News Article: Jimmy D. : "Red Wings won't 'sit back' in attempt to rebuild"

[The Zermanator]

Well we got a 3rd for Vanek. Without looking too deep into it, I'd venture a guess that Tervainen was also shipped out for cap reason to some extent from Chicago's point of view. And while it worked out very well for Carolina, how often does that happen? Probably no more often than a 3rd ending up as good as Teravainen. Although, yes, a bird in hand is better than 2 in a bush. (Given that Carolina gave up two pick for him) At the same time, it was hardly conclusive that Tervainen would become what he became at the time of the trade. You know, we do actually have a very good example in this with Arizona and ultimately, they've been getting nowhere.
Yes, teams can get desperate and try and pay to unload salary but they can also get desperate if injuries hit and they need someone like Daley... Or Green or Helm or Abby or Glendening or Vanek. Since you recognise that circumstance will dictate the price, why don't you recognise it on this? Do I need to remind you the return we received for Smith? Do you think as a rental he's better than Daley? Or you just want to roll with Vanek because he's about the only favorable example you have?

- Look up the stats on 3rd round picks. There's a tiny chance they even play in the NHL at all, much less become impact players. Everyone remembers the one 'steal' from the 3rd round on, but it's easy to forget the other 29-30 players who didn't turn into anything. Teravainen was a very highly regarded prospect at the time, and he's a 60 point player with room to grow now.

- As far as instances where a team gained from taking on cap space, off the top of my head, from the last few years there was Colorado getting Grubauer for taking on Orpik, Chicago had to downgrade very significantly from Panarin to Saad because they weren't going to be able to afford Panarin, Vegas got a 1st and a 2nd for taking on the Clarkson contract...

- Nobody is taking on Helm or Abdelkader, those are in fact just the type of thing we're talking about here. To get rid of them we'd have to significantly sweeten the pot either by retaining salary or sending a valuable asset along with them. In other words, we're stuck with those bloated contracts. And you can add Nielsen to that list.

- Nobody's denying that you can get something for Daley, Vanek, whoever. Sure, extra draft picks are nice, and it's definitely a tool for a rebuilding team to use. Myself and others are arguing that it's irresponsible to cut out an entire avenue for improving the team in the future, we're not saying you can't sign players with the goal of eventually trading for assets. This just seems like an attempt to excuse the fact that we have one of the worst teams in the league, with the highest payroll by far. The 3rd and 4th highest payrolls are Washington and Pittsburgh. Two Cup contenders who have to manage the cap with several of the best players in the league, with elite level players on offence, defence, and in goal. And quality supporting casts to boot. Meanwhile in Detroit our best players are the young guys, many of whom are still on their entry level deals, and the others are on their 2nd contracts. So, cheap, in other words. Our bloat comes from the mediocre and aging supporting cast. There's just no defending that cap management, IMO.

The road is getting clearer in the next few years, for sure. I just don't want the guy who got us in the current situation to be managing things when all that cap space opens up. Holland has not shown himself to be very good at signing good value contracts in the cap era.

 

[InjuredChoker]

And what happens when the reality is just about anyone and everyone will look for long-term security? Players that sign for 1 year don't tend to have options and consequently, probably won't be sought after come trade deadline.

that's usually the case but not always. past 3 deadlines these players have been dealt for at least 3rd rounder: our very own vanek. patrick eaves, viktor stalberg, daniel winnik (though he was part of a cap dump), versteeg (5th + decent prospect in zykov) and lee stempniak.

 

[SCD]

Taking on bad contracts simply isn't a smart strategy if you have better options. There's a reason the only teams that do it are budget teams.

Like most things, it depends.

As these veteran contracts expire or are traded, significant cap space will become available. There may be a time before all these new kids ELCs expire that the franchise is in unfamiliar territory....unused cap. It would not be unreasonable to take on a 1-2 yr contract and bury it the AHL. Essentially the team is buying assets (paying the salary of a bad contract for pick or prospect).

Personally, I am not interested in the team investing in a long term, high price UFA at his prime, only to watch him decline while the rest of the team matures and becomes competitive.

 

[kliq]

How much do you really get in return for trading the Vanek types as trade deadline rentals though? A 3rd round pick? A late 2nd if you're lucky? Carolina got Teravainen in exchange for taking on Bickell's contract.

Teams who want to challenge for the Cup are much more likely to get desperate and give up better assets so that they can afford to re-sign their important players. So they do things like lose Teravainen just so they can get rid of Bickell's contract and be able to afford their stars. No one is ever gonna pay much at all for players like Vanek (at this point in his career), or Daley, etc.

Better to have the cap space available so that if a team is in a desperate situation due to the cap we have the leverage to bend them over the barrel, so to speak. In other words, go for the big fish, not the small ones. The midround picks you get for the warm bodies are peanuts compared to what desperate teams will do to save a few million.



Except over the last let's say 7 years Yzerman has built a track record of signing players to very team friendly, below market deals. Holland just the opposite. I don't see how the two can even be compared when it comes to contracts.

Exactly my point, 100% agree. When people judge holland for a move now, what they are really judging is the past 5years opposed to what he Is actually doing now.

 

[Frk It]

Exactly my point, 100% agree. When people judge holland for a move now, what they are really judging is the past 5years opposed to what he Is actually doing now.

Don’t act like that doesn’t go both ways.

 

[jkutswings]

Exactly my point, 100% agree. When people judge holland for a move now, what they are really judging is the past 5years opposed to what he Is actually doing now.

Larkin, Mantha, and AA deals: Good.
Vanek and Green NMC's: Bad.

 

[The Zermanator]

Exactly my point, 100% agree. When people judge holland for a move now, what they are really judging is the past 5years opposed to what he Is actually doing now.

I don't think that's necessarily fair.

When we were in the full swing of the hoarding vets, burying kids, signing bloated loyalty contracts that last years, I was LIVID with Holland. I viscerally wanted him gone.

Now that he's finally taken steps to rebuild the team (years after many of us were calling for him to start doing just what he has, post histories don't lie), I've softened on him somewhat.

The Datsyuk trade was great on the whole, Cholowski is looking amazing and Hronek is very promising too. I was higher on Chychrun initially but I'm really starting to eat crow on that one (still high on Chychrun though). But even that was a mixed bag, with the cap savings from Datsyuk promptly being used to clutter the cap once again with Nielsen and Helm (Datsyuk's cap hit only had 1 year left).

The Tatar trade was fantastic as well.

But as much as his roster decisions and drafting have improved, he's still been very bad at signing contracts and managing the cap. I don't see how that can be argued.

He's had a hell of a run in Detroit no doubt, and the memories from 2001 (when I became a fan) to 2012 or so will never be tainted. I just think it ran it's course a few years ago, and I'm ready to see someone with fresh ideas at the helm in Detroit.

 

[Syckle78]

Exactly my point, 100% agree. When people judge holland for a move now, what they are really judging is the past 5years opposed to what he Is actually doing now.

Must be profitable being a mind reader.

 

[Voodoo Glow Skulls]

Vanek and Green NMC's: Bad.

Neither has a NMC.

 

[Voodoo Glow Skulls]

helm in Detroit.

Really man.

 

[jkutswings]

Neither has a NMC.

Sorry, I meant NTC:

Detroit Red Wings - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

 

[Number1RedWingsFan52]

Neither has a NMC.

Full NTC either way they they're going nowhere.

 

[Voodoo Glow Skulls]

Sorry, I meant NTC:

Detroit Red Wings - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

No worries.

 

[Voodoo Glow Skulls]

Full NTCNTC either way they they're going nowhere.

Unless the NTC is waived.

 

[jkutswings]

Unless the NTC is waived.

True. But the point is that while it's fair to praise Holland for the deals he gave to the kids, it's also fair to criticize him for giving NTC's to veterans when he didn't have to.

 

[Invictus12]

- Look up the stats on 3rd round picks. There's a tiny chance they even play in the NHL at all, much less become impact players. Everyone remembers the one 'steal' from the 3rd round on, but it's easy to forget the other 29-30 players who didn't turn into anything. Teravainen was a very highly regarded prospect at the time, and he's a 60 point player with room to grow now.

- As far as instances where a team gained from taking on cap space, off the top of my head, from the last few years there was Colorado getting Grubauer for taking on Orpik, Chicago had to downgrade very significantly from Panarin to Saad because they weren't going to be able to afford Panarin, Vegas got a 1st and a 2nd for taking on the Clarkson contract...

- Nobody is taking on Helm or Abdelkader, those are in fact just the type of thing we're talking about here. To get rid of them we'd have to significantly sweeten the pot either by retaining salary or sending a valuable asset along with them. In other words, we're stuck with those bloated contracts. And you can add Nielsen to that list.

- Nobody's denying that you can get something for Daley, Vanek, whoever. Sure, extra draft picks are nice, and it's definitely a tool for a rebuilding team to use. Myself and others are arguing that it's irresponsible to cut out an entire avenue for improving the team in the future, we're not saying you can't sign players with the goal of eventually trading for assets. This just seems like an attempt to excuse the fact that we have one of the worst teams in the league, with the highest payroll by far. The 3rd and 4th highest payrolls are Washington and Pittsburgh. Two Cup contenders who have to manage the cap with several of the best players in the league, with elite level players on offence, defence, and in goal. And quality supporting casts to boot. Meanwhile in Detroit our best players are the young guys, many of whom are still on their entry level deals, and the others are on their 2nd contracts. So, cheap, in other words. Our bloat comes from the mediocre and aging supporting cast. There's just no defending that cap management, IMO.

The road is getting clearer in the next few years, for sure. I just don't want the guy who got us in the current situation to be managing things when all that cap space opens up. Holland has not shown himself to be very good at signing good value contracts in the cap era.

Exactly? Third round picks don't usually turn out and I have no problem admitting that but how often does an opportunity comes along where you actually land a player like Tervainen by taking on cap dumps? How often do teams actually dump and how often are we even going to be the destination for that. And again, you still tying up cap space. The examples you gave didn't exactly played out the way it's worded here. Grubauer wasn't a payment for Orpik. It's more like Orpik was to lower the price and get first dibs on Grubauer. And mind you, this was during the summer and there was literally nothing stopping us from making that same deal. We don't sign Vanek and that's about it as far as cap space goes. If you rag on Holland for lack of finding such deals would actually hold more sense to it.
Clarkson may not have been traded if one of the existing assets wasn't under threat of being taken either mind you. So again, that works both ways. Columbus pays a premium to get rid of the guy while also keeping someone else. So in other words, we're not getting that same return because we don't have the right to snatch an asset away from any team for free because we're not an expansion team. We may just have give picks away ourselves in a Seattle expansion though. Different situations but I fail to see how it's much better to sign a player, have him play and then trade him for a picks as oppose to get a pick for taking on a contract that considered a dump. Better yet, who would you even prefer on the team? Pick four out of 6: Abdelkader, Nielsen, Glendening, Helm, Bickell and Clarkson... Panarin, much like Grubauer was during summer, where Holland usually has some space. It was never probably even discussed but it's entirely possible that Nyquist could have been traded for Panarin or Tatar perhaps... (Not exactly sure on the cap differences there) Fact remains, we were never hampered by the cap space to make the deal in any of the examples.

Look at the third round picks selected 2013 and prior. Not such an uncommon thing to find good players. Takes time for them to develop though.

I can't say for sure on Abby because I feel he hasn't been playing to his strengths lately and to me that makes him a lot less desirable as a player. Helm, I have very little doubt that we'd find takers for the guy. Very good player that most fans here rag on for no reason other than he doesn't provide highlight reel goals. Coaches view him in a completely different light as their job is to win games and Helm is very usefull in a lot of ways. Say what you will but bottom 6 players with the drive level that Helm has aren't all that common but are very valuable for any team

That last statement is what's really disturbing. Again, we are in the situation we're in because of father time. I've had this debate more times than I'd like to have had but at the end of the day, that is what it came down to. Outside of fire selling Datsyuk and Zetterberg right after Lidstrom retired, this was the most likely scenario. No one here would have been willing to move those guys at the time. Some will claim otherwise but I have no doubt it's complete BS. Those same people were screaming that Holland was wasting D and Zs last years by not playing the kids and therefore, not putting us in a better position to win it all. That was the actual tune.

Kronwall and Zetterberg were signed how long ago? They both took up significant space but both couldn't get to the end of their contracts in good health. Ericsson has been hit by injuries as well. Weiss ultimately ended up being a bad deal but, we found that out the same year he was signed. Had Z and Kronwall been healthy, we wouldn't be one of the worst teams I'd guess. Going from Datsyuk to Nielsen was also a blow. No offence to the guy but Datsyuk is Datsyuk. Essentially, same cap space but a better team. Now we're transitioning and just about all those guys are quite frankly, a crew for that. Kids take over, the vets are gone and we probably see a wave of Turgeon, Ehn, etc take up their space on the roster. It's not realistic to go from Datsyuk to the next Datsyuk without actually doing due dilligence in finding him.

 

[FireBird71]

Way this team is playing now I don’t see any deals anytime soon

 

[kliq]

I don't think that's necessarily fair.

When we were in the full swing of the hoarding vets, burying kids, signing bloated loyalty contracts that last years, I was LIVID with Holland. I viscerally wanted him gone.

Now that he's finally taken steps to rebuild the team (years after many of us were calling for him to start doing just what he has, post histories don't lie), I've softened on him somewhat.

The Datsyuk trade was great on the whole, Cholowski is looking amazing and Hronek is very promising too. I was higher on Chychrun initially but I'm really starting to eat crow on that one (still high on Chychrun though). But even that was a mixed bag, with the cap savings from Datsyuk promptly being used to clutter the cap once again with Nielsen and Helm (Datsyuk's cap hit only had 1 year left).

The Tatar trade was fantastic as well.

But as much as his roster decisions and drafting have improved, he's still been very bad at signing contracts and managing the cap. I don't see how that can be argued.

He's had a hell of a run in Detroit no doubt, and the memories from 2001 (when I became a fan) to 2012 or so will never be tainted. I just think it ran it's course a few years ago, and I'm ready to see someone with fresh ideas at the helm in Detroit.

To be fair, I should have said "some posters", obviously not everyone does what I was referring to. I can't argue too much of what you are saying, you make some very valid points and I admit that you come across like someone who is judging based on the moves in the here and now, not based on emotion. The only thing I disagree with is I am fine with Holland staying on now that he has embraced the re-build. I have pretty much zero issues with every move he has made since the 2017 TDL. With that said, I do hope he steps down for Yzerman when Yzerman's contract with TB expires. Yzerman has proven that he is one of the best in today's world.

 

[kliq]

Don’t act like that doesn’t go both ways.

I'm not at all, I 100% agree with this. People who are on the other end of the spectrum are just as ridiculous.

When Holland makes a dumb move he should be called on it (ie. Helm, Abby, Nielsen signings), when he makes a good move, he should be praised for it (Tatar trade, Smith trade, 2018 draft). That's my point.

 

[kliq]

Must be profitable being a mind reader.

I thought you didn't care what I thought or said? For someone who doesn't care you spend a lot of time reading/responding to my posts. I'm not interested in a flame war.

 

[kliq]

Larkin, Mantha, and AA deals: Good.
Vanek and Green NMC's: Bad.

For the most part I agree, I wish the Larkin deal was a bit longer though, and I dont mind the Green contract as he can be traded at the 2020 TDL.

 

[slovakia18]

The please Vanek that he have to say yes to a trade offer.
Wings don't need him anymore.
It is over for him here...
There is not one reason for the Wings to let him play.
For all side would it better i think...

 

[ChrisReevesLegs]

Ownership wanted to contend as long as possible. Holland was a good boy, obeyed, and kept the streak going as long he could.

Now ownership has partially embraced the rebuild and Holland is killing it at rebuilding, even with ownership wanting to maintain competitiveness during the rebuild...

Holland is a big fish in the pool of NHL GMs, and - like Babcock - won't be appreciated until he's gone. Hopefully Yzerman's genius makes his departure unnoticed.

 

[Dotter]

Ownership wanted to contend as long as possible. Holland was a good boy, obeyed, and kept the streak going as long he could.

Now ownership has partially embraced the rebuild and Holland is killing it at rebuilding, even with ownership wanting to maintain competitiveness during the rebuild...

Holland is a big fish in the pool of NHL GMs, and - like Babcock - won't be appreciated until he's gone. Hopefully Yzerman's genius makes his departure unnoticed.

This exactly the facts. I own a business and if I tell my guys do something I expect them to do it to the letter. If they insubordinate, they're fired. It's that simple. I can easily find 20 other people that would kill to have their job.

People ignore that DRWs were at the tail ends of Lidstrom, Datsyuk and Zetterberg era, a dying loyal owner who the family surly didn't want him to witness the fall of the Wings... then after that was the brand new state of the art $1b dollar arena. I see ownership's motivation.

Context is everything.

That said, Kenny is totally mastering the rebuild in true elite form. I shutter to thought of him leaving Detroit. As much as I love Yzerman, he's not on Ken's level but I think he will do a fine job and will likely profit (get false praise) for the foundation Kenny leaves him with.

 

[Obe2kenobe]

This exactly the facts. I own a business and if I tell my guys do something I expect them to do it to the letter. If they insubordinate, they're fired. It's that simple. I can easily find 20 other people that would kill to have their job.

People ignore that DRWs were at the tail ends of Lidstrom, Datsyuk and Zetterberg era, a dying loyal owner who the family surly didn't want him to witness the fall of the Wings... then after that was the brand new state of the art $1b dollar arena. I see ownership's motivation.

Context is everything.

That said, Kenny is totally mastering the rebuild in true elite form. I shutter to thought of him leaving Detroit. As much as I love Yzerman, he's not on Ken's level but I think he will do a fine job and will likely profit (get false praise) for the foundation Kenny leaves him with.

Having been a employee and a business owner. I have to say, telling a employee that they are easily replaceable is terrible decision and would only hurt the employee/ owners relationship.
As far as KH "totally mastering the rebuild" We won't know the answer to that for years. We're just getting started.