You don't need a specific name as a replacement to be able to say that the current GM is not doing their job properly for this hockey club. I don't need a specific name to say that this team needs a 1C or a 1D, but we need those things.
Holland has been the GM of this team for 20 years, that is an eternity in sports, especially in this era. Holland has never rebuilt a team, he took over as GM when this team was a cup contender with Hall of Fame talent. He expertly maintained this team and was fortunate to draft Datsyuk and Z with later round picks.
I'd love to snag someone from Nashville to be our new GM, I'd love to snag someone from Chicago or St. Louis.
Let's see ... 8 players from the 2002 roster were on the 2008 roster and Osgood, who was brought back. Of those 8, 3 were either drafted or brought in by Holland. So that's 5 players - Lidstrom, Holmstrom, Draper, McCarty, Maltby - he inherited that were still on the roster for the last cup and one he reacquired. He also gets full credit for drafting Datsuyk and Zetterberg. It's cute how he lucks into the good things, but is fully responsible for all the bad ones.
What exactly did you get from this? It was another typical GM cliche fest.
This is so very disheartening to listen to.
Here are a few quotes:
"In order to become an elite team, you need elite players in their prime. We're trying to do that through the draft ... At the end of the day it's a draft-pick league and you have build your foundation through the draft."
"You've got 3 or 4 players on our roster - AA, Larkin, Mantha - the three that come to mind ... it takes time. To think that you're gonna go out in free agency and sign those cornerstone foundation pieces ... I don't think they really hit the market and if they do there's 20-25 teams pursuing them, so you're hoping (you can draw them in with tradition, great fanbase, new arena). But I don't think it happens very often. It's gotta be home-grown."
"In my mind it's always ongoing, but certainly over the last couple of years when we've put young people on the team earlier."
"We've got 11 picks this draft and an extra 2nd next year, which is looking to be a deeper draft year. It's a process. We've got some real good NHL players on our team. Don't have superstars in their prime. We've got some young players who we don't know where their top end is. We gotta kind of watch as they work their way toward 23, 24, 25. You look at Zetterberg and Datsuyk's career that's when they really became Z and D. Those players who carry the torch, for the most part, they have to be home-grown."
Interviewer: "You've been telling me for years, Ken, that eventually what's going to happen in a hard-cap world that your core players will become older and retire and that's essentially what has happened to the Red Wings ... Is it possible to not bottom out and get those players the way the league is set up today?" Holland: "McDavid and Mathews are outliers. Who knows when the next one will come along ... (mentions how the draft order came out this year) If you think you're just gonna bottom out and sit and wait till a generational player comes along and you're gonna get lucky in the lottery and you're gonna get the first pick of the draft, might be 20 years, might be 10 years, it might never happen. There are good players in the draft ... they're out there. It's not an exact science. Certainly the generational players, the superstars that hit the league at 19 and 20, they're one two and three, but they're not every year. They come in sporadically. You're never sure when they'll come along. That's why most teams that are going through massive rebuilds, it's a cross section of entry drafts, it's a long period of time. And once you draft those players, you need to give them 4 or 5 years to become of age, other than the generational players. (Gives an example of the last time the Wings built through the draft it took 15 years to win and that was with less teams competing for picks.) My philosophy for the Red Wings is it's a parity league (mentions the salary cap eating away at teams' depth). We have to continue to draft. We want to compete, we want to try to make the playoffs. (Mentions Philly getting #2 pick.) You don't know. The odds are that the top (he means bottom) three teams are gonna get the top three picks, but it's just odds and you're playing odds. At the end of the day we're trying to get more draft picks and I'm gonna hang on to our draft picks. In the mean time at the NHL level we're going to try to put a team on the ice that we believe can compete ... It's tough to build something that will be better than everybody else. In the mean time, let's try to compete (one game at a time). (If you're actually competitive, who knows?)"
That was from the first 20 or so minutes. I don't want to write an even bigger wall of text, but a lot of what he said is exactly what I've been reading on here for months from people who hate his guts.
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