The Great Divider: Yes or No to Hossa?

Are you kidding me? Even my Dad knows better!

Is i dont want him going to a team in the Western Conference where he could come back to haunt us. I think Sammy and Hudler are great player but they might turn out to be players that flourished in the Wings system and could fall apart in another location. I’ll take a guy with Hossa’s skill anyday, just hope he steps it up in the playoffs next time around.

Maybe the greats don’t let the pressure get to them. And maybe therefore Hossa isn’t great yet. But I think this postseason Hossa put himself in an impossible situation: win the Cup or be a giant schmuck. Even if the Wings had lost in an earlier round, Hossa still would have failed in his decision to come to the Wings. It seemed that the closer he got to actually lifting the Cup the more the pressure became too much. He was great in the postseason with the Pens in 08, and I really don’t think that we’ll see such a poor postseason performance from him if he sticks around for ’10.

But really, if your Hossa, where else do you go? What other organization gives you a better chance to win a Cup at least sometime in the near future than Detroit?

if Hossa is going to produce well on the Wings lineup next year. You can see that Pavel and Hossa can’t work out together. Hossa needs contributors like Filp and Mule. But when we watched the playoffs, we really noticed Franz and Filp really step up their game while Hossa didn’t.

So you could say that Hossa helps the team win by dishing pucks to them?

Look, Hossa is a great player. But the Red Wings are a team full of great players who all cost less than Hossa. I have no problem bringing on a guy of his caliber, but I do have a problem with his price tag. Paying on the order of $6 to $7 for a 3 year contract makes no sense due to the Red Wings current situation.

We have young talent that needs to be resigned over the next few years: Helm, Leino, Abdelkader, Lebda, Ericsson.

And a bunch of veterans who are nearing the end of their playing careers and needsreplacements found for them: Holmstrom, Draper, Maltby, Lidstrom, Osgood.

With top tier talent already locked up for the future in Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Filppula, Cleary, and Franzen. Do we really need to sign a 2nd line player (for us) to such a huge contract? I say no because all it would do is take away valuable cap space that should be used to keep the team’s core and young players intact.

Thanks for the regular season Hossa, and thanks for not showing up in the playoffs when it really matters. Get out.

Hossa didn’t live up to his expectations. But he wasn’t the only one who was pretty flat out there. One thing I did notice, when he was out there, he was working. Some say he was trying to do it all himself, but I disagree. I saw him make many perfect passes and cuts, and only a handfull of turnovers all through the playoffs. I say keep him. His work ethic and desire to win are huge. Being that many young players are coming into the organization, another leader out front can’t hurt. He’s worth it.

But I voted no on this poll, and I can explain my reasoning by quoting a couple of my previous posts:

I think that the cap space taken up by Hossa could be put to much better use. I feel that he embarrassed us when it counted the most. I can not honestly say that I feel Hossa is to blame for the entire team’s failure, but not a single goal in the FInals? If he had made just 1 goal in any of the overtime games, or even 1 goal in game 7……I do not need to finish this sentence. I do not see the need to re-sign Marian Hossa

Samuelsson:

He’s been a consistent 40 point guy since coming to Detroit, except for the 06-07 season when he was injured (34 pts). I know that isn’t spectacular, but it isn’t bad either. Hossa had 71 pts (40 goals and 31 assts) during the regular season this year. Yes, that is 31 more than Samuelsson, but at what cost? He (Hossa) did not play terribly in the playoffs on the whole (6 goals, 9 assts, 15 pts, +5), but when it really mattered the most, he was pretty much a non-factor. He had 100 shots on goal during the playoffs (1/3 of his season total) and he only netted 6 goals…..not exactly what I was hoping for in a guy with a contract like his. Samuelsson had 79 shots on goal and netted 5 goals. He also had 5 assts (10 pts) at a +7.

I would personally rather have Samuelsson, Ericsson, and Hudler, along with Helm, Abdelkader, Leino, and the young James (Jimmy) Howard over Hossa. If we keep Hossa, we will still likely have those young and talented players, but we will lose a 50+ point guy in Hudler, and a 40 pt guy in Samuelsson at the very least. I think the Wings can do better than that, and obviously one player does not make the difference.

Hudler became an absolute ghost for most of the playoffs as well, and never looked confident after that hit by Brown (maybe a residual injury). He not only failed to put up points but was also a defensive liability. At least Hossa was never much of a defensive liability. I like Jiri, but if we can get Hossa back for a decent amount I don’t see why we’d pass that up. Our GM office is pretty smart, so I’m not too concerned that our future will be in jeopardy by any decisions that are made in this offseason.

while fans’ inputs are entertaining, the bottom line is that holland & crew will make the hopefully right decision the all wings fans will have to live with. the chips will fall where they fall, hopefully in the direction that we all want it to, towards another cup.
go wings!!!

Since it seems like, from what I’ve seen, it’s either Hossa, Hudler or Samuelsson, I’d rather have Hossa. Even after the situation with the Cup, in that he came to Detroit hoping to win one and left the team that did win, he still wants to stay here. And Hudler and Samuelsson didn’t do much in the post-season, I found myself more upset with Samuelsson on the ice than off, to be perfectly honest.