Andreas Athanasiou

Status
Not open for further replies.

Lil Sebastian Cossa

Opinions are share are my own personal opinions.
Jul 6, 2012
11,436
7,446
I'm super pessimistic about the Wings these days. I'm sure you've seen my posts. We're one of the worst teams in the league and I don't see any indication that management is even somewhat capable of fixing the problem. I hate the direction of the team and our management philosophy. I certainly don't hate the Detroit Red Wings. I love them. I'm a Wings fan.

Why? Because when I was a little kid my favorite color was red so they're the team I chose and I'm an intensely loyal person. Most people willing to read and post in the corners of the internet about hockey are extremely passionate fans. It's not the kind of thing where we can simply stop caring about a team. I've loved the Wings my whole life. That's not about to change because we're bad.

Will I watch fewer games this year? Probably, I usually watch all of them and that sounds like quite a chore this year. I've stopped buying merchandise and such. I intend to watch the Lightning more (they're my secondary) and check out some teams I usually completely ignore. But at the end of the year I'll still be a Wings fan and there's not much I can do to stop that. Sports are about passionately and illogically following a team. When they lose it sucks, but when they win its that much more rewarding. That's why sports are fun. There's no real reason to care about which team managed to put a rubber disk into a net at the right moments over the course of a year. That's insane. But I've never been accused of anything less.

No, I understand. I'm saying that if someone is of the opinion that they're garbage and not entertaining and there is no hope, I'm not saying renounce your fan card. If I did that whenever I felt down about a team, I'd have given up on the Lions about a million times, I'd have slit my wrists about Eastern Michigan the whole time I was there from 2002-2008 (try that. 22 wins in seven years. Ugh). Tigers, Pistons, Wings, whatever.

It's more if your only contribution to a discussion is "Dude, they just suck and they're just gonna suck no matter if everything went right or not, why are you contributing?"

And it does come back to the same thing that people here who don't necessarily want to roast Holland in effigy are shouted down about "non-additive moves". I think a little detente is in order.
 

Lil Sebastian Cossa

Opinions are share are my own personal opinions.
Jul 6, 2012
11,436
7,446
Just... wow. The man is totally deluded, he has completely lost (or maybe never had) the ability to realistically evaluate the team's circumstances and future prospects.

He brings up being the last team to miss the playoffs since the lockout. Well that is overwhelmingly because of 3 names, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and Lidstrom. They were the main drivers pushing the team, from the lockout until Lidstrom's retirement. Once Lidstrom retired and Holland was caught with his pants down, he changed course to relying on vets that were just 'good enough' to squeak into the playoffs, with diminishing returns every passing year. Oh and they consistently got signed to bloated contracts. In my opinion, Holland mortgaged this team's medium and long term futures in order to squeeze out as many playoff appearances as he could in the short term, and the absolute dog**** situation this team now finds itself in is a direct result of that.



Ken Holland is not the Detroit Red Wings, the Detroit Red Wings are not Ken Holland. There's a difference. The team is larger than the GM.

You can flip that around too, why be a fan if you have such low expectations that you would excuse mediocrity from a team whose legacy includes 11 Cup Wins, Howe, Yzerman, Lidstrom, Fedorov, Hasek, etc? And you consider the way this team is being run (and the ensuing results) acceptable considering that legacy? And you're a fan? Fun game, isn't it?

I don't think the current Old Boys Club is doing this team and its legacy justice by running the org the way they have over the past 7 years. I'm highly critical of the decisions made by management because I'm a fan. Like I said, this team is more than Ken Holland. And with the way things are being run, I think it deserves more than Ken Holland (circa 2011-2017).

Yes, it does. I'm not trying to defend Ken Holland like he's some golden god. I just think that it is far more detrimental to the team to try to fix all of the problems RIGHT NOW, with all the shifting that is going on. Losing the owner, having the uncertainty of the recapture deals and such.

And I don't just assume that Mantha, Larkin, Cholo, Hronek, and the long list of kids have zero chance to grow into the roles to carry the team.

I'm not blindly rubberstamping the moves they've made with my approval. If you read what I've posted, I'm in lockstep that Abby and Helm's deals were abominations that shouldn't have happened and that the 2012 FA period was a disaster. However, as soon as the 2012 lockout happened, it was pretty inevitable that this was the Wings future when Franzen, Kronner, Z, and Datsyuk fell off or retired. Holland could maybe have staved it off by New England Patriots'ing it, but that's not what made the Wings successful for three decades.

It progressed faster and harder because guys like Kronwall fell off from good to worse than replacement far quicker than expected.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->