Imagine what would happen if...

[snailderby]

Imagine if...

• Jiri Fischer was a healthy 33/yr old in the prime of his career top #2 defenseman and never had that heart condition.

That one really bums me out, because Fischer was going to be a BEAST!

Yeah. That was unfortunate. Imagine if we signed Suter and Parise instead of Quincey and Cleary.

Parise - Datysuk - Alfredsson
Franzen - Zetterberg - Nyquist
Tatar - Sheahan/Weiss - Jurco
Abdelkader - Helm - Pulkkinen

Kronwall - Ericsson
Suter - Smith
DeKeyser - Marchenko

 

[snailderby]

To answer the original post, though, even if all of that happened, I doubt we'd win the Cup. It would be a great step forward though!

 

[detredWINgs]

Win the Cup? Nope. Nothing there suggests our powerplay would wake up and even if everyone on the back-end played up to their abilities, it's still a defense that is littered with guys who either have yet to establish their identity or are simply a jack of all trades, master of none.

And I don't think it would give us an easy road through the East either. I think Montreal, Tampa, Boston and even Columbus would trump us handily in 7 games. I do think we could handle NYR though.

 

[Crymson]

The defense isn't good enough. Even if they are sufficient in their own zone, their puck movement as a group is awful, as is their offensive production.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

Win the Cup? Nope. Nothing there suggests our powerplay would wake up and even if everyone on the back-end played up to their abilities, it's still a defense that is littered with guys who either have yet to establish their identity or are simply a jack of all trades, master of none.

And I don't think it would give us an easy road through the East either. I think Montreal, Tampa, Boston and even Columbus would trump us handily in 7 games. I do think we could handle NYR though.

Surprised at the amount of people that bought Ben Bishop's big year hook line and sinker. They did some interesting things this off-season but the faith around HF on the bolts is something I do not share, feel similar to them about how I felt about Ottawa last year.

 

[Chance on Chance]

I think a bunch of teams in the east can say they'd make the cup final if everything went absolutely perfect for them. If that happened for us I think we'd have a good shot at representing the east

 

[Crymson]

Surprised at the amount of people that bought Ben Bishop's big year hook line and sinker. They did some interesting things this off-season but the faith around HF on the bolts is something I do not share, feel similar to them about how I felt about Ottawa last year.

"Craig Anderson is the best goalie in the league! Didn't you see his stellar 24-game performance in 2013?"

 

[Crymson]

Yeah. That was unfortunate. Imagine if we signed Suter and Parise instead of Quincey and Cleary.

Parise - Datysuk - Alfredsson
Franzen - Zetterberg - Nyquist
Tatar - Sheahan/Weiss - Jurco
Abdelkader - Helm - Pulkkinen

Kronwall - Ericsson
Suter - Smith
DeKeyser - Marchenko

Exactly what is the use of this what-if? The situation was literally out of Holland's control.

 

[Shaman464]

Howard would have a GAA close to 3 if Detroit doesn't figure out how to limit shots this season. He can be as good as Hasek was in his prime, but if he has to face 30+ shots there isn't much he can do.

Also they lost almost half the games they scored first in. Remember that.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Yeah. That was unfortunate. Imagine if we signed Suter and Parise instead of Quincey and Cleary.

Parise - Datysuk - Alfredsson
Franzen - Zetterberg - Nyquist
Tatar - Sheahan/Weiss - Jurco
Abdelkader - Helm - Pulkkinen

Kronwall - Ericsson
Suter - Smith
DeKeyser - Marchenko

This is awful.

You create a fantasy world in which the Wings landed Parise and Suter... and you're using Pulkkinen on the checking line and Suter as a 2nd pairing D.

 

[ricky0034]

This is awful.

You create a fantasy world in which the Wings landed Parise and Suter... and you're using Pulkkinen on the checking line and Suter as a 2nd pairing D.

agreed on the Pulkkinen part but it wouldn't exactly be a bad idea to have Kronwall and Suter anchoring different pairings(i'd argue that whatever pairing Suter was on would be the first pairing by default though but whatever)

 

[silkyjohnson50]

Howard would have a GAA close to 3 if Detroit doesn't figure out how to limit shots this season. He can be as good as Hasek was in his prime, but if he has to face 30+ shots there isn't much he can do.

Also they lost almost half the games they scored first in. Remember that.

Are you talking about the Hasek who won the Vezina, led the league in Sv%, and took a 7th seed to the Finals despite the fact that his team allowed the 5th most shots against in the entire NHL in 99?

The same Hasek who won the Hart, Vezina, led the league in shutouts and Sv% despite the fact that his team allowed the most shots against in the entire NHL in 98?

Why do you constantly post/make up stuff that is completely senseless?

 

[snailderby]

Exactly what is the use of this what-if? The situation was literally out of Holland's control.

Not blaming Holland for not landing Parise and Suter. Just dreaming (like Dotter was dreaming about a healthy Fischer).

 

[Short Shorts]

Howard would have a GAA close to 3 if Detroit doesn't figure out how to limit shots this season. He can be as good as Hasek was in his prime, but if he has to face 30+ shots there isn't much he can do.

Howard is good, but Hasek is in a league of his own when it comes to ranking goalies.

 

[Shaman464]

Are you talking about the Hasek who won the Vezina, led the league in Sv%, and took a 7th seed to the Finals despite the fact that his team allowed the 5th most shots against in the entire NHL in 99?

The same Hasek who won the Hart, Vezina, led the league in shutouts and Sv% despite the fact that his team allowed the most shots against in the entire NHL in 98?

Why do you constantly post/make up stuff that is completely senseless?

I am talking about the period where his Sv% was averaging 93%. Removing outlier games the Wings averaged 2.35 goals per game and just allowed just a shade over 30 shots per game. To get this I averaged all games after removing the 10 highest and lowest goals for and shots against. This allowed for a more normalized fit for the data set.

Given this the Wings would have given up 2.2 goals per game on average and scored on 2.3 leading to allowing 180 goals against 188.6 goals for. Compared to their season they had last season that is a swing of a whole +.15 goal per game. Do you think that would be enough to change the Wings from an 8th play bubble team to a contender?

This is where I have to agree with Crymson, last season was on the defense, not on Howard.

 

[Brandel*]

Yeah. That was unfortunate. Imagine if we signed Suter and Parise instead of Quincey and Cleary.

Parise - Datysuk - Alfredsson
Franzen - Zetterberg - Nyquist
Tatar - Sheahan/Weiss - Jurco
Abdelkader - Helm - Pulkkinen

Kronwall - Ericsson
Suter - Smith
DeKeyser - Marchenko

definitely wouldnt have cap space for alfie + weiss

wonder if suter signing would have affected the dekeyser signing, doubt it

 

[DetroitRed]

Obviously, a team that has most of the season go their way is going to be a contender.

A couple of the items on you What If? list came true last season, and I think we can expect to see them come true again.

The young forwards will continue to improve. Quincey and Smith should continue to improve, as well. Right? They should.

The idea of Datsyuk and Zetterberg staying more or less healthy for an entire season isn't that big of a stretch. One big question is whether they'll have slowed down a bit.

If Weiss is able to contribute 40 points, it would still be an improvement over last season for the team.

The start of last season was uncharacteristically bad for Howard, it was uncharacteristically good for Gustavsson. We may not see it go that way again for either of them. But if there are problems, then we should get to see Mrazek if management isn't too obstinate to call him up, and seeing Mrazek might be a sort of blessing in disguise. So I'm not too worried even though there are major questions regarding Red Wings goalies.

What if we got to see Teemu Pulkkinen instead of Dan Cleary?

 

[Squirrel in the Hole]

• Datsyuk and Zetterberg played an injury free season
  
• Howard plays as well as his best year so far
  
• Tatar, Nyquist, Sheahan, Jurco all improve and put up more points
  
• Weiss comes back and scores 50 points
  
• Quincey plays as well as his second half last year
  
• Smith learns how NOT to cough up the puck so much
  
  Would the Wings win the Cup?

Nope, but if all that plus

• Dan Cleary scores 20 goals

Then definitely

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

You need insider, but Custance who is based out of the Detroit area wrote a what if's article on the Wings and said more likely these ifs don't all happen and they are bubble team. It was an interesting little read, a lot of what has been said around here, but funny a national guy pretty much said it wasn't good enough and Holland doesn't trade to fix things in the summer. Not really the nicest take, a guy that has a lot of Detroit connections but doesn't necessarily rely on having them take care of him day to day is a little different than the super friends in his assessment.

 

[Number1RedWingsFan52]

A wise gm once said, if you can just make it to the playoffs anything is possible...

It worked for the L.A. Kings a couple seasons ago.

 

[Cyborg Yzerberg]

It worked for the L.A. Kings a couple seasons ago.

All the advanced stat guys called that from a mile away, the fact was, their possession numbers were wayyyyyyyyyy too good to be an average bottom seed. They also completely dominated in the post season. Also, we see now especially, how good that team really is.

 

[jaster]

• Datsyuk and Zetterberg played an injury free season
  
• Howard plays as well as his best year so far
  
• Tatar, Nyquist, Sheahan, Jurco all improve and put up more points
  
• Weiss comes back and scores 50 points
  
• Quincey plays as well as his second half last year
  
• Smith learns how NOT to cough up the puck so much
  
  Would the Wings win the Cup?

Assuming we don't have any catastrophic issues with key players not on your list (mainly Kronwall, Ericsson, Dekeyser, and Franzen), and we don't get a string of bad matchups in the playoffs, yes, we could easily win the Cup in that scenario. Unfortunately, the odds of all those things happening are slim to none.

 

[Number1RedWingsFan52]

All the advanced stat guys called that from a mile away, the fact was, their possession numbers were wayyyyyyyyyy too good to be an average bottom seed. They also completely dominated in the post season. Also, we see now especially, how good that team really is.

Right.

 

[pavel13]

He can be as good as Hasek was in his prime

Now let me stop you right there. Hasek won the Vezina SIX times in eight years. He won the Hart Trophy two years in a row. He's one of two goalies to win the Hart since expansion, and Howard is not the other one. Hasek has the highest peak/prime of any goalie in hockey history.

 

[Bench]

Now let me stop you right there. Hasek won the Vezina SIX times in eight years. He won the Hart Trophy two years in a row. He's one of two goalies to win the Hart since expansion, and Howard is not the other one. Hasek has the highest peak/prime of any goalie in hockey history.

He was saying even if Howard was that good, it wouldn't matter if Detroit's defense didn't improve.