Ladies and gentlemen, your 2011 Detroit Red Wings

[ajaX82]

We just signed Salei to be our 6/7 d-man. No way we make a move for Kaberle. It'll be a Kindl/Salei fight for the third pairing with Ericsson

[TNBT]

I agree. When I heard that we signed Salei, my first thought was "no more Kaberle talk".

[Rodya]

It'll be interesting to see if Kaberle is traded prior to the deadline and if so, for what kind of value. I don't imagine it will be very good.

[ajaX82]

It'll be interesting to see if Kaberle is traded prior to the deadline and if so, for what kind of value. I don't imagine it will be very good.

When your GM has been trying to trade you for quite some time, and made that clear, it is usually not helpful for return value. Very poorly done by Toronto

[TNBT]

Yep, looks like Kaberle isn't going anywhere. I think ajaX82 is right as well in that when your team makes it really obvious that they are desperate to get rid of you, it does two things - it lets other teams know that they don't have to offer much, and any teams that ARE interested probably start to wonder what's wrong with the player, especially when it's a guy like Kaberle who is still a quality player on the ice.

[Rodya]

Question. Why re-sign Maltby? Not that I'm necessarily against it, but I'm curious to what motivated the decision. Simply showing loyalty to a long-time Wing? Rely on as a mentor and calming figure in the club house? A fan pleasing signing?

I'm inclined to say it was simply Illitch taking care of one of his boys. I'm confident we'll be seeing Maltby in a front office position some time soon: assistant coach, scout, a proud owner of a Chili's franchise, etc.

[TNBT]

Question. Why re-sign Maltby? Not that I'm necessarily against it, but I'm curious to what motivated the decision. Simply showing loyalty to a long-time Wing? Rely on as a mentor and calming figure in the club house? A fan pleasing signing?

I'm inclined to say it was simply Illitch taking care of one of his boys. I'm confident we'll be seeing Maltby in a front office position some time soon: assistant coach, scout, a proud owner of a Chili's franchise, etc.

I think he was re-signed for all the reasons you mentioned above. The Red Wings are known for being loyal to their guys, and I also think that Maltby will be a good presence in the locker room and as a teacher for some of the younger grind line guys like Abdelkader, Helm, Eaves, Miller, etc. As far as the fans go, I'm not too sure how much their feelings would have factored into the decision, but there is no doubt that re-signing Maltby will make a lot of Red Wings fans very happy.

I haven't read anything about the deal that was signed, but on this other Red Wings message board that I use, speculation was that it might be a two-way deal. If that is the case, I will be very happy with the signing. He can spend most of the season in Grand Rapids and can be a late call up for the Playoffs when we need more veterans.

[ajaX82]

Loyalty. Pure loyalty. Hes been forever and done everything asked. I doubt he plays more than 15 games with the big club (if any) but as pointed out above, he is there for the locker room and to help the young guys and probably for a front office spot in the future

I really like Malts though. One of my favorite Wings of all time

[TNBT]

Yeah, Maltby is great. I used to love watching him p*ss off opponents and then McCarty beating the sh*t out of them when they retaliated.

[Weiwuer]

MCKENZIE: DON'T WRITE OFF THE RED WINGS JUST YET

http://www.tsn.ca/blogs/bob_mckenzie/?id=334712

Good read.

[Rodya]

Great insight into the upcoming season's lines. The interchangeable players on each line is interesting.

[ajaX82]

Ritola waived. Meech expected to be waived. Here is what it should look like come Friday, and i am finally pretty confident in these lines being set.

Eaves and Draper are hurt, so i'll guess Miller is the start, though that 4th line could be a giant rotation at the RW spot. I'd love to see Kindl play a bunch as opposed to Salei as well.

Zetterberg-Datsyuk- Holmstrom
Franzen-Filppula- Bertuzzi
Hudler-Modano-Cleary
Abdelkader-Helm-Miller
* Eaves/Draper

Lidstrom-Ericsson
Rafalski-Stuart
Kronwall-Salei
Kindl

Howard
Osgood


Lets get it on!

[ajaX82]

Ritola claimed by TB (damn you Steve!)

Maltby waived

Defensive pairings have been switched around, i updated my post above to reflect the new pairings and Maltby gone

[Rodya]

Great article about how f*cking amazing we are:

The Red Wings may be the League's elder statesmen, but when healthy they may very well have the best balance of skillful two-way forwards, defensemen that can still get up and down the ice, and a goalie in a contract year who wants to show his 37 wins from last season were no fluke. Detroit had 102 points last season and was battered by injuries. The Wings had a longer than usual summer when you consider they were knocked out in the second round, and now they're all healthy.

Health appears to be the only thing that can deter the Wings from putting one more notch on their belt and keeping this dynasty alive another year. Nicklas Lidstrom, Mike Modano and Brian Rafalski might be on the tail end of fantastic careers, but they can still play at a high level. Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Johan Franzen, Dan Cleary, Jiri Hudler, Valtteri Filppula, Niklas Kronwall, Brad Stuart and Jimmy Howard are all in their primes.

Link to Dan Rosen's Article at http://www.NHL.com

[Mr Swagtastic]

Thanks for the article RUSSIAN LIGHTNING and for holding down the fort here. ajaX82 I love how the haters keep on hating on us. Seems like they want us to fail and we won't.

Our 17-4-2 record is amazing. People say Washington is the best NHL team but they need to look again we have played 23 games and have the best win to loss record are 8-1-1 in our last 10 and are 10-1-2 at home. Our team has been getting it done on both ends of the ice our role players have been huge for us I think we have 4 guys with at least 6 or more goals each and two with 10+ each. That is fantastic plus if you compare the two teams Detroit is scoring on a pace goals per game pace then Washington. We have 82 goals in 23 games where they have 91 in 27 games I think we can easily score 8 in our next 4 games.

I don't expect us to be huge buyers or sellers at the FA deadline maybe a tweak here or there but nothing major unless said piece is being sold cheap

[ajaX82]

yeah we are playing crazy good hockey right now. Everyone can hate away. The best part is, with the way our organization is set up, drafts, etc,....there is no reason to expect we cannot keep this up for a long time.

People have been saying we are too old since the late 90's. But somehow we keep performing and not dropping dead on the ice