Andy Pred 48

out of the playoffs. do NHL teams start to play bad to get a higher draft pick? it surely goes on doesnt it?

the whole process is a farce. Every team in the NHL had a chance to sound out Nabby prior to the Wings signing him, none did. So kenny does all the ground work for some bottom feeder team's GM to screw it up for Nabby and the Wings. I could understand a contender putting in a claim just to stop him from joining Detroit, because if we have a weakness it is in net. Hopefully if this isnt sorted, Kenny has told Nabby that there will be a contract waiting for him in the offseason. What stands out here that the more successful you are as a franchise the more you get shafted.
Its the same with the drafting system. Now we have a cap to put all the teams on the same level, why should the worst team at it benefit each year by getting the #1 pick. Surely the incentive should be to reward the teams who manage the cap most effectively. The cap is in place to stop teams becoming power houses again, so although you may get top 1-5 picks for 5 years by doing well you'll have to let some guys go due to the cap restaints. The Pens stank for awhile, got some great picks and are one of the top sides.

2002 #5 Ryan Whitney 389 games to date.
2003 #1 Marc Andre Fluery 339 games.
2004 #2 Evgeny Malkin 351 games.
2005.#1 Sidney Crosby 412 games.
2006.#2 Jordan Staal 337 games.

Compare that to us who where by far the better run franchise.
2002.#58 Jiri Hudler 298 games.
2003.#64 Jim Howard 108 games.
2004.#97 Johan Franzen 366 games.
2005.#19 Jakub Kindl 23 games.
2006.#41 Cory Emmerton 1 game.
I know we gave picks away so out of those 5 years we only had 1 first round pick, but if the NHL are serious about having a level playing field why not just put the first round picks in a hat, and have a lucky draw for all 30 teams.Then the following rounds would be as they are now, down to final league positions. Would sure make the 1st day of draft day alot more exciting.

Back on topic, maybe this was Kenny's way of sounding out the best non playing NHL goalie out there about playing for the Wings. Hopefully some sort of deal has been done and its just a matter of time before Nabakov becomes a Redwing.

Raffi, Hudler, Kronwall and Minard ($11.87m comb) to NJD for Kovy and Volchenkov ($10.9m comb)bring up Mursak and Smith.

Drapes stays in the press box for what his 6+ min of ice time is worth, i mean we may as well have an enforcer out there.

Lidstrom Ericsson
Stuart Smith
Salei Volchenkov
Kindl

Kovy Dats Mule
Bert Z Dan
Abbey Flip Mursak
Pat Helmer Drew
/Homer/Drapes
IR Mikey

Tongue in cheek guys ( but very workable cap wise)

Not enough old soviet guys in the current team, Pav needs a sniper on his wing. Sergei Mozyakin is only 29,one of the best players outside the NHL, probably happy in Russia thou. Lets hope the current roster can start to get back on track but i have a feeling that Rex is on his way out and that the front office are putting feelers out for potential suitors. Ive said it before a straight swap with the BlueJax for Filatov.

Lilja at the Ducks has played 7 games and has 1 assist with a -3 rating and a ave of 17.15 min ice time.

Hossa at the Hawks has 7+4 in 11 games with a +4 rating and ave of 19.33 ice time.

Kopecky has played 12 games for the Hawks and has 1+8 with a -1 rating. Tomas is getting 18.35 of ice time. How times change eh?

Quincey is having a quiet start, after having 2 good season's he is pointless in 11 games and is -4 ave 19.39 min ice time.

Ex prospect Matthias has played 7 games for the Panthers has 2+2 with a +3 rating and is ave 11.48 on the ice.

Avery at the Rangers has gained 1+6 in his 10 games to date amassing 25pims and a +3 rating within his 14.18 of ice per game.

Leino at the Flyers has played in all of their 11 games to date collecting 2+7 with a +2 rating and ave 15.29 out on the ice.

Whitney has played 8 games for the Yotes collecting just 3 assists with a -4 rating and also has been getting 15.29 ice time.

Ritola has been involved in 4 games for the Lightning and has 1+1 with a -2 rating and ave 9.27 mins on the ice.

Lebda at the Leafs has played 4 times so far and is pointless with a -1 rating to go with his 13.43 mins of ice time.

Samuelsson at the Nucks has got 1+5 in his 9 games but has a -2 rating. He has been getting an ave of 17.07 mins out on the ice.

another ex prospect Fleischman has featured in all 11 of the Caps games and has 3+2 with a +5 rating and 14.25 ave ice time.

Still going strong at the Caps as well is Knuble with 1+3 in 11 games a -1 rating and 18.13 mins out on the ice.

Kenny, get the guy signed up. At least we'll have a good 3rd/4th line guy who'll police the top guys and provide the Wings with an intimidating prescence on the ice. We have the skill and the flair and pace, but its that old school factor that is missing, never mind our PP is our enforcer tosh!! He aint enforcing much as of yet! Well i suppose 3 PP goals so far aint bad. Babs has stated he likes having
a guy who'll look out for his team mates, but to get on the Wings roster hes gotta be able to play. Evgeny Artyukhin fits the bill in my book. Who goes or makes way for him or A/N enforcer thou? tough call but unless we do something then we'll keep seeing this being done to
our top guys.

What I cant work out is that Raffi goes down for 3-4 weeks and instead of bringing up a potential top 4 guy to replace him the Wings call up Janik who is a stay at home guy. Id thro young Smith in and see how he does, at least the kid has great wheels to go with his high end skill set. The even mins Babs was going on about hasnt lasted long, Lids logging over 27 mins last night and Janik under 10 mins, im probably just letting off steam here but i get so frustrated when we dont try the good rookies that weve got. Whose gunna replace Mule on sat? are Abs and Drapes near match fit yet? if it was going by pre-season then Mursak should be on the plane now but he wont be. well enough of my moaning, they'll probably go and stuff the Yotes on Sat after all this (hopefully).

Asham for $700k is a good bit of business on the Pens part. Eaves for $750k is good business for the Wings.
Was Asham asking for this amount all along? Its what he was on last year at Philly, and after such a good
year surely he'd be looking for a raise......? Maybe he had to take the same as no one has offered him more
and beside's he is 32 and the Wings have a younger and bigger version in Abdelkader. Asham would only hinder
our 4th line as he wouldn't be able to keep up with his line mates, Eaves,Draper,Helm, Miller and Abby are all
very good skaters, not so sure Asham is in the same class, so he wouldn't necessaraly fit in with our system.

Vladimir Konstantinov, Height 5.11 -- Weight 176 , hit like a train.
You don't have to be 6'4" 230Lb to deliver the goods guys.
The Wings wouldn't have this guy over for nothing.

I DON'T CARE HOW KENNY DOESN IT BUT KABANOV IS GUNNA BE A STAR, GET HIM ON BOARD. ALSO NO ONE HAS MENTIONED THE OTHER MICHIGAN LAD I PAIRED WITH WATSON, Jared Knight OF THE LONDON KNIGHTS. COULD BE
A GOOD SOLID 3RD LINE PLAYER DOWN THE LINE.

Kenny and Babs have both said in the past that the best players will get to play, so we'll wait and see if they back this up. For those of you who ahve stated that Tatar will not see a min let alone a game this coming season, don't put your house on it! The Wings front office are big on this kid and they will bring him up for a stint this season, just to see how he handles it. By all comparison's, (Hudler with speed) and that will do for me. All this let them learn in the A for a few years, well some kids it will help, but occasionally you get a guy where you have to give them the ball early. I think Tatar falls into that catergory.

I just wish Kenny had worked a deal to have kept Hossa here, Im sure he could have done tinkering here and there to have kept him.

Im happy for Ville that he's doing well for his new team. The whole goalscoring tag he seems to have bestowed on him by some on here is a bit puzzling thou. He was never an out and out goal scorer before he came here. His Finnish career was 69 goals in 294 games,a further 136 assists with a +66 rating seems more like a poor mans Datsyuk type player than a Brett Hull goal machine.

Bring in Brendan Smith

here we go again total domination still cant score, now the Yotes get a crappy call to go on the pp. DE JA VU anyone

Line changes at this stage could be more disruptive than positive for the Wings but do you feel Babs needs to make a change? The Yotes seem to be happy going with 3 Fwd lines and 7 D the past couple of games. Could Babs follow suit, by bringing in Lebda for his extra speed on the D and going with just 11 Fwd's. Who do you leave out if you did? The 2 least used guys are Abby and Draper, now at present Abby is bringing more to the table but can you scratch a guy with Kris's playoff experience, although Abbys face off % is alot better than Kris's. This final game of the series aint going to yeild much ice time to the 4th line guys, so it may not be a bad thing to try this option as it would also keep the main D guys a little fresher with the lesser ice time, albeit only a couple of mins off each of the top 4, it can make a huge difference.

I was reading this over at the HFBoards:

There's rumors Howard could be suspended a game for face washing Cindy. Also Cindy had this to say about Howard.

"“I don’t know what he was doing,’’ Crosby said. “It was one of those things, a couple guys battling at the end. I knew the linesman was in there. I don’t know whether (Howard) wanted a free shot, but I don’t think it was any place for him to be.’’"

http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=753803

I wouldn't call repeatdly cross checking a player in the back,“ a couple guys battling at the end." would you guys? Superstar or not Crosby is gunna get a payback soon by a guy not bothered about Sids rep or a suspension. Your a great player Sid but when you get owned in a game show some class by respecting the player who has outplayed you, instead of behaving like a spoiled brat. The whole hockey world will respect you more for that.