number9

Because the Red Wings can't suffer from the loss of a great defenseman and they will always be good no matter what Holland and Co do. And a team should never prepare for a future when their stars retire because that never happens ever. And when that never happens its okay because the Wings are incapable of not making the playoffs so they can just insert any player in to the #1 D position and they will magically become Lidstrom. And its not like their are 3 very good teams in the Central not to mention the good teams on the west coast, and the separation between playoff teams and non-playoff teams is over the last few season only 2-3 points. Nope it's nothing like this, its just like those internet myths, Y2k, Mayan Calender and the Detroit Red Wings missing the playoffs due to short sighted management and NHL parity.

Yeah the wings dont have a Lidstrom anymore....but no other team has a Lidstrom either lol

who said were not preparing for the future? who said stars never retire? who said were gonna put a random d-man in the #1 spot? who said the central division/western conference was bad?
you confuse me sir, and your doom/gloom disturbs me.

Why is it, when we talk about "floaters" in the NHL, it always seems to be European players? Do these Euro's just don't care when it comes down to it? Is the NHL not as important to them? Do they get their money and just mail it in for the rest of their careers? Are there any North American floaters? I am not singling out the Euro's, but it just always seems when the word "floater" is brought up, it seems it is always referring to a European player...More times than not...What about the term "locker room cancer" I hear this thrown around alot and that seems to have been said more so of Euro's too, but at least I have heard it about a few NA's...strange if you ask me...wonder what is behind this...coincidence?

Communism

This is the doomsday scenario that Holland has seemed to never planned for. The writing has been on the wall for the last 4 seasons that Lidstrom would be gone, and it's become painfully obvious none of Kindl, Kronwall, or Ericsson were going to be the next top D-man they were thought to be. In the mean time Detroit has also been deficient in the natural goal scorer area. Holland took a chance on Franzen, but he seems to have chosen wrong and Franzen has been nowhere near what hes been before his contract. Now Detroit has been bounced early in the playoffs, the holes in the line up are mounting and players like Carle and Widemann/Semin and Doan will not fill the holes to make this team as competitive that a team needs to be to be real contenders.

The point of this is that Holland could have done a better job of transitioning the team so that they wouldn't be dependent on getting two top tier players thought FA in one offseason to stay where they have been the last 20 years.

And then Y2K will happen and the Mayans will start the apocalypse

Remember when everyone hit the panic button and wanted to see this kid rot in prison for all eternity lol? Good for him.

First of all I think the long-term outlook of a team always matters to potential FA's. Second, there is reason to think it might be now.

1. The numbers: The numbers of all our 'core' or 'star' players are and have been falling in past years save for Filpulla.
2. IMO, there are no prospects with real star potential to replace these guys that are getting older and watching their production fall. I think Smith is the closest thing to that and even he could be a bust. And even if he makes something of himself, is it going to be Nik Lidstrom something? Not likely.
3. It all starts and stops with Lidstrom for me. I think his retirement (be it this year or the next) is going to be the beginning of the end of our twenty year run. It always seems to me that when Nik goes, we go. He's the leader of this team without question and it's going to be hard to compensate for the loss of him.

1. The numbers: The numbers of all our 'core' or 'star' players (including Yzerman/Shanahan/Chelios/Hull/Hasek/ect.) are and have been falling in past years save for Zetterberg.
2. IMO, there are no prospects with real star potential to replace these guys that are getting older and watching their production fall. I think Datsyuk is the closest thing to that and even he could be a bust. And even if he makes something of himself, is it going to be Sergei Fedorov something? Not likely.
3. It all starts and stops with Yzerman for me. I think his retirement (be it this year or the next) is going to be the beginning of the end of our ten year run. It always seems to me that when Stevie goes, we go. He's the leader of this team without question and it's going to be hard to compensate for the loss of him.

no, I said experiment all you want, but get your job done this summer.  Without using the name Suter, I would think that most people would understand that means do what you need to do then look for depth experiments. But by the looks of it, I guess they don't.

"Please Mr. Holland, make this team better than last year by getting the best available player on D and O.  I like that you are looking at depth signings too! Please don't make them you first priority..."

I just think it's a silly that you think that might be his top priority.....of course its not lol its just all he can do until July 1st. Be patient.

Nyquist - ? - ?
Tatar - Jarnkrok - Jurco
? - Sheahan - ?
? - ? - ?

? - Smith
? - Ouellet
? - ?

?
Mrazek


Pulkkinen gets traded for not working hard enough

Haha... Talk about overestimating. What world do you live in? Try and be objective.

...Overestimating what? Just so you know it usually helps if you explain yourself or offer evidence/support for arguments....if you even have any for whatever point your trying to make...

It's not as hard to reload when you have some of the best drafting and player development in the league, and your one of the top free agent destinations in the league lol....now if this was Edmonton or Columbus....

Emmerton: NHL ready
Mursak: NHL ready
Andersson: NHL ready
Smith: NHL ready
Nyquist: NHL ready
Sheahan: Call up
Tatar: Call up
(insert free agents name here)
(insert free agents name here)

That's potentially about 9 players who will be fighting for NHL ice time....plus Holmstrom makes 10....we've still got about 2 more seasons of reloading left IMO though.....

Almost forgot about Conner and Brunnstrom (did we give up on them yet?)

I think you're underestimating how hard it is to "reload" like what happened last time when Stevie Y was on his way out.

It's not as hard to reload when you have some of the best drafting and player development in the league, and your one of the top free agent destinations in the league lol....now if this was Edmonton or Columbus....

Emmerton: NHL ready
Mursak: NHL ready
Andersson: NHL ready
Smith: NHL ready
Nyquist: NHL ready
Sheahan: Call up
Tatar: Call up
(insert free agents name here)
(insert free agents name here)

That's potentially about 9 players who will be fighting for NHL ice time....plus Holmstrom makes 10....we've still got about 2 more seasons of reloading left IMO though.....

No team in the NHL (aside from the teams that get top10 picks every year) have "sure fire" NHLers in their farm system. That doesn't change the fact that DRWs have some of the best looking prospects they've had in 20 years. Besides Yzerman, who was Detroit's "sure fire" pick? Red Wings currently have two NHLers in the farm named Smith and Nyquist. Whether or not they are future stars, nobody knows. But they sure as hell will be NHLers. You'd have to very ignorant about hockey to not see this.

5 players hitting the prime of their careers is pretty amazing. Nothing to be  all chicken little about, that's for sure. You also conveniently forgot to rebut on the cap space DRWs have.... doesn't fit into your agenda?

You are really blinded by negativity. It must be miserable being you.

You sound like a guy on another message forum named "Captain Bob", are you related?

In the past we never really had a stacked farm....yet we always had amazing players trickling through the system....but now for once i can say im actually really excited about our farm....so many good players, so much potential there, im like a giddy school girl lol....if worst came to worst and only a few trickled through i would still be thrilled!

The brilliant mind of Lloyd Christmas + The positive outlook of Friedrich Nietzsche + The cool headedness of Chicken Little = Richdg

Way to show a complete lack of class. But you have to live with yourself, not me. To bad you can't engage your mind. Good to see the old commie trick of: "if you can't refute the message, attack the messager", is alive and well.

later I will take these thoughts and tie these with the wings and their roster. I am sure that will be fun! LOL!

OMG I CANT WAIT

So you have proven that you flunked statistics 101.  What a load of crap.  All of your number are totals i.e. total points, total goals, etc.  So lets's look at Datsyuk.  He missed alot of games this year due to injury.  As a result he gets a "red" mark in points, shots, goals, etc. because his totals are down and all of his totals are down for the year because of injury.  From this you conclude that he is declining.  And who cares about having individual players that put up great numbers.  It's a team sport and the Wings were once again near the top of the league in scoring.

Fail.

Bingo!

Actually, now that I understand what you where trying to say, it proves my point. If dat was at 125% scoring in 2008 and is at 95% scoring in 2012, that is a 30% DECLINE! Not to mention he is playing fewer and fewer games each year. In 08 and 09 Dat had 97 points. he played 82 games in 08 and 81 games in 09. Now he is down to the mid and lower 70's in games played. So thanks for making my point.

OMG you are crazy and know nothing about the NHL if you think anywhere in the 70s for amount of games played is bad.

95% scoring percentage is nothing to frown about...we all should be jumping for joy because most players will never even dream of hitting that....its amazing that even at 30% decline from 5 years ago hes still barely below 100%....his numbers are also way more consistent than almost every other elite forward in the league (most shift way more than 30% across 5 years) . In 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 we also had a much more complete and well rounded team....If we had those teams every year around Dats he could probably go beyond 125% on an up year.

Ovechkin
2007/2008 = 136%
2011/2012 = 83%
decline of 53%
^ Whoa! By the looks of it Ovi is old and washed up like you think Dats is! Caps better trade him cause hes going nowhere but down. He's certainly not one of the top 5 players in league anymore or anytime soon! (sarcasm)

Kovalchuk
2007/2008 = 110%
2010/2011 = 74%
decline of 36%
^ Kovy is younger than Dats and decreased by 6% more over a shorter time span!... but wait look what happened this year!
2011/2102 = 107%
^ He's back up to his old numbers!

Lets look at a guy older than Dats shall we!
Selanne
2007/2008 = 88%
2010/2011 = 109%
^ Holy crap! At an age older than Dats he increased his numbers by 21%!!!.....but look what happened this year...
2011/2012 = 80%
^ The whole team had a bad year and he's down to 80%!

Lets look at the top 2 forwards in each of the final four teams....

Kopitar
2011/2012 = 92%
M. Richards
2011/2012 = 59%

Gaborik
2011/2012 = 92%
B. Richards
2011/2012 = 80%

Kovalchuk
2011/2012 = 107%
Parise
2011/2012 = 84%

Whitney
2011/2012 = 93%
Vrbata
2011/2012 = 80%

By your logic none of these teams should still be in the playoffs.....The only one who did better than Datsyuk this year is Kovy and as we both know Kovy plays terrible defense compared to Dats and he's wayyyyyyy overpaid compared to Dats. All those players play worse D than Dats (besides M. Richards, but he only hit 59%)....And most are paid more than Dats.... problem is not Dats. Maybe we should just put the right pieces around him like we did in 07/08/09....a sniper like Hossa and/or a strong bottom 6 and allow him to excel again.

I wonder why you and others like you, who view disagreement with their catastrophic theories as resulting from stupidity, blindness or self-delusion, even bother to visit DISCUSSION forums. If you want your words to be read and not disagreed with, then go write a blog.

I wonder why somebody who completely disagrees with the wings system, has zero faith in our veteran players, and thinks we are heading straight into the gutter, is even a wings fan lol.