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.
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.
I think these quotes support my claim rather than refute it.
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.
I don't think you can have this one both ways. Either we're heading into the year with too many d or too few.
You can't say adding Daley is unneeded depth, and then turn around and say our depth is so poor that the D will breakdown.
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.
This I think is the crux of the argument, and I feel you sidestepped my most important question and subsequent point on the topic. I'm going to dismiss XO because he played a ton last year and doesn't fit with the narrative there.
So Jensen(who's already slated to play), Renouf, Russo, who else?
These are D level prospects no? Why not add Lashoff to the group, he's the same age as Jensen.
I think out of all the players we've passed on at D, Sproul has the best chance at improving to an everyday level, and in no way do I think spending 82 games in the top 6 next year is the best way for that to happen. I don't think you guys are giving the level of competition in the National Hockey League proper respect. It's not an environment for development.
I play the UFC video game sometimes, and when I do, I only play head to head online. So learning as I go. I think there are 8 divisions. You start at 1 and work you're way up depending on record. If I started playing in division 8, not knowing any of the moves or controls, I would
never learn the moves or controls.
And beyond that, you still have the nature of d-pairings to consider. Imagine Robbie Russo works his but off, improves his agility, and you'd like to see if his skating is good enough now where he can use his puck moving abilities at the NHL level.
Which is a more fair scenario...
a) you call him up and he plays 40 games with a D level prospect, or a broken old man
b) you call him up and he plays 40 games with an experienced, consistent player that offers you a reliable baseline?
Option b is way more fair to the prospect.
I feel like if we were to be real in this thread, the only argument being made, is the same argument that's been made the last 2 years, and that's that the Red Wings aren't as good as you'd like them to be, so in that case you want them to lose as much as possible and go from there.