Disappointed, Surprised and Annoyed

[Nut Upstrom]

I'll definitely admit that Holland is doing a better job that he was. In particular, he's made a couple of shrewd moves that have led to picks for this year and the next. Full marks there. The criticism that remains is that Holland is avoiding the aspect of rebuilding that helps the most: drafting in the top 10. It's nice to have a bunch of late 1st and early 2nds, and you can get some players there. But if you don't draft in the top 10, you're praying your scouts hit a home run, because there's no other way you're getting that level of a player otherwise.

Now, maybe you don't think the Wings need elite talent. But many of us think that's a big part of what's missing—and what will be missing shortly, as Zetterberg retires.

We're going to miss the playoffs and our draft position will be determined by lottery balls. It's important that we draft in the top 10, I agree with you there, but it's asinine to pin the lottery good or bad fortune on Holland. Is he supposed to knee cap D-Boss or hamstring our goalie to assure we finish dead last? We're in a position where we will likely start losing even more games, I guess you'll come back and praise Ken Holland when we secure a bottom five place in the league and a top ten draft position?

Don't need elite talent? I'd really love to know, I mean I would be really thrilled to know, who on this site has ever said or even implied that.

 

[14ari13]

The defense being awful has nothing to do with Mrazek not learning to control a rebound. Hell, the defense being pretty clearly awful should make you more conservative in net than aggressive.

Aggressiveness in net is something you do when you know your teammates have your back and they're good enough to respond if you miss. If you know they can't cut off a cross ice pass to save themselves... you don't 100% lock in on the shooter and leave shutting the passing lane down to them.

I mean, if you have Hasek and he wants to play... you let him play. He should have stuck by Joseph, but it's probably a good thing it fell apart beacuse you would have had 38 year old Joseph on an 8M (6M after the rollback) in a cap world where the cap was 39 million.

Manny Legace was trash. He was a headcase and was garbage. The Wings did not lose anything by not going to him.

Ozzie was an okay goalie. But he caught a ton of flak. Late 90s Ozzie in the late 90s was current Jimmy Hoawrd. Good goalie but when the Wings won it was in spite of him, not because of him.

Holland. Holland. Holland. Our GM.

I am not discussing the goalies, I am talking about Holland’s track record with goalies and how poorly he handled the situations.

 

[ShelbyZ]

I did not like when Holland handed the big deal to Mrazek. At that point Mrazek proved nothing.


This is not the first time Holland makes this mistake.

He did it back when he had Hasek, Joseph and Legace.

Then again when he lost Osgood.

Holland has a terrible track record when it comes to goalies.

Holland didn't "hand" Mrazek that contract. Petr wanted $5M a year, Holland was (rightfully) at a hair under $3M and they met in the middle.

And as for losing Osgood, Holland went out and traded for a future HOF goalie and tried to trade Osgood, who was coming off a down year, with no takers since teams knew RW would have to expose him in the waiver draft... What was he supposed to do? Hold Mike Milburys family hostage until he coughed up a 4th rounder?

You also forgot Gustavsson and Conklin 2.0 in your list of terrible Holland goalie blunders.

 

[kliq]

Interesting point.
Doesn't really answer what I said.
But try this exercise.
Envision Darren Helm and how you see his career unfolding in Detroit.
What's a likely positive scenario.
What's a likely negative scenario.

In my estimation, at best I see him playing 3 more healthy years, scoring 35 goals and maybe 90 points.
At worst, I can see him playing only 120 games, scoring 20 goals and 45 points.

How easily do you replace that?

You look at Mrazek or Tatar, and the upside such a scenario much harder to replace.

I would imagine that not a single person would challenge this point, its obvious. If someone were to offer the Wings a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd for Helm, I think every poster here accepts that in a heartbeat. If we were offered the return we got for Mrazek for Helm, I would assume the same thing.

Trading guys like Tatar/Mrazek over a guy like Helm is nothing to do with getting them out because they are less valuable then Helm, because they are clearly more valuable. Its all about the return, and Helm simply cant get us that type of return, or anything even close. I'm all for moving Helm, don't get me wrong, but this is not a case of moving out the worst players, its a case of which assets can bring in the most picks.

 

[Pavels Dog]

The problem Holland's going to run into is that he's built too good of a team to be really bad, and it's probably not worth what we'd have to either eat salary wise or chip in asset wise to move guys to get really bad. He's going to be trying to rebuild while drafting around 9th, which won't be fun.

This is how it sounds after a few wins. Then after a few losses the ”highest payroll and bottom 5!!1!1!1” people come out. Let’s see where we finish. Last year we were one number away from getting 3rd. Due to expansion and lottery misfortune we got 9th instead of 6th/7th. All it takes is a bad last 20 games (expected due to tough schedule) and we’re back in the bottom 5 mix.

But Holland has been a little too competent perhaps. Most teams behind us have been managed much worse.

Woohoo!
Cup Caliber defense back again next season!
Wow, what a dope this GM is.

..
I don’t get it. Green is probably our best D. Is he a better GM if he wants to get rid of the best part of a bad D? Isn’t the goal to get better?

This is why I don’t take Holland haters seriously. He gets sh*t on no matter what.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

Don't need elite talent? I'd really love to know, I mean I would be really thrilled to know, who on this site has ever said or even implied that.

It sounds weird, but I've seen exactly that opinion expressed. It was in reference to Holland wanting to rebuild on the fly, and all the detractors said you couldn't get an elite player where we were drafting (12-15). Their response was that you can win a cup with a bunch of 'solid' guys and no one elite player. That was their reasoning as to why rebuilding on the fly could work, and so Detroit didn't have to stop trying to compete.

I don't want to out anybody, because pretty much everybody's on board with the rebuild these days, but this poster was more on the Holland-supporting side of things.

 

[14ari13]

Holland didn't "hand" Mrazek that contract. Petr wanted $5M a year, Holland was (rightfully) at a hair under $3M and they met in the middle.

And as for losing Osgood, Holland went out and traded for a future HOF goalie and tried to trade Osgood, who was coming off a down year, with no takers since teams knew RW would have to expose him in the waiver draft... What was he supposed to do? Hold Mike Milburys family hostage until he coughed up a 4th rounder?

You also forgot Gustavsson and Conklin 2.0 in your list of terrible Holland goalie blunders.

It does not matter. What matters is that Holland ended up with TWO overpaid goalies he could not trade to any team.

Holland did not go out and traded for Hasek. Hasek traded himself to Detroit and in addition demanded from his GM not to ask for too much, so Holland sent back Kozlov.

I do not remember Conklin, I have completely forgotten him. And I am glad for that.

 

[Oddbob]

It does not matter. What matters is that Holland ended up with TWO overpaid goalies he could not trade to any team.

Holland did not go out and traded for Hasek. Hasek trader himself to Detroit and in addition demanded from his GM not to ask for too much, so Holland sent back Kozlov.

I do not remember Conklin, I have completely forgotten him. And I am glad for that.

Oh Dear! Dom Hasek forced the Red Wings to acquire him? Did you really just say that? Also, why is this put in a negative light, didn't we win the cup in 2002 with Dom in net?

 

[14ari13]

Oh Dear! Dom Hasek forced the Red Wings to acquire him? Did you really just say that? Also, why is this put in a negative light, didn't we win the cup in 2002 with Dom in net?

Hasek did not force Holland to acquire him, he forced his GM to trade him to the wings and in the process he demanded from his GM not to ask for too much back.

Holland signed Luke, while Hasek and Hull wanted to come to Detroit.

But all this is a completely derailed discussion.

The point is that Holland has made this goalie chaos several times

 

[Winger98]

This is how it sounds after a few wins. Then after a few losses the ”highest payroll and bottom 5!!1!1!1” people come out. Let’s see where we finish. Last year we were one number away from getting 3rd. Due to expansion and lottery misfortune we got 9th instead of 6th/7th. All it takes is a bad last 20 games (expected due to tough schedule) and we’re back in the bottom 5 mix.

But Holland has been a little too competent perhaps. Most teams behind us have been managed much worse.

Hey, from the beginning I've said we were better than lousy. Before the season started I thought we were an 18-20 team who could go up or down a couple of spots because of luck.

Also, other teams just give up better. If Blashill can just keep the effort up we're going to do better than expected.

 

[The Flying Octopus]

Told most of you on here that are daily that Green would be staying. His wife loves it here. He likes it here.

Now onto next subject:

Blashill is staying.

 

[TheMule93]

Blashill only stays if Holland stays

 

[Frk It]

Blashill only stays if Holland stays

Wouldn’t be surprised if everyone stays. Change is hard, the unknown scares people. Chris Illitch seems like he is fine with the status quo.

 

[TheMule93]

Wouldn’t be surprised if everyone stays. Change is hard, the unknown scares people. Chris Illitch seems like he is fine with the status quo.

Everyone would stay except the fans, in that case

 

[turkleton85]

Wouldn’t be surprised if everyone stays. Change is hard, the unknown scares people. Chris Illitch seems like he is fine with the status quo.

i have the same feeling. I can't stand blashhill and the way he's handling the young and old players, but he has proven he is not the worst coach there is. The Wings aren't that far away from the playoffs (how terrible must all the other teams be...), holland at least is doing something for the future at the same time (the tatar trade was very good). I'm afraid it might happen

 

[Flowah]

I don’t get it. Green is probably our best D. Is he a better GM if he wants to get rid of the best part of a bad D? Isn’t the goal to get better?

This is why I don’t take Holland haters seriously. He gets sh*t on no matter what.

It's like if someone uses tape to patch up their beat up jalopy when what it really needs is either to be taken into the shop or to be scrapped with you buying a new car.

I don't applaud your DIY repair job and I'm not getting in that thing.

There's no way you could describe re-signing Green as anything approaching making our d-corp competent. At best, it's lipstick on a pig. The best rationale for re-signing Green isn't that he makes our defense better. It's that we could flip him next year for picks. That's it.

 

[Whoshattenkirkshoes]

Told most of you on here that are daily that Green would be staying. His wife loves it here. He likes it here.

Now onto next subject:

Blashill is staying.

I said the exact same thing. As for the next subject I think Blash is here for the long haul. And I for now am ok with it.

 

[Whoshattenkirkshoes]

Wouldn’t be surprised if everyone stays. Change is hard, the unknown scares people. Chris Illitch seems like he is fine with the status quo.

Do you just like to complain? what is wrong with the plan management has put forth?

complaining ain't going to get you anywhere. Shit or get off the pot.

 

[Whoshattenkirkshoes]

It's like if someone uses tape to patch up their beat up jalopy when what it really needs is either to be taken into the shop or to be scrapped with you buying a new car.

I don't applaud your DIY repair job and I'm not getting in that thing.

There's no way you could describe re-signing Green as anything approaching making our d-corp competent. At best, it's lipstick on a pig. The best rationale for re-signing Green isn't that he makes our defense better. It's that we could flip him next year for picks. That's it.

We are not "flipping Green next year for a pick" what part of icing a competitive roster and not being Arizona don't you understand?

Yea we all wish Ottawa would trade us Erik Karlsson for a 3rd round pick, but this isn't fantasy land.

 

[Frk It]

Do you just like to complain? what is wrong with the plan management has put forth?

complaining ain't going to get you anywhere. **** or get off the pot.

I’ll have a reasonable conversation with people who want to have a reasonable conversation... thanks.

All I said was I could see them keeping everyone on. I didn’t even offer an opinion beyond that.

Now if you actually want to make a case for why everyone should stay on and/or why the current plan IS working, maybe that would lend itself to an actual constructive discussion as opposed to just flaming.

 

[Flowah]

We are not "flipping Green next year for a pick" what part of icing a competitive roster and not being Arizona don't you understand?

Yea we all wish Ottawa would trade us Erik Karlsson for a 3rd round pick, but this isn't fantasy land.

I don't get your response.

1. Who said anything about Karlsson?
2. We tried flipping Green this season, but you don't think we would next season? Uhh... hello?

 

[Pavels Dog]

It's like if someone uses tape to patch up their beat up jalopy when what it really needs is either to be taken into the shop or to be scrapped with you buying a new car.

I don't applaud your DIY repair job and I'm not getting in that thing.

There's no way you could describe re-signing Green as anything approaching making our d-corp competent. At best, it's lipstick on a pig. The best rationale for re-signing Green isn't that he makes our defense better. It's that we could flip him next year for picks. That's it.

Keeping Green obviously doesn’t IMPROVE our D, but no one can complain about Holland building a bad D while simultaneously shi**ing on him for wanting to re-sign the only guy that actually has above average offensive talent and puck moving ability. We should re-sign him to either flip for picks or together with the young D coming in help us turn the ship around. Our D needs to improve, not get worse. Building from the D is essential in today’s NHL.

 

[Frk It]

Keeping Green obviously doesn’t IMPROVE our D, but no one can complain about Holland building a bad D while simultaneously shi**ing on him for wanting to re-sign the only guy that actually has above average offensive talent and puck moving ability. We should re-sign him to either flip for picks or together with the young D coming in help us turn the ship around. Our D needs to improve, not get worse. Building from the D is essential in today’s NHL.

All that matters is that we have a good defense 3-5 years from now.

 

[datsyukfan]

If big E retires are we on the hook for any money?

 

[jkutswings]

We are not "flipping Green next year for a pick" what part of icing a competitive roster and not being Arizona don't you understand?

Yea we all wish Ottawa would trade us Erik Karlsson for a 3rd round pick, but this isn't fantasy land.

As of today, Detroit has 8 more wins than Arizona. EIGHT. And for comparison, the Wings have 17 fewer wins than Tampa Bay. So for call their obsession with avoiding the bottom of the barrel, they're still pretty low in the barrel.

If this "winning culture" is supposed to actually help them win games, instead of blowing it up to reboot the whole thing, it's not exactly doing a great job.