Helene St. James Wings likely to waive Abdelkader, move on from Blashill

[Henkka]

So nothing concrete then? Just her speculation or does she know something nobody else does.

She is doing exact same as we here in this board. Speculating the same things.

These could be very expected things to happen. Like, no news for anybody.

 

[Henkka]

Aren't the DRW still on the hook for the contract/cap space if Abby retires (even the part if he went to the AHL) just like Dats?

edit...mean cap space

If he retires, all disappears. Paid money and caphits.

If he goes to AHL and reports/plays there, he'll get the full money and buried caphit affecting to Red Wings is lowered by 1.025M.

So promoting a 700k priced player instead of Abdelkader, would save ~300k with the cap.

 

[waltdetroit]

If he retires, all disappears. Paid money and caphits.

If he goes to AHL and reports/plays there, he'll get the full money and buried caphit affecting to Red Wings is lowered by 1.025M.

So promoting a 700k priced player instead of Abdelkader, would save ~300k with the cap.

Yes I looked it up/ Only contracts signed after 35 still have a cap hit

 

[newfy]

Aren't the DRW still on the hook for the contract/cap space if Abby retires (even the part if he went to the AHL) just like Dats?

edit...mean cap space

Only if he was 35 when he signed. He might play out the next season in the AHL but I definitely doubt he plays out that whole contract down there and for now they dont need the cap space. It almost seems like theyre forcing him into retirement by doing that. By the end of his contract they might need the space so it seems smart to me.

She is doing exact same as we here in this board. Speculating the same things.

These could be very expected things to happen. Like, no news for anybody.

St James absolutely has more insight into what will happent han anyone on this board. If shes coming out and saying Abby is likely gone next year, she probably has some info on it before she comes out and says that about a long tenured wing like that

 

[Number1RedWingsFan52]

Aren't the DRW still on the hook for the contract/cap space if Abby retires (even the part if he went to the AHL) just like Dats?

edit...mean cap space

No that for only 35+ Contracts, Should Abby choose to retire. His entire cap comes off the books. But he'd be crazy to do that with starting a young family and all.

 

[Retire91]

The biggest reason to send Abby down is accountability. At the very least he should have his A taken away. He is playing some of the worst hockey in the league. Bottom 1% easy.

I understand a contract is a contract but the level of play he is bringing to the table needs some accountability and I don't think anyone outside of his circle of family and friends would object to him finishing his career in the AHL.

 

[MBH]

The sooner you have him riding buses on long shitty trips in the AHL, playing 3 games in 4 nights etc, the quicker he might just retire and let the wings off the hook for his contract.

It would be hard to give up that kind of money but hes also made enough to live ridiculously comfortably for him, his kids and his grand kids probably. Might be worth moving onto the next thing for him at this point instead of the bus rides

He's from the west side of Michigan anyway. He'll gladly ride buses for $4M a year.
And he'll cement his ties there that will serve him well after his playing career.

 

[MBH]

The biggest reason to send Abby down is accountability. At the very least he should have his A taken away. He is playing some of the worst hockey in the league. Bottom 1% easy.
I understand a contract is a contract but the level of play he is bringing to the table needs some accountability and I don't think anyone outside of his circle of family and friends would object to him finishing his career in the AHL.

What I would say is this.
Who are our best PK forwards?
Here's where Abby ranked each year on GA/60, among DRW forwards with 100 minutes of PK time or more.
19-20 . 9.89 4th of 7. Ehn was the only one substantially better. Nobody was really much worse.
18-19 - 6.32. 2nd on the team behind DLR.
Over the previous 3 years - 5.55 - 2nd on the team behind Steve Ott (who had a very small sample size).

I don't see a ton of need to dump Abdelkader. If he returns to action and plays poorly again on the PK, then yeah. But if he resumes his role as a top PK guy, then send him out there on L4 and the PK.
We don't have anywhere else to spend the money. We don't have a lot of 4th line types dying for his spot.
Guys who he's competing with for jobs (Glendening/Helm) are nearing the end of their tenure here.
I don't see a screaming need to dump him at the moment.
And I am not a Justin Abdelkader fan by ANY stretch of the imagination.
The Abdelkader contract has already done its damage. The Abdelkader top 6 experiment has already done its damage.
This trojan virus as run its course.

 

[Retire91]

What I would say is this.
Who are our best PK forwards?
Here's where Abby ranked each year on GA/60, among DRW forwards with 100 minutes of PK time or more.
19-20 . 9.89 4th of 7. Ehn was the only one substantially better. Nobody was really much worse.
18-19 - 6.32. 2nd on the team behind DLR.
Over the previous 3 years - 5.55 - 2nd on the team behind Steve Ott (who had a very small sample size).

I don't see a ton of need to dump Abdelkader. If he returns to action and plays poorly again on the PK, then yeah. But if he resumes his role as a top PK guy, then send him out there on L4 and the PK.
We don't have anywhere else to spend the money. We don't have a lot of 4th line types dying for his spot.
Guys who he's competing with for jobs (Glendening/Helm) are nearing the end of their tenure here.
I don't see a screaming need to dump him at the moment.
And I am not a Justin Abdelkader fan by ANY stretch of the imagination.
The Abdelkader contract has already done its damage. The Abdelkader top 6 experiment has already done its damage.
This trojan virus as run its course.

I agree I am not in the hurry to dump him slot. This isn't 2015 where we are suffering watching him on the top line and a coach that refuses to stop it. And he is not all that badly suited for a PK role on a bad team. I feel there is really no need to do anything with him but tread water and let his contract expire. I am even dreading all the calls on the board to trade him when his contract has less term. We need this guy to stop consuming assets, his salary is already on the books and nothing can be done about it. Stay the course and ride it out is what I say. But at least take that A away.

 

[MBH]

I agree I am not in the hurry to dump him slot. This isn't 2015 where we are suffering watching him on the top line and a coach that refuses to stop it. And he is not all that badly suited for a PK role on a bad team. I feel there is really no need to do anything with him but tread water and let his contract expire. I am even dreading all the calls on the board to trade him when his contract has less term. We need this guy to stop consuming assets, his salary is already on the books and nothing can be done about it. Stay the course and ride it out is what I say. But at least take that A away.

Yeah. I think that A is a bigger issue than anything right now.

 

[newfy]

He's from the west side of Michigan anyway. He'll gladly ride buses for $4M a year.
And he'll cement his ties there that will serve him well after his playing career.

Being from West Michigan has nothing to do with riding buses when youre used to a private jet. Hes a guy whose made enough money for his grand kids to be rich, you dont know that he'll gladly be riding a bus over 20 hours just for some divisional games when hes starting a young family.

He might do it for a year and get all his shit in order but I highly doubt he does it for 3 straight years.

 

[Ghost of Ethan Hunt]

Career earnings for Abby. A family of 5-6 could live very well off of 1-2% interest on ~$30M (or ~$18M after taxes)? That's still 180-360k+ per year!!

Per CapFriendly: $29,514,325

per Sportrac: $30,914,512

 

[Gniwder]

If he retires, all disappears. Paid money and caphits.

If he goes to AHL and reports/plays there, he'll get the full money and buried caphit affecting to Red Wings is lowered by 1.025M.

So promoting a 700k priced player instead of Abdelkader, would save ~300k with the cap.

He's got a front loaded contract with signing bonuses, so if I'm looking at it correctly there's $3.75M in recapture penalty if he retires early. That number goes down starting next season.

 

[MBH]

Being from West Michigan has nothing to do with riding buses when youre used to a private jet. Hes a guy whose made enough money for his grand kids to be rich, you dont know that he'll gladly be riding a bus over 20 hours just for some divisional games when hes starting a young family.

He might do it for a year and get all his shit in order but I highly doubt he does it for 3 straight years.

So? He's not stupid.
Where else is he going to make $4M for 7 months of work.
I don't see any reason he'd retire unless he finds away to LTIR.

 

[newfy]

So? He's not stupid.
Where else is he going to make $4M for 7 months of work.
I don't see any reason he'd retire unless he finds away to LTIR.

Might not make 4 millions a year doing anything anymore but he probably more than enough to live comfortably without putting his body on the line everynight, riding shitty buses and playing in a league filled with a lot more cheap play/goonery. If he took 25% of his salary last year and invested it half decently he could live off that money for the rest of his life.

Do you have kids? Theres a lot of people that would give up long, shitty road trips and being gone for a week or two at a time at some points to get to spend time with their kids while theyre hitting milestones. Especially when he will have made over 30 million in his career just from hockey, not including investments.

He very well might not retire but saying you cant see any reason why he would is pretty ridiculous as well. Theres a lot of reasons an NHL player would retire after being sent to the AHL for good.

 

[Winger98]

I'd be surprised if he retired. He's still averages over $3m in actual salary the last three years of his deal and while he's already made a good chunk of money, more is still more.

 

[14ari13]

Only if he was 35 when he signed. He might play out the next season in the AHL but I definitely doubt he plays out that whole contract down there and for now they dont need the cap space. It almost seems like theyre forcing him into retirement by doing that. . By the end of his contract they might need the space so it seems smart to me.



St James absolutely has more insight into what will happent han anyone on this board. If shes coming out and saying Abby is likely gone next year, she probably has some info on it before she comes out and says that about a long tenured wing like that

She probably has. But Abby had such a terrible season that even the goalie has more points than him. So this was very much expected.
He can easily be replaced and we need that roster spot.

As for her Blashill speculation, I think it is a clickbait.

As far as I remember nobody on this board takes her seriously.

 

[Henkka]

you dont know that he'll gladly be riding a bus over 20 hours.

4.25 million per year is a pretty good salary for a bus driver.

 

[Flowah]

As far as I remember nobody on this board takes her seriously.

She has seemed to me to be one of the team's mouthpieces. They feed her info to gently feed it to the fanbase.

If she is saying they're going to move on from Blashill, I think there's a >50% chance they do.

 

[raymond23]

She has seemed to me to be one of the team's mouthpieces. They feed her info to gently feed it to the fanbase.

If she is saying they're going to move on from Blashill, I think there's a >50% chance they do.

That was definitely the case with Holland but sure if that’s going to be the case with Stevie. This will be a good test.

 

[Ricelund]

As far as I remember nobody on this board takes her seriously.

I mean, she churns out typical beat writer articles but she occasionally gets nuggets that are actually unique pieces of information leaked by the organization.

 

[newfy]

As far as I remember nobody on this board takes her seriously.

If anyone on thos board doesnt take her seriously than theyre not very smart. Shes the teams mouth piece that doesnt ask the hard questions which annoys some people but when she has come out with rumours or talk about whats going to happen with the team she has had the inside info.

She wouldnt just make up rumours for clicks about the wings possibly moving Blashill into the front office when they find a new coach. Thats a thing most teams would never do and pretty random unless she has some inside info

 

[NotLeddy]

I'd be down with Lambert, would prefer Gallant, but definitely a coach I'd be optimistic about if someone outbids Detroit in the Gallant sweepstakes.

 

[Bench]

If anyone on thos board doesnt take her seriously than theyre not very smart. Shes the teams mouth piece that doesnt ask the hard questions which annoys some people but when she has come out with rumours or talk about whats going to happen with the team she has had the inside info.

She wouldnt just make up rumours for clicks about the wings possibly moving Blashill into the front office when they find a new coach. Thats a thing most teams would never do and pretty random unless she has some inside info

Exactly. Imagine she publishes this article and then next year she's in the locker room trying to interview Abby and Blashill. Awkward. And players don't like when reports throw their coach and teammates under the bus for clicks. They'll remember that and the relationships are damaged. As much as we all want an unfiltered look into the Wings, that's not how these working relationships are formed. It's symbiotic. The reporters get access to the team and the team gets to control the tone of the narrative. This is entertainment. Sports are entertainment.

And I love how she gets criticized for being a shill when she reported on the Cleary situation but when she reports this stuff, now she's making up clickbait. I also wonder why HSJ gets so much more hate than the other beat writers. As far as I can tell, after years of reading our beat reporters content, she's nearly identical to the rest. They all have the same talking points and tepid criticism. If only I could pinpoint one thing that was different about her.

 

[Squirrel in the Hole]

Roster spot man. If you actually wanna upgrade the 2nd line we'll have to sign some type of center. An Zadina/Rasmussen/Smith/Timashov will all push for regular roles. Maybe even another signing or the resigning of Gagner.

(A)Tyler Bertuzzi – (C)Dylan Larkin – Anthony Mantha
*Alexis Lafreniere/Filip Zadina – *UFA Signing– Sam Gagner
Filip Zadina/Michael Rasmussen – Valtteri Filppula – Robbie Fabbri
Darren Helm – (A)Luke Glendenning – Dymtro Timashov

* Frans Nielson, C.
* Givani Smith, LW/RW

Idk, just throwing that out there... If you don't like Smith and just role with Abdelkader then fine. Can't really justify playing him over anyone else though imo.

I guess you can keep him around safely if you sign no one and don't get the chance to draft Lafreniere or Byfield.

Where do Ehn and Erne fit in though? HSJ seems to indicate they're back. And, no provision for Svech, who's no longer waiver-exempt.

Something's gotta give....