I think that people who think that low of the Wings are likely not fans of other teams in other sports. Being a Lions fans, I see what a bad management team/ownership team can do to your franchise. Those are teams that "sad sack of an organization" would apply to.
Clearly the Wings have made bad moves over the past decade, there is no denying that, but when the worst things that they have done is trade Jarnkrok, and sign Abby, Helm, Nielsen to long term contracts, it shows how well this team has been run over the past 30 years as a whole.
I'm sure this post will elicit me being called a Holland slappy, but I'm not going to let frustration over the past few years cloud my judgement. We are a team that was run better then any team in the NHL for around 20 years who held on too long in order to preserve the streak by trying to re-build on the fly for the second time. No doubt a mistake, moves like Abby, Helm, Nielsen etc were 100% mistakes, whether the idea of this came from Holland, Illitch, JD, I really don't care, it was a mistake. But, compared to teams like the Lions, Brown, Sabres, Yotes etc. its not even close.
I guess I look at what this team did from when I was a kid (late 80's/early 90's) to 2012 and see all the good, then I look at what they did from 2013 to 2017 and see the bad, and I don't let the latter effect the former. I see no reason why this team can't change things around without "cleaning house".
Time will tell.
I just hope fans are more interested in us turning things around then they are at "being right" because that is just disappointing.