News Article: Tyler Wright: The days of leaving kids in the AHL for extended periods is over

Henkka

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
31,077
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Tampere, Finland
The logic seems like: well, you guys complained so much that we didn't bring the kids up early enough, so now we're drafting kids who are physically and defensively ready to go sooner, and we can bring them up. Why aren't you satisfied? Etc.

The problem is now they're drafting low upside, high ceiling guys instead of the offensive players they used to. They basically don't seem to understand that we want them to value skilled offensive hockey more. They're saying: well, it took us a long time to get defensive value out of those players, so now we can get defensive value sooner, and it's a net upgrade. But it's really not.

You build the right kind of hard-working culture first. That's the 1st wave.

Skill comes next, as 2nd wave of prospects. And they will learn the right culture from these character guys.

It's a bigger multi-year plan many here can imagine. And I like it.

People get hooked easily for some certain single pick, when there's a lot bigger process going towards tanking and future contender.
 

HockeyinHD

Semi-retired former active poster.
Jun 18, 2006
11,972
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That's EIGHT bad deals, totaling over $33 million in cap hit for this season. So even if you want to argue away one or two of those, Detroit undeniably still has significantly more bad deals than the average team.

What you're doing is arguing that because a deal is bad now, it was always a bad deal. That's not true. The Zetterberg deal was very good. When Kronwall signed his deal people were shocked at how low the AAV was. Franzen's deal was made bad by his concussions, not by the deal. Et cetera. That was my point earlier (and elsewhere) about how teams on the tail end of runs get dinged by bad years of deals. That's what is happening to Detroit with Z and Kronwall and Franzen.

The deals that were bad at the time and will be bad throughout are Howard and Helm, and probably Ericsson.. although I think he earned (edit: came closest to earning, I mean) the deal in '15 and '16, durability was going to be an obvious problem with him on the latter half of it. Abdelkader's got a chance to salvage his, as does Dekeyser.
 

Zetterberg4Captain

Registered User
Aug 11, 2009
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Detroit
What you're doing is arguing that because a deal is bad now, it was always a bad deal. That's not true. The Zetterberg deal was very good. When Kronwall signed his deal people were shocked at how low the AAV was. Franzen's deal was made bad by his concussions, not by the deal. Et cetera. That was my point earlier (and elsewhere) about how teams on the tail end of runs get dinged by bad years of deals. That's what is happening to Detroit with Z and Kronwall and Franzen.

The deals that were bad at the time and will be bad throughout are Howard and Helm, and probably Ericsson.. although I think he earned the deal in '15 and '16, durability was going to be an obvious problem with him on the latter half of it. Abdelkader's got a chance to salvage his, as does Dekeyser.

Zetterberg and kronwall are good deals

Franzens was always bad, too long for a guy who had not earned it

Helm, Howard, Abby and Ericsson all bad the second the ink was dry
 

HockeyinHD

Semi-retired former active poster.
Jun 18, 2006
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Zetterberg and kronwall are good deals

Franzens was always bad, too long for a guy who had not earned it

Helm, Howard, Abby and Ericsson all bad the second the ink was dry

Yes on Helm and Howard.

Tepid agreement on Ericsson. There's still an outside chance he can salvage the deal from bad to just not good, but way way outside. He had the team over a barrel, though.

Nah on Abby. If he gets back to being a physical forward who scores 18-22 goals and plays a decent all around game he earns it. 4.25 isn't a lot. It's somewhere in the 110s at forward. Frolik, Sutter, Couturier, Brouwer, et cet.
 

lilidk

Registered User
Mar 4, 2008
9,592
3,426
Nosek only NHL ready from GR 2016-2017. Lil Bert probably 5 min and Big Mc 10 min a game
 

Zetterberg4Captain

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Aug 11, 2009
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Detroit
Yes on Helm and Howard.

Tepid agreement on Ericsson. There's still an outside chance he can salvage the deal from bad to just not good, but way way outside. He had the team over a barrel, though.

Nah on Abby. If he gets back to being a physical forward who scores 18-22 goals and plays a decent all around game he earns it. 4.25 isn't a lot. It's somewhere in the 110s at forward. Frolik, Sutter, Couturier, Brouwer, et cet.

It's the cap length not hit for Abby that's bad

It's alot for a grinding forward who goes to the net but dosent drive offence himself
 

HockeyinHD

Semi-retired former active poster.
Jun 18, 2006
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7 years is the typical now for a grinding depth forward who scores 12-14 goals and 35 pts but can maybe get you 20 in a great year if paired with an elite centremen?

Really

"If he gets back to being a physical forward who scores 18-22 goals and plays a decent all around game he earns it."
 

Flowah

Registered User
Nov 30, 2009
10,249
547
Great. Maybe Abdelkader is worth his contract. Maybe that's the market rate.

Go put together a team where all the role players and supporting players get paid market rate and see how competitive it looks. You can't afford to pay people like Abby market rate if you want to be competitive.

At best you've just pointed out how much of a failure Ken Holland is at identifying what the team needs.
 

Pavels Dog

Registered User
Feb 18, 2013
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Oh yeah I forgot abdelkader and other nhlers scored 100 points at 19-20
I really don't think you followed the point. In a league where the stars make 10+ million, 4 million is fair for a 3rd liner. I'm not sure how you think the league's salary structure should look, but the days of paying guys like Z and Dats 6-7 million are over, as are the days of getting players like Abby for 2 million or something.

Great. Maybe Abdelkader is worth his contract. Maybe that's the market rate.

Go put together a team where all the role players and supporting players get paid market rate and see how competitive it looks. You can't afford to pay people like Abby market rate if you want to be competitive.

At best you've just pointed out how much of a failure Ken Holland is at identifying what the team needs.
Except you can pay them market rate when you don't have an expensive core. Can't believe I have to explain this. Again. We will have years of cheap-ish core guys until the salary structure of our team again shifts to expensive core and cheap depth.
 

SpookyTsuki

Registered User
Dec 3, 2014
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I really don't think you followed the point. In a league where the stars make 10+ million, 4 million is fair for a 3rd liner. I'm not sure how you think the league's salary structure should look, but the days of paying guys like Z and Dats 6-7 million are over, as are the days of getting players like Abby for 2 million or something.


Except you can pay them market rate when you don't have an expensive core. Can't believe I have to explain this. Again. We will have years of cheap-ish core guys until the salary structure of our team again shifts to expensive core and cheap depth.

Most second liners get paid 4-5 mil still. If they get paid 6 the stars are taking cuts or they are expecting the cap to move up. Maybe in 3-4 years 4 mil is good for a player who can't score 10
 

Flowah

Registered User
Nov 30, 2009
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547
Except you can pay them market rate when you don't have an expensive core. Can't believe I have to explain this. Again. We will have years of cheap-ish core guys until the salary structure of our team again shifts to expensive core and cheap depth.

You are insanely dishonest. How is Abdelkader "cheap?" He is, at best, being paid market rate.

And you describing players like Abdelkader as "core" indicates either you have extremely low standards for what "core" is or you're just carrying Holland's water. Again.

And how does having these guys for "years" even help the team? Yay! We've locked up mediocre players for 7 years! Yay for us!

Again, what have you done other than put Holland's incompetence on display for all to see?

You have homer glasses on. Prescription strength. Everyone else around the league sees our bad contracts for what they are. Fans, GMs, analysts. Everyone but Wings homers can acknowledge the multitude of bad contracts to undeserving players.
 

Pavels Dog

Registered User
Feb 18, 2013
19,736
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Sweden
You are insanely dishonest. How is Abdelkader "cheap?" He is, at best, being paid market rate.

And you describing players like Abdelkader as "core" indicates either you have extremely low standards for what "core" is or you're just carrying Holland's water. Again.

And how does having these guys for "years" even help the team? Yay! We've locked up mediocre players for 7 years! Yay for us!
You have to be intentionally misunderstanding what I'm saying? Abby is not a core a player. He is not cheap depth. But he is depth we can afford because we don't have any 10 million dollar core players, nor do we have any young players expected to get massive contracts any time soon. We are looking for our next core. We are in the process of drafting and developing that core. It could EASILY be 7 years until they get their first huge contracts. A little sooner if guys like Larkin/Mantha/Svech/Hronek/etc turn into core guys for us. But that can be paid for with the money that Z/Green/Howard/Ericsson/Kronwall currently make.
 

Flowah

Registered User
Nov 30, 2009
10,249
547
You have to be intentionally misunderstanding what I'm saying? Abby is not a core a player. He is not cheap depth. But he is depth we can afford because we don't have any 10 million dollar core players, nor do we have any young players expected to get massive contracts any time soon. We are looking for our next core. We are in the process of drafting and developing that core. It could EASILY be 7 years until they get their first huge contracts. A little sooner if guys like Larkin/Mantha/Svech/Hronek/etc turn into core guys for us. But that can be paid for with the money that Z/Green/Howard/Ericsson/Kronwall currently make.

What is the point of having these players at all?

We do nothing but make ourselves less flexible. We have no cap room. There are moves you can make when you have cap room. We can't because of guys like Abdelkader on contracts you seem to have drawn up yourself based on the intensity with which you defend them, even though no one else around the league does.
 

Pavels Dog

Registered User
Feb 18, 2013
19,736
14,704
Sweden
What is the point of having these players at all?

We do nothing but make ourselves less flexible. We have no cap room. There are moves you can make when you have cap room. We can't because of guys like Abdelkader on contracts you seem to have drawn up yourself based on the intensity with which you defend them, even though no one else around the league does.
To me the point is to have support when/if your young players take a leap and become your core guys. I look at Toronto, and sure they had a massive improvement. But what if they had some solid veterans? Some more depth? Could have gone on a long playoff run. ELC/RFA years is when you wanna compete. There's also the whole leadership/mentor aspect to consider and just having veterans to hold accountable (like you and this entire board does) instead of all the blame falling on the young players.

I don't like Abby's contract much but I think it's a red herring when it comes to this team. When a team sucks, all contracts look bad. Not even Sheahan lived up to his deal this year.
 

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