OT: Red Wings buy out Stephen Weiss
For the many here who care, the Wings bought out Stephen Weiss today. This opens up some cap space for free agency which starts tomorrow.
More relevant to this blog, this opens up a spot at center that Dylan Larkin could compete for.
http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2015/06/red_wings_buy_out_stephen_weis.html
Edit: They also re-signed Brendan Smith, but that was expected.
even when healthy he was a scratch in the playoffs. Basically paying him to just go away.
Babs really pushed for Weiss, fwiw.
And Cleary. Sometimes his judgment was...unconventional.
Let's cut through the crap and get right to the "elephant in the room." It's time to bring Stevie Y home.
He rebuilt the Tampa Bay Lightning in a short period of time. He has learned what he needs to learn. Let Holland retire with a great record and fond memories. Then let Stevie Y get on with fixing the Wings.
Will give him credit for the Jon Cooper hire, and some decent moves in free agency (Ben Bishop), but let's not think he turned the Florida Panthers around.
In any case, Yzerman has done more than enough to prove he should be the man in Detroit when Holland retires. His fellow GM's spoke loudly at the awards last week, like you said, he got his coach, he's navigated their cap issues well and I'd put money on him having a cup before he leaves unless something weird happens with Holland.
I'm not going to say he didn't have some luck (flipside is he had earned a shot with a non-awful franchise) but he's pretty much nailed every big decision he's needed to make and has two consecutive gold medals managing the Canadian team on his resume as well.
Yzerman is a legitimately talented GM.
Hossa turned out to be the missing cog of the Blackhawk puzzle. Funny how another Detroit player (albeit one year player) went to Chicago and they started winning championships!
I remember 2008 and 2009 Cup finals. Boy I hate the Penguins!
Chelios did it in reverse.
Stephen Weiss 2 yrs with Wings: 78 gp, 11 goals, 29 pts. Buyout dead money against cap: Roughly $1M, $1M, $2.5M, 3 yrs at $1.67M.
What a complete waste. Almost as bad as the Uwe Krupp signing.
Uwe Krupp? Ouch, I mean, the Stephen Weiss deal turned out pretty bad, but to put him in the same sentence as Krupp? That's rough.
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No, he would not. Miller was a great fourth liner for the Wings last year. Bertuzzi is not ready.
If you had said Larkin I might agree.
Miller is one of our best penalty killers.
You have to be joking with "lacks effort". Dear lord. I know he's a Sparty but Miller's a damn gritty player and very good penalty killer.
Good riddance. I don't know why on earth we signed him in the first place.
Next time just burn a pile of money in the middle of Woodward and be done with it.
We signed him to fill the void as a second line center. It was between him, resigning Filpulla, or signing Tyler Bozak.
At the time, it looked like a fairly decent signing. I was excited to see him play in Detroit. Now I'm more excited to see him leave.
Anybody else wonder why they waited until the last minute to buy him out? Seems like another move has to be coming (cautiously optimistic for a RHD).
and got zip for offers.
I just think with the news of Pavel not being ready for the start of the season, it seemed more likely they would keep him.
...because we didn't keep Jiri Hudler the previous offseason. Hudler's making $4mil a year while Weiss was signed to a deal making almost $5mil. Apparently Jordin Tootoo and Mikael Samuelsson and now Weiss were not enough to make up for Hudler's absence.
13 points in 76 games for an "offensive-minded" defenseman? Dude was a scratch in a couple playoff games. Unless Blashill said some really good things about Brendan, this makes no sense.
Still needs to be traded, he is basically a better skating Kindl. I hope Ouellet is up the whole year instead.
And we could have re-signed Valtteri Filppula that same offseason. For almost an identical contract. Just appalling.
Going with Franzen and Weiss over Hossa and Filppula cost the Wings another cup IMO.
the decision to choose Weiss over Flip cost the Wings another Cup, you haven't been paying attention to the Red Wings the past couple of seasons.
We have been squarely planted in the NHLs middle-class since our last Cup appearence. Players like Weiss or Flip do nothing to change that.
Luckily for the Red Wings, we have seen our farm system emerge into one of the leagues elite and have managed to stay afloat despite some decisions that didn't work out. And it is that farm system that will give us another chance at the Cup, not re-signing a guy who refuses to shoot the puck.
EDIT: No arguments about Hossa v. Franzen. I think the front office got caught up in their dates of birth and Franzen's magical Cup run and made a terrible mistake.
Filpulla, at the very least, would have helped position us better in the playoffs. Weiss gave us 78 games and 29 points the last two seasons (and we have him 25 for 5 after he suffered an injury that caused him to miss 65 games the season before). Filppula was fairly productive for Tampa Bay the last two seasons. Maybe we avoid Boston first round in 13-14? Or we get home ice this past season.
Probably shouldn't have included Weiss/Filppula in the difference b/w a Cup or not because you're right, Filppula does not give us a Cup either of the last two years. But it didn't make sense to go with Weiss over Filppula for the same money when Weiss was coming off an injury and Filppula was already familiar with everyone on the team and organization philosophy.
IIRC Filppula was wanting a 5+ MM deal, the Wings weren't paying that and weren't waiting, they signed Weiss for the deal on the table for Fil and moved on. Fil signed later for what he could have gotten to stay here. Was an error on his agents part. (same with Damien Brunner who wanted an absurd deal that the wings walked away from).
Franzen over Hossa looks bad now, but at the time Franzen looked every bit the player of Hossa and younger (plus a bit cheaper) I won't kill Holland for that.
Franzen is only one year younger than Hossa. And his contract is only about a million less in cap hit I believe. I guess it's hard to go with Hossa over Franzen because the Mule was on fire in the two Cup runs while Hossa was in and out in terms of major impact. But Hossa was always a better two way player than the Mule and had a longer history of consistent production. But hindsight is 20/20.
It really is a puzzling move. Assume they will keep Sharp now, which is dumb because Saad is already better and 10 years younger.
It helps with cap space. Guy on LTIR's cap hit doesn't count towards the cap at all. Don't believe it changes what the team owes him.
The Wings will have a Pronger type situation with Franzen whenever he does hang them up because if he retires early the cap recapture penalties will be bad (same thing with the Hawks with Hossa).
Saad wanted 6Mil over 6 years-no thanks.
Hawks get three young players in Teuvo, Panarin, and Dano who have a lot of talent. Anisimov will be a solid 2nd or 3rd line Center as well and is a big boy.
Saad will be missed but not at that price.
Just stopped by to say fire holland. Its way over due. That's all, carry on.
Holland is a god send compared to 90% of what NHL teams currently have.
I mean, we could be Toronto.