GoCoyotes said:
The Red Wings would have been in a rebuild mode a couple of years ago had their been a cap or something else to regulate salaries in the league. That's the difference, they wouldn't still be a contender nor would they have been adding players to contend. The team would have been dismanted like many say will occur with the Ottawa Senators in a few years time. The difference is that Detroit had the money to keep the team together, not all franchises do.
I agree with this, but I don't think this is a bad thing. Detroit has been in a tough spot the past few years. They are still good, particularly in the regular season when most of the games are against inferior teams and they have such a geographical advantage.
They still generate the big regular season revenues. It has been easy for them to think they still have a chance - and the fans certainly believe - but I think their chances of winning four series in a row have now dropped to near zero. Nashville gave them all they could handle and Calgary beat them like a drum. The Flames are faster and Detroit can't handle them physically. Their puck possession game fell apart.
Absent change in the CBA, they have to fall on hard times. They don't have enough good young players. They aren't good enough to make money in the playoffs. They have two problems:
1) Every year they have to add talent to stay in the same place because every year their best players are one more year past their prime. If they do nothing the group gets worse.
2) They stopped producing players when they go into the free agent business big time. Teams only have so many jobs. The typical team has forty or fifty players under contract. Two teams plus a few still in Junior and an extra goalie in the ECHL. Nobody has many job vacancies. Turnover in the entire NHL is only about 8%. There is no job growth. Hire five players and you have to cut five players.
Since Detroit has hired a lot of veteran players from outside the organization, the guys they have dropped are young players from within the organization. Some of these guys might have turned out better had their opportunities not been blocked. A Detroit doesn't find many late round gems because late rounders don't get much of a chance in an organization that solves problems by throwing money at it.
Detroit and Dallas both made the mistake the Rangers made after winning the 1994 Stanley Cup. The Rangers did not take apart their core for several years after it was obvious that they should. They kept replacing one expensive veteran with another. You can't get better that way. You are on a treadmill that eventually carries the team to oblivion.
The Devils and the Avalanche have not gone into the free agent market big time. They only extend a few of their own players beyond free agency age. They do not hire veterans that take away jobs and opportunity for young players. They have dumped more talent than anybody in the league because they don't dump young players. That's the model every team should follow. Ottawa certainly will. They've already started, losing Bonk and Lalime.
The best hockey decision for Detroit would have been to stop spending three or four years ago. I think they have been driven by the best business decision. Dallas and St. Louis are at the same crossroads. They can spend money to stay in the same place or they can look at their roster and say "Our best players are past their prime. Unless we give much bigger roles to our young players we are going to get worse and we are already in a dogfight for a playoff spot."
Under the old CBA, the smaller market teams were forced to make the hard decisions but those decisions almost always turn out to be right. The larger markets (or the ones with owners willing to lose money) have the option to go the wrong way. They may stay up there as a quasi-contender for a time, but they pay in the longer term.
The Ranger wallet has been their Achilles Heel. If they - or any other team - wants to spend when they should be cutting payroll, let them fill their boots. It doesn't hurt anyone except themselves.
I think a smart fan can understands why a team decides to cut. You spend two or three years in the wilderness and then you come back. There are 30 teams. You might have to do that many times if you don't produce enough players.
The alternative is worse. If you have money, you get on the treadmill for a few years and then you are the Rangers. They've spent like drunken sailors for ten years, they've missed the playoffs for seven straight years and they still have to spend two or three years in the wilderness before they can come back.
Unless they change the CBA.
Tom
