OT: Holland's worst blunder

[Winger98]

I would say the ones it's definitely NOT are bringing in multiple vets and the Hatcher deal. All teams bring in vets on relative short term deals. And if memory serves Hatcher blew out his knee and was coming off ACL surgery, then the cap was implemented. Slow player + knee injury + game suddenly played wide open = not gonna work.

The Quincey saga speaks to the entire organization's inability to draft and develop any good D-men since Kronwall.

And in isolation non of those contracts were killers. But you add the Weiss buyout to handing out those deals to Helm and Abdelkader? Yeah, it's pretty bad. Abby's contract was awful before the ink even dried.

Yeah, Hatcher wrecked his knee. Killed his mobility. What I think people forget about Quincey is that he had serious back issues, to the point where Dallas backed out of a deal for him after getting his medicals. For as bad as the Abdelkader deal was his game didn't go to complete crap when Datsyuk retired, but when he damaged his knee. Weiss's health blew up on him. For my money, I think Nielsen played hurt here as his play fell off a cliff after three years (or maybe he got his bell rung once too often and just became way too timid to be effective). That Cole trade could have ended up looking like gold if his career wasn't ended by injury like ten games into his stay here.

Looking back over Holland's term here...the guy had some awful luck with guys getting injured. Datsyuk was always dinged up. He lost Konstantinov, Fischer, and Krupp to career ending injuries, Grigorenko never developed after the car accident, CuJo had that weird ankle issue that never seemed to heal...

Without pulling another Z/Datsyuk rabbit out of the hat, the Wings went the way most top teams go, though.

 

[FabricDetails]

Should enabling Babcock be on the list?

Tough question.

And I'm not only referring to recent news that makes him look like a huge asshole but also his strategeries.

 

[Winger98]

Letting Hossa go.
A few other things forced his hand (one year dropped cap, Cleary contract), but he should have found a way.
Maybe we win another cup or two, maybe not.
I don't know.
If nothing else, it would have prevented Chicago from winning 3 cups.
Maybe having that one extra star forward would have helped Holland acquire a Dman to replace Lidstrom.

Our problems would have gotten worse around 2015, of course.
But 5 years in the top 10 of the draft happened anyway, sooo.

With Hossa it should be pointed out that the only real difference between our offer and Chicago's was that Chicago tacked on two more years. Holland was in the right ball park with the AAV, but seemed hesitant to go, what, 12 years instead of 10? And I don't really fault him for that, at least not with Z already on the books for his deal. At some point, maybe Hossa just didn't want to play here.

Wouldn't have minded keeping Chicago from winning those cups, though.

 

[Frk It]

As I've said before I think in his heyday Holland was great at tinkering with a well built franchise. Making an occasional big move and a lot of small conservative ones. But when the team needed more than that, he seemed incapable of changing his style.

I thought Edmonton was a situation that would suit him, but his moves have been pretty questionable so far. He really should have just rode off into the sunset with Lidstrom.

 

[SuperScript29]

Jesus, never realized how terrible he was until you reflect on all of this.

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

I think it is more about the quantity of failures than the actual magnitude of any one individual failure. Honestly, the only thing we really missed out on is the excess of Chychrun over Hronek. So long as Senior was alive and kicking, all of those cap dollars we tied up in bad contracts were going to be spent on the bad contracts of other, overpriced free agents who were not going to bring us more cups. I will also go so far as to say that nothing he did after 2010 altered the trajectory or destination of this team. We were always going to be where we are now.

 

[ShelbyZ]

The thread is missing some early Holland blunders, such as:

-Uwe Krupp
-His 1999 trade deadline haul that other than Chelios, turned out to be complete duds

Weiss have never had any good games for Red Wings, total waist of money

While there's no question his signing was ultimately a waste and that first season was a complete shit show, he did have some moments in that 2nd season. Returned from not making one of the 12 forward spots out of camp and the ill fated conditioning stint where he got injured again, to put up 10 pts in 7 games and had two 3pt games and a handful of 2pt games over the course of the season. His ES production that year was pretty solid when you consider he had a super short leash from Babs doghouse and averaged 4th line minutes at ES playing with a revolving cast that mostly included Sheahan, Pulkkinen, Helm, Glendening and Andersson. He also wasn't out of place as a regular on the 2PP when he was in the line up.

I kind of hoped the Wings would give him a clean slate with Blashill coming in, but obviously Holland needed the space to wow the fan base with the Green and Richards signings.

 

[Henkka]

Stephen Weiss - mostly bad luck. Can't predict injuries.
The Dan Cleary Saga - Cleary did brought us a Stanley Cup, and is still there developing prospects. His plusses will overcome the negatives.
The Kyle Quincey Saga - it was like trading a 2nd rounder.
Bringing Hasek back with Joseph and Legace under contract - that was solved with money on the money days. In a cap world this never happen.
Frans Nielsen - 6 years, $31.5 million - this could be it. Didn't really help anyhow
Trading Jarnkrok, Eaves, and a 3rd for Legwand - Babcock wanted center when both Dats and Zeta were out at same time, losing trade but nothing in the big picture.
Letting Hossa walk - quite sure Hossa knew it was time to go for next rising team.
Derian Hatcher - 5 years, $30 million - kind of nothing to do in here. Can't predict cap is coming? Hatcher would have worked in old NHL. Injury mess too.
Justin Abdelkader - 7 years, $29.75 million. This somewhat helped, when Dats and Zetts were still involved in team.
Trading Janmark, Backman, 2015 second for Erik Cole. Same as Legwand trade. Cole was good until injury.
Multiple vets (Samuelsson, Tootoo, Colaiacovo, etc.). Does not differ much of other GMs work.
Darren Helm - 5 years, $19.25 million. Same as Abdelkader.

Nielsen is the worst, and it did put us in the TANK. Like everybody wanted.

Without Nielsen, we would have been on more mediocrity, maybe better team, and not drafting as high.

 

[Bench]

Legwand and Cole were obviously huge busts but ultimately the pieces we gave up weren't anything all that special.

So obviously the Wings would have needed to draft him but...

That 2nd round draft pick for Cole to Dallas turned into Roope Hintz.

I know he's not a household name yet, but he looked incredible last year. Despite having a bum hip and being a game time decision all season, he was still their best player most nights. At worst he's going to be a great #2 center.

 

[FabricDetails]

-Uwe Krupp

That was uggggggglyyyyyy...

 

[Run the Jewels]

I'd say tie between Weiss and Hossa. IIRC, I don't think Hossa was looking to sign long term here, but this could have been conjecture from Holland apologists. So I lean more towards the Weiss deal because that really pushed back the rebuild. We started throwing ridiculous amounts of money at damaged goods and mediocre players to keep the playoff streak alive which accomplished nothing other than letting a proud GM feel good about never having to tank to rebuild until reality proved this to be a terrible approach. We also missed out on some great talent that would have been available if we allowed the franchise to tank around 2014 before the lottery odds became so heavily skewed and hurt us when we eventually became the worst team in the league.

So following the Weiss signing, we didn't truly start the rebuild for another 6 years until Yzerman arrived and the result is we missed the playoffs for 5 years in a row and haven't won a playoff series in 8 years. But we replaced Holland with Yzerman so we've got that going for us, which is nice.

 

[MBH]

Holland is a bad cap GM. He was given a gift in 2006 when he was forced to gut his roster of bad contracts. After Datsyuk/Z declined and Lidstrom retired, his safety nets were gone and his lack of ability to navigate the cap was magnified.

You see the same mistakes in Edmonton. He's been no better than any of the other bad GMs that went through Edmonton over the years.

Had he learned lessons from the way he built his team in 2005 while chopping the payroll in half, Holland might have been OK.
But he didn't.
He apparently thought that bargain-basement veterans was a one-time deal.
And that if they proved themselves, they ought to get paid.

So instead of finding a Patrick Eaves to replace Dan Cleary, he paid Dan Cleary $2.8M a year (which was a big deal at the time). And that deal forced the Hossa-Franzen decision, in my view.

But by 2013 or so, Holland just went senile. Every Cleary-level player was getting long, ridiculous contracts.
Helm.
Howard.
Ericsson.
Abdelkader.
Dekeyser.

I thought Holland did pretty well with the RNH contract.
The Tyson Barrie contract is very good.

The Nurse contract is high - but if he can maintain current production for 4-5 years - that's going to look fine.

The Zach Hyman deal looks like the Cleary deal.
The Kassian deal looks like the Cleary deal.
Mike Smith signed until his 41 at anything more than $1M seems batshit crazy to me.
Foegele seems overpaid

If I was a cup contender, I'd sign my core, including my RFAs, I'd look for elite players at decent prices or via trade... but I wouldn't waste my time signing depth UFAs on July 1.

Here's who's available right now in UFA:
C; Bozak, Staal,, Zajac
W: Ryan, Chiasson, Galchenyik, Jankowski, Scevior, Neal, Vesey Gusev, Anisimov, Dal Colle, Ennis,
D: Gustafsson, Vatanen, Demers, Johnson

Those guys would sign for next to nothing.
And be as good as better as that depth guy you paid so much for on July 1.

 

[Winger98]

I went with the multiple vets, not because any of the individual contracts were bad but because when they were signed they it clearly signaled the Wings were not going to pivot towards youth. At that time, we could have had room to move Tatar, Nyquist, etc. into the lineup full time while still having Z, D, and Kronwall playing well. It could have signaled that there was going to be a greater emphasis on finding and playing younger players, looking to maybe more aggressively look to restock the cupboard.

Instead, we got a parade of vets that shoved the kids further into the background and made clear where the Wings priorities were. Personally, all of the moves after that which centered on keeping a vet core in place to at the very least contend for a playoff spot just wasn't surprising. And later seeing reports that Holland was rebuffed by Wings ownership the summer of 2014 to start an actual rebuild...yeah, not surprising.

 

[WingedWheel1987]

The worst move was Gator, but with Holland it was never really one singular bad decision (although the Gator signing was pretty frigging egregious). It was multiple bad decisions that further compounded previous bad decisions. Death via 1000 cuts.

 

[Claypool]

I said this in another thread but I think bringing Hasek back with Joseph and Legace under contract might be his worst move. For a GM who loves stability and high character guys in the locker room, you have to wonder how he ever thought that was a good idea.

There was talk of Hasek going to Colorado since Roy retired. No way you let your rival get a goalie like that. Joseph wasn't playing well. You gotta do what you gotta do.

 

[ShelbyZ]

I said this in another thread but I think bringing Hasek back with Joseph and Legace under contract might be his worst move. For a GM who loves stability and high character guys in the locker room, you have to wonder how he ever thought that was a good idea.

I always remember what Holland said when they exercised the option on Hasek's contract:

"I'm certainly aware that it's tough on Curtis," Holland said. "I think he's had a little bit of unfair criticism. But in the end, if Dom decides to come back, we want to make a decision that we think is the best decision for our hockey club." Holland said he and the team's owners didn't want to miss out on the Hasek opportunity. "We didn't want to not exercise the option and wake up and find out that Dominik Hasek has signed with another team in the league and especially a western conference rival," he said. "In the end, we just felt for our team competitively the best thing was to protect the asset."

The goalie market in that offseason was super thin and a UFA Hasek interested in returning to the NHL would've gotten a ton of interest from other teams. The Avs likely would've been one of those teams since they had no real options other than to roll the dice on promoting Aebischer to starter. Locking up Hasek while Joseph was still in tow gave Holland a monopoly over that market that might've netted him a decent return for one of them had it not been for Joseph's last minute ankle surgery and Hasek being nowhere near ready for a return and thus absolute garbage.

At the end of the day, Holland was likely to take some bullets in any way that whole situation shook out... Had he went the opposite way, declined the option and Hasek signs elsewhere (especially with the Avs), he'd get crapped on for giving up that control. And the fans and media would've made it seem as though a Joseph trade to Boston or New York, or a Hasek trade to any team other than Colorado would've been as easy as doing it on NHL2003. Though it would've eventually been forgiven if Hasek likely has the same struggles with his new team. But if somehow Hasek delivers for whatever team and they have a better result in the playoffs than Detroit, the move would've been a bigger stain on Holland's resume than what actually happened.

 

[Shaman464]

It was the trading Datsyuk's contract to run after Stamkos, passing on a really good defense prospect, and then panic signing of Nielsen. The moves prior to that was poor asset management, but can be justified if you look at things in the most short sighted way. But by the time Datsuyk was hanging them up it was clear there wasn't a path forward, and that moved showed how alien the idea of rebuilding was to him.

 

[ShelbyZ]

That was uggggggglyyyyyy...

It's especially damning to Holland (and/or the front office) if Krupp's side of the story is true and the whole debacle came about because the Wings chose not to insure an expensive contract for a veteran D-man with a long well known history of injuries. A contract that stretched to just shy of his 37th Birthday.

 

[HisNoodliness]

So obviously the Wings would have needed to draft him but...

That 2nd round draft pick for Cole to Dallas turned into Roope Hintz.

I know he's not a household name yet, but he looked incredible last year. Despite having a bum hip and being a game time decision all season, he was still their best player most nights. At worst he's going to be a great #2 center.

Yeah I try not to judge a pick based on the player taken there unless the team was on the clock at the draft and that player was the obvious BPA. So I don't think we should judge that pick as Hintz. Certainly he's a great pick, but I judge giving up a second to be a small, non-negligible price whether the pick is a bust or a star. Chychrun was the obvious pick at 16 so I'll say that we can judge that trade with that pick in mind. Even the Quincey trade I still view as just a 1st and not Vasilevskiy.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Honestly one that isn't on the list but was a big one for me was seeming to have no plan for the post-Lidstrom era other than going all in on Suter. Obviously there's no replacing Lidstrom but when one of the best Dmen of all time will no longer be playing 20+ minutes a night for your team, the whole system the team plays needs reevaluating. Lidstrom retiring was a known event, give or take a season. Stuart wanting to leave was also known. Yet Holland ended up in major scramble mode.

As Frk It mentioned, Holland should've left with Lidstrom. He would joke about retiring whenever Lids did. He should've gone with that instinct.

 

[MBH]

With Hossa it should be pointed out that the only real difference between our offer and Chicago's was that Chicago tacked on two more years. Holland was in the right ball park with the AAV, but seemed hesitant to go, what, 12 years instead of 10? And I don't really fault him for that, at least not with Z already on the books for his deal. At some point, maybe Hossa just didn't want to play here.

Wouldn't have minded keeping Chicago from winning those cups, though.

Hossa wanted to be here.
Chicago offered him $20M more.

Hossa wasn't exactly a beacon of health after leaving Detroit.
That last shoulder issue he had seemed to reduce his ability to shoot. Never scored more than 30G after leaving Detroit - despite being a pretty damn good winger anyway.


But when I look at Detroit's playoff issues from 2010-2015...
One year Zetterberg was hurt.
One year Pavel was ailing.
Several years Franzen was ailing.

Just seems to me that if we had that Hossa level player, we would have been so much much stronger.

Go to 12-13.
Take Hossa away from Chicago and put him on Detroit.

Instead of
Cleary-Z-Filppula
Franzen-Dats-Abdelkader (brutal f***ing line with zero chemistry)

Maybe we go:
Cleary-Datsyuk-Hossa
Franzen-Zetterberg-Filppula

Or
Cleary-Datsyuk-Zetterberg
Franzen-Filppula-Hossa

Good f***ing luck stopping those lines.

Not only that... but with Hossa under contract forever like Zetterberg, Holland would have had no choice but to play tougher in negotiations with Abdelkader/Helm/Ericsson/Howard etc.

 

[DoMakc]

I understand that blunder is a more interesting topic, but those kind of things happen to everybody, especially if you are at the helm of a franchise for 20 years. I'm also not sure how many of them can be attributed to Ilitch (see Martinez, Victor re: Abdelkader/Helm/Cleary/etc.). His biggest failure was inadequate planing to Lidström/Rafalski retirement. One pattern i hated most was inability to provide the team with blood, either by the way of drafting/developing or by simply replacing non-core players. It is also possible that Babcock was the reason behind inability to integrate and develop young players, but then you maybe should fire Babcock. Actually, given how toxic he became toward the end of his tenure, how low was added value provided by him in playoffs, maybe the answer to this poll is "Not getting rid of Mike Babcock early enough".
But in terms of big picture, not having a strategy in place for time afer Lidström/Rafalski is the biggest issue. Everything else (Nielsen, Weiss, Helm, etc.) is just a symptom of the general "too little, too late"-illness.

And if not for Håkan, his drafting history would be abysmal.

 

[Bench]

Yeah I try not to judge a pick based on the player taken there unless the team was on the clock at the draft and that player was the obvious BPA. So I don't think we should judge that pick as Hintz. Certainly he's a great pick, but I judge giving up a second to be a small, non-negligible price whether the pick is a bust or a star. Chychrun was the obvious pick at 16 so I'll say that we can judge that trade with that pick in mind. Even the Quincey trade I still view as just a 1st and not Vasilevskiy.

I hear you. And I agree.

Really I'm answering for my own sins here because at the time of the trades I looked at the odds that those picks, the Quincey 1st and Cole 2nd, and thought that statistically they wouldn't amount to much. And that's still true but...

If you want to maintain success, you need cracks at the drafting bat. The Wings back then didn't have an excess picks like we saw this year where it would make sense to leverage them. There were people telling me this at the time and I didn't quite get it but I'm older and wiser now. Well, I'm older.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Justin Abdelkader. 100%.

Pretty much every other idea there was less investment than this signing, a logical reason behind it that just didn't work out for some reason. But Abdelkader? That was a completely dogshit contract before the ink even dried. And frankly, even though Hossa is better than Franzen, I don't think the Wings were ever close enough after 2009 that the difference between the two of them was the difference between winning a Cup and not.

 

[ShelbyZ]

Obviously not his worst, but I always thought a funny one was Holland believing the speculation the Stars would take Kocur or Gilchrist in the 1998 waiver draft enough to make a deal with the Lightning where they'd use their pick at #2 to claim Gilchrist and then trade him back to the Red Wings for a 6th round pick.

The pick would come back later in the season, along with Wendel Clark, for Kevin Hodson and a 2nd rounder.

Gilchrist wound up playing 5 regular season and 3 playoff games that season.