TSN: Dreger: Detroit won't be swapping 1st, 2nd or a quality prospect for a rental

[obey86]

We have no idea what Mantha and Larkin will do when they get to the professional level. Mantha isn't setting the world on fire in the AHL right now. Brendan Smith was considered one of the top college players and yet he hasn't become anything close to what was projected when he was drafted.

If you look over the past 20 years we have two really good NHL players: Kronwall and Fischer. Everyone else is a bust or is a a run of the mill NHL'er (ie, David Legwand already had three 40+ point seasons when he was Riley Sheahan's age).

The draft picks

2010: Sheahan - run of the mill NHL'er.
2008: McCollum - bust.
2007: Smith - mediocre d-man.
2005: Jakub Kindl - mediocre 7th d-man.
2000: Niklas Kronwall - very good d-man.
1998: Jiri Fischer - very good d-man.
1996: Jesse Wallin - bust ville.
1995: Maxim Kuznetsov - bust bust bust.
1994: Yan Golubovsky - hella bust.

So out of 9 guys who had plenty of time to develop, 2 of them were very good NHL players. Generously that's a 25% success rate.

So yes, Ken Holland loves him some magic beans.

Dave Legwand was the #2 overall pick. NHL ready. When are people going to stop comparing the Wings draft/development strategy to other teams? Kronwall didn't do crap until age 26. Howard was a "bust" until age 25. Franzen didn't break out until 27. It took Ericsson SEVEN YEARS before he became a solid full time NHL player. The examples go on and on. The Wings draft/development is unique compared to the rest of the league...party due to having no high draft picks for 20 whatever years.

AND Ken Holland wasn't general manager before 1997.

So again, since Holland (excluding Mantha, who knows):

3 busts, 2 very good NHLers, and 1 run of the mill player (even though I think Sheahan is definitely better than run of the mill and is still growing as a player/too early to say he has hit his ceiling but I digress).

I guess we should just trade all of our draft picks every season huh? Because there are definitely more busts than hits overall in every found.

 

[Run the Jewels]

Ken Holland wasn't general manager before 1997.

Yet late first round picks still suck across the entire league! Look through the overall draft history of guys who were drafted where we typically draft and see how many really good NHL players come with those picks.

The Cliff Notes version if you will:

• The Red Wings have built the bulk of their "depth" through 2nd-4th round picks.
• Dean Lombardi has proven time and time again that trading a late first round pick (or 2nd and 3rd round picks in the case of Marian Gaborik) for a proven NHL player is a deal that makes all sorts of sense, as exhibited by those two Kings championships that came on the heels of acquiring Jeff Carter and Marian Gaborik.
• Ken Holland was once willing to make trades to acquire top level NHL players (Mathieu Schneider, Chris Chelios, Dom Hasek).
• It's only recently that he's become far too conservative, signing Todd Bertuzzi well past his usefulness date because Shawn Matthias turned into a legit NHL'er. He also tried to sign Tomas Fleischmann despite a heart condition. You can rest assured he will do his best to sign Mike Green this summer - despite the fact he's a third pairing d-man - due entirely to the fact he gave up both players in a trade for Robert Lang.

Basically Ken Holland is living in the past and is petrified of making a trade that could come back to haunt him. We hear it in comments suggesting he passed on Christian Ehrhoff because he supposedly wanted a 5 year deal. Hmmmm...why did he end up signing a one year deal then?

Dave Legwand was the #2 overall pick. NHL ready. When are people going to stop comparing the Wings draft/development strategy to other teams?

Legwand and Sheahan are very similar players. If you want to pretend that there is anything to date to suggest Sheahan will be anything more than a 3rd line center then I'm all ears.

Also it would be good if you realized that Ken Holland was the director of amateur scouting prior to becoming the General Manager in 1997 so those whiffs with first round picks were heavily influenced by his specific recommendations as the director of amateur scouting.

 

[TKB]

You'very just considerably aged the team, without considering what the return would be. Also, I don't see how Jagr fits, he doesn'the bring the same skill set as Franzen (who, by the way, we are doing fine without) and would slow down any line we would put him on

Yeah a giant NO THANK YOU to Jagr.....

 

[SimplySolace]

Basically Ken Holland is living in the past and is petrified of making a trade that could come back to haunt him. We hear it in comments suggesting he passed on Christian Ehrhoff because he supposedly wanted a 5 year deal. Hmmmm...why did he end up signing a one year deal then?

Thought it was obvious he went somewhere he thought he'd rack up points for a big pay day.

 

[obey86]

Legwand and Sheahan are very similar players. If you want to pretend that there is anything to date to suggest Sheahan will be anything more than a 3rd line center then I'm all ears.

Also it would be good if you realized that Ken Holland was the director of amateur scouting prior to becoming the General Manager in 1997 so those whiffs with first round picks were heavily influenced by his specific recommendations as the director of amateur scouting.

The GM ultimately makes the call on draft picks. Sure, it's a collective decision with everyone's input, but the GM makes the final call.

 

[Overclass*]

Basically Ken Holland is living in the past and is petrified of making a trade that could come back to haunt him. We hear it in comments suggesting he passed on Christian Ehrhoff because he supposedly wanted a 5 year deal. Hmmmm...why did he end up signing a one year deal then?

At the time of the signing Erhoff, and pretty much everyone, assumed the Pens would be a much better team than the Wings.

 

[obey86]

Legwand and Sheahan are very similar players. If you want to pretend that there is anything to date to suggest Sheahan will be anything more than a 3rd line center then I'm all ears.

Also it would be good if you realized that Ken Holland was the director of amateur scouting prior to becoming the General Manager in 1997 so those whiffs with first round picks were heavily influenced by his specific recommendations as the director of amateur scouting.

And if Sheahan turns into a 40-50 point good defensive center like Legwand that's a very good pick...better than "run of the mill". The story isn't written on Sheahan yet...he's never going to be a superstar...but come on, the guy has barely played 100 career NHL games and just turned 23. His story isn't close to being written yet. Just because he wasn't in the NHL at 19 doesn't mean he can't still improve.

 

[Frk It]

If you want to pretend that there is anything to date to suggest Sheahan will be anything more than a 3rd line center then I'm all ears.

2nd line centers usually produce 40-50 pts. Sheahan is on pace for 40 pts at age 23.

 

[obey86]

Yet late first round picks still suck across the entire league! Look through the overall draft history of guys who were drafted where we typically draft and see how many really good NHL players come with those picks.

The Cliff Notes version if you will:

• The Red Wings have built the bulk of their "depth" through 2nd-4th round picks.
• Dean Lombardi has proven time and time again that trading a late first round pick (or 2nd and 3rd round picks in the case of Marian Gaborik) for a proven NHL player is a deal that makes all sorts of sense, as exhibited by those two Kings championships that came on the heels of acquiring Jeff Carter and Marian Gaborik.
• Ken Holland was once willing to make trades to acquire top level NHL players (Mathieu Schneider, Chris Chelios, Dom Hasek).
• It's only recently that he's become far too conservative, signing Todd Bertuzzi well past his usefulness date because Shawn Matthias turned into a legit NHL'er. He also tried to sign Tomas Fleischmann despite a heart condition. You can rest assured he will do his best to sign Mike Green this summer - despite the fact he's a third pairing d-man - due entirely to the fact he gave up both players in a trade for Robert Lang.

Basically Ken Holland is living in the past and is petrified of making a trade that could come back to haunt him. We hear it in comments suggesting he passed on Christian Ehrhoff because he supposedly wanted a 5 year deal. Hmmmm...why did he end up signing a one year deal then?

Yeah and that looks great now while they are in their cup contending window. But those older guys you trade the high picks for cost more money to retain on the team and when they decline you are left with a large cap hit, for a poor/underachieving player, and little/less young, cheap talent in the pipeline because you traded all of your high draft picks.

 

[The Zermanator]

Yet late first round picks still suck across the entire league! Look through the overall draft history of guys who were drafted where we typically draft and see how many really good NHL players come with those picks.

The Cliff Notes version if you will:

• The Red Wings have built the bulk of their "depth" through 2nd-4th round picks.
• Dean Lombardi has proven time and time again that trading a late first round pick (or 2nd and 3rd round picks in the case of Marian Gaborik) for a proven NHL player is a deal that makes all sorts of sense, as exhibited by those two Kings championships that came on the heels of acquiring Jeff Carter and Marian Gaborik.
• Ken Holland was once willing to make trades to acquire top level NHL players (Mathieu Schneider, Chris Chelios, Dom Hasek).
• It's only recently that he's become far too conservative, signing Todd Bertuzzi well past his usefulness date because Shawn Matthias turned into a legit NHL'er. He also tried to sign Tomas Fleischmann despite a heart condition. You can rest assured he will do his best to sign Mike Green this summer - despite the fact he's a third pairing d-man - due entirely to the fact he gave up both players in a trade for Robert Lang.

Basically Ken Holland is living in the past and is petrified of making a trade that could come back to haunt him. We hear it in comments suggesting he passed on Christian Ehrhoff because he supposedly wanted a 5 year deal. Hmmmm...why did he end up signing a one year deal then?

36 pts in 52 gms. I take that 'third pairing d-man' and run. He'd be our leading scorer on the blueline, despite playing fewer games than any of our regulars (tied with Quincey at 52).

 

[Run the Jewels]

Thought it was obvious he went somewhere he thought he'd rack up points for a big pay day.

Actually he just got bought out of his big payday from the Sabres. It was fairly clear that the Penguins were in a state of transition what with their coach and general manager getting fired. Hell, it sounds like their new GM wants to re-acquire Jordan Staal.

 

[Claypool]

[*]Dean Lombardi has proven time and time again that trading a late first round pick (or 2nd and 3rd round picks in the case of Marian Gaborik) for a proven NHL player is a deal that makes all sorts of sense, as exhibited by those two Kings championships that came on the heels of acquiring Jeff Carter and Marian Gaborik.

The Kings were a game away from getting swept in the first round.

 

[InjuredChoker]

kings core is younger and better than ours. sekera would help us a ton but if/as Z, D and kronner won't have legs for a playoff run, it doesn't mean much. i don't know how anyone can't see that kings are in totally different situation than us. dean lombardi won't be trading picks away in 4-7 year when their core is old/older, they have no cap space, young players coming up and depth has suffered.

holland traded away picks when we had young and great core, we don't have that anymore.

the draft record past 20 years doesn't mean much since so many things have changed, including the guy running the draft. well past 20 years tells us so much about the future, i'll take the playoffs every year and 4 cups along with it.

the draft record hasn't been great bc of lack of picks. that won't get better giving picks away.

pens in state of transition? is that way they have something like 2nd rounder and couple of late picks on this draft left anymore?

i love the green tidbit. green is better 5on5 than yandle is. so you want to trade ransom for worse 5on5 player but don't want to sign better player for no assets? gotta love that.

 

[Pavels Dog]

We have no idea what Mantha and Larkin will do when they get to the professional level. Mantha isn't setting the world on fire in the AHL right now. Brendan Smith was considered one of the top college players and yet he hasn't become anything close to what was projected when he was drafted.

If you look over the past 20 years we have two really good NHL players: Kronwall and Fischer. Everyone else is a bust or is a a run of the mill NHL'er (ie, David Legwand already had three 40+ point seasons when he was Riley Sheahan's age).

The draft picks

2010: Sheahan - run of the mill NHL'er.
2008: McCollum - bust.
2007: Smith - mediocre d-man.
2005: Jakub Kindl - mediocre 7th d-man.
2000: Niklas Kronwall - very good d-man.
1998: Jiri Fischer - very good d-man.
1996: Jesse Wallin - bust ville.
1995: Maxim Kuznetsov - bust bust bust.
1994: Yan Golubovsky - hella bust.

So out of 9 guys who had plenty of time to develop, 2 of them were very good NHL players. Generously that's a 25% success rate.

So yes, Ken Holland loves him some magic beans.

Aren't you basically disproving your own point by showing how few 1st round picks we've had over the past 20 years? Obviously we should be less inclined to trade them away as we're heading towards replacing our core. Basically what InjuredChoker said. Can't compare our situation to Kings/Pens/Hawks and a couple of other teams that are in a similar position as we were 5-10 years ago.

Btw, Ehrhoff signed 1 year to play for a contender. Similar to what Hossa did in 09. Now fast forward 6+ years and Pittsburgh will also need to save up draft picks and look towards life after Crosby/Malkin/Letang.

 

[InjuredChoker]

carter wasn't also a rental. he had like 10 years or something on his deal. i'd do similar trade. sekera wasn't one.

2nd and 3rd is not a first. i'd trade 2nd and 3rd for a guy who addresses our biggest needs, as with LA si was scoring and that's something gaborik can bring. i'd trade 2nd and 3rd for top pairing RHD. easily.

so this is the first time lombardi has trade his 1st rounder for a rental. but LA is nice place to live and they have arguably the best team in the league so they have better odds at signing him than most others, if they can make it work with the cap.

and more to Frk it's point.

90th best scorer has had on average of 49 points in past 3 full seasons. 180th 33 points. 270th 19 points.

ppg for #60 center since 10-11 has been 0.58, which is 47.56 points, per hockeyreference (min 150 gp). some of those aren't centers so the number could be little lower but i guess some centers are also listed as wingers. sheahan is almost there on a team that plays defense first trap more and better than most teams in the league.

going just by pure scoring as one can't help his team from IR (well, in most cases..), #60 center scored around 130 points. in 294 games. even #45 scored under 160 points (44.6 points in 82 games).

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

i love the green tidbit. green is better 5on5 than yandle is. so you want to trade ransom for worse 5on5 player but don't want to sign better player for no assets? gotta love that.

Green is a much better fit and a more complete hockey player. Also you can expect Yandle and Green to make very similar money more than likely at the end of the day.

Green does have the injury history, but with the way we bring up prospects slow and always have a guy in GR that can play, I think we are ideal in that sense. Have no problem going big on Green in free agency, I wish we could find a way to convince Washington in season or even before July 1 for the exclusive negotiation rights.

Minimal assets or no assets and just money would be huge if we come away with Mike Green.

 

[harlan78]

The Kings were a game away from getting swept in the first round.

While that's 100% true..

They still won the series.... and the cup.. So regardless of what their situation was being down 3-0.. All that matters is the end result....

EDIT: Spelling

 

[BinCookin]

The Cliff Notes version if you will:

• Dean Lombardi has proven time and time again that trading a late first round pick (or 2nd and 3rd round picks in the case of Marian Gaborik) for a proven NHL player is a deal that makes all sorts of sense, as exhibited by those two Kings championships that came on the heels of acquiring Jeff Carter and Marian Gaborik.

• 
  
  Are you suggesting that the LAKings built most of their team through trades? They built most of their team through the draft... Especially their #1 G, C and D. They are a pretty strong case for drafting a team to compete as opposed to trading for one. We are in a slightly different position being half held up by older vets, and half held up by kids. In a sense we are still rebuilding. I think trading for more vets might be counterproductive.

 

[Fugu]

Is this Dreger business about Phaneuf supposed to be taken seriously?

 

[Run the Jewels]

The Kings were a game away from getting swept in the first round.

The Kings won their first Cup as an 8 seed. Is there a reason we are throwing out random useless facts?

 

[SoupNazi]

Is this Dreger business about Phaneuf supposed to be taken seriously?

I doubt it. I seriously doubt Holland is really interested in Phaneuf. I suspect "we like our team."

 

[TatarTangle]

Not sure why Sheahan is receiving hate? Or at least being called run of the mill?

Babcock was praising Sheahan in an interview the other day, I think he even came close to smiling. Call me crazy but if Babcock almost smiles when he's talking about you, you're probably a pretty damn fine hockey player.

 

[Dotter]

Is this Dreger business about Phaneuf supposed to be taken seriously?

In the past I use to to view Dreger as someone with substance. This year my impression is nothing more than Eklund.

"Phaneuf to Detroit, D4"

 

[SoupGuru]

Not sure why Sheahan is receiving hate? Or at least being called run of the mill?

Babcock was praising Sheahan in an interview the other day, I think he even came close to smiling. Call me crazy but if Babcock almost smiles when he's talking about you, you're probably a pretty damn fine hockey player.

Are you talking about the interview where Babcock said "Sheahan is a lot better than he thinks he is"?

I thought that was interesting. I guess Babcock thinks Sheahan needs to play with a little more confidence.

 

[hot dog]

Not sure why Sheahan is receiving hate? Or at least being called run of the mill?

Babcock was praising Sheahan in an interview the other day, I think he even came close to smiling. Call me crazy but if Babcock almost smiles when he's talking about you, you're probably a pretty damn fine hockey player.

THIS. So much this. Sheahan has been one of our most important players this year in that he's been incredibly consistent with his play night in and night out. He's one of the best third line centers in the league. He's been productive with almost any winger, too. When you say run of the mill NHLer the implication is a Joakim Andersson type, and Sheahan is not that. I wouldn't trade a first round pick for Sheahan straight up, which in my mind makes him a good pick.