Dotter
THE ATHLETIC IS GARBAGE
This is asinine. I do not solely blame Holland. Most people don't 100%. But he is the face of management when it comes to the roster and the coaching staff. He deserves a large share of the blame for how he has managed the team.
It is possible the owners are a big reason he has done what he has done. But that just makes them culpable to a poor model and a far cry from what the team used to be. I don't care if they cared about the streak, or they wanted to stay "competitive". They made poor choices and kept the team limping along, which has led to a mediocre product that is spending to the salary cap every year. We have one of the worst defenses in the league, potentially no superstar at forward, a complete question mark in goal going forward, and a coaching staff that doesn't produce.
There is no defense for the state of the team. The fact you are willing to give management another 8 years or so before you are willing to part ways is telling.
Telling to what, exactly?
And much of what I have speculated all along has been confirmed by Jim Devellano.
"From ownership on down, we don't want to gut it and go to the bottom. We just don't want to do that — we're going to a new building.
Bottoming out fully alienates some fans for a while, probably longer than anyone would desire, in Detroit. But the franchise might then resurrect with serial top draft choices who pan out.
The Blackhawks did it, and they now skate with Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith, and their future of success appears to extend beyond the horizon.
"We think we owe it to everybody not just to say, well, the only way we're going to get (players like that) is to go to the bottom. That can be a tough, tough period for the franchise. But the teams that have done that, like Chicago, they wind up with the Kanes and the Toewses and the Keiths."
Devellano stated explicitly that one reason the Red Wings chose not to deconstruct fully, in order to reconstruct, is the accumulating ages of Mike Ilitch, Holland and, Devellano said, himself. Krupa: Devellano, Wings rebuild instead of gutting team
Based on looking at other teams around the league, seeing what it takes to rebuild, I think 10 years is fair assessment. And I don't care who you have as GM - nobody is going to do it faster (unless they have an ungodly amount of luck in draft lottery and finding multiple late round GEMS). But yeah, that's the norm of best case scenarios and most logical and realistic. That'll put us at 2026.
Every franchise will have to deal with this. CHI will soon be facing this. My guess is they are the 2010 version of us now. Parity.