GDT: Winnipeg Jets @ Detroit Red Wings - 7:30 - FSD

ArGarBarGar

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I saw them advertising that and I wasn't sure whether it was awesome or the cringiest thing the Wings have tried to market.
 

Red Stanley

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Detroit has 27 points in 28 games, with a cap hit of $78.3M ($0 in cap space).

Edmonton has 24 points in 27 games, with a cap hit of $67.9M ($7.1M in cap space).

Riiiiiiight. Apparently 'doing it the right way' is spending another $7M do earn another 3 points in the standings (in one extra game played, and with no elite talent to show for it).

Ten bucks says the Oilers find a way to win a playoff series before the Wings do.

They already did last year. Now they're back to sucking. Good franchises have stability. The Oilers may yet recover this season, but this start isn't exactly inspiring confidence. You also forgot to mention they've been rebuilding for a looooong time and drafted the best prospect in hockey since Crosby. I'd imagine our current point total would be a lot better with McJesus than theirs is.
 
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Dotter

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My point is that Detroit's strategy can't be touted as better than Edmonton's, because there is currently little difference between the success of the two franchises.

Now, one can argue that each strategy has simply been poorly executed, and their current respective success is not necessarily an indictment on the plan. But if that's the case for the Wings, then the anti-rebuild crowd needs to stop using Edmonton as a reason not to tank, if poor execution doesn't necessarily mean poor strategy.

One team has been rebuilding for 2 years. The other for 20 years. I certainly HOPE Oilers are doing better since it's like their 3rd rebuild the past 2 decades. They SHOULD be ahead of Detroit. I have not looked at the standings, but did you just say Detroit is ahead of Oilers currently in the standings? If so... LOL!

They'll soon be on their 4th rebuild.
 

lomekian

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Wouldn’t get too hyped about this result (although I do love seeing Nyquist boost his trade value). Winnipeg came into this game facing a bottom 25% team who has been embarrassed by mediocre teams of late. I highly doubt they came in here respecting this squad just like we rarely respected bottom feeders back in the day. But I guess we can still party like CBJ fans did back in the ‘00s whenever they beat us...

To be fair, every team in the NHL knows a team with vets who have won before is going to bust a nut after getting totally embarrassed. Their coach said it, their players said it, their announcers said it. WPG knew damn well the wings would turn up last night.

The wings are not a fundamentally bad team. They are a mediocre team who have too many players who put in inconsistent levels of performance, and occasionally effort. But like many teams in the NHL, if the wings play near their best and their opponent doesn't play great, the Wings can beat anyone in a one off. Over a series? Less so, but it all depends on injuries, goalies and the match up.

As I've said before, an accurate position for the wings in the standings is probably between 20-24th.
 

lomekian

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Yup, trying to maintain a winning culture or well atleast a competative culture will be key in our rebuild.

Players like Zetterberg and Kronwall will all be key for young guys, just imagine being Eichel, he was thrown into a garbage team with no mentors and was told "hey kid, make us win games". As long as we have Zetterberg he will be the teams leader, no matter how many amazing talents join the team.

You could see how much Montreal HURT guys like Z & Kronner. Winners who have battled all kinds of injuries to keep playing. That pain and anger has got to be better as a motivator for the kids than poor old Ekman-Larsson, who can be as brilliant as he likes but his team is always awful, and he's never got near to any success at all. - No reflection on his character, more that if your team is a losing one for the best part of a decade, the desire to remain sane has to give a different emotional response over time.
 
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lomekian

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Detroit has 27 points in 28 games, with a cap hit of $78.3M ($0 in cap space).

Edmonton has 24 points in 27 games, with a cap hit of $67.9M ($7.1M in cap space).

Riiiiiiight. Apparently 'doing it the right way' is spending another $7M do earn another 3 points in the standings (in one extra game played, and with no elite talent to show for it).

Ten bucks says the Oilers find a way to win a playoff series before the Wings do.

But then we've just come off a 25 year playoff streak with 4 cups and some of best players in NHL history playing their peak years at the club. Edmonton have just come off 25 years of being 90% utterly awful, and have still relied on winning the lottery the year of drafting a generational player to be almost as good as the worst red wings team in a generation.

If after 25 years of much higher draft picks and 8 top ten picks of the last 9 including 4 NO 1 overall picks, they still aren't as good as the worst team in Detroit since the 80s, suggesting the Oilers are 'doing it the right way' is an absolutely farce.

Yes they will probably win a playoff series before the Wings do. If they didn't it would represent a total long term systemic failure for 25 years of the entire draft system, and the very premise the cap, and indeed the North American sporting model as whole.
 

lomekian

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If you're solely talking about cup wins and deep playoff runs, sure.

If you compare the revenue from the Oilers 10 years of missing the playoffs vs. Detroit's 10 years of making them (tickets, playoff gear, concessions, parking, etc).... there's a HUGE difference in strategies.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of a difference. It's a business.

Also, the Oilers managed to lose once in the finals to the worst SC winners in living memory in 27 years, while the wings won 4 cups, lost in the finals twice more, won multiple presidents trophies and were one of the top teams in the league for 20 of those years.

Unless you are talking about the 80s, Edmonton have been worse than Detroit by every measure bar Canadian-ness...
 

obey86

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Detroit has 27 points in 28 games, with a cap hit of $78.3M ($0 in cap space).

Edmonton has 24 points in 27 games, with a cap hit of $67.9M ($7.1M in cap space).

Riiiiiiight. Apparently 'doing it the right way' is spending another $7M do earn another 3 points in the standings (in one extra game played, and with no elite talent to show for it).

Ten bucks says the Oilers find a way to win a playoff series before the Wings do.

lol, who cares?

Is 7 million in spent cap space somehow more valuable to a team than a gazillion top 5-10 draft picks?

The fact that Wings are even close to the Oilers in the standings is pathetic.....from the OILERS perspective....not the Red Wings perspective. Not sure why anyone would see it the opposite way.

Apparently "doing it the right way" is getting a ton of #1 picks and other high picks and a generational superstar and still being one of the worst teams in the league on par with the Red Wings and their dopy GM who is an idiot....eh?
 
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ArGarBarGar

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Where did this conversation between Detroit and Edmonton even start? And who cares? They got a ton of draft picks because management was terrible, couldn't draft outside of the first round (and weren't exactly batting 1000 there), couldn't develop their players, and couldn't develop any kind of winning culture. The Red Wings are just now starting their downswing into horribleness and could potentially be where the Oilers were from 2007-20015, but we don't know yet.
 
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Bench

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Where did this conversation between Detroit and Edmonton even start? And who cares?

I always found it interesting because it assumes the Wings would mismanage the team just as poorly, rather than assuming the Wings would be awesome at tanking and rebuilding with current management. It's like, "Hey buddy, your words, not mine!"
 

jkutswings

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I was trying to point out that lots of Holland defenders like to use Edmonton as the poster child for why Detroit should never tank. That's like saying, because you had an idiot for a geometry teacher, that you no longer believe in mathematics.

Poor execution of ANY strategy is just that, and does not, in and of itself, invalidate the strategy.
 

Oddbob

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I was trying to point out that lots of Holland defenders like to use Edmonton as the poster child for why Detroit should never tank. That's like saying, because you had an idiot for a geometry teacher, that you no longer believe in mathematics.

Poor execution of ANY strategy is just that, and does not, in and of itself, invalidate the strategy.

Buffalo also says hi, and Toronto hasn't gotten anywhere yet, so other than Chicago and Pittsburgh, what are other examples of successful tanking, becuase I am pretty sure there aren't any. Arizona and Florida are also always drafting high as has Carolina, and yet where is this supposed success from drafting high constantly?
 

Winger98

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are we relegating this discussion of successful sucking to just since the cap or before? And does the tank have to be purposeful? I mean, I'm not sure it matters how you found yourself at the top of the draft with first crack at the best players, it's the fact that you're there and getting them. It's how we got Stevie Y all of those years ago. Colorado was built on the back of several high picks while still in Quebec. Dallas was lead by Modano and Hatcher, #1 and #2 overall picks. Before Pitt bottomed out for their current stars they famously tanked like crazy to get Mario.

All of this debating over tanking or not ignores the obvious point that you need talent to win, elite talent to win big, and the place you most easily find that is at the top of the draft. I guess there can be a conversation about the sportsmanship between tanking and just being inept/incompetent, but drafting high is clearly the best route to getting the sort of talent typical on cup winning teams.

Is it a guarantee? Of course not, and no one has said it is.
 

jkutswings

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Buffalo also says hi, and Toronto hasn't gotten anywhere yet, so other than Chicago and Pittsburgh, what are other examples of successful tanking, becuase I am pretty sure there aren't any. Arizona and Florida are also always drafting high as has Carolina, and yet where is this supposed success from drafting high constantly?
Here's my post from the AA thread:


And while we're using the, "what on earth have they won?" logic for saying that tanking is an awful strategy...OK, let's look at the teams that HAVE won it all, starting with those who have the most Cups since the inception of the salary cap:

Pittsburgh: Tank City, resulting in two elite players running the show.
Chicago: Capital of Tanksville, providing two elite players running the show.
Los Angeles: Not a tank. Instead, a combination of very high picks, major trades, and historic goaltending.

And the other Cup winners since the lockout:

Boston: More major trades in a few years than Holland has made in his career.
Anaheim: Selanne, Niedermayer, and Pronger all come from outside the organization.
Carolina: Staal was a 2nd overall pick, they made some trades, and Cam Ward played out of his mind.

So, if winning it all is the criteria for how to build a team, then Detroit needs some combination of top 5 picks, major trades, and super-elite goaltending. None of which are currently on the roster.
 

Dotter

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People really believe Ken Holland is the problem. They refuse to look around the league and see all the failed attempts and the decades it takes to rebuild from tanking.

I suspect those who dislike Holland are the same people who think a rebuild should take 2 or 3 years. It doesn't work that way.
 
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jkutswings

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People really believe Ken Holland is the problem. They refuse to look around the league and see all the failed attempts and the decades it takes to rebuild from tanking.

I suspect those who dislike Holland are the same people who think a rebuild should take 2 or 3 years. It doesn't work that way.
Saying that tanking fails all the time is misleading. Every single year, all but one of the teams fail to win the Cup; all but 4 fail to make it to the Conference Finals; all but 16 fail to make the playoffs. It's like saying that baseball players fail to reach base 70% of the time, so they must be awful. Every POSSIBLE strategy fails more often than it succeeds, or you'd see crazy things like the same team winning it all 7 out of 10 years.

Like Winger just said above, championship teams are built on elite talent. And statistically, the most likely place to find elite talent is at the very top of the draft. Perhaps you think The Detroit Red Wings will be able to find elite talent elsewhere...but I most definitely do not (and really, I don't have much confidence in the current regime to properly develop and utilize the talent they do find).

But if the Wings never ever tank / do a traditional rebuild / draft in the top 3...where SPECIFICALLY do you believe they'll find elite talent? In the mid to late 1st round? As a later round gem(s)? Via trade or free agency? Because it's been FIFTEEN TO TWENTY YEARS since ANY of those avenues yielded elite talent for this franchise, and it's not like the results have been consistently knocking on the door ever since; they've fallen off a lot, especially on defense, while top free agents no longer want to come here, and major trades have been abandoned altogether.

So forgive me if I see the best defensive prospect to hit the NHL in some time, sitting there at #1 overall - not to mention several highly intriguing "consolation prizes" on the blue line in the top 5 to 10 - and I'm willing to flush what little is left of this pointless regular season, to maximize the odds of nabbing what could be a franchise-altering player.

Oh, and even setting aside the debate on how to acquire elite talent...if nothing else, Ken Holland is the problem due to his terrible cap management and over valuing of average veteran depth players.
 

Dotter

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That's where you're mistaken. You don't have to be the 31st team to draft #1. Heck, Oilers got McDavid and Sabres were worst. Avs were worse last year and the Devils drafted #1. Flyers @19 picked #2.

And who are all these elite talent players you speak of that reach FA that Ken Holland 'would' have been able to sign if he had cap space????
 

SpookyTsuki

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This game was everything I don't want. Id take the Montreal game over this. The only things I root for is

1) Larkin and Mantha having good games
2) a loss

I don't care about - and generally dislike - the rest of the roster, coaching staff, ownership, and organization sans Zetterberg. And it mostly stems from Holland making some of these players overstay their welcome due to horrendous loyalty issues. For example I liked Cleary for a while but Holland kept bringing him back long after he was useless, so now when I see Cleary it's like you can **** off now, bud

I’m the same. Except I also like to see mrazek and ouellet do well as well
 
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ArGarBarGar

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People really believe Ken Holland is the problem. They refuse to look around the league and see all the failed attempts and the decades it takes to rebuild from tanking.

I suspect those who dislike Holland are the same people who think a rebuild should take 2 or 3 years. It doesn't work that way.
The team stagnating for years after Lidstrom retired and after 5 years finally missing the playoffs to where we could start the rebuilding process is on Holland. The bloated contracts on this roster are all on Holland. The lack of trades to move things forward is on Holland.

Holland is not a proactive GM, and he has done a poor job for a while, now.
 
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Winger98

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The team stagnating for years after Lidstrom retired and after 5 years finally missing the playoffs to where we could start the rebuilding process is on Holland. The bloated contracts on this roster are all on Holland. The lack of trades to move things forward is on Holland.

Holland is not a proactive GM, and he has done a poor job for a while, now.

what sucks is that I would trust him to do well with some high picks and do a rebuild well. It's hard to screw a top5 pick up too horrily, and I have faith in our ability to continue to get useful players lower in the draft.

That's where you're mistaken. You don't have to be the 31st team to draft #1. Heck, Oilers got McDavid and Sabres were worst. Avs were worse last year and the Devils drafted #1. Flyers @19 picked #2.

And who are all these elite talent players you speak of that reach FA that Ken Holland 'would' have been able to sign if he had cap space????

Yeah, the draft lottery is a dumb idea.

And the other Cup winners since the lockout:

Boston: More major trades in a few years than Holland has made in his career.
Anaheim: Selanne, Niedermayer, and Pronger all come from outside the organization.
Carolina: Staal was a 2nd overall pick, they made some trades, and Cam Ward played out of his mind.

So, if winning it all is the criteria for how to build a team, then Detroit needs some combination of top 5 picks, major trades, and super-elite goaltending. None of which are currently on the roster.

And it seems trades are becoming less and less of a feature of the NHL, at least where significant pieces are moved. That said, most teams that had sustained success didn't build with several core pieces through trades. We added Shanny, and that was pretty much it. The Wings patched holes here and there with UFA/trades, but the bulk of the success was always on guys brought up through the system.

In the past they had a bit of an advantage in drafting with a better setup in Europe than other teams had, but that field has leveled a bit.
 

lomekian

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Where did this conversation between Detroit and Edmonton even start? And who cares? They got a ton of draft picks because management was terrible, couldn't draft outside of the first round (and weren't exactly batting 1000 there), couldn't develop their players, and couldn't develop any kind of winning culture. The Red Wings are just now starting their downswing into horribleness and could potentially be where the Oilers were from 2007-20015, but we don't know yet.

I think us doing as bad as the Oilers is unlikely as, contrary to popular opinion online and his speaking manner, Ken Holland is not actually an idiot. Flawed in some ways, yes, but compared to half the GMs of the last couple of decades, particularly of the Oilers, he looks like Einstein on uppers.
 

lomekian

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I was trying to point out that lots of Holland defenders like to use Edmonton as the poster child for why Detroit should never tank. That's like saying, because you had an idiot for a geometry teacher, that you no longer believe in mathematics.

Poor execution of ANY strategy is just that, and does not, in and of itself, invalidate the strategy.

Just like re-building on the fly....

Jim Nill / KH etc make better picks in 05-12 and Ken Holland right now looks like a genius.
 

lomekian

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Buffalo also says hi, and Toronto hasn't gotten anywhere yet, so other than Chicago and Pittsburgh, what are other examples of successful tanking, becuase I am pretty sure there aren't any. Arizona and Florida are also always drafting high as has Carolina, and yet where is this supposed success from drafting high constantly?

Yeah, Chicago was a combo of perfect timing of key players maturing together (although different ages) and excellent trading decisions. Pittsburgh is quite simply all on winning the bizarre one off lottery chance of sid the kid. Without him they're just another decent playoff team. The most important draft pick of the last 20 years was a total fluke with nothing to do with strategy.
 

jkutswings

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That's where you're mistaken. You don't have to be the 31st team to draft #1. Heck, Oilers got McDavid and Sabres were worst. Avs were worse last year and the Devils drafted #1. Flyers @19 picked #2.
I think you misread my post. At no point did I say anything was guaranteed. I said that I want to maximize my chances in every way possible. The cold hard math for doing that is to finish as close to dead last as you can, and to collect as many extra picks as you can along the way.

And who are all these elite talent players you speak of that reach FA that Ken Holland 'would' have been able to sign if he had cap space????
Again, you're arguing against something I didn't say. I ASKED YOU where YOU thought the talent would come from, and I cited the observation that Detroit has gone from a premier free agent destination, to a cozy corner for retreads. So again...if it's not from the top handful of picks in the draft, where is this highly conservative, very set in their ways regime going to strike gold?
 

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