evilzyme

He played real good for his first game. You could see how nervous he was when they had him scoped in and he could barely hold onto the Gatorade bottle and his hands were shaking bad. Nice to see him make some good defensive plays. I like that reach of his, real active in the lanes. He made sure the crease was clear and that no one got near Jimmy, I loved that. Wasn't over physical but allowed his body play to restrict a lot of space. I really liked it.

Babcock said there will be a "wholesale" change and all 3 defensemen that weren't playing last night will be playing tonight. He certainly wasn't happy with the game last night, either should anyone. 

Rough second period boys, let's pull it together in the third here. 

You guys can hate Crosby but he is a damn good product for this sport. Yes, I hated him and still do hate him with a passion but he is still a damn good hockey player and there is NO debating that. He has cleaned up his little hissy fit attitude bulls*** and has matured. He is becoming a better leader and a better hockey player. He brings new fans to this sport just from his play alone. He is good for this sport, and it frickin hurts when he gets injured like that. I would NEVER want to see the world's best player get injured to the point where he could not play this game anymore.

 

Now, back on topic. Last I heard because of the titanium plate, he was looking at a 4-6 week long recovery. They didn't need to wire his jaw shut and the new technology of these plates make recovery time less. They were talking that he for sure would be back for the playoffs, but I certainly could see concussion symptoms coming back to haunt him after such a viscous hit to the head (not by a player... but a puck). 

 

In good news though, hopefully I can watch the Penguins melt down in the playoffs. 

I think Gaborik will do well in Columbus just because he is getting out of New York with Torts. He was quoted while in transit to Columbus saying something along the lines of, "I'm happy to play where they actually want me." Him and Torts couldn't even look each other in the eye. I think we'll start seeing flashes of the real Gabby with CBJ. Not to mention, he'll be joining some of his old buddies there! 

Well, I guess that's it, then.  The rebuild is upon us.

 

I can't say I'm happy with it, but it is what it is.

 

I'm extremely frustrated with Holland's choice to stand pat, but I can also begin to understand.  He wants to build this team again.  We entered the twilight of this franchise's success in 2009 and now it's finally over.

 

We're committed to youth.  Our farm system is extremely boom-or-bust, but it's all we have.  Or are we?  We still employ the likes of Cleary, Bertuzzi, and Samuelsson.  Three contracts that could be used on young talent.  But no.

 

So, what do we do going forward?  I'll start with right this second and go into the beginning of next season.  I'll touch slightly on the draft and free agency.  I don't know what the market will look like come "Opening Day" and I'm not in-tune enough with the world of hockey prospects to really make a sensible draft list.

 

I'm doing this operating under the assumption that we make the playoffs.  Missing the playoffs wouldn't change much as far as core needs and tasks, anyways.

 

Well, here we go.

 

- Begin contract talks with Filpulla.  DO NOT go in with a "sign-or-let-walk" attitude.  If his demands are unreasonable (I would consider pretty much what he's making now to be reasonable, given his production), be prepared to move his rights at the Draft.

 

- Finish Howard's extension.  While he is prone to inconsistency and lets in soft goals on occasion, he's the best we have.  He's probably worth around 4-5 million a season.  He's playing well right now and seems to have put last year's injury behind him. Where the hell is the inconsistencies? You must be meaning over-worked. Jimmy is the centerpiece of consistency, and has been one of the few wings to be considered consistent this season. I have to disagree with your statement, "He's playing well" he's playing on his head right now. 

 

- Go into the playoffs and do what you're going to do.  Allow our current rookies to show what they can do in the playoffs. Sure, use all of our rookies and ice the Griffins, i'm sure they'll work their way to the cup instead of veteran's who have done the dance before. You need a perfect influx of youth and veteran leadership. Talented youth won't get you far, look at Edmonton and their previous years. They add #1 overall's to their roster 3 years in a row and still struggle. Luckily, they're finally pulling something together before they drafted for the 4th year.

 

- When all is said and done, go to work.  It's time to trim the fat.  Use cap-compliance buyouts on Samuelsson and Bertuzzi.  Try and move Colaiacovo at the Draft, if possible. Bertuzzi should not get bought out unless his injury calls for him to retire. Why do you think Pavel likes Abby on his line? He can replace Bert and play that role. Bert and Pasha produce together, and work together very nicely. Sammy shouldn't have been brought in but what can we do.

 

- This is the big one: dangle Franzen at the Draft.  By no means am I saying to absolutely move him for whatever someone shoves under your nose.  I'm saying to dangle him.  See what you can get.  If you find an offer that you can't refuse, take it.  He's aging, inconsistent, soft, and doesn't use his size.  He's not a player that will perform well in the East. As much as we hate Franzen, you will not replace his point production for his cap hit. I just can't agree with this.

 

- As far as draft strategy, size and scoring need to be the focus.  The East is a totally different monster from the West.  We're going to get eaten alive in the first couple of seasons.  Find a sniping power-forward who plays with an edge and a big, strong, right-handed defenseman early on.  Fill out the draft with some good two-way guys.  We need all the effort at both ends of the rink we can get. We are getting bigger, and we have bigger guys in the pipeline. The East is not as big as everyone thinks. The Wings have been playing the Eastern conference since day one, we just play the Western conference a lot more. Go look at our records against the "big bad teams" we will be matching against next season, you'll be surprised to know we're well over .500 on every single team. Smaller players do exist in the East, it's not a myth, and they produce just fine.

 

- After the Draft and everything settles down until the re-sign period, sit down and have a REAL heart-to-heart with Datsyuk.  I don't care what BS the media spews about him wanting to leave after this contract.  I want to hear it from his mouth.  If he does indeed intend to leave, be prepared to make him available at the deadline and move him.  Losing Datsyuk for nothing is absolutely unacceptable. Holland already said that he hasn't had talks with Pasha, but plans on having them with him and his agent before Pavel leaves for Russia during the off-season. Oh by the way, you don't move Pasha, you just don't.

 

- Seriously re-evaluate your position on Brendan Smith.  Let's be honest with ourselves.  He hasn't been very good since his first few games after being called up.  He's been invisible far too often.  He makes a ton of mistakes and, quite frankly, isn't contributing offensively.  This should affect your demands from him contractually when it's time to re-sign him.  If he doesn't like it...tough. Wowzer, so we're going to give Kindl all the time in the world to get his chances, but in the first full season of Brendan Smith you want to write him off? Okay. 

 

- Now comes the re-sign period.  Brunner needs to be the top priority.  He shows a desire to go to the dirty scoring areas, and that translates to the East.  While he is undersized, totally un-physical and hard to watch defensively, he scores goals.  We can't afford to let that go.  Get him for a reasonable raise (3 million should be fine, at the very most).  Next, Kindl and Smith need new contracts.  Neither realistically command a significant raise.  2.5-3 million each should be just fine.  If not, I wouldn't go beyond 4 for either.

 

-Free-agency comes next.  Waive bye-bye to Cleary and White.  Completely unnecessary plugs who aren't much use anymore.  Make Gustavsson available, and take whatever you can get for him.  In what little we ask of him to do, he has been downright awful.  Mrazek needs the experience.  He deserves a chance to prove he can hold down the backup role.  See if Miller can be re-signed for about what he's making now.  If not, it's not a catastrophe to let him walk. Mrazek is easily 2-3 years before even backing up Jimmy Howard at this level of play. He simply isn't ready to be considered a back-up right now. Let Monster continue out his contract. 

 

- Same strategy should apply to free agency as was applied to the draft.  We won't have a whole lot of money to spend, so we're probably not going to be very active.  We're screwed cap-wise with so many free agents.  I'm going to do the rest of this assuming we aren't active.

 

- As we enter training camp, we now have 7 defenseman (Kronwall, Lashoff, Quincey, Smith, DeKeyser, Kindl and Ericsson), so there aren't many open spots.  None of our defense prospects are close to being ready.  I can see Lashoff being the 7th defenseman during the season. Lashoff being the 7th next season? Babcock is already giving him big minutes for a rookie and putting him out there in key chances. He has absolute trust in him, and treasures his play. I really can't see him sitting 7th, especially if he isn't THIS season.

 

- Forward is a little trickier.  Put Abdelkader in the bottom-6 where he belongs and keep him there.  He is not, and never will be, a goal-scorer.  There are three openings now that Cleary, Bertuzzi, and Samuelsson are gone.  Tatar should be brought up full-time.  No one else is really NHL-ready.  Try to find two young forwards with size and decent offensive skill on the market.  I can see us going with a lineup looking like this: Abdelkader WOULD be in the bottom 6 if Bert wasn't hurt. He simply is one of the few that can mimic the play of Bert and provide Pasha the same Bert does. Tatar has shown us a lot, but he certainly needs to be better defensively. I would bring him up this year but it isn't my choice. You want to call no-one else NHL ready but you state right after this that you want Jarnkrok to be a call-up next season? He needs atleast a full season with the Griffs or an OUTSTANDING summer to break the lineup next year. Sproul called up? He just is getting called up to the Griffins. Sproul is not going to be ready next season. Even if Pulk joins the Griffs next year, I won't see him being ready until the following year. 

 

Filpulla - Datsyuk - Franzen

Tatar - Zetterberg - Brunner

Nyquist - Andersson - Abdelkader

Miller/Eaves - Emmerton - Tootoo

 

Kronwall - Ericsson

Smith - DeKeyser

Kindl - Quincey

Lashoff

 

Howard

Mrazek

 

- Be prepared to call-up Jarnkrok, Pulkinnen and Sproul during the season if injuries hit.  They aren"t ready for full-time duty, but could hold down a spot for us.

 

And that's about it right through the start of the season.  Essentially, it's about cleaning up the mess from last offseason and getting serious about installing a youth movement to me.

 

I do NOT want to go the way of Calgary, Buffalo, and Dallas.  Middling in the middle while you try to rebuild on the fly DOES NOT WORK.  We can get back on the road to winning consistently if we cut the over-loyal BS and start managing in the 21st century. If you had faith in your GM, and saw the past history, he would rather keep this team in mediocre playoff contention than allow us to just rebuild for the next 10 years. Come... on. 

 

I tried hitting on everything, but this whole post just makes me want to implode.

Who knows if those offers were even competitive?  If your roster is the same as when you entered the deadline, you stood pat.  He could've upped the ante, but he didn't.  He decided to stick with what he had.  It's neither here nor there.  The deadline is over and there's no sense bitching about it anymore.

 

Literally nowhere in this did I once say he stood pat during the summer.

 

In addition to all this, this has nothing to do what the original post.

 

If they weren't competitive they wouldn't have continued talks. Holland just wouldn't extend further when they took the price too high. The Rangers wanted Brunner apart of a package for Gaborik. Pominville would've costed us Mrazek, Jarnkrok, a 1st, and 2nd; LGW would've IMPLODED if that had gone down. Iggy didn't want to come to us. What else did you want him to get? Another depth player? I'm sorry but Holland is 100% right when he says, my injuried players are better than any depth player that was on the market. WHY trade away a prospect, pick, ANYTHING when you already have a player of that skill within your system, they're just injured? 

 

We need to seriously take a step back and see the smartness in not pulling the trigger on these dumb trades. So what if Holland didn't do s*** this trade deadline, he was smart for not doing so. That rebuild you don't want us to experience... we would've been experiencing if we wanted to start trading away picks and prospects at this point. At this point and time, Wings fans just want a new toy, some change, something. You know it's bad when you consider fighting for a playoff spot for the first time within 22 years, "a horrible thing." MY GOD HOW COULD HOLLAND ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN? FRONT OFFICE. UNACCEPTABLE CONTINUED SUCCESS. 

Oh and final note: we have enough of these "I hate my life and the Red Wings life" threads. Stop making separate threads to simply ***** about something. This easily could've been included within another "If****** hate Holland and this team" threads.

/rant

I'm going to be the darkhorse here and not blame this all on Ken Holland like all the other fans. Why? Because I understand that Holland COULD"VE tried to get all he could. What honestly did he have to play with? Ian White? Filp? Great, two players that would be RENTALS. You think we're going to cash in and get a top-6 player or top-4 defensemen with two players that contracts end at the expiration of this season? For all we know, Holland could've been on the phones for the past who knows how long -- TRYING his best -- only to get turned down on the other side. 

 

Everyone is so fixated on just getting rid of White and Filp but you have to understand, if you wanted any value out of these players they would have to get packaged with a top prospect and/or picks. No rightful GM is going to take on a rental and give up top roster players. So, if we could all calm the hell down, stop thinking that the world is over and re-evaluate things, you will be in a much better mood today.

 

Does it SUCK that we didn't do anything? Yeah, but at the same time atleast we have a GM that won't just trade away things to trade away things. Holland is one of the few GM's in this league that will keep his team competitive. Stop thinking you need to win the Stanley Cup every year. You could be in a fan base that hasn't made the playoffs within 20 years, you could be that franchise that hasn't won a cup in 40 years, but guess what? WE AREN'T AND HAVEN'T DEALT WITH THAT SINCE 21 SEASONS AGO! We've been in the playoffs for 21 straight seasons, and we won frickin 4 Stanley Cups within that timeline. Some of you guys are seriously just looking to get some "change", and "change" isn't always going to result in good things.

 

Look at the penguins (this is a s***ty example but roll with it gents);

They add Iggy, Morrow, and Murray. They play last night and get steam-rolled by BUFFALO 4-1. They had picked up those 3 and people were immediately dawning their names on the Stanley Cup. Crosby goes down and their line-up looks shaken now. We don't even know how this is going to end with all these franchises that made moves today. For all we know, every team today that traded could go on losing streaks because it screwed with chemistry. 

 

Moral of the story:

STOP BEING PESSIMIST AND START BEING A LITTLE FRICKIN OPTIMISTIC GENTS.

Without roster limits, they need to be fielding the best team in order to give this team the best chance at ending this season on a great note and into the playoffs with some confidence. What scares me is that even with roster limits removed and waivers gone, we're still not going to see Tatar up in the big show. I really think he's going to stay down there for the rest of the season. They've said that Andersson has proven his worth, and Nyquist hasn't gotten the true opportunity that he needs, but that Tatar just had better opportunity. They said he did good, but immediately with Lashoff they said, "Come after Wednesday, he's immediately back with us." They haven't said ANYTHING to that extent with Tatar. You have zero excuses now Babs, play the boys that will give you heart and drive ontop of bringing some skill in the bottom 6.

I was doing my normal morning hockey reads, catching up on the latest news that happened from when I went to sleep until when I woke up, and I came across this article written by Malik.

 

Babcock has said that he loves the new challlenge this young group provides him, and that while decisions and mistakes may make people scratch their head, this is the most consistent group he's had in terms of work ethic and preparation.

 

"It’s been exciting and invigorating to coach a team with a lot of kids,” Detroit coach Mike Babcock insisted Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “I’ve heard people say that we’re not consistent, but I will say this is the most consistent group we’ve had in terms of preparation and work ethic since we’ve been here. Do we make mistakes and do things that make you scratch your head? Yeah, we’ve got kids playing a lot. But we compete for one and another and that’s what we’re still hanging in the playoff picture.”

 

Along with that, the article provides information on Holland and the trade deadline, DeKeyser and Abby speaking on behalf that any team could win the cup this year.

 

http://kuklaskorner....-coach-is-enjoy

 

“Especially in the Western Conference, anybody can beat anybody,” Abdelkader said. “You just have to get in the playoffs, when anything can happen. Look at what happened with LA last season” when the Kings became the first eighth-seeded team to hoist the Stanley Cup.

 

“We still have a lot of good pieces here and tremendous leadership and we have a backstop in Howie that bails us out when we need him to,” Abdelkader said. “We definitely don’t have some of the pieces that have led this team for so many years, but we’ve got leaders who have stepped up on ice with their play.”

 

 

DeKeyser:

 

“He’s coming to a program where things are going to be a bit different, yet we just have to get him in the lineup,'' Babcock said. “The reason we didn’t play him this weekend is because he has been off from practice since (Sunday). And we want him to be skating and comfortable for when he does go in for his first game.''

 

 

Holland:

 

While Holland believes there will be plenty of trades before the deadline, he doesn’t imagine there will be many impact deals done. “I just think it’s the league,” he said. “I think the conversation we’re having today is the same conversation we’re having next year and I think it’s the conversation from last year. If we pulled up last year’s trade-deadline moves, and every year there’s between 20-30, 90 percent of them are little depth moves. It’s a fourth-round pick for this one, a third-round pick for that one. Every year there’s that odd big deal, but teams really make their moves at the June draft. And then there are some rentals.

 

“Obviously, Pittsburgh has been really aggressive, but beyond that I don’t think much has gone on around the National Hockey League. I think we wake up Wednesday and because of history we’ll have 20-30 trades, but lots of deals will be made for depth. I’ve had some conversations with some teams about the odd depth player. And I really don’t have an interest. Again, because of the development of (Jakub) Kindl, the development of Lashoff, Brendan Smith, because of the signing of Dan DeKeyser on defence, we’ve got nine guys here and had to trade away Kent Huskins to make room.

 

“Because of the development of Joakim Andersson, who we really like, because Patty Eaves is healthy, because we signed Damien Brunner, who can play in the NHL, you look up front and we don’t need any depth. Then you look and Todd Bertuzzi (back injury) is practicing every day and barring any setback we’re hoping sometime in the next couple of weeks that he’s going to play. It’s been tough year for (Darren) Helm for injuries, tough year for Bert with injuries, for Sammy (Mikael Samuelsson) with injuries, but we’ve been able to stay afloat and I think our depth has kept up afloat. So I can’t go out and acquire any better depth than the depth we’ve got that’s kept us afloat.”

 

“There are depth players out there that in the past we may have been interested in, but because of what has transpired here over the last 6-8 weeks with all the injuries it’s been an opportunity for some young guys to get in and they’ve done a good job,” he said. “Lashoff, Kindl and Andersson have really done a great job. Tatar played well when he was in. I don’t think (Gustav) Nyquist has really gotten the opportunity that he really needs. He’s sort of in and out. (Tomas) Tatar seemed to have a better opportunity, but there’s more people back though. I think we’re a deeper team today than we were six weeks ago. And I’m hoping we can get lucky over the next six weeks with some of these injured people.

 

Once again, another thread that could easily be added to the TRADE DEADLINE thread. Just sayin', there's bound to be MANY trades, keep them from flooding the main section of the general discussion. Not that hard folks.

 

With that being said, good job by the Rags.

I'm almost positive the Trade deadline thread exists for a reason. We should start using it instead of clogging up the general discussion thread with a million trade threads.

Babcock and Holland said it was strictly to allow DeKeyser to sign his ELC. Once the 23 man roster limit goes away on Wednesday he'll be right back with the club.

I'm fine with that, he may be NHL ready but I would not want a kid with only a day with the team to suit up against Chicago. Colorado is fine though.

 

Exactly what I was thinking. Chicago may make him go condition black. Colorado may have speed, but he's used to speedy college kids. I would be much more comfortable with him in his first game infront of the home crowd against Colorado. He's going to be nervous, anxious, first game playing for his childhood team, infront of his home crowd. Sure, he's played at the Joe for the CCHA, but it doesn't equate to playing in the Winged Wheel infront of a Red Wings crowd. 

Helene St. James ‏@HeleneStJames 1 min
#RedWings win D Danny DeKeyser sweepstakes. He'll join practices asap, but won't play Sunday when Wings host Blackhawks.

 

Most likely will be in Monday.

Bob McKenzie ‏@TSNBobMcKenzie3m

Dan DeKeyser has chosen DET.