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So Strange. Sopel says So Long
by IwoCPO on 09/29/07 at 07:23 AM ET
Comments (14)
Weird. Brent Sopel travels to Toronto with the Wings yesterday, only to tell them he’s signed a one-year deal with the Blackhawks. It makes sense, from a fashion standpoint.
A2Y Reader, SRT
good luck with your fellow giveaway partner with the equally dashing hair…
Let’s see what we can find on this one, eh?
Around 8:20 last night the Leafs announcers told us Chicago has signed Brent Sopel to a one-year deal worth 1.5 million. TSN confirmed it a few minutes later.
Sopel travelled with the Red Wings to Toronto on Friday afternoon, and was scheduled to play against the Maple Leafs in a pre-season game that night, but informed the team shortly before the game that he was in serious contract talks with another club.
Pretty straightforward, right? Read further.
He had been in Detroit’s training camp on a tryout basis, and was offered a contract by the Red Wings shortly before signing with Chicago.
He’d been offered a contract by the Wings, then signed with Chicago? What? Yep. Not only did the Wings offer him a contract, but they did it twice. They tried to sign him Thursday, then again yesterday. He was supposed to play last night, then said “nope. not playing. not gonna play and you can’t make me.” Exact words? No.
Bruce MacLeod is all over this. Refers to it as a “defection.”
“I don’t know the rules for sure, but I thought when he was trying out for you, he was trying out for you,” said Babcock. “He just told me before the game he wasn’t playing. Obviously we were planning on him playing. I guess I don’t know the rules very good and we’ll have to figure it out.
“If you don’t want to be a Red Wing, you don’t want to be a Red Wings. It’s real simple. I think the opportunity here is fantastic. Over the last few years, anybody that’s come here has had a career year. If we just look at finances, if you have a career year, you get paid a ton the next year.”
Babcock’s right. What a frigging dumbass.
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Comments
I couldn’t care less that Sopel isn’t a Wing, because I think that while the young guys might be worse than Sopel for the first 20 or so games, I think they will be far better from there on out. Sopel is Schnieder minus everything that was good about Schnieds…
This is a stupid move for Sopel. Chicago is where hockey players go to die.
Posted by Nathan on 09/29/07 at 08:38 AM ET
Strange. He got $1.5 million from Chicago. I wonder how much the Detroit offer was?
Chicago was pretty determined to get veteran help on defense. Their core isn’t bad, but extremely young.
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 09/29/07 at 08:41 AM ET
Some of the Chicago fans are pleased. If things go poorly, he’s only got a one-year deal, but they see Sopel as a solid top-four to top-six guy, and they like the idea they took someone off Detroit’s roster (their words).
If the team sees as large a role for him as some fans, that could explain why he left if all he was going to be was a seventh/insurance defenseman for Detroit. Logical, but it seems odd. Usually a player signed with another team if they aren’t offered a contract by the team they are playing with as a tryout. I wonder if this has happened before—negotiating with a team while still trying out with a different team.
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 09/29/07 at 09:04 AM ET
“We were interested in him as a sixth or seventh defenseman, as an insurance guy. So we’ll look internally.”—Holland.
Baroque is right; Sopel left because he wanted a more prominent role and the chance to be a go-to-guy. Not only would he barely break our top six but would be a third option to take over a PP position if we had an injury. The decision is based on hope that the team will be good and pride in his own ability to help make that happen.
Stupid move though; he should have talked to Cleary about possibilities.
Barbers all over Chicago must be hopeful, unless of course they realize that fans will be pulling out their hair watching those two shmucks..
Posted by srt on 09/29/07 at 04:22 PM ET
Not a particularly professional way in which to leave the team that gave you the opportunity to prove you’re still an NHL-calibre defenceman…
Babs said something very prophetic on Friday morning:
“We expect him to be way steadier,” Babcock said. “What I mean by that is, we want the offense. We don’t want the risks.
“Offense comes because you take what they give you, not because you make hope plays; you wish it somewhere. That’s not how it works. You just keep on playing. You keep doing the little things and then it ends up working for you. That’s our focus with him.”
There’s no doubt that Sopel’s got all the tools to succeed as an offensive defenceman who can play top-four minutes, but he’s always going to be a guy whose offensive gifts are muted by the fact that he makes high-risk plays in his own end, can be forced into giving the puck up with alarming regularity because he doesn’t bear down when he’s got the puck until he’s past his own blueline, his offensive mobility seems to leave him when he’s playing defence, and can be faked out or blown by as if he’s a pylon, and he will still get lost in his own end at times, and a 2-on-2 will suddenly become a 2-on-1 because Sopel’s positional awareness when he’s skating backwards is poor.
In saying all of that, it’s worth noting that I like Brent Sopel, and I was really hoping that he’d stick with us as a #6/7 defenceman. I think his gangly frame allows him to play much larger than his 6’1” frame, and I think that he’s the kind of late-bloomer who can still develop into a much, much better player under the right circumstances.
That’s not going to happen with him playing top-4 minutes on a very, very green Chicago blueline. He, Andrei Zyuzin, Jim Vandermeer, and Karel Pilar are the “steady elder statesmen” on a blueline with Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, James Wisniewski, Dustin Byfuglien, and Danny Richmond filling out the mix of 9 guys who could play on the Hawks’ line—and Cam Barker, I suppose, but I doubt he’s ready, given the two acquisitions made by the Hawks in Pilar and Sopel.
He made his choice, and now we get to pick his giveaways off with regularity eight times a year.
As the nice lady who sat behind me during the Wings’ practice this morning said, “We don’t need another Robert Lang.”
Posted by George Malik from South Lyon, MI on 09/29/07 at 05:52 PM ET
Clearly is looking pretty good as a center; very composted.
Lebda’s wheels still impress me, especially because his stride look like Coffeys used to.
Dats looks ridiculously confident. Mickey just called it; “He’s just playing out there.”
Rafalski looks solid, like an anchor man
Leafs will get one goal this game, that’s it. I need to find some people to watch with, otherwise I’ll have to start my own blog lest the Chief just quote me from now on 
Posted by srt on 09/29/07 at 06:45 PM ET
Clearly is looking pretty good as a center; very composted.
Hee-hee. 
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 09/29/07 at 08:26 PM ET
Baroque, it’s all part of my plan for becoming *the* hockey god of da blogotubes…
So yea, the Leaves go spanked as all sane people expected. Although I liked Cleary shoving and Gregs desperately attempt to avoid a beatdown, those closing minutes made me cringe after every whistle. Do I think we need an enforcer? Nope. We need to get everyone some basic self-defense training over the summer. Learning a few basic blocks, a few basic strikes and everyone will be much more comfortable getting into scrums. Just a thought…
BTW, (as an ode to T-hom-as), Ken and Mickey were talking about Ericson’s (sp?) rapid development; Babbles said he and Ritola were the biggest surprises at TC. They briefly mentioned that Hudler and Filpulla were a part of the same draft year…
Babbles also allowed himself a couple shifts of fun: Grigs and Dats on the same line? An all Swedish group? Yea baby! Gonna be a fun season!
Also, did anyone read Buccicross’ (sp?) prediction for the Wings this year; too bad that such a great fan and writer is so unimaginative at this moment.
Speaking of unimaginative, the “Fire on Ice” tv ads are much better than that atrocious poster. Could TeamDub do better? Damn right…but they’re aren’t as bad as initially thought, IMO.
word for this post: “soviet46” :: yet another reason to believe that Gregs will be an all star some day…
Posted by srt on 09/29/07 at 09:08 PM ET
Um… “Denver Bob.”
Posted by TeamDub from Toledo on 09/30/07 at 10:36 AM ET
HAHAHAHAHAAAHH…..
The ad would be that image with a (Ken Burns effect) slow zoom in of Garcia; fade to white; simple red letters come in that read: “With profit sharing, we are forced to support tranny hookers as well” Cut to “Fire in your wallet” ...Bam, you’re done…
Posted by srt on 09/30/07 at 10:55 AM ET
Oh Jeez, don’t put any ideas in my head SRT…
Time to watch the Ducks get (hopefully) spanked again.
Posted by TeamDub from Toledo on 09/30/07 at 11:06 AM ET
In related news, George Parros = Yanni.
Yikes.
Posted by TeamDub from Toledo on 09/30/07 at 11:15 AM ET
Oh man. If the same people that thought Aucoin was worth $4 million a year think Sopel is worth $1.5 million, I think we dodged a bullet here.
TeamDub: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Awesome.
Posted by ColBerdan from San Jose on 10/01/07 at 11:56 AM ET
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SRT is right. We have Meech, Quincy and Ericsson ready to move up to the big show.
Posted by w2j2 on 09/29/07 at 08:20 AM ET