News Article: NHL.com: Inside look at Detroit Red Wings

[Pavels Dog]

So we either have to get super lucky drafting in the mid first round or we have to rely on one of the current prospects dramatically exceeding expectaions. good plan

Show me a strategy of building a contender that doesn't rely on getting lucky or having any prospects dramatically exceeding expectations.

 

[Winger98]

Show me a strategy of building a contender that doesn't rely on getting lucky or having any prospects dramatically exceeding expectations.

yeah, it's easy to hit on your first round picks. Pretty much every Oiler first rounder has been an NHLer to some degree - though Yakupov is doing his best to prove that wrong - but the Oil have gotten nothing from the rest of their drafts, and that's the big reason they've never been able to get out of the cellar.

A team has to find players throughout the draft and they have to make their important, high in the draft order picks count.

 

[Ezekial]

This doesn't make any sense. The Sabres "grinded things out" just as much as the Wings did....they just did a worse job at it. For all their skill and talent (that the Wings apparently don't have) the Sabres offense sucked even more than the Wings offense did.

I'm sure it was super exciting and riveting hockey (from the Sabres perspective) watching the other team with the puck all game.

Basically, since they have a seemingly brighter future, they were more entertaining. But, that wasn't the case of the on ice product last year. This year, yes, they should be competing with the Wings in the bubble. I'm a lot more comfortable with Mrazek than Lehner, but I don't think Lehner is a slouch - let's see how he handles being "the guy".

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

yeah, it's easy to hit on your first round picks. Pretty much every Oiler first rounder has been an NHLer to some degree - though Yakupov is doing his best to prove that wrong - but the Oil have gotten nothing from the rest of their drafts, and that's the big reason they've never been able to get out of the cellar.

A team has to find players throughout the draft and they have to make their important, high in the draft order picks count.

Very true, but at the end of the day, the high end talent of most draft classes is concentrated towards the top of the first round. There are always exceptions, but if your plan is based on exceptions, you don't really have a plan at all IMHO (or at least not a plan to rebuild in this context).

 

[jkutswings]

Show me a strategy of building a contender that doesn't rely on getting lucky or having any prospects dramatically exceeding expectations.

Players selected in the top 5 of the first round of the draft already have sky-high potential, so them panning out is neither lucky nor dramatically exceeding their expectations. Neither Crosby/Malkin nor Toews/Kane were "lucky picks". You can say a team was fortunate that they happened to be picking in the top 5 during a year that elite talent was available, but that's not four-leaf clovers and horseshoes; it's a team being awful enough, long enough, to land multiple franchise-altering players, then scouting better than your top-5 peers.

By contrast, it's the perpetual, "throw late picks and average veterans at the wall, and hope something sticks" routine that's based on fairly long odds of success.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Players selected in the top 5 of the first round of the draft already have sky-high potential, so them panning out is neither lucky nor dramatically exceeding their expectations. Neither Crosby/Malkin nor Toews/Kane were "lucky picks". You can say a team was fortunate that they happened to be picking in the top 5 during a year that elite talent was available, but that's not four-leaf clovers and horseshoes; it's a team being awful enough, long enough, to land multiple franchise-altering players, then scouting better than your top-5 peers.

No luck involved in Pittsburgh losing the 2004 draft lottery (giving them Malkin instead of Ovie and a higher chance to win the 2005 lottery) and then winning the 2005 lottery to get Crosby instead of Bobby Ryan or Benoit Pouliot or Jack Johnson?

No luck involved in Chicago finding Keith in the 2nd round and moving up from 5th to 1st in the lottery to draft Kane? No luck with Toews being ranked lower than Eric Johnson and Jordan Staal?

You need the stars to align even if you are one of the worst teams in the NHL for a decade. Sure in the top 5 of the draft you will find an NHL player most of the time. Maybe even a good one for the most part. But the ones that significantly alter the course of a franchise are extremely rare. And even if you find them, the teams that aren't able to pick up luck, expectation-exceeding talent in the later rounds usually end up going nowhere anyway.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Yes, you need some luck to succeed in this league. We have had our share of luck to even be 25 years in a playoff streak. We will be lucky this year to make the playoffs.

But to expect us to win a cup just spending salary on middling players and not making any real impact trades doesn't rely on only luck. It relies on luck in just about every facet of the game. The team isn't good enough and won't be good enough with this current strategy.

 

[Winger98]

Very true, but at the end of the day, the high end talent of most draft classes is concentrated towards the top of the first round. There are always exceptions, but if your plan is based on exceptions, you don't really have a plan at all IMHO (or at least not a plan to rebuild in this context).

I don't disagree but I also don't believe the wings are really rebuilding. They plan on staying as competitive as possible for as long as possible and will only rebuild in the toronto/buffalo/edmonton sense when the wheels totally fall off. I don't really like it, but it is what it is. Personally, I think we could remain just as competitive while being a bit more aggressive with our roster with trades and prospect promotions, especially as a way of either acquiring more picks/prospects to try to hit that homerun or in inflating some player values to go after a trade for those high end pieces we're unlikely to be able to draft.

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

I don't disagree but I also don't believe the wings are really rebuilding. They plan on staying as competitive as possible for as long as possible and will only rebuild in the toronto/buffalo/edmonton sense when the wheels totally fall off. I don't really like it, but it is what it is. Personally, I think we could remain just as competitive while being a bit more aggressive with our roster with trades and prospect promotions, especially as a way of either acquiring more picks/prospects to try to hit that homerun or in inflating some player values to go after a trade for those high end pieces we're unlikely to be able to draft.

Oh, I totally agree. We abandoned rebuilding on the fly a while ago. At this point we are purely maintaining on the fly if anything. I would be a lot more sympathetic to Holland if he gave us a slightly different narrative to chew on. Something as simple as...we know we are going to need to rebuild sometime soon but we want to buy ourselves as much time as possible developing what young players we have in hopes of shortening our stay at the bottom...would make me feel much better. Hell, just the public acknowledgement that the best talent tends to be found high in the draft would make me feel better. Instead, Holland just feeds us crap about the streak, anything happening if you get in and justifications for ridiculous contracts.

 

[theD86]

I think the Red Wings are trying to patch play-off runs together while waiting for the young talent to mature.
Then new arena better team.........

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

No luck involved in Pittsburgh losing the 2004 draft lottery (giving them Malkin instead of Ovie and a higher chance to win the 2005 lottery) and then winning the 2005 lottery to get Crosby instead of Bobby Ryan or Benoit Pouliot or Jack Johnson?

No luck involved in Chicago finding Keith in the 2nd round and moving up from 5th to 1st in the lottery to draft Kane? No luck with Toews being ranked lower than Eric Johnson and Jordan Staal?

You need the stars to align even if you are one of the worst teams in the NHL for a decade. Sure in the top 5 of the draft you will find an NHL player most of the time. Maybe even a good one for the most part. But the ones that significantly alter the course of a franchise are extremely rare. And even if you find them, the teams that aren't able to pick up luck, expectation-exceeding talent in the later rounds usually end up going nowhere anyway.

No question you need luck, but you also need to give yourself the best possible odds of acquiring that high-end talent. I don't think anyone has ever argued that bottoming out is sufficient for building a cup contender. I do, however, see a lot of evidence that it may be necessary for building a true cup contender.

 

[Frk It]

No luck involved in Chicago finding Keith in the 2nd round and moving up from 5th to 1st in the lottery to draft Kane? No luck with Toews being ranked lower than Eric Johnson and Jordan Staal?

How is the bolded "luck"? I'd say that's pretty smart on their part. Really disagree with that part on Toews. It's not lucky every time a good player gets ranked lower than they should. It's smart for whatever team to capitalize on that and identify that player as underrated. Teams have their own rankings, doubt they really care where the media puts these people.

Agree Pittsburgh definitely got lucky with Crosby and Malkin playing out the way it did.

 

[Pavels Dog]

The team isn't good enough and won't be good enough with this current strategy.

You don't know that. You really, really don't. The most we can guess is that we probably won't have anything to do with the cup in the next 1-2 years. But even that is stretching it because we simply don't know how some of the younger players will progress, how coaching changes will affect the team, how new players will gel with the old, whether any trades take place etc.

How is the bolded "luck"? I'd say that's pretty smart on their part. Really disagree with that part on Toews. It's not lucky every time a good player gets ranked lower than they should. It's smart for whatever team to capitalize on that and identify that player as underrated. Teams have their own rankings, doubt they really care where the media puts these people.

Agree Pittsburgh definitely got lucky with Crosby and Malkin playing out the way it did.

Because if Toews was ranked 1st or 2nd, he likely wouldn't have been available to Chicago and they'd have to draft the #2 guy on their list? Smart drafting isn't taking the #3 ranked player at #3 and then getting lucky that he's way better than the #1 and #2 guys.
There's nothing wrong with saying they got lucky. We got lucky with Larkin, we got really lucky with Dats, Z, Franzen, Kronwall and a number of other players. It's good drafting, sure, it's smart scouts. But it's also huge amounts of luck. And you need that luck, whether you're drafting in the top 5 or in the top 20.

 

[Frk It]

Because if Toews was ranked 1st or 2nd, he likely wouldn't have been available to Chicago and they'd have to draft the #2 guy on their list? Smart drafting isn't taking the #3 ranked player at #3 and then getting lucky that he's way better than the #1 and #2 guys.
There's nothing wrong with saying they got lucky. We got lucky with Larkin, we got really lucky with Dats, Z, Franzen, Kronwall and a number of other players. It's good drafting, sure, it's smart scouts. But it's also huge amounts of luck. And you need that luck, whether you're drafting in the top 5 or in the top 20.

Like when Seth Jones was ranked #1 and drafted 4th in 2013? I don't believe that teams put much stuck into the final rankings of Central Scouting or ISS, personally.

I agree luck is part of it (moreso how they develop after being picked), Hakan has conceded as much, but I'm not sure your point that Chicago was lucky that Toews was ranked 3rd that year really holds much merit. Because I just don't think teams put much stock into that. The rankings are often merely a guess at how teams have the players ranked, not the other way around.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

You don't know that. You really, really don't. The most we can guess is that we probably won't have anything to do with the cup in the next 1-2 years. But even that is stretching it because we simply don't know how some of the younger players will progress, how coaching changes will affect the team, how new players will gel with the old, whether any trades take place etc.

Who do you expect to break out in 1-2 years that makes us a contender? Mantha? Larkin? Mrazek?

That is three players who may be contributors and basically all have to be elite for us to contend. Is anyone else going to fit that mold that quickly?

What about on the defensive end? Are we seriously pinning all our hope on DK? Where is all this talent going to come from when Zetterberg finally can't seriously play anymore? We are just going to hopefully nab a free agent even though we have only gotten one real free agent who has been of real value so far in Green (Nielsen is an unknown at this point) and nobody who is putting this team over the top. That sounds sustainable.

 

[Frk It]

When your core includes 0 defenseman (or a defenseman that is only the caliber of Dekeyser), it's not a core that is winning a Championship.

 

[lomekian]

yeah, it's easy to hit on your first round picks. Pretty much every Oiler first rounder has been an NHLer to some degree - though Yakupov is doing his best to prove that wrong - but the Oil have gotten nothing from the rest of their drafts, and that's the big reason they've never been able to get out of the cellar.

A team has to find players throughout the draft and they have to make their important, high in the draft order picks count.

Indeed, and given that bar the last 2 or 3 which are still germinating, the wings have drafted at least 1 regular NHL-er (2 or three times for other teams) between the 3rd and last rounds for every year bar 1 since 2001. And our 3rd round pick that year was Igor Grigorenko, who was thought to be a nailed on top six guy with 1st line potential until the near fatal car crash.

While Ericsson and Helm may be dirty words at the moment, for a 9th rounder and a 5th rounder they've done well. We're all losing our heads about AA not being on the roster - 4th round. Marchenko may be a 5-6 d-man but for the 7th round that's good. If Pulky makes an impact thats another 4th rounder, 30 picks BEFORE Mrazek. Nyquist was a 5th. Even Franzen was a 3rd rounder.

Getting on average one roster player every year from rounds 3-7 means that now we are finally keeping our 1st and 2nd round picks, our prospect pool could swell nicely even without tanking. Not to mention taking camp invite hunches like Glendenning, Hicketts and young FAs like DD and Coreau.
Knowing that there are roster rounder-outers coming from later picks and tryouts means those newly kept 1st and 2nds can swing for the fences a little bit more, going for those flawed prospects with great up-sides, which hopefully will provide 1 or 2 of those bona fide 1st line players we crave.

What the organisation HAS TO improve on though, is getting some return for prospects that don't pan out or fringe players leaving in FA. Someone like Patty Eaves should have got us a late pick rather than just being a throw in. Could we not have got a 5th, 6th or 7th for Tommy Mccolum, Marek Tvrdon, Nestrasil or Joakim Andersson? That's chump change to most teams, but for the reasons outlined above, is probably a 1 in 20 chance of a genuine roster player at worst.