875m)

GOALTENDERS
Jimmy Howard ($2.250m) / Joey MacDonald ($0.550m)

CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(these totals are compiled without the bonus cushion)
SALARY CAP: $59,400,000; CAP PAYROLL: $57,237,044; BONUSES: $210,000
CAP SPACE (20-man roster): $2,162,956

Destiny. It was a battle between 2 similar teams. Detroit was more injured than SJ but this makes no difference (playoffs don't stop...).

I'm proud to be a fan of this team, big hearts, big guys.

Let me say thank you to the Wings. They did a good job all season long and I'm proud to be a Wings fan!

This offseason we need some changes.

What do you think?

- Lids has to stay for one more season

- Mo, Drapes, Osgood, Salei have to go

- Keep Joey Mac, he was fine for me

- Try to sell Hudler or Filppula, 3 M can be better used (buyout?)

- Re-sign Miller, Eaves, Ericcson

- We have at least 6.5 M left (if the cap doesn't change)... who would you acquire?