If Bertuzzi walks, who takes his place?

id be much happier with any of these free agents listed above. Bertuzzi is a bum and for every game he scores in or plays well in, he still makes turnovers and is too slow for our system. people say he was so great this year, welll if you played next to zetterberg and filpula, and datsyuk on some occasions you would be bound to score some goals as well.
Eaves scored 20 goals his rookie year playing alongside daniel alfreddson, he is more capable of scoring goals and ressurecting his career better than bertuzzi ever could, he, helm and abby should be our main focus.

In completely unrelated news, Lidstrom is driving the pace car today at Michigan International Speedway

Taylor Pyatt or Evgeny Artyukin.

Both provide grit, size and, kind of decent production. Well, decent for third line

Pyat: 12 G 11 A 23 P
Artyukin: 9 G 7 A 16 P

Artyukin has had some run-ins with the suplementary discipline in the NHL, but I think Pyatt, who’s young-ish at 29, and is a hard worker, would be a great addition.

I vote him over Drew Miller even.

Comrie is an interesting choice, and I could see him taking a year deal to play in a stable environment and demonstrate that he is fully healthy after his problems last year.

For nothing whatsoever to do with hockey, the idea of Satan as a Bertuzzi replacement makes me laugh. :D

How about we package a couple guys to send to Ottawa for Jason Spezza and promote guys from within? The only problem is his $7 million salary the next 5 years. I know Holland is a wizzard at this kinda stuff. He will provide 30-40 goals and 70-80 points a game. Since that is wishful thinking I will have to vote for either Comrie or Satan. We all should know Nolan wont sign with Detroit. There is bad blood between him and the Wings. Then again that hasnt stopped others with history coming to Hockeytown.

Is that they are either not talented (Asham) OR really freaking old.

Morrison, while a great guy, is another centre (we have a billion natural centres on this roster), as is Mike Comrie.

If I had to choose anyone of these players, I guess it would be Owen Nolan. Old, cranky man. Hits hard, still has some gas left in the tank. Never won a Cup.

These guys exist to come to Detroit and win.

But personally, I’d go young.

Morrison is coming from a train wreck of a system and being under a ridiculous coach. He might end up decent, but that’s risky for the salary he’d demand.

Comrie is fey, there’s no dancing around that. He’s fey and he’s not a good fit. He’d be like Hudler-Lite. and we already have our maximum allocation for Hudler filled by actual Hudler. In conclusion: Hudler.

Nolan is a guy I would take if he would take $1M. Might just be that Dallas Drake-type we’ve all been waiting for.

Satan plays really well now when he wants to. Problem is that nobody knows what makes him want to play well. When he’s not in the mood, he completely disappears from the ice, but not in the good Brett Hull kind of way.

Asham is probably my favorite choice right in front of Nolan (assuming he’s probably more cap-friendly). He’s slow as molasses, but that can be covered by Helm and Eaves/Draper and he gets to scoring areas. His grit would also be a welcome upgrade.

For the prospects, I’m starting to think that it may be time to do a sink or swim on Ritola. I know the Organization wants their guys overripe, but some guys just need the crucible of the NHL to actually ripen. Ritola’s probably not going to get a better chance than this year for that to happen. (as a note, Ville Leino’s attitude was the problem, not the club expecting too much too soon. He forced their hands by demanding to be with the club after his 1 year in the minors. He’ll have a fine career of getting benched for being a primadonna without enough skill to make up for it and will go back to Finland soon enough.

That I listed these guys because they make the same (or around the same) salary as Bertuzzi did, and have been mentioned in other articles as possible replacements. Detroit only has about $5 million in cap space to spend, and we still have to sign Helm, Eaves, Miller, and Abdelkader. Sure it’d be nice to go out and grab someone better, but they just don’t have the cap room to do it.

not because he’s bad or I don’t want him, but because I signed him out of free agency the last time I played NHL dynasty mode

I’m dreaming here, but what if we offered Devin Setoguchi $1.25-1.5 million for two seasons. Not a huge cap hit, and we get a young player with loads of potential who had a pretty good playoffs this year. Only real problem is that he is restricted and I would think that San Jose will do everything in their power to keep him.