Helene St. James Tatar the latest Detroit castoff to disappoint

[vladdy16]

It proves who clueless he'd become.
Spend to the max. Load a team with mediocre veterans. Bury prospects in Grand Rapids, in the press box or on Line 4.
And for what? To finish out of the playoffs anyway.

Ken Holland knew this team needed stars. Yet he was still trying to patch up a ****ty team to play "meaningful games in March and April."
He should have not signed some of these old farts like Daley or Vanek and allowed the team to sink and get that top 3 pick the franchise desperately needed.

It occurs to me that 3 years into the no-playoff streak, I'm still not sure we've drafted a franchise-type player - the Star player Kenny knew we needed.

That's some very loose and general speculation of your own. It doesnt lead to a conclusion, or address any of the counterpoints that have come up for you.

It wouldnt be clear which side you were arguing for by the points you are choosing. And you're yet to even concede or acknowledge a large factor in the discussion, which is that Holland was never operating in a vacuum and very clearly had bosses to answer to.

Also, im not sure what you would guess Vanek and Nielsons combined WAR has been for their time here, but it must be way way higher than the rest of us.

 

[HockeyinHD]

If this is true, I think its fair to say that the direction likely came from above Holland as well.

Most major decisions in Detroit seemed to be collaborative in nature. That said, when you're talking about a bottom line number as outrageously large as what the Wings pilfered the City of Detroit for it's almost impossible for any self-respecting business to pass up on such an easy score. Detroit's only major marketing assets at that time were 1) The Streak (tm) and 2) Lidstrom's last few seasons. Keeping those on life support (and making some more short term attendance dollars in the meantime) in the furtherance of a Mega Millions Jackpot-level windfall is an easy call, even if it does nuke the team for their first 5-8 years in the new barn.

Heck, the team's value skyrocketed as a result of the move, so they get paid twice. Once up front from the finances the City diverted to the LCA, and then again when and if the Illtch's sell the team, or even if they just leverage the teams worth in subsequent financing deals.

Back to the thread point, Tatar was a borderline top 6er in Detroit who was situationally successful. The deal they got for him was a fantastic win on day 1. It's also a big reason why they haven't won a deal like that since: between Tatar and Smith the league is figuring out that Detroit is getting more out of their mid-level players than perhaps they should.

 

[HockeyinHD]

I cannot take any theory seriously that asserts Holland chose to forgo a rebuild in 2011-2012 because he was planning on earning his bosses a ****-ton of public money for a new arena five years down the line. Especially considering it seems those who are making that argument were supportive of the decisions Holland made in the early 2010s without any indication it was for a long-term arena deal.

Enh. I think you're being a bit scattershot with your 'seems' level interpretation of previous discussions, but it's no big deal.

Personally, I generally supported Holland's moves through the period while people wanted the team burned to the ground primarily because I felt it was going to be way harder to rebuild the team and way less of a sure thing to get back to where they generally were at that time. Even I couldn't have envisioned the City of Detroit being so outrageously stupid that they'd float the team a quarter billion, but one has to presume such negotiations were happening over those years as the team looked at new building options, so the OrganIzation had access to facts not in evidence to us.

A lot of column A and a little of column B, at least in hindsight, for me.

So, anyway, here we are. Year 2.5 of a 5 year rebuild (if we're lucky... does anyone feel lucky?), the team is largely unwatchable and joins the Tigers, Pistons and Lions in creating a dystopian Hellscape of putridity, in game attendance is down so much it looked like Thanos snapped his fingers 6 times right in the arena, the TV ratings are somewhere in the vicinity of reruns of the first season of Dexter, and other than the few days of the Draft and the week leading up to the TDL the whole team can be safely ignored.

Gearing up for a playoff run sounds kind of nice now, even if Detroit wasn't a top 8 heading into them, eh?

 

[HockeyinHD]

I
It occurs to me that 3 years into the no-playoff streak, I'm still not sure we've drafted a franchise-type player - the Star player Kenny knew we needed.

3 years into the no-playoff streak, how many franchise level guys have been drafted before Detroit made their first pick?

I'm just pointing out that draft position may not be the problem here, but the absence of actual franchise level guys during the interim the Wings have been bad is... which is one of the reasons I am always leery of intentional tanking. If you're bad while the drafts are bad, you're bleeped.

I've always understood the pro-tank mentality, I've just never agreed with the underlying logic that position requires. Drafts in general require an almost absurd amount of luck, as evidenced by the really low success rate of picks. Even inside the top 5 you've got ~20% of getting a flat bust. The top five. Even when you 'hit' on a top 5 pick, in the wild majority of the time you're getting a solid top line player, which is good, obviously, but not a "franchise-level" good one.

The closest I can come to agreeing with the pro-tank set is in assembling the best team you can each year, but if things aren't going well at the deadline move as many fairly replaceable parts as possible for picks and approach draft success through volume rather than trying to juice your draft position by being intentionally, hurl-inducingly bad.

All of that, though, is meaningless now given Detroit's position.

 

[ShelbyZ]

Listen to this interview.
Does this sound like a guy who was only trying to win because his boss said so?


No chance this guy was lying to the press. Liars don't look this befuddled.

When he says he doesn't want to rebuild, he means it.

I'm not defending how things went, but I can see where the line of thinking might have been around that time (15-16) and the years prior.

There were two paths (among many I suppose?) to go on, that could have varying results:

A. Enter a rebuild, which could end up with the following
- A. It goes horribly, you end up like the Oilers or Sabres for years
- B. You get some good young players, but still struggle to find those elite pieces and maybe end up some bubble team and then you're restarting the rebuild at some point
- C. You get lucky with the lottery and end up with some generational talent(s) to build around and become a contender

B. Try to keep band-aiding the current core that has(or in the 2016 offseason's case had) the ability to "just get in" which could result in the following:
- A. The team keeps getting worse, misses the playoffs and you have to enter that rebuild anyway
- B. The trades/free agents/young guys that get brought in just kind of keep the team in a place where they still barely make the playoffs
- C. They hit pay dirt with a highly coveted UFA or an unexpectedly good young player and along with their intact barely playoff worthy core, the team is elevated closer to or into contender status

Ken Holland went for B. hoping to stay at B(B) in hopes of getting to B(C), as much of a long shot as it might have been.

And you can see where Holland wrongly put his chips to try to keep it going... He had Dylan Larkin come in and put up a solid rookie season, Petr Mrazek was nearly Vezina worthy for 3/4 of his first full NHL season, Mantha and AA seemed ready to move to the big club, Tatar, Sheahan and DeKeyser were coming off what seemed to be down seasons, Nyquist was a year removed from 2 seasons of 27 and 28 goals. Unfortunately, all of those didn't "work out" the next season. Larkin had a sophomore slump instead of really becoming closer to a top line guy, Nyquist had even fewer goals, Tatar was basically a ghost until the team was out of the playoffs for good, Sheahan and DeKeyser had even worse years and Mrazek absolutely shit the bed, especially after the team lost Howard long term. And I didn't even mention Abdelkader...

I think "work out" is the key phrase with some of Holland's success as GM. Whether it be good GMing, good scouting, good coaching, good luck or a combination of them, things always seemed to work out:

-Hang on and try to win another Cup with basically the same core and pretty much same forward group as you won with in 1998 for three years, and then be able to score Hasek and two HOF forwards in a trade and on the UFA market
-Lose an elite top C and watch as your other one ages and breaks down.... No problem got two more in the 6th and 7th round ready to step in
-Have the cap limit how much you can spend and lose a bunch of good but aging players, but get some unexpected production from budget guys like Mikael Samuelsson and Jason Williams...
-Lose a defenseman to a heart problem, but another young dman taken in the 1st round ready to step into a top 4 role
-Lose Yzerman and a 40 goal Shanahan and do basically nothing... Have the offense replaced by committee when Filppula and Hudler quickly take spots up front and Dan Cleary and Johan Franzen become top 6 goal scorers
-Lose a top pairing Dman to free agency and easily get another one
-Want to go all in and win another Cup and easily sign an elite UFA forward
-Osgood's awful regular season again, but a budget bin Conklin holds the fort and then an out of minor league options Howard surprises and steals the starting job.

For whatever reason, those kind of things stopped "working out" during that 09-10 season
-Reclamation projects (Eaves) and overaged Euro prospects (Leino) didn't pan out
-That UFA top pairing dman didn't fall into their lap
-1st rounder dmen didn't pan out
-Budget signings didn't work
-Guys that were expected to continue improving either didn't or even got worse
-They weren't getting new elite forwards (or dmen) from any round in the draft, let alone the 6th and 7th

And IMO, I think that kind of brought about a bit of "hubris" to Hollands mostly reactive way of building the team. I mean he basically knew the team was going to hit a huge cap crunch after they won the 2008 Cup and instead of being proactive to try to prepare for what they might lose, he signs a big name UFA for one year and basically says "Ehhh, we'll see what happens in a year".

Team stays on top of the West the next two years and exits in the 2nd round. They lose a top pairing Dman to a "surprise" convenient retirement and are likely aware that two other top 4 dmen (Lidstrom and Stuart) are also gone in a year. "Ehhh, We'll make sure Drew Miller gives up #20 for Ryan Suter"

A year later Stuart and Lidstrom are gone, Quincey blows after they waste a 1st rounder on him, miss out on Suter, just lowballed Hudler out of town and got Filppula who hates playing for Babcock coming off a near PPG season when teams are paying a kings ransom for centers and you probably aren't going to be able to re-sign him if he has another good year anyway.... "Ehh, we'll see"

IMO that's where the wheels really fell off. That missing "proaction" between 2008 and 2012 while the UFA market shrank and more teams were able to court the guys that did make it to the market and the Red Wings started to lose that edge in the late rounds of the draft. What followed was two years of a trainwreck youth movement, which then brought about the panic re-signing of the teams own UFA's. Go back and move some of those guys that you knew you weren't going to be able to keep and they might have been able to score some prospects or draft picks that could've turned into good players that either produce more than their pay grade or help soften the blow from good players that were lost for whatever reason.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

So, anyway, here we are. Year 2.5 of a 5 year rebuild (if we're lucky... does anyone feel lucky?), the team is largely unwatchable and joins the Tigers, Pistons and Lions in creating a dystopian Hellscape of putridity, in game attendance is down so much it looked like Thanos snapped his fingers 6 times right in the arena, the TV ratings are somewhere in the vicinity of reruns of the first season of Dexter, and other than the few days of the Draft and the week leading up to the TDL the whole team can be safely ignored.

Gearing up for a playoff run sounds kind of nice now, even if Detroit wasn't a top 8 heading into them, eh?

Out of curiosity, of those who argued for tanking in the early 2010s, how many thought that the rebuild would be perfect and have a 100% success rate?

None of these things are a surprise to those who advocated for the team pushing a rebuild earlier than they actually did. And between all the Detroit teams (sans the Lions who are still trying to contend because they are married to Stafford and they are banking on some kind of New England magic coming out of Patricia's beard at some point) the Red Wings have the brightest future because they have actually drafted some players who could be really good (Larkin, Hronek, Cholo, Mantha(?), Zadina, AA, etc.) and make an impact on a cup-contending team. The Pistons sacrificed their long-term health on a trade for Blake Griffin (and seem mired in the middle of the pack and getting smacked around by actual championship contenders), and the Tigers tanked but Avila's ability to actually pick up players of impact in any way is being called into question.

And yes, if the Red Wings with the young players they have playing big minutes make the playoffs as an 8th seed, everyone would be ecstatic because those young players would most likely be a reason why (which means we would have a good reason to be optimistic about the future).

 

[ShelbyZ]

Here's a fun bit of trivia...

Remember the 2014 offseason, when Holland couldn't sign any UFA dman and instead panic re-signed Quincey?

Later in that offseason, The Islanders would keep space open and get Boychuk and Leddy for pretty reasonable to bargain prices when Chicago and Boston were desperate to get under the cap

Cap hits:
Boychuck ($3,366,667) + Leddy ($2,700,000) = $6,066,667

Quincey ($4,250,000) + Whatever they set aside to bring back Alfredsson/Bury Lashoff = Plenty of space for Leddy and Boychuk

Would've been hard to keep both, although one would've been an upgrade over Quincey, and they still could've signed Green. Especially if they don't waste $3M to bring in Brad Richards to barely outperform Stephen Weiss while getting more icetime and better linemates.

 

[MBH]

Holland isn't the GM anymore, does it really matter this much?

Not a heck of a lot.
But this is a sports forum.
What does matter?

 

[ricky0034]

If you've ever listened to Holland painfully talk about why he resists rebuilds, it's pretty clear Holland wanted no part of a rebuild.

it's also very clear that that whole "get in the playoffs and anything can happen" thing is his honest opinion about team building

I mean for f***s sake he already had Katz parroting those exact words the second he was introduced as Edmontons GM and some people still wanna pretend that that's not how he actually feels

 

[MBH]

it's also very clear that that whole "get in the playoffs and anything can happen" thing is his honest opinion about team building

I mean for ****s sake he already had Katz parroting those exact words the second he was introduced as Edmontons GM and some people still wanna pretend that that's not how he actually feels

But the weird thing is, in the video I showed above, he refers to Detroit, Colorado, Dallas and New Jersey as dynasties back in the day.
But in today's salary cap NHL he said, if you think you're going to to win the cup, you're crazy. Because anyone can win, he said.
And then, he said, except there are 2-3 teams above the,.

From 09-17, it was Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh, LA, right?
Is that really that different from 96 to 03 or whatever?

If I had had McDavid, Drai, Nugent Hopkins, I'd be looking to do more than "get in and go on a run."
But I guess you gotta walk before you run.

 

[kliq]

it's also very clear that that whole "get in the playoffs and anything can happen" thing is his honest opinion about team building

I mean for ****s sake he already had Katz parroting those exact words the second he was introduced as Edmontons GM and some people still wanna pretend that that's not how he actually feels

Who said that is or isn't how he feels? I know I said that the direction of the team (ie. rebuild on the fly over complete tank) was likely the direction of the Ilitches because owners typically dictate the direction of their team, and I said that anything any GM says in a press conference you have to take with a grain of salt, which is true. You didnt quote anyone, so I'm not sure if I missed a comment, or if your comment is just a strawman.

 

[ricky0034]

Who said that is or isn't how he feels? I know I said that the direction of the team (ie. rebuild on the fly over complete tank) was likely the direction of the Ilitches because owners typically dictate the direction of their team, and I said that anything any GM says in a press conference you have to take with a grain of salt, which is true. You didnt quote anyone, so I'm not sure if I missed a comment, or if your comment is just a strawman.

everyone that keeps bringing up the ownership thing implying that secretly deep down Holland wanted to rebuild for years before he did

bullshit no he didn't,maybe ownership didn't want to either but that just means they both didn't

 

[kliq]

everyone that keeps bringing up the ownership thing implying that secretly deep down Holland wanted to rebuild for years before he did

bull**** no he didn't,maybe ownership didn't want to either but that just means they both didn't

Who? Can you quote someone saying "Holland wanted to re-build for years"?

 

[ricky0034]

Who? Can you quote someone saying "Holland wanted to re-build for years"?

okay

explain how directly to responding to complaints that Holland didn't rebuild earlier by implying that he couldn't because ownership didn't want to isn't also the same thing as implying that Holland wanted to

what are you even saying here? that all of your posts are meaningless non sequiturs?

 

[Bench]

what are you even saying here? that all of your posts are meaningless non sequiturs?

Excuse me, but posting meaningless content is my turf and I need everyone else to back off.

 

[kliq]

okay

explain how directly to responding to complaints that Holland didn't rebuild earlier by implying that he couldn't because ownership didn't want to isn't also the same thing as implying that Holland wanted to

what are you even saying here? that all of your posts are meaningless non sequiturs?

You seem to be getting very heated about this, I’m not trying to come at you, just making a point about business.

Ill assume those posts don’t exist.

When you work in business and you have a boss who owns the company, your boss is the one who gives the ultimate direction, then it is your job to carry that direction out. I personally work in a very similar situation and deal with things like this on a daily basis.

I have no clue if Holland wanted to re-build or not, if I had to guess I would guess that he didn’t, but that is merely a guess. All I know is this, the team promoted the hell out of the streak, and the second the streak ended, the re-build started. I don’t think that is a coincidence.

 

[MBH]

You seem to be getting very heated about this, I’m not trying to come at you, just making a point about business.

Ill assume those posts don’t exist.

When you work in business and you have a boss who owns the company, your boss is the one who gives the ultimate direction, then it is your job to carry that direction out. I personally work in a very similar situation and deal with things like this in a daily basis.

I have no clue if Holland wanted to the-build or not, if I had to guess I would guess that he didn’t, but that’s is merely a guess. All I know is this, the team promoted the hell out of the streak, and the second the streak ended, the re-build started. I don’t think that is a coincidence.

The team promoted the streak because that was what they had.
Today, the team promotes the young stars.

 

[Bench]

I have no clue if Holland wanted to the-build or not, if I had to guess I would guess that he didn’t, but that’s is merely a guess. All I know is this, the team promoted the hell out of the streak, and the second the streak ended, the re-build started. I don’t think that is a coincidence.

There's a simpler explanation. Holland is competitive and still had veterans on the roster that won him a Stanley Cup. He wanted to keep surrounding them with the best players he could every given season and keep competing until the wheels completely fell off and the veterans couldn't carry the load anymore.

Holland has made it abundantly clear his strategy is always build the best team and let the lottery balls fall wherever they fall. He always has one part of his mind on the future, he rarely sold off our young assets, but he's going to bring in older guys he feel can make an impact on the ice today.

With the new lottery odds, honestly the Holland approach is pretty damn reasonable. But before the lottery changes, he kind of had his head in the sand and needed to accept the team needed to suck more to get that high octane talent back in the system much quicker.

 

[Winger98]

There's a simpler explanation. Holland is competitive and still had veterans on the roster that won him a Stanley Cup. He wanted to keep surrounding them with the best players he could every given season and keep competing until the wheels completely fell off and the veterans couldn't carry the load anymore.

Holland has made it abundantly clear his strategy is always build the best team and let the lottery balls fall wherever they fall. He always has one part of his mind on the future, he rarely sold off our young assets, but he's going to bring in older guys he feel can make an impact on the ice today.

With the new lottery odds, honestly the Holland approach is pretty damn reasonable. But before the lottery changes, he kind of had his head in the sand and needed to accept the team needed to suck more to get that high octane talent back in the system much quicker.

We've also seen the unpredictable nature of rebuilds. It looks great when things fall in your favor, but I think those are the exceptions rather than the rule. There's no real guarantee that aggressively selling off will result in getting what you want. It's not like walking into Meijer and grabbing the package of bacon off the shelf you want. You might get stuck with some vegetarian sausage patties instead because the three teams ahead of you got all of the bacon.

Also, I'll have to try digging it up, but aggressively rebuilding hasn't always been tied to returning to contender status. It was an MLB article that looked at teams that finished out of the playoffs and their different attempts at rebuilding, and the success rate for returning to the playoffs favored the teams who didn't fall entirely into the basement in an effort to collect and hoard young talent. It actually favored teams who avoided that and only fell back into mediocrity.

With how the draft has been shifted, I wonder how much of that would ring true with the NHL (and even before the shift in the draft). I know people will bang the drum for at least mitigating how far you fall in a draft by failing as hard as possible, but statistically I'm not sure there is much of a difference between the expected production between the 3rd pick and the 10th pick. It's those first two picks that really have the consistently high value. And if you keep getting shafted by the lotto odds and picking 3-8 every year, not sure how helpful being really bad is. Especially considering the hole you have to dig yourself into to be that bad, and likely bad for a few years before luck falls in your favor (and has the worst team gotten the 1oa since the draft was changed?).

 

[Bench]

We've also seen the unpredictable nature of rebuilds. It looks great when things fall in your favor, but I think those are the exceptions rather than the rule. There's no real guarantee that aggressively selling off will result in getting what you want. It's not like walking into Meijer and grabbing the package of bacon off the shelf you want. You might get stuck with some vegetarian sausage patties instead because the three teams ahead of you got all of the bacon.

Also, I'll have to try digging it up, but aggressively rebuilding hasn't always been tied to returning to contender status. It was an MLB article that looked at teams that finished out of the playoffs and their different attempts at rebuilding, and the success rate for returning to the playoffs favored the teams who didn't fall entirely into the basement in an effort to collect and hoard young talent. It actually favored teams who avoided that and only fell back into mediocrity.

With how the draft has been shifted, I wonder how much of that would ring true with the NHL (and even before the shift in the draft). I know people will bang the drum for at least mitigating how far you fall in a draft by failing as hard as possible, but statistically I'm not sure there is much of a difference between the expected production between the 3rd pick and the 10th pick. It's those first two picks that really have the consistently high value. And if you keep getting shafted by the lotto odds and picking 3-8 every year, not sure how helpful being really bad is. Especially considering the hole you have to dig yourself into to be that bad, and likely bad for a few years before luck falls in your favor (and has the worst team gotten the 1oa since the draft was changed?).

There's a huge element of luck in any rebuild. That's something sports fans should be familiar with but seem to forget. It's not just the lottery balls, but also who is picked before you. That's two variables completely out of your control. You could have the best scouting plan and identify the best possible player, but if the luck doesn't drop your way, you're left with... vegetarian sausage patties. Ew.

Previously, in the NHL, I believe there was a direct benefit to tanking hard a few years. See: Penguins, Hawks. Keep in mind you need to ALSO be tanked the year generational talents are available. But now? Um. Yeah the draft odds are so wonky I think you just keep collecting the best players that fit your timeline, patch holes as needed, and hope for the best. I can't imagine actually trying to tank in the current system.

Ironically, I think Holland's mindset will do better moving forward. Assuming he doesn't fall into any loyalty traps like Helm and Abby. Gotta move those middle 6 guys before they get a long deal when your team isn't quite there yet.

 

[Winger98]

There's a huge element of luck in any rebuild. That's something sports fans should be familiar with but seem to forget. It's not just the lottery balls, but also who is picked before you. That's two variables completely out of your control. You could have the best scouting plan and identify the best possible player, but if the luck doesn't drop your way, you're left with... vegetarian sausage patties. Ew.

Previously, in the NHL, I believe there was a direct benefit to tanking hard a few years. See: Penguins, Hawks. Keep in mind you need to ALSO be tanked the year generational talents are available. But now? Um. Yeah the draft odds are so wonky I think you just keep collecting the best players that fit your timeline, patch holes as needed, and hope for the best. I can't imagine actually trying to tank in the current system.

Ironically, I think Holland's mindset will do better moving forward. Assuming he doesn't fall into any loyalty traps like Helm and Abby. Gotta move those middle 6 guys before they get a long deal when your team isn't quite there yet.

If Z, Kronwall and Franzen had aged a bit more graceully, I wonder if Holland's mindset with Helm and Abby would have been different. Regardless of how badly he wanted to make the playoffs, the build up of age and injuries to guys like Datsyuk, Z, Franzen, and Kronwall wasn't just taking them out of the lineup but off the roster entirely. We know Holland values continuity and vet leadership, and we've seen organizations like Buffalo and Edmonton arguably have their rebuilds drawn out partly because of the lack of those things.

I wonder how much that weighed on Holland when he signed them. Just wanting to make sure he had guys locked in to provide that leadership and continuity.

 

[kliq]

There's a simpler explanation. Holland is competitive and still had veterans on the roster that won him a Stanley Cup. He wanted to keep surrounding them with the best players he could every given season and keep competing until the wheels completely fell off and the veterans couldn't carry the load anymore.

Holland has made it abundantly clear his strategy is always build the best team and let the lottery balls fall wherever they fall. He always has one part of his mind on the future, he rarely sold off our young assets, but he's going to bring in older guys he feel can make an impact on the ice today.

With the new lottery odds, honestly the Holland approach is pretty damn reasonable. But before the lottery changes, he kind of had his head in the sand and needed to accept the team needed to suck more to get that high octane talent back in the system much quicker.

I agree with this for the most part, but I do believe if ownership was against this direction they wouldn't have allowed Holland to re-build on the fly. I do recall a lot of talk back then about the Wings wanting to respect Datsyuk and Zetterbergs final competitive years.

 

[ShelbyZ]

Sucks to beat the dead horse again, but this is where I remember thinking the wheels were going to come off:

Amazingly, he turned down more lucrative long-term offers. Edmonton reportedly offered him $9 million a season. The Wings couldn't afford to sign him to a real lucrative long-term deal now because they won't have the cap space in 2009-10 with Henrik Zetterberg and Johan Franzen, among others, up for new deals.

Now Holland can talk to Zetterberg and Franzen and possible persuade them to take less so that the team will have room to re-sign Hossa next season.

"The hope is that this is one year of many years,'' Holland said. "It gives me an opportunity to sit down with some key players and hopefully find a way to keep everyone together.Hopefully the salary cap will grow and we can find a way.''

The Red Wings' payroll is at about $52.6 million. The cap is $56.7 million. They still need to sign Valtteri Filppula, Chris Chelios and Kyle Quincey. Two other unsigned players, Jimmy Howard and Jonathan Ericsson, won't count against the cap if they're assigned to Grand Rapids, as expected.

The whole thing was run on hope. You had a large chunk of the team producing way higher than their pay grade that either had one year left on their deals before they could become UFA's (Zetterberg, Franzen, Samuelsson and now Hossa) or an arbitration eligible RFA (Hudler), or had already signed a new deal and had a raise kicking in in a years time (Cleary).

For the record, it's easy to see where Holland's hope stemmed from. The max increases in the cap in the early years post lockout were large and had been growing up to that point: a $5M increase for 06-07, a $6.3M increase for 07-08 and a $6.4M increase for 08-09.

But even with another $6.4M cap increase it was going to be nearly impossible to "keep everyone together". Filppula ended up getting most of the room they had left that offseason at $3M, and Cleary's hit would jump up a little over $2.1M. That hypothetical increase would've somewhere in the neighborhood of right around $20M to re-sign two established elite forwards, another forward that was trending toward an elite power forward, two solid middle 6 wingers (one of which had arbitration to leverage) and re-sign/replace guys like Kopecky, Maltby, Chelios and Conklin.

Considering they just won a Cup because they had tons of guys on cheap bridge deals, ELC's or cheap deals from when they were a reclamation project, did no one in the front office think that maybe they should set themselves up to keep those kind of pieces coming up? You couldn't shop a Cleary or Samuelsson to get some prospects or draft picks to re-stock the cupboard?

That lack of bigger picture foresight is what bit them a year later when the "keep building like you did before the cap" gravy train came to a screeching halt. The cap increased by a cool $100k and the KHL ruined Hollands stingy efforts to get Hudler to make less than Filppula, which then muddied their ability to replace guys like Hossa, Samuelsson and Conklin since they didn't know if Hudler would be able to actually go to the KHL or be forced to play in Detroit for whatever his arbitration came to.

After that, "hope" was all Holland had. Hope Jimmy's a capable NHL goalie, and hope that young guys Helm, Abdelkader and Leino, and the UFA scrap bin pick ups Eaves, Williams and Bertuzzi can replace the sources of 30% of the previous years offense.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

There's a simpler explanation. Holland is competitive and still had veterans on the roster that won him a Stanley Cup. He wanted to keep surrounding them with the best players he could every given season and keep competing until the wheels completely fell off and the veterans couldn't carry the load anymore.

Holland has made it abundantly clear his strategy is always build the best team and let the lottery balls fall wherever they fall. He always has one part of his mind on the future, he rarely sold off our young assets, but he's going to bring in older guys he feel can make an impact on the ice today.

With the new lottery odds, honestly the Holland approach is pretty damn reasonable. But before the lottery changes, he kind of had his head in the sand and needed to accept the team needed to suck more to get that high octane talent back in the system much quicker.

Which is why pointing out the ownership and real world non-ea sports constraints are important. I mean you can say in 2012 we should have burned it to the ground. Ilitch says well but I need to keep Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Kronwall and I like this streak. Well the fundamental problem is obviously we aren't going to be bad enough in the system back then.

Now I know a lot of our posters find that on Holland as he should have talked the Ilitch family out of it. But that is a pretty tall order.

I do think in this kind of industry it is important to also point out these teams employ some of the most hyper-competitive people, the idea of the style rebuild people on this board have rarely lines up with that. It is why Yzerman came in and basically threw at us a very similar looking off-season roster wise on many fronts though he is rolling a different vision and starting with organizational structure. But even there it is likely with a much different mandate and understanding with the Ilitch family. This is complex stuff, with real human emotions and situations.

He provided Stevie with some assets and a base, we shall see where it goes now. What's done is done, we are only left with the reality we have now and there are things to work with and hopefully this is the last bad year and we get some lottery luck. I just am not sure our fate could have been much better, in a lot of ways I think him being a HHOF meant he could duck tape it together better than a lot of people would for the Ilitch family. Frankly for the step aside for Yzerman crowd I am glad it wasn't Stevie walking into the decline years and is coming back now. We only had the best team in the league for a quarter century eventually we were going to hit a down period. Will be fascinating to watch them climb back up with the Captain.

I didn't really want to watch Tramms 2.0.

 

[vladdy16]

okay

explain how directly to responding to complaints that Holland didn't rebuild earlier by implying that he couldn't because ownership didn't want to isn't also the same thing as implying that Holland wanted to

what are you even saying here? that all of your posts are meaningless non sequiturs?

You're yelling at your own strawman.

You dont get to decide what another persons argument is, and then get upset when it's too nuanced or mundane to be combative over.

It's simple. "Ownership probably placed constraints on the GM's freedom of choice" is a common sense statement that requires no insight/position on the GM's personal point of view.

Way too much conversation on these boards revolves around, "well if I was the GM, AND I was vested with the powers i'm used to a GM having in NHL19/EHM/FHM, then everything would have happened differently"

It's important to stay realistic about what mitigating and contributing factors are abound, and also to stay realistic about what can possibly be a "known/known" and what can't.