Blog Reports Holland Has Informed the Ilitches He's Stepping Down

[SpookyTsuki]

I hope you have fond memories of that 4-1 loss to Boston.

How was it a bad thing?
Maybe it was a bad thing because the roster crunch caused Nyquist to spend 5-6 weeks on Grand Rapids after he'd already proven he belonged.

Maybe it's a bad thing because if we don't have Alfredsson and we fall out of the playoff picture, we wouldn't have traded away Jarnkrok and Eaves for Legwand.

Yeah I’ll take a playoff series over a 12th overall pick

Alfredsson wasn’t the reason nyquist was held down and. you know it.

And jarnkrok and eaves are definetely league mvp right

 

[kliq]

Yeah I’ll take a playoff series over a 12th overall pick

Alfredsson wasn’t the reason nyquist was held down and. you know it.

And jarnkrok and eaves are definetely league mvp right

Not to mention, its not even like they gave up the 12th pick. Its the difference between getting the 15th pick & playoffs vs the 12th pick. Add in that the 15th pick ended up being Larkin, I think we did ok lol.

 

[Winger98]

Yeah I’ll take a playoff series over a 12th overall pick

Alfredsson wasn’t the reason nyquist was held down and. you know it.

And jarnkrok and eaves are definetely league mvp right

Jarnkrok might not be the next Zetterberg as he was once billed but he's become a darn good 3C who wouldn't be a bad guy to have around this team. This year he's averaging .5ppg and he'd have the second best FO% on the team behind Glendening. And 16 of his 21 points have come at ES, so it's not like he's padding his points on the power play.

One of Holland's strongpoints is that he's rarely given up much value in his trades (outside of the potential value of picks). But he dealt a pretty solid player in Jarnkrok for a guy who really just didn't work out here. Janmark is pretty clearly a solid NHLer at this point, too. We lost a couple of good pieces there for very short term gains.

 

[SpookyTsuki]

Jarnkrok might not be the next Zetterberg as he was once billed but he's become a darn good 3C who wouldn't be a bad guy to have around this team. This year he's averaging .5ppg and he'd have the second best FO% on the team behind Glendening. And 16 of his 21 points have come at ES, so it's not like he's padding his points on the power play.

One of Holland's strongpoints is that he's rarely given up much value in his trades (outside of the potential value of picks). But he dealt a pretty solid player in Jarnkrok for a guy who really just didn't work out here. Janmark is pretty clearly a solid NHLer at this point, too. We lost a couple of good pieces there for very short term gains.

We lost one good player. Who says he doesn’t bolt or demand a trade? I don’t even remember if that one story was proven to be false

 

[Winger98]

We lost one good player. Who says he doesn’t bolt or demand a trade? I don’t even remember if that one story was proven to be false

No, we lost two. Janmark and Jarnkrok are both good players.

And we could have just promoted Jarnkrok instead of dealing him. It's not like his play in GR wasn't deserving of it, and the injuries decimating the club certainly opened up the spot. Call him up along with Sheahan, Jurco, etc., and just let the kids run with the season.

 

[Claypool]

No, we lost two. Janmark and Jarnkrok are both good players.

Good, replaceable players. Don't complain that Holland doesn't make trades then complain when he makes trades.

 

[Redder Winger]

Good, replaceable players. Don't complain that Holland doesn't make trades then complain when he makes trades.

He trades away young talent for players at the end of their useful lives....
That might work when you're the defending cup champ, or an up and coming young team that needs veteran help.

It's sheer stupidity from an organization on the way down, with one of the oldest rosters in hockey.

 

[Redder Winger]

Ken Holland trades from 2012-15

First round plus Piche for Kyle Quincey
Eaves + Jarnkrok and a third for Legwand
Traded Backman, Janmark and a second for Cole
Traded a third for Zidlicky.


When Kyle Quincey for a first rounder is the BEST trade you made, youre having problems.

And even the Quincey trade sucked because it allowed Babcock to bench Smith and Kindl. And then Holland wasted $4M/Y on KFW on two subsequent contracts.
Of course - as soon as KFQ actually hit the market, the market showed what he was worth.
$1.25M/Y


Jarnkrok's 1.66/60 at even strength is a pretty nice number.
Especially considering he takes 25 percent faceoffs in the Ozone and 38 percent in the dzone.

Nielsen's points/60 is .83, by the way.
And really, Janrkok would have been the guy who made it pretty pointless to sign Nielsen.

 

[Claypool]

He trades away young talent for players at the end of their useful lives....

You mean prospects, neither of whom wanted to stay in the organization (Janmark, Jarnkrok and Backman). They were likely going to lose them for nothing.

 

[kliq]

Ken Holland trades from 2012-15

First round plus Piche for Kyle Quincey
Eaves + Jarnkrok and a third for Legwand
Traded Backman, Janmark and a second for Cole
Traded a third for Zidlicky.


When Kyle Quincey for a first rounder is the BEST trade you made, youre having problems.

And even the Quincey trade sucked because it allowed Babcock to bench Smith and Kindl. And then Holland wasted $4M/Y on KFW on two subsequent contracts.
Of course - as soon as KFQ actually hit the market, the market showed what he was worth.
$1.25M/Y


Jarnkrok's 1.66/60 at even strength is a pretty nice number.
Especially considering he takes 25 percent faceoffs in the Ozone and 38 percent in the dzone.

Nielsen's points/60 is .83, by the way.
And really, Janrkok would have been the guy who made it pretty pointless to sign Nielsen.

I understand where you are coming from and I see your logic. BUT the reality of our situation is that we are where we are because we no longer have elite talent on this team. There is definitely an argument to be made that we should have kept guys Jarnkrok and Janmark, not traded for Quincey, Cole, and Zidlicky etc. but had we not done any of these moves, we would still be in the exact same situation that we are in. We are a team loaded with top 9 players, had we kept a few more nothing would would be different today.

 

[Zetterberg4Captain]

Good, replaceable players. Don't complain that Holland doesn't make trades then complain when he makes trades.

Hr is not allowed to trade away promising young players for old injured proven players to then have them sarcastically defended as evidence of his ability to make trades

 

[Redder Winger]

I understand where you are coming from and I see your logic. BUT the reality of our situation is that we are where we are because we no longer have elite talent on this team. There is definitely an argument to be made that we should have kept guys Jarnkrok and Janmark, not traded for Quincey, Cole, and Zidlicky etc. but had we not done any of these moves, we would still be in the exact same situation that we are in. We are a team loaded with top 9 players, had we kept a few more nothing would would be different today.

Of course things would be different.

We'd be a younger team instead of the OLDEST TEAM in the NHL.
We'd be a more inexpensive team instead of the MOST EXPENSIVE TEAM in the NHL.

That gives us the flexibility to do things.

We want to make a crazy offer for OEL? Sure. Why not. We've got the cap space and enough young assets (remember, we'd have more potential players if we didn't trade those picks).

Want to go all in for John Tavares this summer? Sure. Go for it.

Feeling like, with Rasmussen, Cholo, Hronek and whoever we draft in 18, we're ready to start going for it?

Great, go sign Jack Johnson and make a pitch for John Carlson or Calvin DeHaan and solidify your D.

These are all options that are not really available to Detroit, because they're the most expensive team in the league and they've got to sign 3-4 young kids this offseason.

Again, this franchise is SOOOOOO f***ed up.

Petr Mrazek pitches a shutout today. Wasn't worked hard, but whatever. It's a reminder that this franchise is going to walk away from him - despite the potential he showed.

Why? So we can keep a 34 year old?

Where's the f***ing sense?

Holland is in a fantasy land.

This isn't rocket science.

You don't trade away the Sheahans and Mrazeks to keep the Helms and Howards. You trade away any over-30 guy you can, you get whatever you can for any old asset that won't be around when you think you're ready to turn it around.

Instead, this jackass GM is pretending he's a f***ing playoff contender.

 

[Claypool]

Hr is not allowed to trade away promising young players for old injured proven players to then have them sarcastically defended as evidence of his ability to make trades

Right, and he didn't do that with actual bluechip prospects by keeping Larkin and Mantha, and not getting future 50-point Norris defenseman Tyler Myers.

 

[kliq]

Of course things would be different.

We'd be a younger team instead of the OLDEST TEAM in the NHL.
We'd be a more inexpensive team instead of the MOST EXPENSIVE TEAM in the NHL.

That gives us the flexibility to do things.

We want to make a crazy offer for OEL? Sure. Why not. We've got the cap space and enough young assets (remember, we'd have more potential players if we didn't trade those picks).

Want to impro

Sorry man, but it really doesn't. Those spots filled by vets, just get filled by mediocre 20 somethings.

Yes we would have some more cap flexibility, but I really don't see us pulling off a trade for a guy like OEL if we had Jarnkrok, Janmark, one more 2nd round pick, and one more 3rd round pick etc. What likely happens is we lose a couple more players on waivers and are in the exact same boat. Holland has signed some players to some stupid deals, but I can't ever remember hearing that we almost traded for/signed _______ but didnt get him because we didnt have enough cap.

Cap flexibility would be great, but what elite players do you see us getting in this hypothetical scenario? You think Holland is more willing to trade Larkin or Mantha if we had Jarnkrok or Janmark? I dont, I think he still signs a guy like Nielsen and just trades or waives a guy like Sheahan earlier. Not trading for Quincey and having Scott Laughton instead is not a gamer changer.

Not sure why you are asking me "want to improve". Nothing in my post implied I liked those moves, my post was to point out that we would be in the same predicament whether we made them or not. Your comment seems to imply that I was advocating them. Not the case.

Just being young doesn't make you good, having elite players with good depth and a good coach makes you good. Our problem is we need elite players, end of story.

I don't know why you keeping going back to small moves from 5 years ago and attempt to make them bigger then they were, sure a lot of them were bad moves but I really don't think they change anything in the grand scheme of things. The type of moves that would have been game changing would have been moves like trading D or Z for a package of 1st's in the year that McDavid was available and hope for the lottery, trading Nyquist to someone for a 1st + prospects after the 2014 season etc.

 

[Bench]

You mean prospects, neither of whom wanted to stay in the organization (Janmark, Jarnkrok and Backman). They were likely going to lose them for nothing.

Doesn't that beg the question why they didn't want to stay in the organization?

 

[Claypool]

Doesn't that beg the question why they didn't want to stay in the organization?

Jarnkrok threatened to go back to Sweden if he wasn't getting time in the NHL. Backman complained about getting benched in Grand Rapids and Janmark re-signed with Frolunda instead of going to Grand Rapids for the 2014-15 season. Management said see ya later.

 

[Pavels Dog]

I don't really think Nielsen affected Sheahan's being dealt at all

I'm 99.9% sure Sheahan is still on the team if we didn't sign Nielsen. Just for cap reasons there would be no need to move Sheahan. And for roster reasons we'd look way weaker down the middle without both Nielsen and Sheahan.

The rest of your post is fair points and I'm not going to disagree that we could/should have worked the cap better or that having a little extra space wouldn't be bad. I just feel it's largely meaningless in the big picture.

Cap crunch: The teams set up for long-term success, and the ones that are doomed

Spoiler alert

"Bad, expensive, and old is no way to build a team."

Such a weak, superficial analysis. It's almost as if we need a big wave of young players to come in on cheap ELC and RFA deals in the coming years to offset the veteran contracts. Oh damn, we're drafting higher and more often than we have in several decades? What a funny coincidence... it really would be crazy if some of those veteran contracts are off the book by the time some young players start getting bigger contracts.

Great. All those points helped us do what?
Squeak into the playoffs and lose badly in round 1 (Where Alfie went 0-0-0 with 2 shots.)

I hope you have fond memories of that 4-1 loss to Boston.

How was it a bad thing?
Maybe it was a bad thing because the roster crunch caused Nyquist to spend 5-6 weeks on Grand Rapids after he'd already proven he belonged.

Maybe it's a bad thing because if we don't have Alfredsson and we fall out of the playoff picture, we wouldn't have traded away Jarnkrok and Eaves for Legwand.

Look, you can't have it both ways. So Alfredsson helped us squeak into the playoffs unnecessarily? And Nyquist playing another few weeks in the NHL wouldn't have?

And as much as you might love Jarnkrok and Eaves, in 2014 I would take the 15th pick and a playoff series (No matter how bad it was) over literally any other pick outside the playoffs except a top 3. We pretty much killed it with out 15th pick, call it luck but it shows that there's no point in deliberately going for the 12th or 13th pick instead of the 15th or 16th when you really have no idea where the best players will be found.

And if we had missed the playoffs, Alfredsson would have been a nice piece to sell at the TDL, so there was a bit of a win-win situation going on.

No, we lost two. Janmark and Jarnkrok are both good players.

And we could have just promoted Jarnkrok instead of dealing him. It's not like his play in GR wasn't deserving of it, and the injuries decimating the club certainly opened up the spot. Call him up along with Sheahan, Jurco, etc., and just let the kids run with the season.

Part of that is just the impossibility of hanging on to every single prospect on the off chance that they turn into solid players years and years down the line. Trading Jarnkrok was a little bit as if we would trade Holmstrom right now. No one really gave a sh*t about Jarnkrok until he was traded. It would have been a little worse if Backman turned into a top 4 NHLer elsewhere, but I really can't be bothered about the loss of two forwards that wouldn't beat out anyone significant on our roster anyhow.

You don't trade away the Sheahans and Mrazeks to keep the Helms and Howards. You trade away any over-30 guy you can, you get whatever you can for any old asset that won't be around when you think you're ready to turn it around.

You operate under the assumption that you need your entire roster to be below the age of 30 when you turn things around. There's really nothing that says guys like Abby/Helm/Nielsen can't be good depth veterans to a young core of skilled players. Howard can be the veteran mentor to a young goalie like Petruzzeli or Larsson. Why hang onto Sheahan? He played lazy, soft for a big guy, never really displayed any desire to win. When Babcock pushed him hard he played his best, the moment Blashill took over he dropped his work ethic by 90%. Players like that are not worth having around to guide the younger generation. Rebuilding is not just about getting rid of "old guys", it's about pinpointing characteristics you want to keep around and what to get rid of. Mrazek is talented but he is a headcase who can't seem to sit behind another goalie without complaining. So do we want him around when the next young potential star goalie comes in, so we immediately create a goalie controversy? Howard's way of dealing with Mrazek's entrance was to work his a** off to get better himself, not complain to the coach about icetime.

 

[Winger98]

Good, replaceable players. Don't complain that Holland doesn't make trades then complain when he makes trades.

Still good players we tossed away in weak trades.

I'm 99.9% sure Sheahan is still on the team if we didn't sign Nielsen. Just for cap reasons there would be no need to move Sheahan. And for roster reasons we'd look way weaker down the middle without both Nielsen and Sheahan.

The rest of your post is fair points and I'm not going to disagree that we could/should have worked the cap better or that having a little extra space wouldn't be bad. I just feel it's largely meaningless in the big picture.

Fair enough. I could definitely see Holland holding onto Sheahan if he had the salary cap space just because that's a Holland move.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Jarnkrok threatened to go back to Sweden if he wasn't getting time in the NHL. Backman complained about getting benched in Grand Rapids and Janmark re-signed with Frolunda instead of going to Grand Rapids for the 2014-15 season. Management said see ya later.

Right, because we had an obsession with keeping players in the minors for too long. It was a self-inflicted wound.

 

[Redder Winger]

Sorry man, but it really doesn't. Those spots filled by vets, just get filled by mediocre 20 somethings.

Yes we would have some more cap flexibility, but I really don't see us pulling off a trade for a guy like OEL if we had Jarnkrok, Janmark, one more 2nd round pick, and one more 3rd round pick etc. What likely happens is we lose a couple more players on waivers and are in the exact same boat. Holland has signed some players to some stupid deals, but I can't ever remember hearing that we almost traded for/signed _______ but didnt get him because we didnt have enough cap.

Cap flexibility would be great, but what elite players do you see us getting in this hypothetical scenario? You think Holland is more willing to trade Larkin or Mantha if we had Jarnkrok or Janmark? I dont, I think he still signs a guy like Nielsen and just trades or waives a guy like Sheahan earlier. Not trading for Quincey and having Scott Laughton instead is not a gamer changer.

Not sure why you are asking me "want to improve". Nothing in my post implied I liked those moves, my post was to point out that we would be in the same predicament whether we made them or not. Your comment seems to imply that I was advocating them. Not the case.

Just being young doesn't make you good, having elite players with good depth and a good coach makes you good. Our problem is we need elite players, end of story.

I don't know why you keeping going back to small moves from 5 years ago and attempt to make them bigger then they were, sure a lot of them were bad moves but I really don't think they change anything in the grand scheme of things. The type of moves that would have been game changing would have been moves like trading D or Z for a package of 1st's in the year that McDavid was available and hope for the lottery, trading Nyquist to someone for a 1st + prospects after the 2014 season etc.

That's utter BS.

1) Bad contracts and bad moves are bad contracts and bad moves that hurt your team.
Play it down all you want.
2) If you're not good, leave yourself the flexibility to make the moves that pave the way to getting good.

Holland has one path.
Finish around 14th to 25th and hope that you your 8 to 20th overall draft picks pan out one day..

I

 

[Frk It]

You mean prospects, neither of whom wanted to stay in the organization (Janmark, Jarnkrok and Backman). They were likely going to lose them for nothing.

Surely that had nothing to do with Holland overloading both the AHL and NHL rosters.

 

[izlez]

It's amazing that we can cry about trading away Jarnkrok and Janmark and their 21 and 23 points
And also view guys like Abdelkader, Tatar, and Nyquist as zero value or negative value to the team.

 

[Henkka]

He trades away young talent for players at the end of their useful lives....

Happened last time 3 years ago (Zidlicky).

Time to get over it and prepare for a rebuilding Ken Holland.

 

[kliq]

That's utter BS.

1) Bad contracts and bad moves are bad contracts and bad moves that hurt your team.
Play it down all you want.
2) If you're not good, leave yourself the flexibility to make the moves that pave the way to getting good.

Holland has one path.
Finish around 14th to 25th and hope that you your 8 to 20th overall draft picks pan out one day..

I

Telling me that my points "are BS" just confirm to me that that you really aren't reading what I am writing. So I will attempt to clarify again;

1)Bad contracts and bad moves hurt your team. Agreed, where do you see me disputing this?

2) Flexibility, where do you see me disputing this?

Again, I am not arguing that any of those moves were good, what I am arguing is that small moves like the one's you are pointing out are not the difference between us being at the bottom of the standing right now, and us being a contender.

Rather then just throwing child like insults at me, answer my question. If we don't make those small moves that you are making out to be "game changers" how to we acquire elite talent in that hypothetical scenario?

 

[Pavels Dog]

Holland has one path.
Finish around 14th to 25th and hope that you your 8 to 20th overall draft picks pan out one day..

Just in that "path" there's dozen of different scenarios possible, you just seem to assume we're always going to lose the lottery or somehow be drafting 20th if we finish 14th. And basically the only way we're finishing 14th again someday soon is IF our 8-20 draft picks pan out.

It's amazing that we can cry about trading away Jarnkrok and Janmark and their 21 and 23 points
And also view guys like Abdelkader, Tatar, and Nyquist as zero value or negative value to the team.

Yep.