2012 Off-Season (formerly 2011)

TSE · Post #41 » by **TSE** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 11:17 pm

$4-5M? So if another team offered him $5M and the Wings only offer him $1.75M like you suggest, then you think he should give up the $3M+ and play for us, even if he is considering maybe not playing at all and conserving his health? He is loyal, but sometimes players feel they get up there in age and he might be insulted with such a reduction in pay, or might not want to risk his health for small money relative to what he's accustomed to, or just have the time off.

Rodya · Post #42 » by **Rodya** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:57 am

xbl_sucks wrote:Rodya - I am a huge Chelly fan but what did he prove playing like 40-60 mins all year? That he can compete here and score a goal and get a assist? I agree that some players can't let the game go but I see Lidstrom as a player who would walk away on top. I mean Yzerman did and again he's a top 15 all time player and went out with class

We both know Yzerman only walked away because the injuries finally got to him. I mean, remember how many seasons fans would speculate that Yzerman, in his late thirties and missing the majority of a given season due to a serious injury, just returned to play the next season? I think that went on for a good 3-4 years. Plus, he was no where near as good in his twilight has Lidstrom is now.

I really understand where you and Ajax are coming from, we can just agree to disagree. One thing we can agree upon is that we'd like him back for at least one more season.

Rodya · Post #43 » by **Rodya** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:59 am

TSE wrote:$4-5M? So if another team offered him $5M and the Wings only offer him $1.75M like you suggest, then you think he should give up the $3M+ and play for us, even if he is considering maybe not playing at all and conserving his health? He is loyal, but sometimes players feel they get up there in age and he might be insulted with such a reduction in pay, or might not want to risk his health for small money relative to what he's accustomed to, or just have the time off.

The guy deserves, based on his play and current salary, a contract between $5-6 million per. If the Wings low ball him you can be assured he will take the hint and retire. He wouldn't play for another team.

Edit: Read over what I wrote and I sound like a pathetic ex-boyfriend. "He'd never play for another team!?!?!". :lol:

Post #44 » by **ajaX82** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 2:40 am

Yeah to conclude we all want Nick back and we all love him. Seriously, my favorite wing ever. My first hockey jersey ever. Nothing but mad respect. But we will just have to wait and see

The one positive of him retiring would be giving some of the young guys like Kindl and maybe even Smith a chance to make and play big minutes for the team. just my two cents

Post #45 » by **Mr Swagtastic** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 9:53 pm

Rodya wrote:
TSE wrote:$4-5M? So if another team offered him $5M and the Wings only offer him $1.75M like you suggest, then you think he should give up the $3M+ and play for us, even if he is considering maybe not playing at all and conserving his health? He is loyal, but sometimes players feel they get up there in age and he might be insulted with such a reduction in pay, or might not want to risk his health for small money relative to what he's accustomed to, or just have the time off.

The guy deserves, based on his play and current salary, a contract between $5-6 million per. If the Wings low ball him you can be assured he will take the hint and retire. He wouldn't play for another team.

Edit: Read over what I wrote and I sound like a pathetic ex-boyfriend. "He'd never play for another team!?!?!".

Nobody is going to give a 40 year old d-man $6+ million per year except for either Brian Burke or Millbury (if he was still a GM) Nik Lidstrom will be the 2nd greatest Wing D-Man 2nd to Red Kelly and will have his number retired but I don't think he would be greedy and want to come back if it hurts the Wings in the long run remember this is a guy who took a major pay cut so we could sign Hossa in 2009. So why all of a sudden does he do a 180 and say screw you pay me now!

Detroit needs to rebuild the Wings (no pun intended) we need to stock up on some quality youngish LW/RW'ers to fill in. I like Helm, Hudler and Justin A but we need more then just good role players. I think we should try to get a solid young winger locked up to a reasonable deal by going the RFA or trade route.

Rodya · Post #46 » by **Rodya** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:33 pm

xbl_sucks wrote:
Rodya wrote:
TSE wrote:$4-5M? So if another team offered him $5M and the Wings only offer him $1.75M like you suggest, then you think he should give up the $3M+ and play for us, even if he is considering maybe not playing at all and conserving his health? He is loyal, but sometimes players feel they get up there in age and he might be insulted with such a reduction in pay, or might not want to risk his health for small money relative to what he's accustomed to, or just have the time off.

The guy deserves, based on his play and current salary, a contract between $5-6 million per. If the Wings low ball him you can be assured he will take the hint and retire. He wouldn't play for another team.

Edit: Read over what I wrote and I sound like a pathetic ex-boyfriend. "He'd never play for another team!?!?!".

Nobody is going to give a 40 year old d-man $6+ million per year except for either Brian Burke or Millbury (if he was still a GM) Nik Lidstrom will be the 2nd greatest Wing D-Man 2nd to Red Kelly and will have his number retired but I don't think he would be greedy and want to come back if it hurts the Wings in the long run remember this is a guy who took a major pay cut so we could sign Hossa in 2009. So why all of a sudden does he do a 180 and say screw you pay me now!

Detroit needs to rebuild the Wings (no pun intended) we need to stock up on some quality youngish LW/RW'ers to fill in. I like Helm, Hudler and Justin A but we need more then just good role players. I think we should try to get a solid young winger locked up to a reasonable deal by going the RFA or trade route.

So when someone hits the age of 40 suddenly their value halves? Last year, at the age of 39, Kenny Holland didn't have any qualms handing him a $6.5 million contract. It's not like he's in the final year of a ridiculously back loaded 15-year contract. His play has barely, if at all, diminished from last season when he was 39. Just because that number has changed to 40 doesn't mean he some how deserves a 50% pay cut. Regarding what he'll do, that horse has been beaten quite enough already, we'll just see.

Post #47 » by **ajaX82** » Tue May 24, 2011 3:01 am

FWIW, I will hold true to my bet, but I am now much more skeptical that Nick is going to retire. Quite a step from my guaranteed retirement talk, I know, but the Sharks disappointment and Rafalski's sudden departure strikes me as game-changers

Rodya · Post #48 » by **Rodya** » Wed May 25, 2011 9:44 pm

Yeah, I was surprised to read that Rafalski is retiring. I'm not too disappointed though, this frees up some money that could be used to bolster the defense top to bottom. Don't get be wrong, Rafalski was and still is a fantastic defenseman, but this Wings team needs more young, athletic, hard nosed defensemen. I always felt that playing Rafalski and Lidstrom together was redundant when we already had so many great playmakers in the top two lines. Andre Markov, Thomas Kaberle, Ed Jovanovski, and Joni Pitkanen are the possible replacements that stand out most to me. Personally, I don't like having $6 million invested into a single defenseman - especially when you have three other players making close to that number. I would prefer that whatever cap space we have, assuming Lidstrom re-signs, goes towards Joni Pitkanen or Ed Jovanovski, with whatever is left used to re-sign Erickson, Eaves, and Miller.

Regarding the bet, if Lidstrom re-signs we both win. How about we just exchange six-packs of our favorite beer?

Post #49 » by **ajaX82** » Thu May 26, 2011 4:57 am

Rodya wrote:Yeah, I was surprised to read that Rafalski is retiring. I'm not too disappointed though, this frees up some money that could be used to bolster the defense top to bottom. Don't get be wrong, Rafalski was and still is a fantastic defenseman, but this Wings team needs more young, athletic, hard nosed defensemen. I always felt that playing Rafalski and Lidstrom together was redundant when we already had so many great playmakers in the top two lines. Andre Markov, Thomas Kaberle, Ed Jovanovski, and Joni Pitkanen are the possible replacements that stand out most to me. Personally, I don't like having $6 million invested into a single defenseman - especially when you have three other players making close to that number. I would prefer that whatever cap space we have, assuming Lidstrom re-signs, goes towards Joni Pitkanen or Ed Jovanovski, with whatever is left used to re-sign Erickson, Eaves, and Miller.

Regarding the bet, if Lidstrom re-signs we both win. How about we just exchange six-packs of our favorite beer?

Deal

TSE · Post #50 » by **TSE** » Thu May 26, 2011 6:28 pm

Rodya wrote:Andre Markov, Thomas Kaberle, Ed Jovanovski, and Joni Pitkanen are the possible replacements that stand out most to me.

Ehrhoff and Wisniewski are probably the other 2 top notables that are available D-men. There's a handful more that are possible prospects to the GMs that know those players, particularly a few young guys that have good upside for the future. I think it's possible to get 2 guys off that list so we should aim for that, draft heavy on defense, and then be in good standing there. It's long overdue for us to invest in that position for the future and we have a lot of catching up to do.

I wonder how strong the 2012 FA class is expected to be, because if it's really strong, then Lidstrom would have more leverage to get a healthy offer from us, but if it's not then we might not have a choice but to lowball Lidstrom.

Post #51 » by **ajaX82** » Thu May 26, 2011 9:32 pm

TSE wrote: It's long overdue for us to invest in that position for the future and we have a lot of catching up to do.

Our top 2 prospects are defense-men....we have invested heavily in it. Kindl and Smtih are both going to be very good players. After those two we don't have a ton of organizational depth, but guys like Almqvist and Lashoff have potential. I have a feeling we will draft some d-men this year, but to suggest we haven't been investing there is just plain wrong

TSE · Post #52 » by **TSE** » Thu Jun 2, 2011 1:43 am

I'm not suggesting we haven't invested there literally. There's only 3 positions in terms of groups, forwards, defense, and goalie, and by default every team gets around to investing in all of them, there just isn't that many options! My disdain for not investing there has to do with my opinion that the proportion of our investments in those positions has been too small relative to the other 2 positions. What the heck do we have for Goalie? We have 3 young guys that still have some semblance of a post that we drafted relatively early, but they still seemingly all suck. Those are wasted picks to me, because we didn't get any good goalies out of it apparently. So misfiring on draft picks on O and G count against us, cause then we have less picks in the future to spend on D plus extra picks we lose to then have to spend again on O and G. We have wasted a ton of picks on O and G and if we did things my way and had a complete redo of the last 5+ years, then I bet we would have secured a lot more good prospects than we have, and then we'd be set at D and in a much stronger position to then fortify the other positions.

This team has been terribly mismanaged in the draft and FA the last several years, and we should be dominating this league as the unquestioned #1 team year in and year out, and we are WAY WAY short of that due to bad logic in the front office.

Post #53 » by **ajaX82** » Thu Jun 2, 2011 2:17 am

TSE wrote:I'm not suggesting we haven't invested there literally. There's only 3 positions in terms of groups, forwards, defense, and goalie, and by default every team gets around to investing in all of them, there just isn't that many options! My disdain for not investing there has to do with my opinion that the proportion of our investments in those positions has been too small relative to the other 2 positions. What the heck do we have for Goalie? We have 3 young guys that still have some semblance of a post that we drafted relatively early, but they still seemingly all suck. Those are wasted picks to me, because we didn't get any good goalies out of it apparently. So misfiring on draft picks on O and G count against us, cause then we have less picks in the future to spend on D plus extra picks we lose to then have to spend again on O and G. We have wasted a ton of picks on O and G and if we did things my way and had a complete redo of the last 5+ years, then I bet we would have secured a lot more good prospects than we have, and then we'd be set at D and in a much stronger position to then fortify the other positions.

This team has been terribly mismanaged in the draft and FA the last several years, and we should be dominating this league as the unquestioned #1 team year in and year out, and we are WAY WAY short of that due to bad logic in the front office.

You are trolling me. There is just no other reason or explanation for this post.

Mismanaged the draft? We have been "way way" short of being the #1 team in the league every year? Bad signings? What??????

I can't even comprehend how wrong this is. My mind is literally blown

Post #54 » by **Mr Swagtastic** » Fri Jun 3, 2011 5:23 pm

I wonder how TSE can come in here and say were a bad drafting a FA signing team? Do you even follow the Wings? Were ranked #12 out of 30 teams that is still really good with having some older veterans. I mean look who we let go for cap reasons Ville Leno who went on to be a solid player in Philly.

Read this before you come in here with that nonsense http://www.hockeysfuture.com/nhl_organi ... s/?start=6 or this http://www.hockeysfuture.com/articles/1 ... lent_pool/ or this http://www.hockeysfuture.com/articles/1 ... prospects/

As for our last free agent signings look who they were Mike Modano for less then $1 million per year. The guy was a great signing for us gave us another voice and leader who came in and just helped us a lot. If we had Mike healthy for 75% of the season who knows maybe we would still be in this. We also signed Todd Bertuzzi for less then $2 million per year to be a physical player who could be a potential 10-20 goal scorer. I mean how the hell can you say that the Wings are a terrible drafting team and FA managing team? I guarantee $80-90% of the league would love to have Pavel Datsyuk and Hendrik Zetterberg making a combined $14 million per year. Like I said and I am sure ajaX82 has said the same we have been one of the elite run franchises I would take our 40-50+ seasons and being one of the elite teams over your opinion any day of the week

TSE · Post #55 » by **TSE** » Sat Jun 4, 2011 2:04 am

ajaX82 wrote:
You are trolling me. There is just no other reason or explanation for this post.

Mismanaged the draft? We have been "way way" short of being the #1 team in the league every year? Bad signings? What??????

I can't even comprehend how wrong this is. My mind is literally blown

That's your opinion, and opinions can't be wrong. You can't comprehend it because you don't even understand the core elements of what makes an opinion as evidenced by your declaration that I'm wrong, which is an impossible state regarding my perspective. You also don't understand what "trolling" is. You should do research on the two terms and then apologizing for your false accusation as well as your incredibly rude and ignorant assessment of my opinion being "wrong" which is a bastardization of the English language. Shame on you.

TSE · Post #56 » by **TSE** » Sat Jun 4, 2011 2:09 am

xbl_sucks wrote:I wonder how TSE can come in here and say were a bad drafting a FA signing team? Do you even follow the Wings? Were ranked #12 out of 30 teams that is still really good with having some older veterans. I mean look who we let go for cap reasons Ville Leno who went on to be a solid player in Philly.

Read this before you come in here with that nonsense http://www.hockeysfuture.com/nhl_organi ... s/?start=6 or this http://www.hockeysfuture.com/articles/1 ... lent_pool/ or this http://www.hockeysfuture.com/articles/1 ... prospects/

As for our last free agent signings look who they were Mike Modano for less then $1 million per year. The guy was a great signing for us gave us another voice and leader who came in and just helped us a lot. If we had Mike healthy for 75% of the season who knows maybe we would still be in this. We also signed Todd Bertuzzi for less then $2 million per year to be a physical player who could be a potential 10-20 goal scorer. I mean how the hell can you say that the Wings are a terrible drafting team and FA managing team? I guarantee $80-90% of the league would love to have Pavel Datsyuk and Hendrik Zetterberg making a combined $14 million per year. Like I said and I am sure ajaX82 has said the same we have been one of the elite run franchises I would take our 40-50+ seasons and being one of the elite teams over your opinion any day of the week

Datsyuk and Zetterberg have nothing to do with it. Those were good draft picks and outside of the timeframe that I specified that we have done a horrible job. I can't understand how you can disagree with me after seeing our team perform this year. We were easily the best team in the league once, and we have devolved and downgraded from that point. We could have and should have held that mark and possibly even widened the gap with respect to how much better we were than the next best teams. What's so tricky to understand about that, it seems pretty cut and dry to me?

And so you are satisfied with the team's achievements, that's ok for you, but not for me. I think we have done a terrible job and I'm pissed off, because we have no logical reason for doing such an awful job with the FA and draft, and that's extremely obvious to me.

Post #57 » by **ajaX82** » Sat Jun 4, 2011 2:58 am

TSE wrote:
ajaX82 wrote:
You are trolling me. There is just no other reason or explanation for this post.

Mismanaged the draft? We have been "way way" short of being the #1 team in the league every year? Bad signings? What??????

I can't even comprehend how wrong this is. My mind is literally blown

That's your opinion, and opinions can't be wrong. You can't comprehend it because you don't even understand the core elements of what makes an opinion as evidenced by your declaration that I'm wrong, which is an impossible state regarding my perspective. You also don't understand what "trolling" is. You should do research on the two terms and then apologizing for your false accusation as well as your incredibly rude and ignorant assessment of my opinion being "wrong" which is a bastardization of the English language. Shame on you.

We have nothing to discuss then. Its ok, I'll talk with knowledgeable hockey fans about our team. And no apology will be forthcoming, I assure you

Post #58 » by **ajaX82** » Sat Jun 4, 2011 2:59 am

We're getting closer to July 1 and a Lidstrom decision. Wish we had any info about it, but alas

TSE · Post #59 » by **TSE** » Sat Jun 4, 2011 3:14 am

ajaX82 wrote:

We have nothing to discuss then. Its ok, I'll talk with knowledgeable hockey fans about our team. And no apology will be forthcoming, I assure you

I wasn't expecting the apology based upon your conduct and lack of professionalism and courtesy to others in the past. Your comment that you will talk with knowledgeable fans also doesn't make sense, as I contend that I'm highly knowledgeable compared to the average person. On boards like this you often find large variances of level of knowledge, from experts to beginners who are new to following the sport. That's too bad that you won't chat with the lesser knowledgeable fans especially considering there's not very many people on this site to chat with, plus your insinuation that I have a lack of knowledge is just laughable and way off. Not only are you rude for dismissing talks with people that you feel aren't up par with your knowledge, but you are an awful assessor of hockey knowledge. Terrible set of posts from you today, you now owe an apology for this awful retort as well, regardless of whether you issue one.

Post #60 » by **ajaX82** » Sat Jun 4, 2011 3:27 am

TSE wrote:
ajaX82 wrote:

We have nothing to discuss then. Its ok, I'll talk with knowledgeable hockey fans about our team. And no apology will be forthcoming, I assure you

I wasn't expecting the apology based upon your conduct and lack of professionalism and courtesy to others in the past. Your comment that you will talk with knowledgeable fans also doesn't make sense, as I contend that I'm highly knowledgeable compared to the average person. On boards like this you often find large variances of level of knowledge, from experts to beginners who are new to following the sport. That's too bad that you won't chat with the lesser knowledgeable fans especially considering there's not very many people on this site to chat with, plus your insinuation that I have a lack of knowledge is just laughable and way off. Not only are you rude for dismissing talks with people that you feel aren't up par with your knowledge, but you are an awful assessor of hockey knowledge. Terrible set of posts from you today, you now owe an apology for this awful retort as well, regardless of whether you issue one.

We're just both going to have to move on, k? This is now way off topic and moving to personal barbs, which I want to avoid. Talk about hockey here if you want, but I'm just going to steer clear. There is plenty more to talk about rather than my lack of hockey knowledge. I'm sorry I replied to your post and started this, but I stand by everything I said.

This isn't a post to discuss, but rather a reminder to let it go.

Moving on...