I've been lurking here for a minute, and I just wanted to make a few comments about trades:
Holland has made 20 trades since 2006. This includes 3 pick-for-pick trades at the draft, 4 trades that were purely for minor league purposes (e.g. Francis Lemieux for Brett Engelhardt), 4 get-him-off-the-roster trades (Leino, Huskins, Commodore, Rivers), and the trade of Stuart in mid-June to San Jose. The others include: Acquiring Cory Cross, my crap for your crap with Calder for Williams, and the acquisitions of Bertuzzi, Stuart, Quincey, Legwand, Cole, and Zidlicky.
By my count, that amounts to 8 trades in 10 years involving acquiring anything more than a 7th defenseman or a 13th forward.
And that involves a total of one top 12/top 6 roster player being extracted from the roster in 10 years - Jason Williams. If you want to be liberal, we can call it 2 with Ville Leino.
By comparison:
Stan Bowman, having won several cups since he took over in 2009, has made 20 trades just since November of 2013.
Lombardi has made 21 just since 2012.
(Others: Shero made 20 trades from 2011-2014 alone. Chiarelli made 38 with Boston from 2010-2015.)
But what is most interesting, in my humble opinion, is that both Lombardi and Bowman have made trades - roster trades - whilst being among the best teams in their respective divisions, if not league.
Since 2010, Lombardi has shipped out Wayne Simmonds, Ryan Smyth, Jack Johnson, Brayden Schenn, and Martin Jones - all soon-to-be major players or already important roster players.
Since 2010, Bowman has shipped out: Brandon Saad, Patrick Sharp, Kris Versteeg, Trevor Daley, Dave Bolland, Kris Versteeg (again), Michael Frolik, Nick Leddy, Tomas Kopecky, Troy Brouwer, Brian Campbell, Cam Barker (back when he was relevant), Dustin Byfuglien, and Andrew Ladd.
There is absolutely no question that in today's NHL, you have to keep the roster wheels moving. Identify your limited core and move on from the rest. And when push comes to shove, even the core should get shifted.
I don't know how many of you are professionals, but if you've ever been in a sophisticated workplace where someone gets fired, demoted, or relocated, it makes you re-evaluate your own performance. Likewise, if you've ever been in that setting, you know you much you tend to let your guard down and become lax with your personal appearance or internet usage or lunchtime expenditures or what have you when you've been working with the same team for years on-end.
You look at the reigning Cup Champions, and their GM has made more substantial trades in the past six months than our GM has arguably made in his 17 year tenure. Not only did he cut ties with a piece of his core (Sharp), his future core (Saad), or trade a hyped prospect that had yet to prove a goddamn thing (Johns), but he also wasn't afraid to implicitly admit that he didn't make the best trade by shipping off both Daley and Garbutt only months after acquiring them, while finding what appear to be adequate but more appropriate fits almost immediately in Scuderi and Panik.
This is the benchmark for GMing in the new NHL. I agree with those of you who complain about a country club atmosphere here. Almost everyone is safe once they become a Red Wing and it breeds complacency.