Red Wings Expansion Draft Protected List

[Richdg 267]

There are always questions on lists like this. I like both of our G's but both have questions about them. Had to protect 1. This is clearly a message being sent. I don't understand why you protect Z. Vegas isn't going to take him, so why do it? I don't like all of our young Dmen are available. Granted we can only lose 1 player total so not the worst thing if 1 is taken. In the end, no matter who Vegas takes we are not going to be screwed. All of the guys available to them can be replaced fairly cheaply and quickly.

[GoalieManPat 1,007]

Just now, MDCard said:

I guess you just hate Mrazek for some reason...

I dont hate Mrazek at all. I just understand that he hasnt done anything beyond have a hot couple weeks at the NHL level. Outside of that he has done nothing special. We all know that everyones favorite wings goalie is "the next goalie". Mrazeks shiney new toy luster still hasnt worn off for some. He was a bad goalie on a bad team. Everyone overvalues players on their own team. 

[e_prime 1,936]

1 hour ago, kickazz said:

Leave it to Ken Holland to make things interesting for Red Wings fans. 

 

1 hour ago, MabusIncarnate said:

Glad i'm off on Wednesday, i'll bring the beer. Should be a fun night here, i'm looking forward to it.

 

33 minutes ago, kickazz said:

The forum meltdown is insane right now

[GoalieManPat 1,007]

4 minutes ago, Richdg said:

There are always questions on lists like this. I like both of our G's but both have questions about them. Had to protect 1. This is clearly a message being sent. I don't understand why you protect Z. Vegas isn't going to take him, so why do it? I don't like all of our young Dmen are available. Granted we can only lose 1 player total so not the worst thing if 1 is taken. In the end, no matter who Vegas takes we are not going to be screwed. All of the guys available to them can be replaced fairly cheaply and quickly.

I agree protecting Z is excessive and is a spot wasted but then again I can see why they did. He has earned that respect for what hes done and as captain.

[kickazz 5,459]

9 minutes ago, e_prime said:

 

 

That's exactly how I feel man.

13 minutes ago, Richdg said:

There are always questions on lists like this. I like both of our G's but both have questions about them. Had to protect 1. This is clearly a message being sent. I don't understand why you protect Z. Vegas isn't going to take him, so why do it? I don't like all of our young Dmen are available. Granted we can only lose 1 player total so not the worst thing if 1 is taken. In the end, no matter who Vegas takes we are not going to be screwed. All of the guys available to them can be replaced fairly cheaply and quickly.

They probably would have taken Z. Especially if they're looking for a captain or something. He was a top point producer in the league last year and the cap hit is nice for them to reach their cap limit. Not to mention he has no NTC, NMC and they wouldn't actually have to pay him much since his salary drops to $3.5 million then $1 million. 

A $6 million 70-ish point producer that you DON'T actually pay wouldn't be a bad idea to pick up. 

There are a very few older players you want on your team in this lesgue. Z is one of them. The other one is Joe Thornton. Also Marian Hossa.

Edited June 18, 2017 by kickazz

[gcom007 1,465]

5 minutes ago, GoalieManPat said:

Hey he brought up the game itself as a testament of Mrazeks play. All I pointed out was that the defining moment of that game was his mistake. Your big picture is a bit skewed. You state Mrazek has a long career ahead of him with a lot of upside yet he has yet to show he will have any of that. If Howard is as bad as you are making him out why hasnt Mrazek with that long career ahead of him and all that upside taken the spot and kept it?

Yeah, he’s only had sustained stretches where he was arguably one of the best goalies in the league and two overall solid playoff outings, one coming off a rough season when he was cold. I am not saying Mrazek is perfect, but I don’t see how anyone could reasonably argue that he doesn’t have more upside and value than Howard at this point. I’m not even saying Howard is terrible, but he’s certainly never been consistently great, he’s on the tail end of an average career and he’s making too much money. I don’t think either guy would necessarily be taken, but you’re playing with infinitely more fire leaving a guy like Mrazek hanging out for the taking.

Between Howard and Mrazek, who has the better shot of being a long term solution in goal: the consistently injury-prone Howard who will be 34 this season or the guy who will be 25 who’s shown he’s got elite-level upside Andy potential? He very well may not get there and he could disappear, but given our lack of guys with elite-level potential, we simply are not in a position to be giving that kind of talent up for free. It’s absurd.

This guy was in the Vezina conversation a couple years ago and hasn’t dropped off as much as some suggest and has had two respectable playoff outings for a young goalie now. He came off the bench and gave a very mediocre team a chance to win some games in the 2016 playoffs when Howard couldn’t deliver.

And let’s be perfectly honest: if Howard was doing his job as well as he’s being paid to, Mrazek would still be in a position to simply be developing instead of being thrown into the fire as a young goalie on a lousy team. Mrazek wasn’t even supposed to be on this team so early, but our long-time “starter” hasn’t been able to hold onto the position for any period of time recently either.

So yeah, let’s protect Howard. Brilliant.

 

[Dominator2005 558]

16 minutes ago, frankgrimes said:

Next year could be were the Wings are getting a new GM, new coach - maybe Barry Trotz if the Caps don't extend the guy - and with that comes hopefully a new direction, philosophy for the team. I want someone to come in and do a Shanahan. Glendening and Sheahan were just examples, I'm a huge huge fan of Danny D and Larkin, Mantha but if a young top 4 guy wiith potential can be had for one of them they'd be gone.

´Let me see:

Vegas can have MAF as the starter and Ranta as the backup that's a very! good way to start your goaltending. The team and front-office may be sick of Mrazek's poor working ethic and his questionable team behaviour who knows but acting like this is a big deal doesn't make any sense.

Anaheim and Ottawa should be really pissed they might be losing Methot - Karlson's Robin -  and Vatanen.

 

Holland isn't going to get fired thisyear I've accepted that and I'm looking forward to next year, so losing Mrazek or whoever in ed is not that big of a deal for me, especially when you look at other teams I mean the Preds could lose Jusse Sarros

Logical move is to keep Mrazek, cheaper contract, expires next year, younger... there is no single reason to keep Howard  (injury prone, older, more expensive and longer contract) over Mrazek...

[Richdg 267]

6 minutes ago, kickazz said:

That's exactly how I feel man.

They probably would have taken Z. Especially if they're looking for a captain or something. He was a top point producer in the league last year and the cap hit is nice for them to reach their cap limit. Not to mention he has no NTC, NMC and they wouldn't actually have to pay him much since his salary drops to $3.5 million then $1 million. 

A $6 million 70-ish point producer that you DON'T actually pay wouldn't be a bad idea to pick up. 

If they would have taken him I would be happy as hell! Gets rid of his 7 million cap hit for the next 4 seasons! The numbers he puts up are not that great, yes still good and a great leader. But at his age with his bad back he isn't going to be here when we are ready to compete for the next cup. That does not mean I want him to go, just being realistic. Either way it is a mute point.

[GoalieManPat 1,007]

1 minute ago, Dominator2005 said:

Logical move is to keep Mrazek, cheaper contract, expires next year, younger... there is no single reason to keep Howard  (injury prone, older, more expensive and longer contract) over Mrazek...

Cheaper this year remember. Regardless of how he plays he will be asking for more than Howard next year.

[Dominator2005 558]

6 minutes ago, GoalieManPat said:

Cheaper this year remember. Regardless of how he plays he will be asking for more than Howard next year.

If he plays as a true/elite #1 goalie than pay him if not let him go... again logical move. KH is killing this team

[LeftWinger 5,065]

If the rumors of attitude problems in thge room are true, I understand them leaving Petr open. I am still a big fan and also a Jimmy hater, but you can't have locker room cancer.

But don't, for a minute, believe Holland has anything up his sleeve. We have been burned too many times by him. 

[derblaueClaus 1,668]

If Mrazek doesn't get picked it's a pretty smart move by Holland. And that he gets picked is highly unlikely as others already have pointed out.

This is also a signal that the Wings don't believe in Mrazek like we fans do. If they were sure of him as the starter in a few years Holland would have protected him. I don't know the reasons, could be that he is locker room cancer but also his inconsistency.

What is also possible that Holland is still very much in his "winning now" mindset and therefore chose the safer option in keeping the more consistent Howard over the future starter Mrazek just to have maybe a slightly better shot at the cup over the next 2 to 3 years. But I highly doubt that, there has to be something other to this.

[krsmith17 7,191]

Bottom line is, we don't even know at this point if Mrazek truly is available to Vegas. Maybe there is some sort of deal in place that Mrazek is protected, or McPhee has to select a specific player. I certainly hope this is the case...

One thing I cannot understand though is why there are so many people saying that it's highly unlikely they take Mrazek (if he is available). Sure it's possible they'd go a different route, but I would say if anything, that would be the highly unlikely scenario.

Regardless, it's going to be interesting to see how all of this plays out. One thing I will say though, there is absolutely no excuse for going into next season with the exact same team (minus expansion loss). Holland needs to make some moves, and I'm not talking about moves for the sake of making moves. He needs to make a big trade or two to really improve this team for the now and future of this organization...

[PavelValerievichDatsyuk 1,935]

I'll be pretty upset if we lose Mrazek. For now, I'm trusting that the organization wouldn't let that happen, though.

I think a deal is very possible. The Holland quote was: “I’m not prepared to pay any future assets to protect players on our team.” For me that just excludes trades involving draft picks. That leaves the door open for an agreement where we left a different player exposed (Sheahan? XO?...) with the idea that they'd take that preferred player and leave Mrazek.

P.S. I know they will take Fleury and they should, but he had a pretty bad season, other than the playoffs. I feel like the discussion of him being a knock out pick for them is exaggerated. Hell, both Howard and Mrazek have better career numbers (GAA + SV%).

[derblaueClaus 1,668]

21 minutes ago, krsmith17 said:

One thing I cannot understand though is why there are so many people saying that it's highly unlikely they take Mrazek (if he is available). Sure it's possible they'd go a different route, but I would say if anything, that would be the highly unlikely scenario.

You and others made the argument that Vegas would take Mrazek, if not for playing him, for trading him. I disagree for the following reasons:

 

I don't think they take Mrazek for to put him on their roster, simply because there are other goalies that are much better or have a better cap than him. The only reason I can see them pick Mrazek is if they are looking for a future starter that could help them winning the cup in a few years. While the last scenario sound reasonable I think it is unlikely. Mrazek has shown flashes of brilliance in his career, but his had also stretches where he played like utter garbage. Not what you want from a starter, at least not when you have other options available. Taking Mrazek would be a huge gamble and GMs don't like gambling (any more).

Now for the traiding theory. While Mrazek may have higher trade value than any other exposed player in theory you still need a partner to trade him to. Most teams, if not all are already set with their goalies for the next season. If Mrazek would have aroused any notable interest in the league Holland would probably already have traded him (Better trade him than leaving him exposed). And LV only has three picks to spend on goalies. I don't think they waste them on the uncertain probability that they might get a good trade done with them.

Edited June 18, 2017 by derblaueClaus

[xtrememachine1 795]

I've been critical of Holland for his activity or inactivity, but with this whole Mrazek or Howard thing, I'm okay with them protecting Howard instead.  The truth is, neither is that good right now, I wouldn't mind if we went an entirely different route here.  Howard is a former all star that was actually pretty good for a few years, but then got injured a bunch, and lost his confidence.  He got some of it back and played pretty decent in the 30 games he played.  Mrazek played great last year until February, fell apart and his collapse continued into this season.  We really don't know what to expect with Mrazek.  He showed flashes of brilliance at times, but other times, he's been downright awful.  It probably doesn't help that our defensive group isn't any good either, which just makes these two look even worse.  I don't think Mrazek is the next Hasek or anything here, so losing him isn't the end of the world, if LV drafts him.  I would like to see us go back to paying next to nothing for the goalies and putting all that cap space towards blueliners like we did in 2007, 2008 and 2009.  Osgood and Hasek made barely over the league minimum when they played for us those years.

[krsmith17 7,191]

2 minutes ago, derblaueClaus said:

You and others made the argument that Vegas would take Mrazek, if not for playing him, for trading him.

 

I don't think they take Mrazek for to put him on their roster, simply because there are other goalies that are much better or have a better cap than him. The only reason I can see them pick Mrazek is if they are looking for a future starter that could help them winning the cup in a few years. While the last scenario sound reasonable I think it is unlikely. Mrazek has shown flashes of brilliance in his career, but his had also stretches where he played like utter garbage. Not what you want from a starter, at least not when you have other options available. Taking Mrazek would be a huge gamble and GMs don't like gambling (any more).

No for the traiding theory. While Mrazek may have higher trade value than any other exposed player in theory you still need a partner to trade him to. Most teams, if not all are already set with their goalies for the next season. If Mrazek would have aroused any notable interest in the league Holland would probably already have traded him (Better trade him than leaving him exposed). And LV only has three picks to spend on goalies. I don't think they waste them on the uncertain probability that they might get a good trade done with them.

The bolded is where you're wrong though. Vegas, in theory, could take half a dozen goalies and flip two or three of them. There has been a lot of credible sources speculating that McPhee may do this. Maybe not to the extreme that some have mentioned, but I think they will take at least four goalies, and then flip one or two. Whether they choose to flip the one they feel is the weakest or the one that brings back the biggest return. I do think this would be a great option for McPhee, because as I said, they should be looking to take best player available.

You're right in that there won't be many teams looking to trade for a goaltender, but there would be guaranteed to be at least a couple teams looking to upgrade. 

Like I said, it's going to be very interesting to see how all of this plays out...

[Jrugges 1]

Idk, not surprising at all really. Holland is simply a guy past his prime and looks to be in denial mode about everything. He's not going to make a single move unless he's clearly the winner, no risk will be taken. 

Abdelkader, Howard, and DeKeyser all deserved to be unprotected honestly. Nosek, Sheahan, Mrazek are all mistakes to leave exposed. I always thought a deal could get done with the Jets involving Howard/Mrazek and D Tyler Myers. Likely wouldn't be straight up but Myers might end up having to be unprotected and almost certainly would be picked up by the Golden Knights if exposed. Makes sense to move him before that for value if your the Jets organization, just not sure either of the Red Wings goalies are what they're looking for. 

Honestly it'd be nice to see a super deal go down involving lots of players moving to get John Tavares as a Red Wing. LaLah land I know...

[kickazz 5,459]

1 hour ago, Richdg said:

If they would have taken him I would be happy as hell! Gets rid of his 7 million cap hit for the next 4 seasons! The numbers he puts up are not that great, yes still good and a great leader. But at his age with his bad back he isn't going to be here when we are ready to compete for the next cup. That does not mean I want him to go, just being realistic. Either way it is a mute point.

And this is how we know you actually didnt watch the games or pay attention to the season and just talk rubbish.

[PavelValerievichDatsyuk 1,935]

17 minutes ago, xtrememachine1 said:

I've been critical of Holland for his activity or inactivity, but with this whole Mrazek or Howard thing, I'm okay with them protecting Howard instead.  The truth is, neither is that good right now, I wouldn't mind if we went an entirely different route here.  Howard is a former all star that was actually pretty good for a few years, but then got injured a bunch, and lost his confidence.  He got some of it back and played pretty decent in the 30 games he played.  Mrazek played great last year until February, fell apart and his collapse continued into this season.  We really don't know what to expect with Mrazek.  He showed flashes of brilliance at times, but other times, he's been downright awful.  It probably doesn't help that our defensive group isn't any good either, which just makes these two look even worse.  I don't think Mrazek is the next Hasek or anything here, so losing him isn't the end of the world, if LV drafts him.  I would like to see us go back to paying next to nothing for the goalies and putting all that cap space towards blueliners like we did in 2007, 2008 and 2009.  Osgood and Hasek made barely over the league minimum when they played for us those years.

Hasek made 8 million each year 01-02 and 02-03 with us. Osgood made 3-4 million 00-04

We only had them for a low charge 07-09 because they were older in and not in demand. I don't want us signing 42 year old goalies as a strategy to win the cup (and I think Ozzy was 34). It was a special situation with Hasek and Ozzy that probably can't be replicated.

Edited June 18, 2017 by PavelValerievichDatsyuk

[Jesusberg 1,256]

Minimum roster requirements for Vegas are 14F + 9D + 3G = 26 players. McPhee gets to select 30 in total.

It's silly to think he won't use those four extra spots to select the best players available (regardless of their position) and try to flip them.

Edited June 18, 2017 by Jesusberg

[e_prime 1,936]

I'll just leave this here.

[Buppy 1,720]

Looking at the Mrazek exposure from a slightly different angle, it could serve as de facto protection of other players, while also freeing up cap space and freeing up a spot for Coreau if we don't want to risk waiving him. 

I don't believe the "attitude problem" theory about Mrazek, nor that he has been as bad or as inconsistent as some make him out to be. But realistically there's little chance he ends up being anything more than an average goalie. If the organization thinks Coreau has as much or more upside, it makes some sense.

[krsmith17 7,191]

5 minutes ago, e_prime said:

I'll just leave this here.

Mrazek is as good as gone...

[Jrugges 1]

11 minutes ago, kickazz said:

And this is how we know you actually didnt watch the games or pay attention to the season and just talk rubbish.

Lol, sort of agree with you. He's not a true number one really anymore but if Red Wings could cement someone in as the number one C for this team Big Z could thrive on the 2nd line or as the teams top LW. I think people actually do forget he's our best offensive player, and really was still this year.