News Article: What if the Red Wings had signed Marian Hossa instead of Johan Franzen in 2009?

[Mister Ed]

An interesting article that touches on an alternate history of the Wings.

https://sports.yahoo.com/red-wings-didnt-let-marian-hossa-walk-nhl-alternate-history-165725384.html

Thoughts?

Click to read more...

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Worthless article.

It would have looked fantastic for the year or two after... but as soon as the 2012 lockout happened and they were on the hook for Hossa until eternity, Z for eternity, and so on... people would hate the Hossa contract even more than the Franzen one. Keeping Hossa over Franzen wouldn't keep Kronwall's knees from dying, Ericsson from shattering his hand, Datsyuk from aging and then wanting to leave, Lidstrom from retiring.

The main difference is you maybe get 10-20 more points per season when both are healthy for $2M more on the cap and the thinking is that Chicago wouldn't be quite as monstrous as they became.

The amount of butterfly effect with this deal should be surprisingly small for as much time is devoted to it and how good both players were at their best.

 

[Cyborg Yzerberg]

 

[Mount Suribachi]

Worthless article.

It would have looked fantastic for the year or two after... but as soon as the 2012 lockout happened and they were on the hook for Hossa until eternity, Z for eternity, and so on... people would hate the Hossa contract even more than the Franzen one. Keeping Hossa over Franzen wouldn't keep Kronwall's knees from dying, Ericsson from shattering his hand, Datsyuk from aging and then wanting to leave, Lidstrom from retiring.

The main difference is you maybe get 10-20 more points per season when both are healthy for $2M more on the cap and the thinking is that Chicago wouldn't be quite as monstrous as they became.

The amount of butterfly effect with this deal should be surprisingly small for as much time is devoted to it and how good both players were at their best.

Yeah, there are much bigger, more impactful What Ifs, like signing Suter.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Yeah, there are much bigger, more impactful What Ifs, like signing Suter.

Signing Suter, trading for Jaybo (Nike + Tatar), etc.

Things that would materially improve the team. As great a player as Hossa is... Franzen wasn't materially worse.

From 10-11 to basically end of Franzen's career, he had 205p in 281 games at a cap hit of 3.9M

Same period, Hossa had 286 in 340 games at a cap hit of 5.25 or so.

And this is almost entirely because Rob Klinkhammer's dirty hit that made Franzen's head fruit salad. Franzen had stayed at or near .67 PPG at a minimum his entire career and likely would have continued as such for a while longer.

 

[sully6one]

Spending an extra $2M would potentially force Holland to playing more kids during that time frame

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Maybe we get a longer cup run and maybe Chicago doesn't win all theirs.

But we don't get close enough to the cup and we are in a similar situation but just on a delayed timer.

 

[Winger98]

Signing Suter, trading for Jaybo (Nike + Tatar), etc.

Fischer having a fully functioning normal heart.

 

[Dotter]

Nothing would be different

 

[Cyborg Yzerberg]

Maybe we get a longer cup run and maybe Chicago doesn't win all theirs.

But we don't get close enough to the cup and we are in a similar situation but just on a delayed timer.

Maybe 2012 would have gone better.

 

[RabidBadger]

Fischer having a fully functioning normal heart.

That, and not having the Konstantinov tragedy occur is much more impactful than not signing Hoss.

I didn't read the article because the premise is a bit tiresome at this point. Plus, I think the posters here posited more meaningful 'what ifs'. I'll just say The Cup was won the year before Hossa was in the lineup, and the rest doesn't need mentioning.

 

[BlakKy]

Maybe we squeak into the second round the year Nashville beat us. A slight possibility that Hosea propels us past the sharks the year that Datsyuk had the playoffs that rival some of the best individual runs in history. I doubt we get a cup in that time or anything else of material value.

Relistically we should still feel bad about 2009. Max Talbot carved out a legacy and our post lock-out superstars minus Z let it happen. We had Hosea then of course...

 

[dragonballgtz]

I forgot, didn't we have to sign Hudler that same year as well? Would we have had cap space to re-sign him again?

 

[HIFE]

Don't know if I'd call this a "news article" but it was a decent small read and a good question of whether Holland missed the ball by not going out of his way to keep Hossa. Some interesting facts peppered in. I didn't remember Gretsky's favorite team was the Wings, that would have been something.

Clearly Detroit made the wrong choice in 2009. Hossa went on to score 473 points in twice as many games as Franzen. Wyshnyski's speculation that in 2010 we'd finish better in the division, face VAN instead of the Sharks, then wipe out the Hawks before the Flyers is believable. It struck me thinking what if we had Hoss instead of Chicago...damn.

I think TZE has shared the opinion it was a letdown Babcock didn't get us more than 1 cup. 2010, 11, and 12 the door still felt open. We'll never know but for as great as Hossa was those years he could have pushed us over the top.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Don't know if I'd call this a "news article" but it was a decent small read and a good question of whether Holland missed the ball by not going out of his way to keep Hossa. Some interesting facts peppered in. I didn't remember Gretsky's favorite team was the Wings, that would have been something.

Clearly Detroit made the wrong choice in 2009. Hossa went on to score 473 points in twice as many games as Franzen. Wyshnyski's speculation that in 2010 we'd finish better in the division, face VAN instead of the Sharks, then wipe out the Hawks before the Flyers is believable. It struck me thinking what if we had Hoss instead of Chicago...damn.

I think TZE has shared the opinion it was a letdown Babcock didn't get us more than 1 cup. 2010, 11, and 12 the door still felt open. We'll never know but for as great as Hossa was those years he could have pushed us over the top.

In 10-11-12, Franzen had 22 points in 25 playoff games. Hossa had 21 in 32. So while it's a believable theory that the healthier (still not fully healthy) Hossa would have pushed us a bit higher in the standings in 2010, the difference between the two at that time wasn't all that big. Franzen was still a playoff performer and scored at a very solid rate in the regular season.

As for choosing Franzen over Hossa, it never seemed to me that Hossa was all that 'available' to us. The impression I got was that he chose situation more than money.

 

[Winger98]

I forgot, didn't we have to sign Hudler that same year as well? Would we have had cap space to re-sign him again?

We did, but he went to Russia and Sammy skipped town to sign in Vancouver. Losing those two and forcing Holland to scramble the roster a bit didn't help the following year.

 

[Shoalzie]

They won a cup with Franzen...they probably would've won a cup with Hossa if he hung around. They damn near won one with both guys.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

I am not sure, maybe he gets allergic to his equipment sooner when we are here.

Holland offered both guys, I don't think Hossa really ever envisioned his stop in Detroit being for more than just the one year.

Franzen was a terrific hockey player though before his injury and certainly better than Marian Hossa during the post-season at considerably less the cap hit.

Don't know if I'd call this a "news article" but it was a decent small read and a good question of whether Holland missed the ball by not going out of his way to keep Hossa. Some interesting facts peppered in. I didn't remember Gretsky's favorite team was the Wings, that would have been something.

Clearly Detroit made the wrong choice in 2009. Hossa went on to score 473 points in twice as many games as Franzen. Wyshnyski's speculation that in 2010 we'd finish better in the division, face VAN instead of the Sharks, then wipe out the Hawks before the Flyers is believable. It struck me thinking what if we had Hoss instead of Chicago...damn.

I think TZE has shared the opinion it was a letdown Babcock didn't get us more than 1 cup. 2010, 11, and 12 the door still felt open. We'll never know but for as great as Hossa was those years he could have pushed us over the top.

Yes I believe one cup from 06-12 is really a let down given the talent we had. You can never count on them coming through, but I think we had cup winning rosters pretty easily in all those years, yes some bad breaks happened but to come away with one cup in that era should have been the minimal expectations of those rosters at that point.

 

[BinCookin]

Yes I believe one cup from 06-12 is really a let down given the talent we had. You can never count on them coming through, but I think we had cup winning rosters pretty easily in all those years, yes some bad breaks happened but to come away with one cup in that era should have been the minimal expectations of those rosters at that point.

i mean expecting cups in general is a little much, no matter your roster...

i mean we COULD have won like 4-5 years in a row.

We almost won 2 years in a row.

WSH has never made it past 2nd round... they deserve 2-3 cups
SJ has always been good, they deserve at least 1 cup
I mean if we talk about who deserves a cup... lots of teams...

but only one team can win.

And i think its really dangerous to have the mentality that your team deserves or should win the cup... because if they win (you meet expectations, you are happy but you know, not surprised).
And in ever other scenario you are upset and frustrated...

We need to learn to appreciate more and expect less.
Especially now that our team is rebuilding LOL (kinda LOL)

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

i mean expecting cups in general is a little much, no matter your roster...

i mean we COULD have won like 4-5 years in a row.

We almost won 2 years in a row.

WSH has never made it past 2nd round... they deserve 2-3 cups
SJ has always been good, they deserve at least 1 cup
I mean if we talk about who deserves a cup... lots of teams...

but only one team can win.

And i think its really dangerous to have the mentality that your team deserves or should win the cup... because if they win (you meet expectations, you are happy but you know, not surprised).
And in ever other scenario you are upset and frustrated...

We need to learn to appreciate more and expect less.
Especially now that our team is rebuilding LOL (kinda LOL)

I think that is fine and I don't have problem with it.

I will root for this team no matter what, I starting rooting for them when they had the second longest streak in the league without a cup and then the longest streak in the league cupless.

But I think realistically the group coming out of the lockout had the talent to have more than one cup to their name. Like you said that isn't how it worked out, but my opinion is that era should probably have more than one championship. I appreciate the one we did get and I appreciated all the seasons we have had. I will appreciate the one we are about to have, there are worse things than watching 82 Red Wings games to do in this world. I look forward to it even if our most hopeful goal this year really should be praying to win the lottery and get Dahlin.

 

[aar000n]

What if Hossa would have contributed in the playoffs in 2009. Especially his cup disappearance where he would drive the net and turn the puck over time after time. Just think one goal could have made all the difference 2 we win the cup.

 

[Winger98]

What if Hossa would have contributed in the playoffs in 2009. Especially his cup disappearance where he would drive the net and turn the puck over time after time. Just think one goal could have made all the difference 2 we win the cup.

But he was great defensively, or something.

 

[RedMenace]

I didn't read the article because I don't like "Puck Daddy," nor do I particularly care for J.J. as a person, but wasn't this same basic thing just done by Henkka and then almost universally **** upon by as a "pointless Holland fluff piece" by everyone here?

 

[Henkka]

I didn't read the article because I don't like "Puck Daddy," nor do I particularly care for J.J. as a person, but wasn't this same basic thing just done by Henkka and then almost universally **** upon by as a "pointless Holland fluff piece" by everyone here?

I don't remember anything else than:

- Franzen was signed lot before summer free agency, when Hossa's contract was up.
- Hossa was impossible to fit under the cap, because the cap did stand pat and did rise only by 100k (economic crisis).

At same summer, Ken Holland informed media about those tail-end contracts, that it would be risky to have more than 3 per organization on the long run. They already had Zetterbergn, Franzen and Kronwall built that way.

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1508167&highlight=franzen

Here is some old debate with some stats. Healthy Franzen was quite par with Hossa.

Imo, both were relatively good signings, Hossa was worth more, because of his longevity. Chicago would have absolutely less Cups without Hossa, but Detroit pretty sure 0 more with him (and without Franzen).

Franzen was never problem at the playoffs. He scored 0.76 points per playoff game. Hossa's career number is 0.73.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Holland offered both players contracts in April. Franzen signed his, Hossa did not.

This implies Holland intended to sign both and figure out how to fit them under the cap later (unless I am missing a key detail). With that in mind what changed with Holland to where he was no longer willing to keep a key goal scorer and make moves for it to happen?