Lil Sebastian Cossa
Opinions are share are my own personal opinions.
- Jul 6, 2012
- 11,436
- 7,446
I have a feeling with the Red Wings dire need for a top pairing D, that the "rival gm" in that tweet is Ken Holland.
Confirmed with Link: Wings done with Dion... so now what?
- Thread starter Bench
- Start date
Heaton
Moderator
TouringReg
Registered User
Wings swung and missed on Myers? The Jets traded Bogo and Kane which would be like the Wings trading DeKeyser and Nyquist or Tatar. No thanks...
Heaton
Moderator
Nope.
http://www.freep.com/story/sports/n...troit-red-wings-free-agency-preview/29389273/
Looks like the offseason is over after today (save the RFA and Dan Cleary re-signing). The Larkin stuff is rich, the chances that Larkin makes the team AND stays up the entire season is around 1%.
detredWINgs
Registered User
Yup. That's the short of it. And inherent in almost any competitive offer is that you're risking giving up something that could bite you in the ass.
Heaton
Moderator
I'd love it, I'm curious if he'll go both term and money, I suspect Holland will expect Green to show that he wants to come to Detroit and take less in some area. But based on the quote, I think we're looking at the same six D, with Marchenko or XO splitting time with Kindl.
Just worries me that Holland is willing to wait until he's out of all options before doing something. This also tells me that there's a better than 50% chance that Quincey is re-signed next offseason. Not like the UFA market is going to get any better.
I think Larkin makes the team. He's the best prospect they've had in over a decade and there will be an opening at center if Z and D play together and/or if D misses any time. Fischer made the team at 19 and Larkin is already advanced enough physically and defensively and he'll be able to play with skilled players like Pulk and Jurco.
Heaton
Moderator
Would be nice to see but...
Datsyuk
Z
Abdelkader
Sheahan
Nyquist
Tatar
Jurco
Pulkkinen
Glendening
Miller
Ferraro
Andersson
Weiss
Franzen (maybe)
Helm
That's potentially 15 forwards, and I don't see Holland making room for him when he didn't make room for Nyquist who was better than half the team at the age of 24. I think the most likely thing is that Larkin comes up a few times during injuries and maybe makes his way on the team for the playoffs. It's also possible that Cleary gets re-signed and needs to get his 10 games in for his bonus.
I just don't see Holland unclogging the roster, as long as he has it clogged up with lesser players it'll hurt the Wings ability to actually have younger guys with waiver eligibility 'make the team'. Whenever Holland says that a player has a chance, I don't think they really have a chance, since it rarely ever happens. Hell, XO 'made the team' out of camp last year and Holland still told him to **** off.
Oh, I'm not sure if he'll make it right out of training camp. My bet is he will, but I'm not positive. He should play a bunch of games over the course of the season b/c there will be injuries and then he can stay on for the playoffs. I don't see the big deal with making it right out of camp- it's a long season and as long as he plays a bunch of games and is in the playoffs then I don't care how he gets promoted. He's still on the roster.
Heaton
Moderator
It's possible, I just don't like the idea of having to bank on injuries to give your best prospect in 15 years a chance to play. I think making room for a kid who has the chance to be your best center since Zetterberg tells the fans something about the kid. At this point we're going into the season with the mentality that we're not even sure if management thinks XO and Marchenko are better than Kindl, a guy who the GM can't even give away.
Or it could be a reason. Perspective, I guess.
Again, Holland used to be criticized for being too aggressive. For hollowing out too much of the prospect system by constantly sending picks away for rentals or vets.
Then in 2008-9 he just... stops? There's no reason for it other than he's just inactive all of a sudden? Woke up one morning and said 'hey, I think I'm going to start GMing in an entirely different way?'
When the Tigers payroll was 73 million in 2005 and now it's 125+ million in 2015?
Golly, no, I don't see any correlation here at all that might lead to an organizational preference towards safety, profit maximization and managing a younger group acquired with draft picks rather than aggressive UFA deals. Say, by they way, how much do you have to pay those young players compared to vet replacements, anyhow? Less, you say?
And oh yeah, that rink. The new rink, the one where the team is getting a few hundred million in monopoly bucks from the city to build? That's going to goose the profit margin? And franchise value? That's kind of nice too, eh?
Okay, that's cool. You can believe this is just about the on-ice product if you'd like.
So in this scenario we're defining "success" as completing trades for players that would be in the best case scenarios neutral acquisitions, and in many cases outright disasters?
They can't win it by themselves. Plenty of elite superstars fail to win Cups because they lack support. Look at Ovechkin and Crosby since 2009. You win Cups through depth.
Yeah, that's a real problem... Holland being so efficient with his selections that he ends up with too many prospects that are NHL-level players.
We need him to whiff two or three drafts in a row, just so there won't be as many picks stumbling over each other with real NHL shots and we can get rid of all this 'clogging' of the prospect pipeline.
Of course, if that happened then the prospects who weren't up yet would still be called improvements over (insert name of vet they hate here), so even if there wasn't actual clogging it would still be described as the primary reason roster move du jour wasn't done.
Ouellet really showed Holland up with his 2015 campaign, that's for sure.
Serious question: Is Ouellet actually any better than Kindl, or is it just that you haven't seen Ouellet much yet and you're sick of Kindl, so what the heck?
Heaton
Moderator
Great point. There's a certain formula you need to win a cup, but it generally stems around a true #1 defenseman and a #1 center. It seems like the Wings are trying to win with depth alone, which works up to a point... until you play teams with #1 centers and #1 defensemen AND depth.
Don't get me wrong, we have a lot of exciting pieces coming up, if we had even one defensive prospect that looked close to being elite, I'd be singing a different tune.
SpookyTsuki
Registered User
- Dec 3, 2014
- 15,916
- 671
Ouellets better then Kindl
Me being sick of Kindl doesnt help Kindls case either. But my hate against Kindl aside I still believe wahllet is better
I don't get that sense in regards to Kindl. They've already benched him in favor of the young defenseman a number of times. If any of the young defenseman are on the roster, then they would be playing over Kindl. The only way they aren't on the roster is if they trade or sign a top 4 defenseman. In that scenario, the top 6 is Kronwall, DD, "X" defenseman, Ericsson, Quincey and Smith and Marchenko would start in GR.
They still have waiver options, so they aren't going to be brought up unless they are playing every night. Kindl isn't going to be a top 6 defenseman, though.
Heaton
Moderator
Yeah, but we've also heard quotes that Blashill may see players differently, what if he likes Kindl? It was obviously Babcock not liking him, since if it were Holland, Kindl would be gone already.
Based on last year it sure seems like Marchenko is the guy to come up and play, but I think it'll be more of a committee thing, since he didn't look great at times down the stretch and in the playoffs. I think Kindl is a lock for at least 30-40 games.
Ricelund
̶W̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶t̶e̶a̶m̶
What I'm saying is Holland clearly had the green light to attempt to sign/trade for guys like Suter, Weber, Nash, Phaneuf, Weiss, Fleischmann, Bouwmeester, Alfredsson, Niskanen, Boyle, etc.
Hell, he had the green light to throw $2.5 million out the window at Dan Cleary at the expense of younger roster players on entry-level deals. That $2.5m is probably around what the Wings fetch in a couple playoff home games.
If the Wings were so concerned about their bottom line, wouldn't we be hearing more about them trying to get out from under the Howard contract and just signing a cheap veteran backup to pair up with Mrazek?
The Wings had about $16m worth of salary sitting in the pressbox during the playoffs this year.
Please, tell me more about how the Ilitches have cut Holland off since 2009.
Holland has tried to do a lot; he's just failed at actually pulling anything off. Whether those moves would've been successful or not on the ice is another story.
Last edited:
Except not exactly a total green light. He's been making market offers to some guys and market value trades for others, not the super aggressive offers that, if they go wrong, could really hamstring the franchise.
Not cut off. Lightly placed a retraining hand on the shoulder, is all I am suggesting. You can get there as fast as you want, Kenny, just don't violate the speed limit, which is x... where x is whatever the roster needs to do to keep the team generally competitive and generally profitable. Other than that, go have fun.
That's a part of the reason why he's not winning these FA situations or trade situations as often. He's not emptying out the wallet or the farm to make sure he wins them.
Depends on what you call success, I suppose, and whether that definition is the same as Holland's, the Illtch's or Detroit's.
Where has he shown that, though? Maybe he is, maybe he's not, but it's his job to prove it not ours to try and scry it out through the dark arts.
When you're a late 2 putting up 33 points in 122 AHL games it's not like you're presenting yourself as a serious consideration for a team that already has a bunch of defensively oriented dmen on the NHL roster, in addition to 2 #1 picks they'd like to see succeed as well.
'Hey, Ouelett's a slightly better #6-7 dman than the other disappointment at the position' isn't a rallying cry that has me leaping for my horse.
Ricelund
̶W̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶t̶e̶a̶m̶
I'm not sure what you mean. Ilitch flew to Minnesota to sway Suter. They likely would've given him the same deal that Minnseota did. All of the reports indicated that Holland offered Niskanen more money than Washington. He chose Washington instead. He was trying to work out a trade for Weber, which would've cost assets and then probably close to $100m to keep him here long term. He was willing to bring in Rick Nash, who makes around $8m a year.
Again, the aggression is there, he just hasn't gotten it done.
Last edited:
Except that he has been spending. When have the Wings not spent up to or near the cap?
personally i am hoping we fall flat on our face on july 1st and I would like to see the panthers and sens and jackets get a whole lot better,
only chance we have of seeing an improved roster(apart from folding in drafted players like all 29 other clubs) is through some short term failure...
only chance we have of seeing an improved roster(apart from folding in drafted players like all 29 other clubs) is through some short term failure...
