Speculation: How would things have been different...

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

I really think what gets glossed over like it's fine wine is and was how bad Ken Holland was with the cap that he was able to use to sign players. Signings were down right terrible imo, and what lead to these prolonged years of being real bad. Frazen over Hossa started it and it basically never got better and he seemed to double down on himself even.

IMO, Someone else dealing out money wouldn't of paid guys like Abdelkader/Helm/Dekeyser/Howard/Nielson/Weiss/Daley among some others and those choices by Holland really lead to the spiral down the tubes type rebuild we've felt. (IMO, again).

IF, some of those players were signed for half the term, half the money, or straight up different players all together... I think things would of shake'n out a lot different, and Red Wings needed someone other than Ken Holland leading/making the choices.

A lot of the trades were even bad/mediocre at best near the end.(The one's when Red Wings were buyers not sellers.)

Frankly, you should keep DDK and Howard out of that listing.

Howard was a really good goalie when he was signed to 6x5.3. Howard's contract looks bad because they misjudged what they had in Mrazek. They handled the two goalies very poorly together. Sign Howard and stick by him (i.e. you don't lose your job because of injury) and you don't have him rushing back from his groin injury from which he never really recovered. Sign Mrazek and deal Howard like you apparently told him you'd do and he gets a consistent workload and you don't have the infighting... or you realize what Mrazek is earlier and move on from him earlier. They did neither of those things and ended up paying Mrazek 4.0M while paying Howard 5.3M.

DDK got a bad rap after injury. He was very good in his first couple years. He then got slotted above his talent level because the Wings didn't have a suitable top pair guy and then he got hurt and lost what meager strength he did have.

The others I'm not gonna fight you on. But Howard was better than people gave him credit for and they jerked him and Mrazek around very poorly in the middle of the 2010s so much that I'm not surprised that both ended up flopping.

 

[Winger98]

I don't think there is a real difference in the trajectory of the club unless ownership changes its mind about rebuilding sooner. Maybe Yzerman could have convinced them to jump onto the rebuild bandwagon sooner, maybe not. But if the goal is to make the playoffs come hell or high water every year I think there is only so much you can do.

And if you're in the boat that Yzerman is a freakishly superior GM you might actually be looking at a longer, more protracted decline because if Yzerman could have done more, we would have been more likely to be mediocre longer than bottoming out when we did.

 

[Bench]

I don't think there is a real difference in the trajectory of the club unless ownership changes its mind about rebuilding sooner. Maybe Yzerman could have convinced them to jump onto the rebuild bandwagon sooner, maybe not. But if the goal is to make the playoffs come hell or high water every year I think there is only so much you can do.

And if you're in the boat that Yzerman is a freakishly superior GM you might actually be looking at a longer, more protracted decline because if Yzerman could have done more, we would have been more likely to be mediocre longer than bottoming out when we did.

Assuming marching orders are the same, the only tangible difference would be draft picks. We could speculate if Yzerman would dodge some of the 1st round flops. Completely unknown, though. His picks could have been just as rough. There have been plenty of 'landmines" to hit when the Wings were drafting.

 

[The Zermanator]

I don't think there is a real difference in the trajectory of the club unless ownership changes its mind about rebuilding sooner. Maybe Yzerman could have convinced them to jump onto the rebuild bandwagon sooner, maybe not. But if the goal is to make the playoffs come hell or high water every year I think there is only so much you can do.

And if you're in the boat that Yzerman is a freakishly superior GM you might actually be looking at a longer, more protracted decline because if Yzerman could have done more, we would have been more likely to be mediocre longer than bottoming out when we did.

I mean, the orders from ownership angle does explain how Holland was handcuffed to an extent. It doesn't explain or mitigate his poor execution of that mandate. Uninspired FA signings for long past their prime vets, which sure was to satisfy ownership's demands of keeping the streak alive, but hard to imagine there were no better alternatives to the likes of late-career Cleary, Bertuzzi, etc. Many of his contracts were atrocious, the worst example of which was the Abdelkader contract. I mean, the guy was a hometown player who would have had very little leverage if he went to FA. Yet Holland inexplicably gives him 7 years of term. Just, why?? But that was far from the only head-scratchingly bad and frankly unnecessary move he made between around 2014 and 2018. Can't hand-wave that away just because he needed to keep the streak alive, especially when you consider players like Abdelkader and Nielsen never played a playoff game on those big contracts Holland signed them to. When Holland left, the Wings were bereft of talent from the NHL down to the prospect level, in a bad cap situation, and the light at the end of that tunnel was out of sight.

So from about 2012/13 going forward Holland has just been a bad GM. Too conservative with a total lack of inspiration. Doesn't take anything away from his HOF career that preceded this era, but neither do those glory years excuse his performance for the last several years. And now, running a team that includes the best player in the world and another top 5 player in the world, the Oilers continue to be mired in a lot of mediocrity and Holland's maneuverings the last couple years there seem just as uninspired as his last few years in Detroit. What has he added to the Oilers? Well past their primes Duncan Keith and Mike Smith. Sound familiar?

As to the purpose of the thread, it's really impossible to say how Yzerman or Nill might have handled themselves if they had been making the decisions. But given how poorly Holland handled that challenge, I have a hard time seeing how they could have done any worse. Can't really say too much about Nill since I haven't followed the Stars too closely, but Yzerman has proven himself to be a shrewd operator who isn't afraid to be cutthroat and pull the trigger on something. If I had to guess, I think the Wings would have gone through that period, and come out the other end, in a much better position had Yzerman been running things.

 

[Geezer WC]

I would think we would be in a better spot. There is no Ilitch in Edmonton but Holland is still doing stupid things. Trade some minor assets for Keith instead of the going rate where you take a first rounder for that contract dump. Really? Sign Nurse to 8 years at 9.25? He's good ..but that length and term..why? I get the sense that the Oiler's fans are not impressed.

Mike Ilitch may have been a meddling owner with an agenda but I highly doubt he said get Quincey back at all costs. That's on Holland. A lot of things are on Holland.

 

[Gniwder]

I would think we would be in a better spot. There is no Ilitch in Edmonton but Holland is still doing stupid things. Trade some minor assets for Keith instead of the going rate where you take a first rounder for that contract dump. Really? Sign Nurse to 8 years at 9.25? He's good ..but that length and term..why? I get the sense that the Oiler's fans are not impressed.

Mike Ilitch may have been a meddling owner with an agenda but I highly doubt he said get Quincey back at all costs. That's on Holland. A lot of things are on Holland.

Wow, you'd think the fans here would be more grateful considering all of the Cups.

 

[DoMakc]

I mean, the orders from ownership angle does explain how Holland was handcuffed to an extent. It doesn't explain or mitigate his poor execution of that mandate. Uninspired FA signings for long past their prime vets, which sure was to satisfy ownership's demands of keeping the streak alive, but hard to imagine there were no better alternatives to the likes of late-career Cleary, Bertuzzi, etc. Many of his contracts were atrocious, the worst example of which was the Abdelkader contract. I mean, the guy was a hometown player who would have had very little leverage if he went to FA. Yet Holland inexplicably gives him 7 years of term. Just, why?? But that was far from the only head-scratchingly bad and frankly unnecessary move he made between around 2014 and 2018. Can't hand-wave that away just because he needed to keep the streak alive, especially when you consider players like Abdelkader and Nielsen never played a playoff game on those big contracts Holland signed them to. When Holland left, the Wings were bereft of talent from the NHL down to the prospect level, in a bad cap situation, and the light at the end of that tunnel was out of sight.

So from about 2012/13 going forward Holland has just been a bad GM. Too conservative with a total lack of inspiration. Doesn't take anything away from his HOF career that preceded this era, but neither do those glory years excuse his performance for the last several years. And now, running a team that includes the best player in the world and another top 5 player in the world, the Oilers continue to be mired in a lot of mediocrity and Holland's maneuverings the last couple years there seem just as uninspired as his last few years in Detroit. What has he added to the Oilers? Well past their primes Duncan Keith and Mike Smith. Sound familiar?

As to the purpose of the thread, it's really impossible to say how Yzerman or Nill might have handled themselves if they had been making the decisions. But given how poorly Holland handled that challenge, I have a hard time seeing how they could have done any worse. Can't really say too much about Nill since I haven't followed the Stars too closely, but Yzerman has proven himself to be a shrewd operator who isn't afraid to be cutthroat and pull the trigger on something. If I had to guess, I think the Wings would have gone through that period, and come out the other end, in a much better position had Yzerman been running things.

It is really difficult to say to what extent Ilitch meddled into hockey operations. It is well documented that he ordered Dombrowski to give Victor Martinez that atrocious contract. I can imagine he actually wanted to keep Abdelkader as he is a local. I'm pretty sure Cleary's contrct came from above as well. Ilitch was all about loyalty.

But I agree with your point - the execution was not good. FA signings were bad, they looked like he had to spend, so he signed players just for sake of it. And you still can make playoffs while intergrating young players.

 

[HisNoodliness]

With Nill at the helm, I'd say we'd be in a similar position at best. In the worst case, he doesn't get replaced by Yzerman and then team spends the whole span in mediocrity without acquiring some of our special talents and new direction in recent years.

If Yzerman had taken over in 2010, I'd have to imagine he'd have brought in Al Murray here and that means Kucherov, Point, Palat and Cirelli get drafted by us. So what it really comes down to is whether Yzerman convinced Illitch to rebuild. If not, we could actually be in a worse position with Yzerman doing a better job of keeping us from bottoming out and us descending into true mediocrity. Perhaps Yzerman would have GMed his way out of it, perhaps not.

If Yzerman had convinced Illitch to rebuild in 2010 or 2011, I have no doubt we'd be good by now. Al Murray NA scouting with Hakan in Europe, getting access to higher picks between 2011 and 2016, Yzerman's consistent surplus value in trades, and his overhauling our development and training staff would inevitably have added enough talent to make a decent team. Frankly, I wouldn't be that surprised if we were just coming off a Matthews-Kucherov led cup or something right about now. It's really impossible to say, but after seeing Yzerman work, we know he is much better at amassing talent on a rebuilding team than Holland was for 2010-19. If he was genuinely allowed to rebuild (big if), I think we'd be a contender right now.

 

[Frk It]

I think we got Yzerman at the right time, I think he learned a lot of things from his time in Tampa. I think we would have had more growing pains if he took over a decade sooner.

 

[Oddbob]

I think we got Yzerman at the right time, I think he learned a lot of things from his time in Tampa. I think we would have had more growing pains if he took over a decade sooner.

This is kind of my thoughts. He got to do a lot of trail and error as first time GM somewhere else.

If Yzerman was here earlier, there would also have been more ugly or frustrating years by now, and people might be calling for his head if he didn't get things turned around fast enough. Yzerman also had some not so great 1st round picks that didn't pan out in TB, so that easily could have happened here as well.

 

[Retire91]

Great topic, I wish I had more time to put together a post. With limited time I just want to say Yzerman is a more strategic and long game GM than Holland. The big question is when would they have rebuilt. I think Yzerman is a little more stubborn than Holland and would have insisted on the rebuild more strongly. Even so Yzerman might have had no choice but to keep trying to make the playoffs.

Even with that big question out of the way Holland still did a terrible job keeping a team in contention. Yzerman would have taken us to Tampa level contention in a full rebuild, and would have done a better job in a hybrid rebuild where we wouldn't get the top end draft picks of a full rebuild but he can still win the trades to put together a respectable roster.

In this time period Yzerman is just flat out better than Holland at contract negotiation, trading, and drafting. Yzerman would have put his own people in the front office and he wasn't afraid to trade roster players. I doubt Daytsuk abandons the team under Yzerman's watch. The Cleary, Abdelkader, Weiss, Neilson sagas never happen. If we are still chasing the playoffs its not all roses but a much better run.

 

[Winger98]

It is really difficult to say to what extent Ilitch meddled into hockey operations. It is well documented that he ordered Dombrowski to give Victor Martinez that atrocious contract. I can imagine he actually wanted to keep Abdelkader as he is a local. I'm pretty sure Cleary's contrct came from above as well. Ilitch was all about loyalty.

But I agree with your point - the execution was not good. FA signings were bad, they looked like he had to spend, so he signed players just for sake of it. And you still can make playoffs while intergrating young players.

Thing is...I don't remember a lot of griping about the Weiss deal. Until Weiss got hurt. There wasn't a lot of serious griping about the Nielsen deal when it was signed or for the first three years of it. When Weiss was signed, we had just lost Flip after bowing out in round two the previous year. If we don't want to break up Z&D we needed to fill that 2C spot. When we signed Nielsen we just saw Datsyuk slink out the door after being forced to sort of play out two of the three years he signed for, Zetterberg hit a massive wall after forty games and there were legit questions he would continue to be an effective center going forward, and Larkin was coming off a year playing Z's wing. We were looking at Helm and Glendening being the only dependable centers on the roster going into the next season.

The signings didn't work out as we had hoped, clearly, but I don't think it's entirely right to look back and say they didn't make sense or were as bad at the time as some want to make them out to be.

 

[TheOctopusKid]

Thing is...I don't remember a lot of griping about the Weiss deal. Until Weiss got hurt. There wasn't a lot of serious griping about the Nielsen deal when it was signed or for the first three years of it. When Weiss was signed, we had just lost Flip after bowing out in round two the previous year. If we don't want to break up Z&D we needed to fill that 2C spot. When we signed Nielsen we just saw Datsyuk slink out the door after being forced to sort of play out two of the three years he signed for, Zetterberg hit a massive wall after forty games and there were legit questions he would continue to be an effective center going forward, and Larkin was coming off a year playing Z's wing. We were looking at Helm and Glendening being the only dependable centers on the roster going into the next season.

The signings didn't work out as we had hoped, clearly, but I don't think it's entirely right to look back and say they didn't make sense or were as bad at the time as some want to make them out to be.

I agree some serious revisionism has happened here. Both turned out to be pretty terrible deals in hindsight, but at the time, they were both very positively met by the fanbase, rightfully so.

I recall both of those signings and remember leading into them both - both Weiss and Nielsen were both consider Top 3-4 Available C's their respective free agent years. Both had proven history with their prior teams (Panthers and Isles), as Top 6 C's, and both had shown some pretty good stuff. Weiss was a bit of a north/south burner who could finish and I think notched multiple 20g seasons? Nielsen was known for being a strong, two way cerebral setup man who played a really solid two way game. And when we grabbed both of them at the time, they were both basically expected to be the 50-60pt 2C, right? These weren't meant to be superstars, they were meant to stabilize our secondary scoring and help bring up Nyquist, Tater, etc.

Although I wasn't blown away by the signings, I was generally pleased that we had a fairly large hole in our lineup and Kenny did go out and grab basically the best guy he could to fill that gap, both who were at the time, pretty good players.

And I accept that Kenny was probably under a lot of pressure to "keep it going" and the free agency markets were...okay....he did what he could. Probably showed far too much loyalty to his guys and offered too much and too long would be the critique there. Really where he lost me was his total inability to develop prospects. The lifeblood of the organization throughout the 90s, ended up being the weakest part for the last 10 years. He couldn't find a way to take even what little talent we did have and develop it over time.

 

[Frk It]

Assuming marching orders are the same, the only tangible difference would be draft picks. We could speculate if Yzerman would dodge some of the 1st round flops. Completely unknown, though. His picks could have been just as rough. There have been plenty of 'landmines" to hit when the Wings were drafting.

I feel like I remember a lot of people thought "re-building on the fly" or essentially "rebuilding without high picks" was viable.

But now people are saying that the task would have failed regardless of the GM.

So that's kinda interesting to me.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Thing is...I don't remember a lot of griping about the Weiss deal. Until Weiss got hurt. There wasn't a lot of serious griping about the Nielsen deal when it was signed or for the first three years of it. When Weiss was signed, we had just lost Flip after bowing out in round two the previous year. If we don't want to break up Z&D we needed to fill that 2C spot. When we signed Nielsen we just saw Datsyuk slink out the door after being forced to sort of play out two of the three years he signed for, Zetterberg hit a massive wall after forty games and there were legit questions he would continue to be an effective center going forward, and Larkin was coming off a year playing Z's wing. We were looking at Helm and Glendening being the only dependable centers on the roster going into the next season.

The signings didn't work out as we had hoped, clearly, but I don't think it's entirely right to look back and say they didn't make sense or were as bad at the time as some want to make them out to be.

I recall with Weiss that he was kind of a gamble and that the "hope" would be that he could replace Fil (which I think occurred because he had no intention of re-signing under Babcock).

It wasn't panned at the time, but I thought it wasn't exactly loved, either.

Regarding Nielsen, this is also off the heels of the Stamkos gamble completely exploding in Holland's face, and if Yzerman doesn't trade Datsyuk's contract to drop a pick I am not sure if that same desire to sign Nielsen is there.

 

[MBH]

I don't think there is a real difference in the trajectory of the club unless ownership changes its mind about rebuilding sooner. Maybe Yzerman could have convinced them to jump onto the rebuild bandwagon sooner, maybe not. But if the goal is to make the playoffs come hell or high water every year I think there is only so much you can do.

And if you're in the boat that Yzerman is a freakishly superior GM you might actually be looking at a longer, more protracted decline because if Yzerman could have done more, we would have been more likely to be mediocre longer than bottoming out when we did.

I've never, ever read anything real about "ownership" not wanting a rebuild. Only speculation. Usually from fans in defense of Holland's ineptitude.
I have heard Ken Holland speak painstakingly, first person, about why he didn't want a rebuild.

So I'm going to go with the former.

 

[PelagicJoe]

Holland went all in for Ryan Suter and Zach Parise. Unfortunately it didn't pan out, and I am kind of glad it didn't since it didn't work out for the Wild either and they are on their books now until who knows when on account of the buyout.
(I know, we bought out Weiss and Nielsen, but their cap hits pale compared to Suter and Zach.)
Where Holland goofed up was saying to hell with it and signing washed up elderly vets like Mikael Samuelsson after he missed out on Suter.
Our drafting over the last 5 or 6 years we had Kenny was terrible to boot. There's no way to say for sure Stevie would have had better luck. I do agree the process would have started sooner.

 

[Winger98]

I recall with Weiss that he was kind of a gamble and that the "hope" would be that he could replace Fil (which I think occurred because he had no intention of re-signing under Babcock).

It wasn't panned at the time, but I thought it wasn't exactly loved, either.

Regarding Nielsen, this is also off the heels of the Stamkos gamble completely exploding in Holland's face, and if Yzerman doesn't trade Datsyuk's contract to drop a pick I am not sure if that same desire to sign Nielsen is there.

I think the desire to fill that top6 center spot is still there. Maybe we can't sigh Nielsen at that point with Datsyuk's contract still hanging around us, though I think they explore other ways of making that disappear, but we needed someone for that spot. In hindsight that would have been fine. Maybe we end up with Gagner a few years before we do.

With Weiss, the main objection I remember is that people wondered why we didn't just keep Flip. Like you, I think folks wondering that were drastically underrating how much Flip did not want to play for Babcock.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

I agree some serious revisionism has happened here. Both turned out to be pretty terrible deals in hindsight, but at the time, they were both very positively met by the fanbase, rightfully so.

I recall both of those signings and remember leading into them both - both Weiss and Nielsen were both consider Top 3-4 Available C's their respective free agent years. Both had proven history with their prior teams (Panthers and Isles), as Top 6 C's, and both had shown some pretty good stuff. Weiss was a bit of a north/south burner who could finish and I think notched multiple 20g seasons? Nielsen was known for being a strong, two way cerebral setup man who played a really solid two way game. And when we grabbed both of them at the time, they were both basically expected to be the 50-60pt 2C, right? These weren't meant to be superstars, they were meant to stabilize our secondary scoring and help bring up Nyquist, Tater, etc.

Although I wasn't blown away by the signings, I was generally pleased that we had a fairly large hole in our lineup and Kenny did go out and grab basically the best guy he could to fill that gap, both who were at the time, pretty good players.

And I accept that Kenny was probably under a lot of pressure to "keep it going" and the free agency markets were...okay....he did what he could. Probably showed far too much loyalty to his guys and offered too much and too long would be the critique there. Really where he lost me was his total inability to develop prospects. The lifeblood of the organization throughout the 90s, ended up being the weakest part for the last 10 years. He couldn't find a way to take even what little talent we did have and develop it over time.

Hell, the black flag on Weiss was his wrist. That's why Florida was letting him go, they were worried about his recovery from a slash injury.

Nielsen was basically a 40-50 point 2C behind Tavares. That's exactly what we were hoping for at that time.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

I've never, ever read anything real about "ownership" not wanting a rebuild. Only speculation. Usually from fans in defense of Holland's ineptitude.
I have heard Ken Holland speak painstakingly, first person, about why he didn't want a rebuild.

So I'm going to go with the former.

I'm glad that you can't look at anything analytically. Glad to see that hasn't changed. Mr. I was clearly going balls to the wall with the Wings and the Tigers in his waning years. They literally fired Dave Dombrowski for pushing and making "rebuilding" trades after they failed to win a World series. You really think that a guy in his 80s who dropped 209 million on Prince Fielder thinking he was a missing piece was going to be like "cool, let's just be really bad".

It doesn't excuse that Holland made a mockery of good GMing with several of his moves and the few logically thought out ones blew up in his face for other reasons, but my god, you shouldn't have to have a leaked memo from Olympia Entertainment to make it clear to you what happened in 2012-2016 with the Wings.

Mr. I already lived through the sucking and the rebuild. He was at the point in his life where he knew he was a half step in front of the reaper.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

I'm curious on opinions here: how would this team look today if Holland had done stepped down in 2010 and been replaced by Yzerman, or even in 2012 and been replaced by Nill?

Would we have rebuilt earlier? Would we have stayed the course for the sake of the streak?

If Nil took over? I would expect Detroit to be kind of in the same boat as the Dallas Stars currently are; veteran heavy, cap heavy, and more Joe McDonnel picks. I don't think the roster would be terrible but I don't think we've seen enough from Nil to believe he can put together a true contender.

If Yzerman took over earlier then Wings fans would be talking about his tarnished reputation and how he locked us in a loop of mediocrity for a streak. One of the keys to Yzerman's success as a general manager in Tampa is that he was given Carte Blanche; they were an organization with a brand new owner and had missed the playoffs so he had to learn how to really build a team. In Detroit there would have been a ton of interference from the Ilitch family when it was apparent Detroit needed to rebuild after 2012.

 

[Bench]

I feel like I remember a lot of people thought "re-building on the fly" or essentially "rebuilding without high picks" was viable.

But now people are saying that the task would have failed regardless of the GM.

So that's kinda interesting to me.

Well, I mean it's possible. But it's all speculation.

We know Holland did poorly so an alternative would have likely been better. But better as in championship? Eh, without Lidstrom it's hard to imagine those teams have the horses even if your GM is a wizard.

I guess I'm more interested in the idea that the team wouldn't have been completely gutted in the prospect system and not have negative value contacts hanging around. That would make the current phase of the rebuild significantly easier.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

I feel like I remember a lot of people thought "re-building on the fly" or essentially "rebuilding without high picks" was viable.

But now people are saying that the task would have failed regardless of the GM.

So that's kinda interesting to me.

People thought it was viable because the Wings did it once. Basically, rebuilding without high picks IS viable. There isn't just "suck until we are good" as the only possible method to improve, no matter how many people want to claim otherwise. You just have to be really damn good at the other aspects of team building.

But hell, with the Wings, let's say that their whole 2011 D core didn't flop. Say we got two or three viable top 4D in Smith, DeKeyser, and one of Sproul, Ouellet, Marchenko, and Kindl or made picks for guys of their ilk. Drafted Roman Josi at #30 instead of Thomas McCollum who never played for us. It's all hindsight to point out what they could have done and it's ludicrous to hold them to the standard that they didn't take X star or Y star. But to sit and act like it is completely impossible that you can build a new core outside of the top 5 of the draft is crazy talk to me.

With the Wings in the mid 2010s, it would have failed regardless of GM because they weren't rebuilding on the fly. They weren't rebuilding at all. They were adding pieces to keep making the playoffs while not trading away 1st round picks anymore. Ownership, as evidenced by what Mr. I did with the Tigers, would not have been okay with a tear down rebuild. They just wouldn't be... at least not without a change in the GM.

 

[Frk It]

With the Wings in the mid 2010s, it would have failed regardless of GM because they weren't rebuilding on the fly. They weren't rebuilding at all. They were adding pieces to keep making the playoffs while not trading away 1st round picks anymore.

If you would have said this circa 2013/14, you would have had something thrown at you.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

If you would have said this circa 2013/14, you would have had something thrown at you.

Yep, but when we have hindsight, you can see that's what they were doing.

It seemed like Nyquist, Tatar, Mrazek, and the aforementioned D core were gonna be huge for the future. Then within like five years they were all gone.