Lazlo Hollyfeld
The jersey ad still sucks
- Mar 4, 2004
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Me neither. Being "part of the plan" doesn't mean Holland thought Kindl, Smith and Ericsson would all turn into generational #1 d-men. Kronwall was always going to be the #1, maybe #2 if we landed Suter. What we needed was guys that replaced Rafalski, Stuart and Kronwall in the #2-4 slots. And I bet Holland thought at least one of Kindl and Smith would be able to step in there.
People somewhat overstate how far away from a solid defense we have been. If just ONE of Smith and Kindl had turned into a legit top-4 d-man we would not have been bad at all. What killed us that first year after Lids retired wasn't the Kronwall-Ericsson pairing. It was the other two pairings, until Dekeyser came in and gave us an okay 2nd pairing again.
Agreed.
I gave up on Kindl years ago and keep hoping Holland will too. Up until these last couple seasons though I still held out hope that Smith could get it together. Instead he seems like a very poor man's Jack Johnson.