I can haz Happy back??

Reports from Freep show that God Kenny Holland is planning a little vay-cay over to the former USSR to try to seduce Happy Hudler like a tipsy 17 year old girl on prom night (whoa, too far?)

From the Article:

Though Hudler cannot return this season, Holland said, he believes Hudler could do so for next season."His agent tells me he has a two-year contract, but it includes an option to get out after the first year," Holland said Monday. "I asked Jiri about it a month ago, and he said he doesn't know if he has that out clause or not. Now, I don't know if he was playing possum or what, but I've expressed to him we'd like to have him back, and Mike Babcock has been in communication with Jiri. We've both told him we'd like him back."

Now as I have been looking around to find out more about this contract, I can't find anything concrete but more often than not, the opt-out clause is present. This would be good. Let's look at some numbers, since I like math.

Jiri Hudler

03/04 - who cares, he played like 12 games.
05/06 - who cares, he played like 4 games.
06/07 - 15G, 10A, 25P
07/08 - 13G, 29A, 42P
08/09 - 23G, 34A, 57P

So, if we track his progression of points (and linemates) we can infer that he averages an increase in points of ~35%. We can also assume that forwards will generally take about 4-5 full years to mature. Lastly, we assume that Happy would be sitting on the second line for the duration of the season. Based on these assumptions, with a few statistical adjustments I won't go into here (since I'm making them up to seem smart, OR AM I????) we can project that his 09/10 totals would have looked like this:

09/10 - 30G, 45A, 75P

Goals and Assists distributed on a 2:3 basis. Of course, that doesn't account for our injuries and such, and lack of goals and shit this year. Pavel is on pace to score 71.4% of his total points from last year this season, so let's apply that.

09/10 - 22G, 32A, 54P

Maybe not as much, but that's still a good amount. Happy being back would mean we probably would never have picked up Drew Miller (sadface), so even losing his 8 Goals, we would have gained 14 straight goals from Happy's return, and probably another 12 from his assists (some would go to goals we would've had anyway).

26 more goals. Doesn't seem like much, eh?

We have 12 OT losses. Add another goal to those games, we have 12 more wins. 14 goals left? We have lost 6 games by one goal. Add two goals to each of those games. 6 more wins. 2 goals left? We embarass someone.

12 more points from OT wins, 12 more points from 6 reg. wins. 24 more points. We would be first in the league.

Would that happen? Probably not. Let's say half of the goals make a difference. 12 more points. We're in 4th place, 2 points back of Chi-town. Still not that bad. Hell, beginning of the year, before the injuries, I probably would have PREDICTED finishing 4th, close behind Chicago. We lost too much in Sammy and Hossa, even if we kept Hudler. Shit guys, these numbers are starting to make sense!


I know a lot of you are pissed at Happy for jumping ship and chasing the almighty dollar, but it takes a STRONG man to turn down $5M tax free. I'm not gonna fault him on it. Am I gonna welcome him back with open arms when the time comes? Hells yeah, but that little fucker is gonna have a short leash.