An Analysis on Discontented Fandom

[izlez]

My problem is that I don't have any faith in the people making those choices, whether it's with #12, #5, or maybe even #1. Yes, great players CAN be had, but what if I think this front office and scouting staff aren't good enough to find them?

As much as we disagree on things, this I totally agree with.


I'm constantly defending Holland around here. I have to defend him for giving Abdelkader and Ericsson contracts. I defend him for making veteran signings. I believe in his philosophy of trying to get incrementally better and signing your best players, even if they have topped out as mid-level NHL players. I believe good players can be found in the draft.


However, I blame Holland for not drafting any players better than Abdelkader and Ericcson in the last 10 years. I'm always forced to defend him for playing Ericsson over Sproul and Ouellett when Ericsson is better, but I never get to complain about him not finding the players later in the draft

 

[njx9]

If they turn into great players, the team turns around. But if they only turn into decent players, but that in turn leads to a continued mediocre level of team success, I'd argue that that's a worse scenario than bottoming out and finally making major changes.

I think if they're only mediocre players, they'll follow the same development plan a lot of other guys have (XO, Nyquist) and they won't come up in the next few years anyway. I don't think a guy 3+ years out materially affects the direction of this team, as I think the bottom out or "stay on the fringe" will occur due to other moves (Daley signings, for instance).

 

[BinCookin]

If they turn into great players, the team turns around. But if they only turn into decent players, but that in turn leads to a continued mediocre level of team success, I'd argue that that's a worse scenario than bottoming out and finally making major changes.

Wow man, I would know exactly your planned rebuild if you were GM right now.

Literally sign any FA to a cheap 1 yr deal. trade off every player and prospect we have for draft picks (no exceptions). Literally strip our assets to 0 and replace them with all draft picks. And Yes I think that is a horrible idea.

You know some BAD teams exist that have stars on them. MacKinnon Duchene Barrie do not help a team when the supporting cast is crap.

You can have a team with a Kovalchuk or a Heatly or a Rick Nash, and that team can still suck.... forever.

1 star does not make a team. Hockey is not Basketball.

 

[Red Stanley]

But you have to acknowledge the difference between one or two guys who make up those instances and the majority of us who are pro tank and aren't that dismissive. I think most of the vocal anti-Holland posters drive discussion in a reasonable way, and most of the pro-Holland ones do so as well.

I think when you move the conversation to small samples or strawmen as a representation of most of the talk that goes on around here, you have lost the plot.

That's my point, though. When there are 20-30 active posters, "just a few people" don't constitute a small sample size. And when dismissive attitudes are common, they're not strawmen.

 

[jkutswings]

Wow man, I would know exactly your planned rebuild if you were GM right now.

Literally sign any FA to a cheap 1 yr deal. trade off every player and prospect we have for draft picks (no exceptions). Literally strip our assets to 0 and replace them with all draft picks. And Yes I think that is a horrible idea.

You know some BAD teams exist that have stars on them. MacKinnon Duchene Barrie do not help a team when the supporting cast is crap.

You can have a team with a Kovalchuk or a Heatly or a Rick Nash, and that team can still suck.... forever.

1 star does not make a team. Hockey is not Basketball.

Agreed. But a hundred average players, with no stars, doesn't make a team, either. And I don't think this front office is capable of much more than average to good players.

 

[Red Stanley]

Agreed. But a hundred average players, with no stars, doesn't make a team, either. And I don't think this front office is capable of much more than average to good players.

I disagree. It's all about cohesion and structure. Stars emerge in the right environment. Very few players can just be plugged in anywhere for amazing overall results. Having such players would be absolutely awesome and make things so much easier. Relying on having them is likely to lead to a lot of disappointment. I'm perfectly aware that some people think there's nothing currently in the organization worth structuring anything around. In my opinion that's a pretty extreme point of view that doesn't bring a lot of constructive contribution to the discussion.

 

[izlez]

Agreed. But a hundred average players, with no stars, doesn't make a team, either. And I don't think this front office is capable of much more than average to good players.

To me, it seems like this keeps being proven untrue. And it all seems like a chicken and egg thing.

Were Arvidson, Johansen, Fisher, Subban, Josi, Ellis more than average to good players PRIOR to last year? Or is them making the Stanley Cup the thing that qualifies them as being better than "just good"?

Were a 45 year old Thornton, Marleau, Pavelski, and Vlasic, and Burns that have never made a cup better than just a bunch of "good" players prior to them making the cup? Or did making the cup qualify them as better than "just good"

 

[Henkka]

I will never understand this mindset of Wings fans.

They are only trying to make money.... by having a bad team?
Wouldn't the easier thing be to have a good team?

Of course it's better to have a good team. But it doesn't happen on one night. Older contract have to live trough and rebuild through the draft. These two facts won't change anywhere, no matter what how much people will whine and cry in here. Only time fixes our problems.

 

[Frk It]

To me, it seems like this keeps being proven untrue. And it all seems like a chicken and egg thing.

Were Arvidson, Johansen, Fisher, Subban, Josi, Ellis more than average to good players PRIOR to last year? Or is them making the Stanley Cup the thing that qualifies them as being better than "just good"?

Were a 45 year old Thornton, Marleau, Pavelski, and Vlasic, and Burns that have never made a cup better than just a bunch of "good" players prior to them making the cup? Or did making the cup qualify them as better than "just good"

Subban has been elite. Josi has been elite. Burns has been elite. Pavelski has been elite. For some time now.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

That's my point, though. When there are 20-30 active posters, "just a few people" don't constitute a small sample size. And when dismissive attitudes are common, they're not strawmen.

I didn't say just a few people. I think the number of people you are talking about constitutes less than a few, and I don't think the kind of discussion you are talking about has any kind of prevalence on the forum. If you see that more than you see everything else you are missing a lot of discussion on these forums.

 

[Obe2kenobe]

Of course it's better to have a good team. But it doesn't happen on one night. Older contract have to live trough and rebuild through the draft. These two facts won't change anywhere, no matter what how much people will whine and cry in here. Only time fixes our problems.

Exactly Henkka, It's just hard being patient when you see poor decisions being made by the front office.
But I think you are correct, it is going to take some time
I just read a article in mlive the wings have the worst odds (other than vegas) 66-1 to win the cup.
So if in 3 years or so we're up to say 25-1 we would be showing signs of improvement. That's a hard pill to swallow for fan base that won 4 cups from 97-08.

 

[Flowah]

I will never understand this mindset of Wings fans.

They are only trying to make money.... by having a bad team?
Wouldn't the easier thing be to have a good team?

A team can make money by skimping a ton on things and just icing a bare minimum product. Companies do this all the time with everything. Get it made cheap as hell by cutting corners, and it doesn't matter that the quality is garbage. People will take a chance and buy it anyway and you can still make money. And it's a hell of a lot easier to do that than trying to ice a competitor.

Because "apologizing" isn't the right term. If someone offers a seemingly logical alternative to "the front office is incompetent", they get labeled as apologists (among other things). That's not a debate based on ideas. It's a dismissal of opinion using blanket labels and it happens way too often.

It's exactly what this is. Your "logical alternative" isn't much of an alternative. I don't care whether it's incompetence or different priorities as to why the FO isn't doing what it needs to in order to be competitive. Great. You've managed to find a plausible reason why the FO might be doing something. That doesn't change the fact that the product on the ice is crap and that there's nothing in the system that projects to change that in the future.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

It seems like I guess you're going with what seems to be the prevailing attitude on these boards. "I want to be bad because that makes you good. Fire Holland because he's trying to be good"

No, the prevailing attitude here is: "I want to lose games because that gives us the best chance of drafting elite players, which gives us the best chance at becoming a cup contender. Fire Holland because, even if he's trying to be good, he's doing it in an unintelligent, low-probability way out of the necessity to maximize short term hockey ops revenue, and he will fail."

We need the Wings to be bad now more than ever in order to (1) get rid of Ken Holland, whose managerial style has not aged well, and (2), change Chris Ilitch's mind about this kind of mortgaging the future. If we don't get working on (2), we're not talking about a failed rebuild, we're talking about a potential Dead Wings retread. We're talking about potentially having our own Dollar Bill Wirtz.

 

[Ezekial]

I'll try this in a more tactful way.

All fans are a spectrum. The majority of them aren't vocal enough to post on the internet to begin with, so right off the bat, these forums are made up of a vocal minority.

Then, as the on-ice success declines, the tenor of discussion inevitably includes some measure of frustration more and more often.

And, within the population of forum posters, there's a further spectrum. Some will respond to this increase in frustration by remaining positive. Others will remain (or become increasingly) negative. Still others will simply walk away.

And I think this particular board has had a lot of folks walk away in the last few years, leaving the more extreme ends of the curve, so to speak. So when a potentially hot button issue comes up, you have the most vocal of the vocal constituting a significant percentage of the population, which leads to more frequent extreme conversations, which probably helps perpetuate the cycle of some of the moderates leaving.

I get the spectrum part and agree with all that, but when it comes to posters leaving I don't see it that way. Sure maybe some of the posters that left were moderate, but (I hate to bring his name into a back and forth without him) FlashyG is a pretty positive and well liked guy who has cited the incessant negativity as why he posts less. He was my favorite poster when I was a lurker.
This is nothing to do with me being combative toward people with differing views, I'm only going to come back at posters if they are using a cliche to form an opinion or if they're spouting information that isn't factual.

Here's an example of something that happens all the time that I find unnecessary and unproductive.

The Avs are at the bottom due to horrendous execution of a proven method. The Wings are at the bottom due to an unproven method.

I like the odds of Colorado cleaning house, then making better decisions, over the odds of Detroit pioneering this approach to any significant measure of success. But either way, they're both lousy.

This was your response to who gets more points, the wings or avs.
You take it as an opportunity to disparage the rebuild and say Colorado is doing the right rebuild but failing, but still doing the right thing. You don't answer who will get more points and just tell us an opinion of yours I could've guessed if the question was "who would finish the rebuild first."

I'm not saying your post was wrong or that it was even too far out of place, but this is what happens with multiple posters in multiple threads. You guys turn threads like that into let's **** on the organization.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

You guys turn threads like that into let's **** on the organization.

What positive things are there to talk about? It's been a pretty bleak offseason. Should we just close the forum down until Holland does something right? We might be waiting a while.

 

[Ezekial]

What positive things are there to talk about? It's been a pretty bleak offseason. Should we just close the forum down until Holland does something right? We might be waiting a while.

Discuss the topic, don't turn it into a 100th we need to rebuild thread.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

Discuss the topic, don't turn it into a 100th we need to rebuild thread.

But if there have been 100 rebuild threads, I'd argue we've almost always been discussing the topic.

 

[Red Stanley]

I didn't say just a few people. I think the number of people you are talking about constitutes less than a few, and I don't think the kind of discussion you are talking about has any kind of prevalence on the forum. If you see that more than you see everything else you are missing a lot of discussion on these forums.

If you say so.

 

[Red Stanley]

It's exactly what this is. Your "logical alternative" isn't much of an alternative. I don't care whether it's incompetence or different priorities as to why the FO isn't doing what it needs to in order to be competitive. Great. You've managed to find a plausible reason why the FO might be doing something. That doesn't change the fact that the product on the ice is crap and that there's nothing in the system that projects to change that in the future.

You just illustrated my point.

 

[jkutswings]

I get the spectrum part and agree with all that, but when it comes to posters leaving I don't see it that way. Sure maybe some of the posters that left were moderate, but (I hate to bring his name into a back and forth without him) FlashyG is a pretty positive and well liked guy who has cited the incessant negativity as why he posts less. He was my favorite poster when I was a lurker.
This is nothing to do with me being combative toward people with differing views, I'm only going to come back at posters if they are using a cliche to form an opinion or if they're spouting information that isn't factual.

Here's an example of something that happens all the time that I find unnecessary and unproductive.



This was your response to who gets more points, the wings or avs.
You take it as an opportunity to disparage the rebuild and say Colorado is doing the right rebuild but failing, but still doing the right thing. You don't answer who will get more points and just tell us an opinion of yours I could've guessed if the question was "who would finish the rebuild first."

I'm not saying your post was wrong or that it was even too far out of place, but this is what happens with multiple posters in multiple threads. You guys turn threads like that into let's **** on the organization.

Perhaps I misread the topic. Here's the original post:

"What a great rivalry, great players . Everything in a past .Which team is going to have more point in 2017-2018 season ?"

To me, that's both a question on this season, and a commentary on how far both teams have fallen, which I elaborated on in my reply. But fair enough. Colorado will have 55 points, and Detroit will have 63. But that's not exactly a margin of victory to dwell on.

 

[Ezekial]

Perhaps I misread the topic. Here's the original post:

"What a great rivalry, great players . Everything in a past .Which team is going to have more point in 2017-2018 season ?"

To me, that's both a question on this season, and a commentary on how far both teams have fallen, which I elaborated on in my reply. But fair enough. Colorado will have 55 points, and Detroit will have 63. But that's not exactly a margin of victory to dwell on.

Granted it's not the greatest of examples, as it is an extremely depressing topic "who gets more points us or last year's worst team?" It was from today though. My only point is if you had posted the last 2 lines of this post before everything in that post it wouldn't have flagged me internally.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

My problem is that I don't have any faith in the people making those choices, whether it's with #12, #5, or maybe even #1. Yes, great players CAN be had, but what if I think this front office and scouting staff aren't good enough to find them?

And I don't buy this. I buy that you believe it, but god damn it, Holland has been successful enough at drafting some very good supporting players in later rounds and half the damn board is filleting him for not offering up money to keep a guy he picked in the fourth round!

But absolutely not, the Wings can't possibly find better players once they get draft capital that is actually conducive to drafting stars.

but you ask "what if you think the FO can't draft good players no matter where they draft?" I'd say you're being insanely obtuse for the point of an argument. They can pick 20 goal scorers out of the 2nd, 4th and 5th rounds and a passable middle pairing D until he shattered his finger with the last pick of the draft. But yeah, they can't find any players at all.

 

[Mijatovic]

Eh. I have no childhood memories of the Wings. I started watching NHL in 2010-11 and picked the Wings because of Datsyuk. Fast forward 7 years, and the direction I have watched this team go in is pretty abysmal. I am invested in them but I think I might start following a more interesting club this season. I dont particularly like watching a team of bottom 6 grinders and the prospect of the team getting better doesn't look very good under Holland.

 

[Frk It]

And I don't buy this. I buy that you believe it, but god damn it, Holland has been successful enough at drafting some very good supporting players in later rounds and half the damn board is filleting him for not offering up money to keep a guy he picked in the fourth round!

But absolutely not, the Wings can't possibly find better players once they get draft capital that is actually conducive to drafting stars.

but you ask "what if you think the FO can't draft good players no matter where they draft?" I'd say you're being insanely obtuse for the point of an argument. They can pick 20 goal scorers out of the 2nd, 4th and 5th rounds and a passable middle pairing D until he shattered his finger with the last pick of the draft. But yeah, they can't find any players at all.

Not sure why, but they seem to be quite a bit more conservative with their 1st round picks than they are with their picks the middle rounds.

Almost seems like they are a little scared to miss with their 1st rounders, as a whole. Not as much with wingers, but definitely with centers. Actually the difference in how we draft wingers vs centers is pretty interesting, when you really look at it. We have no qualms drafting skilled wingers with warts.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Not sure why, but they seem to be quite a bit more conservative with their 1st round picks than they are with their picks the middle rounds.

Almost seems like they are a little scared to miss with their 1st rounders, as a whole. Not as much with wingers, but definitely with centers. Actually the difference in how we draft wingers vs centers is pretty interesting, when you really look at it. We have no qualms drafting skilled wingers with warts.

I think a lot of that comes back to where in the round the picks have been. High ceiling guys up the middle with warts go top ten. Then the latter half of the first, you can get into the Mantha picks. The super skilled winger who probably stands a better chance of outperforming his draft slot than a Riley Sheahan analog.

I want to give them a chance (the Wings FO, not Holland, before you jump on me) to pick in the top ten for a couple years to see what they pull.