Trevor Daley... 3 years $3.17M a year

[Winger98]

Hey thanks for the reply. These are dark days on this board, and your mention of a Hronek, Saarijarvi and Cholowski future is a welcome sight.

I like all the points you made, but it also gives me the impression that the Red Wings move here is well thought out. Right around the time you've highlighted as being the time that the Red Wings would have to worry about obstructing the pipeline, is the time that Daley is set to move out.

In the mean time, the Griffins that you've highlighted are low calibur prospects aren't they? Like, when was the day we decided Lashoff wasn't going to take to more NHL seasoning? And I wouldn't expect Daley to be that much different of a player as a 34 yo or a 36 yo. He's not going to be logging stressful minutes in Detroit most likely.

I think you should definitely be hoping for a guy in that crop to underdog his way to a new level of potential, but it does that guy no favors to just toss him out there for 82 games as a stop gap, and it's certainly not gonna do any favors to a potential d-partner of theirs that's even less experienced.

As a casual fan, it looks to me like the Red Wings moved out Smith in favor of Daley, in order to prepare for the Cholowski era, which would only happen if the switch had been flipped to "full rebuild", which I thought was what everyone was clamoring for...

From what I remember reading at the time, the Wings had tried to re-sign Smith before they dealt him. I think the one who moved on was Smith. I don't think an actual rebuild is starting here.

With Daley and his workload, I think his minutes will be manageable as long as everyone stays healthy, and no one outside of Green and Dekeyser will be pushed hard minutes wise. Until guys start getting hurt. Then we'll see whatever vets are left get pushed a little harder with the younger guys getting only slightly more minutes.

Bringing Daley in just makes it all the more unlikely that we're going to see one of the current crop of "kids" (Jensen is 26, Russo is 24, and XO is 23...really hard to call them prospects/kids but they are for this club) get a good look and maybe exceed expectations. Injuries should be expected with every season, but it has long seemed as if the Wings hope injuries force us to put our best team on the ice rather then giving us something to weather until our better players are healthy again.

I think the hope should have been that we put guys like Jensen, Russo, and XO out there a lot now with the hope that they can be the steadying influence for when the next group comes up. And if they aren't, we could probably sign a Trevor Daley equivalent every summer.

 

[Syckle78]

They pretty much offered the same contract to Smith that they offered Daley. Well,I don't know if they ever offered the contract or not. There was a tweet on July 1st on one of the trade forum threads that Holland wanted to re-sign Smith for 3 years at a little under 4 million.

 

[Pavels Dog]

1) That's moving the goalposts. The team, per player, is older now, versus 5 years ago.

That's a lie though. Like mentioned, the 17/18 numbers are not yet representative of reality. Just compare to 16/17, you had 5 teams at 28+ years of avg. age and none above 29. Right now for 17/18 there's 19 teams above 28 years and and 4 above 29. That 17/18 number is right now just a (bad) guess, including players like Miller/Franzen/Vitale on our roster.

2) You make it sound like younger players are doing a great job, versus how leading scorers performed in the past, which is also disingenuous. The roster took a collective dump last year, including Larkin having a horrendous campaign, and both Nyquist and Tatar being downright invisible for long stretches. Really, the only consistent bright spot was Zetterberg, the epitome of the Old Guard.

This is why complaining about us not getting younger fast enough is missing the forest for the trees. Younger isn't better. Pittsburgh was the 2nd oldest team in the league last year. I'd much rather have a solid vet like Daley over just some random AHLer like Renouf or even Russo. Young players shouldn't be gifted roster spots and we shouldn't strive towards being as young as possible just for the sake of it. That will happen naturally as we get more picks, higher picks, and by extension start producing more prospects that push for jobs sooner. The keywords being "push for jobs". Only Bertuzzi and maybe Svechnikov of our current prospects have actually done that, and both should see plenty of NHL time this year if not even full-time.

 

[jkutswings]

The strategy you're advocating works fine...when you have a good NHL roster already in place.

The Detroit Red Wings are already a bad team. So you're effectively saying, I'd rather stay a bad team, and reduce my chances of landing any game changing players, rather than embrace being a bad to very bad team for a few years, and increase my chances of landing game changing players.

The Wings finished this past season a full 31 points better than the Avs. But, on average, was this fanbase head and shoulders happier WITH THE ON ICE PERFORMANCE than Colorado's? Not really. The dissatisfaction in Colorado is more because their management is taking the opportunity to reshape the team, and making horrible decisions with it, than because they're finishing last in the standings. And that type of hamster wheel frustration happens to teams at all points in the spectrum of success. But when a bad team makes smart decisions in rebuilding, you see progress, and there's reason for hope and excitement.

But the Wings? They have neither the present worth watching, nor the future worth anticipating. And all the sheltering of shiny new prospects won't help any of those average players magically transform into talent good enough to really help turn things around.

EDIT: Last year, I could still understand the approach, at least considering that the streak hadn't ended yet, and the early talk was that the draft class wasn't worth tanking for. But now? When you have a new arena to draw casual fans, no matter how bad the team is, and the early talk is that this could be a great draft class? Signing a Trevor Daley doesn't really serve a purpose, because the team stinks either way, and what happens between October and April is largely a foregone conclusion, until they get it right between June and September.

 

[Dotter]

1) That's moving the goalposts. The team, per player, is older now, versus 5 years ago.

2) You make it sound like younger players are doing a great job, versus how leading scorers performed in the past, which is also disingenuous. The roster took a collective dump last year, including Larkin having a horrendous campaign, and both Nyquist and Tatar being downright invisible for long stretches. Really, the only consistent bright spot was Zetterberg, the epitome of the Old Guard.

If Detroit had had a bad year because they rebooted the whole thing, and a bunch of kids were learning, that would be one thing. But they spent to the cap, focusing their entire summer around retaining or acquiring veteran players. So no, that's not a youth movement. That's a bowel movement.

Which they ultimately traded for free draft picks adding.... MORE YOUTH!

Around-and-around we go...

 

[jkutswings]

Which they ultimately traded for free draft picks adding.... MORE YOUTH!

Around-and-around we go...

Adding picks is heading in a direction that helps a rebuild.

Adding veterans to stave off a rebuild does the opposite.

Holland has had one foot in both camps for several years, and hasn't done a good job with either.

 

[Heaton]

Adding picks is heading in a direction that helps a rebuild.

Adding veterans to stave off a rebuild does the opposite.

Holland has had one foot in both camps for several years, and hasn't done a good job with either.

And then we have this bipolar relationship with our prospects. People bash on the Wings last year, but we have Larkin and Mantha and AA and Mrazek! Now the mentality is, who cares if we don't protect Mrazek he sucks and was never part of the future. If Larkin has another down year are we going to say, who cares, he sucks, we just drafted a huge center with our first top 10 pick in ages!

At some point we all need to hold this organization responsible for their poor drafting. I'm not all that impressed with drafting good depth and a couple decent top 6 players. The majority of the league has shown that ability.

 

[Dotter]

And then we have this bipolar relationship with our prospects. People bash on the Wings last year, but we have Larkin and Mantha and AA and Mrazek! Now the mentality is, who cares if we don't protect Mrazek he sucks and was never part of the future. If Larkin has another down year are we going to say, who cares, he sucks, we just drafted a huge center with our first top 10 pick in ages!

At some point we all need to hold this organization responsible for their poor drafting. I'm not all that impressed with drafting good depth and a couple decent top 6 players. The majority of the league has shown that ability.

Guess that depends on if he blames the world for his shortcomings, plays "poor me" victim mentality and cries to the media about how unfair life is to him.

It's Tyler Wright's 3rd season? How do we know if drafting hasn't improved yet? I mean they did draft and play the youngest drafted player since Yzerman under him... That must be a sign things are improving, right?

 

[njx9]

I'm sure it's already been said and discussed to death, but this is just a disappointing signing. 3 years for a guy who doesn't materially affect anything about the club?

It's not the worst signing, and I applaud Holland for it at least not being Girardi, but it's just a meaningless gesture that probably buys the team just enough wins to stay in that 8-10th worst team range. Meh. I'll be a fan for life, and I'll always root for the team (and will continue to hope I'm wrong), but it's hard to see myself giving the organization another dollar until Holland has been fired (not just moved "upstairs" where he'll continue to direct whichever clone takes his place). It's weird, to me, that a signing as blah as Trevor Daley is the straw, but there's just no way to feel anything more than complete ambivalence about this team anymore.

 

[Frk It]

I doubt it, Brendan Smith is a lot better defensively than Daley.

I know people hate him here but there is a lot of false narrative on Smith in these parts.

He's really not. At least not when he plays on his preferred side (his off side). Daley is a better hockey player than Smith in pretty much every way one could be.

This was a reasonable deal for a guy who probably steps in as the 2nd best defenseman on this team. I don't dislike the signing in a vacuum. But I just don't really see the need to sign a 33 yo defenseman, and I think chasing the last playoff spot every year when the priority should be re-building is going to put us squarely into purgatory for however long as Holland is at the helm. Especially if this year is going to be indicative of how we draft moving forward.

Daley is what Renouf and Russo would be - placeholders. Except Daley costs over 3X as much and will be all but impossible to move until his final year.

But they're not even close to equivalent. Daley just played 19-20 minutes on a Cup winning team.

I would have just done what you're suggesting and played our young players, but I don't think those young players are very good (which I'm ok with), but Holland is not joking when he says he wants to get back to a playoff team. I mean Vegas had a free shot at XO and Jensen and they just said "nah we're all set bro", in favor of a guy who's barely ever played in the NHL.

 

[Pavels Dog]

The Detroit Red Wings are already a bad team. So you're effectively saying, I'd rather stay a bad team, and reduce my chances of landing any game changing players, rather than embrace being a bad to very bad team for a few years, and increase my chances of landing game changing players.

I guess I just think the fate of the team depends a lot more on the core players, coaching and goaltending than on who plays #4 or #5D. That isn't the same as saying "just play all the kids, it doesn't matter", because I still think you need to pay attention to developing players the right way and maintaining a competitive environment when it comes to kids actually having to play their way onto the roster even if you're going through a rebuild.

Other than Vegas and probably Colorado (they're just SO dysfunctional) there are no teams we can clearly pencil in ourselves ahead of for this upcoming season. I'm more optimistic than most and think we can be pretty competitive, but it's not because of Daley. If we are, it'll be because of progress made by Larkin/Mantha/AA/Svech and guys like Dekeyser/Mrazek bouncing back. So if you're not optimistic about those players, I don't see any way you don't think this is a bottom 5 team next year.

There seems to be some sort of cognitive dissonance for posters like you, where you're both extremely pessimistic about the young players on the team, think the veterans all suck, but also somehow think signing a Trevor Daley and Luke Witkowski is enough to not give us a top draft pick. The rest of the hockey world seems to be putting us way, way at the bottom of the standings for next season.

This is all without even mentioning the lottery system which basically makes it meaningless to obsess over trying to reach the very bottom of the standings. Next year, some team could barely miss the playoffs and win a Dahlin/Svechnikov. Meanwhile the worst team in the league won't be guaranteed either one.

 

[jkutswings]

I'm not saying Daley prevents a top-5 pick. I'm saying that it doesn't make any sense to keep spending money on a bottom-5 team, rather than have some cap space to use on acquiring assets that will help a rebuild. I believe you and I are at opposite ends of the spectrum there, in terms of interest in acquiring cap dumps that are stapled to either promising young players or good draft picks.

Full steam ahead, either on contending now or rebuilding now, I could understand, if not agree with. But this nonstop vanilla fence-sitting makes no sense, at least from a competitive standpoint, if I don't think the approach will ever yield sufficient talent to have meaningful success.

 

[HockeyinHD]

Adding picks is heading in a direction that helps a rebuild.

Adding veterans to stave off a rebuild does the opposite.

Holland has had one foot in both camps for several years, and hasn't done a good job with either.

So, when he traded Ott and Vanek for assets last year, how do you incorporate that into your thinking?

 

[HockeyinHD]

At some point we all need to hold this organization responsible for their poor drafting. I'm not all that impressed with drafting good depth and a couple decent top 6 players. The majority of the league has shown that ability.

Man, are the actual drafting records going to blow your mind.

 

[jkutswings]

So, when he traded Ott and Vanek for assets last year, how do you incorporate that into your thinking?

Positive: A few extra picks.
Negative: The players collectively helped add a few wins, slightly reducing draft stock, and preventing any acquisitions of potentially more attractive assets via cap dump packages. But more importantly, I hated the direction they went in when using those extra picks.

Overall: Roughly treading water, which ultimately boils down to yet another wasted year.

 

[HockeyinHD]

Other than Vegas and probably Colorado (they're just SO dysfunctional) there are no teams we can clearly pencil in ourselves ahead of for this upcoming season.

In 14-15 Detroit had 100 points. Here are the roster changes from that team, to today's roster:

Out: Datsyuk, Quincey, Smith, Weiss, Franzen, Andersson, Jurco.
In: Nielsen, Green, Daley, Mantha, Larkin, AA, Ouellet.

Someone can think Datsyuk was Jesus on skates and still not be able to form a rational argument how group 1 is better than group 2.

If Mrazek bleeps the bed again Detroit's in trouble because Howard can't play 60 games, but Detroit has a roster of players who can get to the upper 90's as long as they don't suck and Blashill gets out of them approximately what Babcock did.

There's not a big ceiling to this team, but I think we've already seen it's floor.

 

[HockeyinHD]

Overall: Roughly treading water, which ultimately boils down to yet another wasted year.

Enh, short of a tank of utter desolation the team has no interest in you're going to think they're all wasted years, so that's something of a moot concern.

When you say "Adding picks is heading in a direction that helps a rebuild. Adding veterans to stave off a rebuild does the opposite.", it's odd how unwilling you are to acknowledge when Holland does both what you wanted and what he wanted at the same time.

 

[Syckle78]

Man, are the actual drafting records going to blow your mind.

When you can't trade,make good off-season signings or make smart decisions on your own signings you damn well better excell at drafting and developing. And once again Holland has been mediocre at best in this department the last decade. So what is it again Holland is so great at that causes his fans to get so lathered up defending him over?

 

[jkutswings]

Enh, short of a tank of utter desolation the team has no interest in you're going to think they're all wasted years, so that's something of a moot concern.

When you say "Adding picks is heading in a direction that helps a rebuild. Adding veterans to stave off a rebuild does the opposite.", it's odd how unwilling you are to acknowledge when Holland does both what you wanted and what he wanted at the same time.

Had he used those picks on players that I thought made sense, it would've been a net win. But to exaggerate the point, adding 200 picks, then using each one on a bag of pucks, doesn't help the franchise.

But you're right in saying it's moot overall. This franchise is currently incompatible with being entertaining, at least with this front office.

 

[jkutswings]

When you can't trade,make good off-season signings or make smart decisions on your own signings you damn well better excell at drafting and developing. And once again Holland has been mediocre at best in this department the last decade. So what is it again Holland is so great at that causes his fans to get so lathered up defending him over?

He gets top-15 talent for top-25 picks. Technically good to great value, but it also all but guarantees never landing a truly special player.

Which effectively makes Holland the tallest short guy in the room. Hip hip hooray.

 

[Frk It]

In 14-15 Detroit had 100 points. Here are the roster changes from that team, to today's roster:

Out: Datsyuk, Quincey, Smith, Weiss, Franzen, Andersson, Jurco.
In: Nielsen, Green, Daley, Mantha, Larkin, AA, Ouellet.

Someone can think Datsyuk was Jesus on skates and still not be able to form a rational argument how group 1 is better than group 2.

If Mrazek bleeps the bed again Detroit's in trouble because Howard can't play 60 games, but Detroit has a roster of players who can get to the upper 90's as long as they don't suck and Blashill gets out of them approximately what Babcock did.

There's not a big ceiling to this team, but I think we've already seen it's floor.

You are really out Datsyuk, Franzen, and Kronwall... considering how his health has declined.

And there's no universe in which Blashill can get similar results as Babcock.

 

[HIFE]

...This was a reasonable deal for a guy who probably steps in as the 2nd best defenseman on this team. I don't dislike the signing in a vacuum. But I just don't really see the need to sign a 33 yo defenseman, and I think chasing the last playoff spot every year when the priority should be re-building is going to put us squarely into purgatory for however long as Holland is at the helm. Especially if this year is going to be indicative of how we draft moving forward.

But they're not even close to equivalent. Daley just played 19-20 minutes on a Cup winning team...

.

While I agree with your statement about existing in purgatory it's a stretch envisioning Daley as our 2nd best defender. You really think he's stronger than DDK or much more effective than Jensen? Most who watched Pittsburgh agreed their defense with Daley and Hainsey was atrocious; they pretty much won while the hockey world gazed in awe how they could succeed with such deficiencies.

I think it's just as easy to predict Daley will be eaten alive on the Wings. He has zero experience with Ericsson/Green/DeKeyser or the team in general. At center Z, Nielson, Helm, Larkin, aren't dominant enough to single-handed gain control helping exit our zone. I could imagine him getting rolled over creating turnovers at the same rate as Russo.

I'm not arguing XO, Jensen, or Russo are better players just that Daley is a fairly depressing addition. I have almost 0 interest in watching him play hockey. We're at the lowest state we've been in 25 years why try to cover it up and pretend there's hope. Like Winger was saying we could have held out until next off-season for a player with more upside.

 

[jkutswings]

In 14-15 Detroit had 100 points. Here are the roster changes from that team, to today's roster:

Out: Datsyuk, Quincey, Smith, Weiss, Franzen, Andersson, Jurco.
In: Nielsen, Green, Daley, Mantha, Larkin, AA, Ouellet.

Someone can think Datsyuk was Jesus on skates and still not be able to form a rational argument how group 1 is better than group 2.

If Mrazek bleeps the bed again Detroit's in trouble because Howard can't play 60 games, but Detroit has a roster of players who can get to the upper 90's as long as they don't suck and Blashill gets out of them approximately what Babcock did.

There's not a big ceiling to this team, but I think we've already seen it's floor.

But it's not nearly just the difference between Group 1 and Group 2.

Guys like Kronwall and Ericsson don't nearly have the health they did a few years ago. And both the goaltenders have lost much of their luster (Mrazek for inconsistency, Howard for reliability). And guys like Abdelkader, Helm, DeKeyser, and Sheahan have gone from solid contributors to ghosts of their former selves (a combined 144 points in 14-15, versus 63 last year). Plus the coaching staff went through last season with blindfolds on.

Datsyuk drove even more of the possession numbers than he was given credit for by some fans, but the roster has also fallen apart in several other areas.

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

I am totally indifferent to this signing. Green will be gone at the deadline and isn't coming back next season and only a fool would put money on Kronner playing meaningful hockey beyond this year (and I don't think he will do it this year either). Sproul will have a very hard time establishing himself as an NHL regular at this point and we are approaching the end of the line with Big Rig. Space will open for the kids when they are ready (which none are). Even a team in a legit rebuild is going to look for some free agent help and Daley is as good as anyone in that regard. Two years would have been better, but such is life.

 

[Frk It]

While I agree with your statement about existing in purgatory it's a stretch envisioning Daley as our 2nd best defender. You really think he's stronger than DDK or much more effective than Jensen? Most who watched Pittsburgh agreed their defense with Daley and Hainsey was atrocious; they pretty much won while the hockey world gazed in awe how they could succeed with such deficiencies.

That's an incredibly low bar to set, in my opinion. Don't think too much of either of those guys.

He's solid. I live in Pittsburgh, so I saw him a ton. Most Pens fans I know liked him, as opposed to Hainsey, but I don't know why are you comparing the two. Not similar players.

Signing was reasonable. Don't love it, don't hate it. It's whatever.