Ken Holland has been rebuilding through the draft for nearly 15 years

[Pavels Dog]

I agree you don't just go blindly for defenseman. I can understand Larkin and Zadina. I did not (still don't) think Rasmussen has a clear advantage on Foote, Liljegren, or Valimaki personally. Sheahan, McCollum, Svechnikov... some of those years they could have at least tried for a defenseman. Josi was picked after McCollum, Faulk was picked a bit after Sheahan, etc.

I hope we have shifted strategies, picking more guys in the 2nd is nice, but I think unless we win the lottery we really need to be zeroing in on the best or 2nd best defenseman available next year.

The past is the past. They could have tried for D, and gotten the wrong D. Goloubef and Pysyk instead of Josi and Faulk. I believe drafting is a lot more about overall strategy+draft stock and a lot less about going with hindsight and saying "oh we could have gotten that guy!". Our overall strategy didn't work very well between ~05-13, so it needed change.
Increased focus on D, without being desperate is the right approach imo. That, along with more picks and better draft stock SHOULD lead to results. We're still early in that process and there's some impatience. Next year is hopefully the first sign of things paying off. Hronek and Cholo could push for NHL jobs. We hope for Saarijarvi to take a step, for Lindstrom, Setkov, McIsaac and others to improve. Hicketts and Sulak weren't drafted but are also part of the increased focus on D and are wildcards. We need a bluechipper but you can't conjure them out of thin air or pass on a kid that's #2 on your board in the entire draft.

 

[Run the Jewels]

David Poille has been the GM of Nashville since 1997 and has never drafted a #1 Center.

He did draft a Vezina winning goalie and several Norris caliber d-men, so 2 out of 3 is a very good batting average. Sure beats 0-3. He's drafted a dman who has finished in the top 5 in Norris voting 6 times. Two other dmen he drafted have finished in the top 5 in Norris voting twice. That's a big part of the reason they are capable of going on a long playoff run each season and we are currently one of the worst teams in the league.

 

[Claypool]

He did draft a Vezina winning goalie and several Norris caliber d-men, so 2 out of 3 is a very good batting average. Sure beats 0-3. He's drafted a dman who has finished in the top 5 in Norris voting 6 times. Two other dmen he drafted have finished in the top 5 in Norris voting twice. That's a big part of the reason they are capable of going on a long playoff run each season and we are currently one of the worst teams in the league.

Cool. Still never won anything. And his only offseason move so far is signing Zac Rinaldo. He also better hope Shea Weber doesn’t retire anytime soon.

 

[BinCookin]

"rebuilding" through the draft for 15 years is a very very "loose" term on "Rebuilding"

You might as well say ... "15 years of failure is why we suck now"

And remove the nuance:

1) we went to two cup finals, and won 1 cup during this time.
2) We were a very competitive team from 2006-2012. (Has WSH been rebuilding through the draft for the last 10 years?)
3) I count rebuilding as when you start actively trying to collect draft picks, which we have been doing for 2 years.

The realy mess is 2013-2015 where we sucked through simple decline and didnt trash the team.

I feel for the most part, everyone is really upset with this time period.

 

[Shaman464]

Or done what is that other thing, oh yeah, I got it now, win the Cup! Who cares if he drafts the top 50 defenceman in league history, without a cup what good is it?

This is the type of myopic statements that get on my nerves. Its not like Pollie could spend to the cap every year, most of his tenure he has had to ice a playoff team while spending closer to the cap floor than to the ceiling. That's pretty impressive.

 

[Heaton]

Cool. Still never won anything. And his only offseason move so far is signing Zac Rinaldo. He also better hope Shea Weber doesn’t retire anytime soon.

Why are you trying to act like Poile isn't one of the best GMs in the league? Winning a cup is extremely difficult, so is drafting and developing elite players. Poile has been one of the best drafting and developing GMs in the league.

Holland has had a lot of advantages that Poile hasn't had, they'll both go down as two of the best GMs in NHL history. Trying to diminish Poile's accomplishments is extremely petty, you can acknowledge someone else's ability without tearing down someone else's.

 

[Henkka]

Funny thread.

Love you Holland bashers, who got hurt if another good GM will get bashed.

Why can't we just appreciate them?

 

[Flowah]

The past is the past. They could have tried for D, and gotten the wrong D. Goloubef and Pysyk instead of Josi and Faulk. I believe drafting is a lot more about overall strategy+draft stock and a lot less about going with hindsight and saying "oh we could have gotten that guy!".

I am astounded at your ability to apologize for management's failures on drafting defensemen with a combination of "the past is the past" and "we might have drafted a bad defenseman."

I mean... okay? How far does that logic apply? If we'd drafted #1 this season and passed up on Dahlin there's nothing that would have prevented you from using those two excuses next season as well. After all, the past is the past and we might have grabbed someone other than Dahlin on the back end.

Or..... that means that our scouting/drafting is horrendous. That the "past" being comprised of dismal failures at producing difference making d-men and passing up multiple excellent defensemen in favor of mediocre forwards means our scouting/drafting was awful and management should be appropriately skewered for it.

 

[Heaton]

The past is the past. They could have tried for D, and gotten the wrong D. Goloubef and Pysyk instead of Josi and Faulk. I believe drafting is a lot more about overall strategy+draft stock and a lot less about going with hindsight and saying "oh we could have gotten that guy!". Our overall strategy didn't work very well between ~05-13, so it needed change.
Increased focus on D, without being desperate is the right approach imo. That, along with more picks and better draft stock SHOULD lead to results. We're still early in that process and there's some impatience. Next year is hopefully the first sign of things paying off. Hronek and Cholo could push for NHL jobs. We hope for Saarijarvi to take a step, for Lindstrom, Setkov, McIsaac and others to improve. Hicketts and Sulak weren't drafted but are also part of the increased focus on D and are wildcards. We need a bluechipper but you can't conjure them out of thin air or pass on a kid that's #2 on your board in the entire draft.

I think you're throwing around the word 'impatient' incorrectly. I don't think disagreeing with a rebuilding plan shows impatience and I don't think any of the comments you quoted or what people have been saying is impatience. Disagreeing with draft selections because you think someone else is better isn't impatience, saying the Wings should use other avenues to help build the team (trades) isn't impatience. Saying Holland hasn't been good at drafting defensemen for the past 20 years isn't impatience. Not thinking the streak was all that important in the grand scheme of things isn't impatience.

All of that is just a difference of opinion. I don't believe a rebuild needs to take 10 years, Holland and some of his supporters think it does. Holland is trying a strategy that is unproven, so we'll see how it goes and he'll get critiqued a hell of a lot when things don't go the right way. Especially because he only has a couple years left until the Wings will move in a different direction if they don't see results. Poor attendance and no playoff wins won't keep a GM around in a town like this.

 

[Heaton]

Funny thread.

Love you Holland bashers, who got hurt if another good GM will get bashed.

Why can't we just appreciate them?

What?

 

[Flowah]

4) And I also think it's pure incompetence an organization and Holland could fail to improve a completely awful blueline via draft, trade, or free agency since 2012. We're not talking Lidstrom 2.0, we're talking about having a top 15 blueline rather than bottom 5.

Do you remember all the people we went and signed throughout the years?

Kent Huskins, Carlo Colaiacovo, Ruslan Salei, Kyle Quincey, I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. Just absolute non-difference makers. Oh and all our draft picks fizzled out too. We'll be lucky if Jensen becomes a solid bottom pairing guy and that's out of a bunch of picks like XO and Sproul that just became *nothing at all.* Now we're all looking to Hronek or Cholowski to be something. But again we'll be lucky if they're top 4, much less top pair.

6+ years of complete mediocrity on defense in absolutely every respect whether drafting, trade, or free agency.

 

[Heaton]

Do you remember all the people we went and signed throughout the years?

Kent Huskins, Carlo Colaiacovo, Ruslan Salei, Kyle Quincey, I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. Just absolute non-difference makers. Oh and all our draft picks fizzled out too. We'll be lucky if Jensen becomes a solid bottom pairing guy and that's out of a bunch of picks like XO and Sproul that just became *nothing at all.* Now we're all looking to Hronek or Cholowski to be something. But again we'll be lucky if they're top 4, much less top pair.

6+ years of complete mediocrity on defense in absolutely every respect whether drafting, trade, or free agency.

Imagine this happening in a market where they have standards.

 

[Claypool]

Why are you trying to act like Poile isn't one of the best GMs in the league?

Never said he wasn't. Just pointing out to folks that it's hard finding hall of fame talent at the draft, particularly when you're constantly landing in the bottom half. If we're not going to bash Poile for never drafting a #1 center (it's even debatable if they even currently have one), then bashing Holland for not finding a Nick Lidstrom replacement is equally as stupid.

 

[Heaton]

Never said he wasn't.

Read your post again, you dismissed all of his accomplishments because he hadn't won a cup.

Just pointing out to folks that it's hard finding hall of fame talent at the draft, particularly when you're constantly landing in the bottom half. If we're not going to bash Poile for never drafting a #1 center (it's even debatable if they even currently have one), then bashing Holland for not finding a Nick Lidstrom replacement is equally as stupid.

Cool, good thing no one is bashing him for not finding 'hall of fame talent' or a 'Nick Lidstrom' replacement. Why the hyperbole?

Holland hasn't drafted a top pairing defenseman since Kronwall almost 20 years ago. We haven't drafted a defenseman who has scored more than 20 points since Kronwall almost 20 years ago. Our last trade for a legit defenseman was 11 years ago.

You can act like none of this is a big deal and lament how difficult this is, but isn't Holland supposed to be one of the best GMs ever? Why give him a free pass on this one? It's a glaring issue that's just being glossed over.

 

[Claypool]

Read your post again, you dismissed all of his accomplishments because he hadn't won a cup.

He's one of the best GMs in the league that's never won a Stanley Cup and still, despite being at his position for over 20 years, hasn't successfully drafted a #1 center or acquired one.

There, happy?

 

[Heaton]

He's one of the best GMs in the league that's never won a Stanley Cup and still, despite being at his position for over 20 years, hasn't successfully drafted a #1 center or acquired one.

There, happy?

Nah, this still comes off as extremely petty and you know what you're doing. This would be like someone dismissing all of Holland's accomplishments because he was handed a Stanley Cup winning roster with a blank check and rode the coattails of Lidstrom until 2012.

Both Poile and Holland accomplished way more than those descriptions give credit for. No reason to give either of them backhanded compliments.

 

[Pavels Dog]

I am astounded at your ability to apologize for management's failures on drafting defensemen with a combination of "the past is the past" and "we might have drafted a bad defenseman."

Not apologizing. Like I said, a pick like McCollum is indefensible. Even if we didn't nail Josi with that pick, there were multiple better choices. But it's also not very productive to sit here talking about the current state of the rebuild while going to back see who we could have taken in a perfect scenario 8-10 years ago. If we nailed some picks back then, we wouldn't even be rebuilding; we'd be competing.

I think there's a clear shift in philosophy in the last years. Like I posted, we've matched the number of d-men drafted in the top 3 rounds in the last 4 drafts compared to the 17 drafts prior. We had a rough stretch of drafting D but they're obviously trying their best to change that.

I think you're throwing around the word 'impatient' incorrectly. I don't think disagreeing with a rebuilding plan shows impatience and I don't think any of the comments you quoted or what people have been saying is impatience. Disagreeing with draft selections because you think someone else is better isn't impatience, saying the Wings should use other avenues to help build the team (trades) isn't impatience. Saying Holland hasn't been good at drafting defensemen for the past 20 years isn't impatience. Not thinking the streak was all that important in the grand scheme of things isn't impatience.

More like it's impatience to not allow our d-men time to develop. D take a long time. Everyone agrees. Especially ones that aren't top 10 picks. You can look at plenty of high-caliber D in the league and they took like 5+ years to reach a high level. Yet here we are having very little faith in most of the D we've drafted in the last 2-3 years. Hronek had a comparable AHL rookie season to Josi, only he did it 1 year earlier. Lindstrom's d+1 wasn't much worse than Ekholm's d+1. Cholowski is trending well. We need help on D, and a high pick would be nice, but it's not like there's not potential in the pipeline. Just gotta have a little bit of faith that not all of them will bust.

 

[Heaton]

More like it's impatience to not allow our d-men time to develop. D take a long time. Everyone agrees. Especially ones that aren't top 10 picks. You can look at plenty of high-caliber D in the league and they took like 5+ years to reach a high level. Yet here we are having very little faith in most of the D we've drafted in the last 2-3 years. Hronek had a comparable AHL rookie season to Josi, only he did it 1 year earlier. Lindstrom's d+1 wasn't much worse than Ekholm's d+1. Cholowski is trending well. We need help on D, and a high pick would be nice, but it's not like there's not potential in the pipeline. Just gotta have a little bit of faith that not all of them will bust.

This reads as you saying that we have all of the answers already, we just have to wait for them to be ready. If that's the case, great! But you have to acknowledge that we don't have anything to hang our hat on when it comes to drafting defensemen, so people have a right to be skeptical. Especially when Holland hasn't shown an ability to address the defense in any other way.

 

[Pavels Dog]

This reads as you saying that we have all of the answers already, we just have to wait for them to be ready. If that's the case, great! But you have to acknowledge that we don't have anything to hang our hat on when it comes to drafting defensemen, so people have a right to be skeptical. Especially when Holland hasn't shown an ability to address the defense in any other way.

There are no guarantees, but the potential for at least some answers to be in our pipeline looks good. The only guaranteed #1D in this draft was Dahlin, and most drafts don't have any, so it's always going to be a guessing game. We shouldn't stop drafting D, if Zadina wasn't available we absolutely should have taken a D at #6, but it's not like we're sitting here with an empty pool of D-men. We shouldn't cry over how we missed Josi, while at the same time putting a 2nd-pairing ceiling on Hronek who is arguably trending ahead of Josi.

 

[abbbaron]

He's one of the best GMs in the league that's never won a Stanley Cup and still, despite being at his position for over 20 years, hasn't successfully drafted a #1 center or acquired one.

Judging by the price he paid for that 2014 rental (player+quality prospect+pick), your boy Holland would beg to disagree with you about Poile having never drafted a #1 center

 

[kliq]

Yes I remember the same. Legwand on the 1st line for a month and did OK. Babs really cut his playing time after that maybe with good reason as he didn't play as well after

Agreed, I'm not sure what the debate over this even is.

 

[HockeyinHD]

The realy mess is 2013-2015 where we sucked through simple decline and didnt trash the team.

I feel for the most part, everyone is really upset with this time period.

You are 100% correct, and that's why I asked the question I did earlier.

If Detroit started tanking in 2012, do they get $324,000,000 in Muni money for the LCA? There is an obvious answer. No. They would not have. If they were coming off some back to back bottom 6 finishes after chasing Lidstrom out the door they may not have gotten anything at all, really, and they certainly would have gotten a fraction of that amount.

So, it seems like the motivations for the team choosing the strategy they did are transparently clear. Prior to Lidstrom's retirement they wanted to be as competitive as possible because they felt they could actually compete. And they were right. Post-2012 they just tried to spit and bailing wire things together in order to soak the city for over a quarter billion dollars. And they were (within their value systems) right. I was personally disgusted by that, but I don't count.

I mean, I recall when it took a couple rounds for the team to break even, so I'm thinking even in good years you're talking about a 10-15 mil yearly profit being a BFD. If that's reasonably accurate, and if Holland's strategy to sneak into a new building saved at least half of that 324 mil, you're talking about him compressing over a decade's worth of team profits in huge years into just 24 months.

Most people here don't care about that, being (rightly) focused on the actual sport... but man oh man, if people don't take the titanic financial implications of those on ice decisions into account they aren't going to be able to connect the dots.

 

[kliq]

Alright, the revisionism is getting a little out of hand here. If ever, Andersson never played more than a few shifts up top while Babcock was juggling lines (Sheahan and Helm were centering the top lines around the time of trade, and even when Helm went down with the injury Andersson never finished in the top 3 in TOI among forwards-- Franzen was shifting over and taking faceoffs); and it took less than 2 weeks after the Legwand trade before Luke Glendening and Drew Miller regularly started overtaking Legwand in TOI...

I am not sure what you are even arguing here. Nobody is saying that Andersson was our 1C for weeks or months. What I said was we were making a push for the playoffs, we had 3 centers hurt, so Holland made a trade for Legwand because Andersson was our top C. It didnt last, we all know that, but I am talking the moment the trade was made.

 

[HockeyinHD]

Judging by the price he paid for that 2014 rental (player+quality prospect+pick), your boy Holland would beg to disagree with you about Poile having never drafted a #1 center

Jarnkrok, Eaves and a #2? Enh. Even in hindsight it's next to nothing.

 

[Frk It]

You are 100% correct, and that's why I asked the question I did earlier.

If Detroit started tanking in 2012, do they get $324,000,000 in Muni money for the LCA? There is an obvious answer. No. They would not have. If they were coming off some back to back bottom 6 finishes after chasing Lidstrom out the door they may not have gotten anything at all, really, and they certainly would have gotten a fraction of that amount.

I believe the Oilers got 313 million for their new stadium after being complete trash for like 5 years... but I might be missing something there.