Zetts

I notice the incredibly underwhelming season he's had this year.

 

Kindl and Lashoff have both outplayed him, and neither was supposed to even play that much this year.  

Watching peoples' comments around here, it's like Jiri Fischer all over again.  His level of play this season is no surprise and you can rest assured that he'll get much, much better over the coming years.

Look, he baffles me sometimes.  But look at how garbage this team is this year, the hodgepodge of lazy floaters and talentless guys with heart we have.  Yet we're still in the playoff hunt.  I'd say he's the best.

Outside of Franzen, nobody floats.  Brunner is somewhat weak defensively, but that's certainly not the same thing as floating.

 

We lack some of the talent from years past, but we have a team that busts their tails.  Don't confuse mistakes with being lazy.  We have a young team now, which I thought was what people have wanted for the past several years.  This is what happens when you have a young team.

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i expect more from him, because he can. I understand the frustration lots of the fans have with him, and NHL athlete shouldn't be "streaky", Franzen has the hands, size and skating ability to be a dominate player, yet he is only dominate in spurts.

 

But don't take it from me, take it from his coach

http://www.mlive.com...ck_wants_j.html

 

To me having your coach call you out on not coming to the rink with the right mentality every single night. Something he did earlier in his career when he was fighting for a roster slot and a stanley Cup. Which is when Yzerman gave him that nick name.

This is definitely true.  But if he was on his game every night, do you think we'd be paying him the same amount?  I totally get the frustration here, but I think some people think that it would be perfectly natural to have a 40-50 goal-scorer (as he almost certainly would be if he tried) for under 4 million/yr.

 

Realistically, this is why long term bargain contracts are bad.  He IS earning the money that he's making, whether people like to admit it or not.  There's just an infuriating amount of potential that he refuses to tap into.

I think its unnmovable based on the fact he is dead weight. He doesn't play defense or skate hard. His goals? Thank Z, wasn't anything franzen did. Instead of mule being his nickname I think "bloody tampon" fits him better.


Also whether you like him or not put your bias aside. He has very little trade value.

This has to be a joke post.  Have you even watched Franzen play?  Sure, he's lazy at times and he floats at times, but you don't put up numbers like he has playing against the best pairings of other teams without having a LOT of talent.  Yes, his disinterest can be frustrating, but lets not get carried away trashing the whipping boy of the day on LGW.

 

The reason we won't trade with Boston has nothing to do with Franzen or his bargain of a contract.  It has to do with the aforementioned cap crunch of the Bruins.  I would be willing to trade him for a good defenseman (for which Franzen would bring back a good bit of value to Detroit in a trade), but I'm not sure if Boston would be willing to give up a D of a high enough calibre.

Bert = 1.75 mil
Sammy = 3 mil
Colo = 2.15 mil
Quincey = 3.55 mil
Gustavsson = 1.4 mil
Tootoo = 1.9 mil
Huskins = .75 mil

Thats 15 mil of s***. We need NONE of these players. What we needed was Parise and Suter. But Holland is too stupid to see that we'd be better off going with an 18 man roster of GOOD players than a 23 man roster of crappy washed up has been other teams' rejects. I cant believe people cant see Holland's incompetence yet. Its no wonder star ufa's are avoiding Detroit like the plague. Holland is too concerned about Holmstrom and Bertuzzi's golden parachutes.

The only reason that we had the money to talk to Parise and Suter was because we had players on lower level contracts.  If you want elite players, some of your other players will be of the quality of those you listed.  In your ideal world (I assume) none of those players would be here and we'd have Parise and Suter.  But then who fills those remaining roster spots?  Parise and Suter are two players.  The people who would fill the other roster spots would be B-level players such as the very players you listed.

 

So what this really is, is that Holland set his roster up with the expectation of landing the two big fish.  Your argument about that dead weight is really just re-hashing the same criticism that's seemingly never-ending here: that we couldn't land Parise and Suter.

A ranking based on....?  Is there an article?

I mean, the first thing that pops to mind when I see the Phoenix Coyotes as the top-ranked NHL team, is that the list is bulls***.  But I'm clearly missing the basis of how they're ranking teams, because even ESPN isn't that dumb.

I've supported Holland to this point, but if he actually gave up all of that for Yandle, I'd have to seriously re-think my views.

Take the damn picks and let him go.

This team is looking more and more like Edmonton by the second.

We are about an inch from calling this a "rebuilding" team..

We are most likely going to see every top player from Grand Rapids on the Wings roster next year no doubt about it.  Im sure the NHL12 crew is all over it but there are real problems with experience on our team.  When all is said and done we have Kron as the D mentor and Z, D and Mule as the mentors for the forwards.  As great as they are, thats not a deep group for training the new recruits.

I have this feeling that Holland expected Ericcson to learn more from Nicky before he left and now that hes gone and its obvious Pylon didnt pick up much, hes trying to just put a full roster together with whatever is available.

Lets pray we dont hae injuries that require calling up from the 2nd line of the Griffins since the 1st line will already be on the Wings..

There are the Chicken Littles and the Poly Annas on this board and I think the sky is falling..

Take what picks?  If the Wings don't accept the arbitrated salary, is he not a UFA?  And he can't be offer-sheeted after filing for arbitration.

Furthermore, do you really believe that anybody would give a first and a third up for him anyways?  The Wings paid a premium because it was the deadline, there are now similar options available for nothing.

We're not getting any picks, and we need Quincey.

When specific player is chosen in the 1st round - then everybody is saying: that we couldn't trade down, when he's chosen lately - then everybody is saying: well there are 29 other teams which decided not to pick him...

Maybe 29 other teams have another needs to adress... Like Detroit need to adress TOUGHNESS but Kenny doesn't want to draft those kind of players, he want's to pick him through waivers...

Emmerton was (in best case) supposed to be 3rd line center - nothing more... unless we have problems with development of young players...

What needs were addressed by Anaheim in taking Mark Mitera?  Or by Montreal in taking David Fisher?  Or Sanguinetti, Persson, Vishnevsky, Summers, Corrente, Kana, Sneep, Alexandrov, Swan, Holzapfel, etc, etc, etc being taken by their respective teams.  All of these were taken prior to Lucic and have never and will never come close to his impact.  Maybe Boston just did a great job of scouting this one particular player among thousands.  Or maybe they got lucky.  Either way, this is a ridiculous argument - many teams dropped the ball in passing over Lucic.

You draft for talent, not needs.  That's a common philosophy.  If it was known how good Lucic was, he would have gone prior to the Wings ever making a pick.

Dominator2005, youre the only one who realizes that Holland lost a race.  If hes willing to offer 180 mil to 2 guys, why not go the extra mile and offer 8 mil a season to land em both.  In 7 years, cap will be 80-90 million and the extra mil a season will be so meaningless.  We lost 2 great players and our gm stinks.  Those are the facts.

Has it occured to you that maybe Ilitch wasn't ok with that amount of money?  Holland doesn't get to unilaterally make these decisions.  90M was them upping their offer, which Ilitch might not have been crazy about to begin with.  I know that we just assume that Ilitch's wealth is unlimited, but maybe things aren't going quite as well these days?  Just a thought.

Man people are fast to throw Kenny under the bus.

For anyone curious about some more accurate numbers for the finances of the Jets: http://www.forbes.co.../winnipeg-jets/

24th most valuable team in the league
71m revenue
-5.2m profit
43m in player expenses

http://www.freep.com...1/1053/sports05
http://www.thescore.com/home/articles/282076-dominik-hasek-wants-to-make-an-nhl-comeback

Despite being 47 years of age, Dominik Hasek wants to take one more kick at the can in the NHL. In speaking with a Czech newspaper, Hasek made clear his desire to return to the NHL.
"For sure, I know what I want...even my agent, he knows" Hasek was quoted as saying. His last action in the NHL came in 2007-08 with the Detroit Red Wings, where he posted a 2.14 GAA and a .902 save %.

I can only imagine the meltdown around here if Holland signed him as the new backup.

I'm usually one of the last people to get negative I think...but now I'm getting more than a little worried and pissed.  A mid-season crap-fest is one thing, but the playoffs are kind of approaching.  You'd think the Wings would be starting to pull their heads out of their asses about now.

Last year, if Dallas didn't choke on the final day, all 5 teams would have made the playoffs from that division (first time in league history that would have happened).  

This year, it's likely that 3 teams from that division make the playoffs.  Yeah, there's no powerhouse team, but it's hardly a weak division.  A weak division is where one team makes the playoffs and the other teams flat out suck.

Last year there was also a team that was actually good in that division.

Alright, perhaps a better description is that it's the most uniformly mediocre division.  I'd still be embarrased to be in that 3 slot and playing a 6th place team with more points.  Obviously, I'm sure the team will take the home ice happily, but I doubt there can be a whole lot of pride in that.