Q&A With Holland

[Rzombo4 prez]

I think people are reading too much into it. He didn't argue it was the sole or even the primary reason for the regression. People should also be honest. A lot of people play very well in a contract year and take their foot off of the gas a bit the following year. This does happen.

Holland is an inarticulate fellow. People should not be holding onto every word that comes out of his mouth.

 

[Frk It]

And yet, If Holland had offered an evasive answer or completely avoided the question entirely, the response would be "why doesn't he want to talk about Nyquist?"

What it comes down to is the Red Wings are a mediocre team for the first time in 30 years and people want to blame someone.

Speaking for myself here, since I somewhat started the discussion...

-I appreciated that he was candid in a number of areas and didn't really "dodge questions". I get far more frustrated when Blashill gets asked why he doesn't use AA more and he straight dodges, or when Babcock was asked why he didn't use Smith more and would do the same. And the media never pushes to get an answer.

-I disagreed with his reasoning on the cause of Nyquist's downturn, considering virtually everyone had a downtick in numbers (he did say this as well), but at the same time he would have information available to him that I don't have (on what motivates them). That particular comment just didn't sit well with me, but I don't think it is a huge issue, or should be the only thing discussed from this interview.

Edit- I re-read the article, and I guess if you view that paragraph as a whole it's not terrible. Was kind of just my "gut" reaction, then I saw Iyer's tweet and agreed with him.

holland didn't mention that he produced better 5on5 last season compared to season before. little less goals but more points. wings also scored better 5on5 when nyquist was on the ice 15-16 than they did 14-15. seems like pretty relevant detail to me.

That's absolutely correct. But if you do this, you are essentially throwing your coach under the bus, no? Do Wings even look at ES points/production? Too "advanced" for them?

I was assuming Vanek in the top 6 (it seems like a waste to plug him in with Sheahan on the 3rd line with Helm, which is what I'd guess would happen if you had the top 6 right) and Helm probably in the top 6 at least half the time, which kicks Nyquist and Tatar down. That said, I like your lines better (though I'd rather have Nyquist off of Z's line).

I think Vanek is somewhat of a lock on the 1st PP unit (should be IMO), so even with 3rd line ES minutes, his Overall IT would probably put him at right about what you would expect.

 

[GoAwayDanCleary]

So from the sounds of it Larkin has requested to play center. Nice.

 

[njx9]

And yet, If Holland had offered an evasive answer or completely avoided the question entirely, the response would be "why doesn't he want to talk about Nyquist?"

What it comes down to is the Red Wings are a mediocre team for the first time in 30 years and people want to blame someone.

*shrug* Probably. I think whoever is in charge of PR for the Wings is asleep at the wheel fairly regularly. I also think it's weak management to even sort of call out your players publicly, whether you're the GM, the coach, or a teammate. And I think it's really silly to suggest that Holland calling a guy out is even slightly the same as, say, you calling a guy out (I know that wasn't your suggestion).

That said, I agree that, in a vacuum, his comments weren't that bad, but he should really be smart enough to pivot and move on. A bunch of fans being angry that he didn't answer every question is probably better for the team than a player feeling like his employer is telling everyone he sucks.

 

[Ezekial]

A reasoning for Tatar possibly leading the team in points is that it's a contract year, but now possibly complacency could've been a factor to Nyquist is asinine? I mean I don't believe it, but I'm not gonna jump down Holland throat for that being one of his four possible reasons.

I would've preferred him to say, well Nyquist and Tatar played multiple stretches for like 20 games each where they had terrible chemistry and played like trash together, Jeff should've realized this and quit trying to play the matchup game of them on the third line when they were simply playing like **** together.

 

[SirloinUB]

That said, I agree that, in a vacuum, his comments weren't that bad, but he should really be smart enough to pivot and move on. A bunch of fans being angry that he didn't answer every question is probably better for the team than a player feeling like his employer is telling everyone he sucks.

1) Holland never said he sucks. In fact, if you read that quote, he didn't use one single critical word towards Nyquist (or Tatar). I'll be clear, this actively pisses me off because its not the first time I have seen complete fabrications used to criticize Holland on this board. Stop twisting his ****ing words to push your personal vendetta.

2) What's wrong with calling out an under-performing player for under-performing? These are grown ass man that don't need to be coddled. Everyone expected more from Nyquist, including Nyquist.

 

[lomekian]

Agree strongly with this:

Not sure whoever tweeted this actually read the whole article. If they did they are either an idiot or take their twitter followers for idiots.

Do you honestly think there's no difference between a fan calling out a player on a message board and a GM publicly bashing his own player?

How can the GM saying that a players production reduced due to a combination of a non contract year, reduced ice-time, a new coach and lower points all round be seen as bashing his player?

Jesus, some of you lot are obsessed!

The entire team regressed last season, Not sure why he didn't call out the entire team then not just Nyquist. It's a team sport and pretty much all of them other then Larkin and possibly Mrazek for a bit were pretty awful.

He was asked about Nyquist...

And yet, Holland doesn't have to answer every question. It's not really a difficult concept. The Mantha-spare-part comment was equally asinine. "Well they were asked!" is just a ridiculous defense for the fact that the organization seems to repeatedly put it's collective foot in its mouth for non-mediocre-lifers.

But nothing said was controversial. The contract was a tiny, speculative part of a long answer. And output regression after a big new contract is one of the most widely seen and accepted probabilities in most careers, most sports and most NHL teams.

holland didn't mention that he produced better 5on5 last season compared to season before. little less goals but more points. wings also scored better 5on5 when nyquist was on the ice 15-16 than they did 14-15. seems like pretty relevant detail to me.

He was specifically asked about goals.

I think Vanek is somewhat of a lock on the 1st PP unit (should be IMO), so even with 3rd line ES minutes, his Overall IT would probably put him at right about what you would expect.

This is eminently sensible.

Sorry to go on a post splurge, but it seems almost every thread on here bar the nostalgia ones turn into a massive *****ing-fest about KH. Its fine to criticise contract signings or renewals (though the endless hysteria about the same 5 contracts that WE ALL KNOW ABOUT in every thread is terribly tedious), but literally everything he does good or bad or indifferent is leapt upon by the same 6 or 7 people and then whatever discussion was taking place descends into farce.

Personally I thought this was a good interview. Honest assessments, some reveal of previously unreported line-up plans, a non-critical recognition of the fact that Blash got his ice-time distributions wrong, and an entirely accurate representation of where the organisation sits at the moment.

The wings are gambling on some of the younger guys to grab the bull by the horns and thus avoid the reportedly inevitable future tank, while keeping/signing enough solid vets to keep the team in the playoff hunt if it doesn't happen.

People keep saying KH has no plan. You and I may not agree with various parts of it, but it is a plan.

From my perspective, its obvious that the roster imbalance has led to him giving too much term to those who won't be worth their contracts in 3-5 years. If some of the other more physical prospects had panned out, JA, LG and DH wouldn't have had the same worth or bargaining power. But those three all have qualities not widely represented in our line-up or prospect pool.

People may talk about AA making DH obsolete, but I'd rather a line-up with both, despite the overpayment.

 

[Henkka]

Still talkin about some stone age TOP6 and not so TOP6 players?

There will be this basic system like years before

TOP line against toughest matchups
Offensive Zone line 1
Offensive Zone line 2
Cheking line

Zetterberg-Nielsen-Abdelkader is kind of A LOCK for our top line after those Holland answers.

PP units are usually molded from Off.Zone lines and guys from the TOP line. At least 2 of Cheking line guys are main penalty killers.

Wonöt need more than just look on advanced stats and it's so obvious who will go against Toughest matchups.

Off-Zone lines could have different kind of line mixes, though.

 

[Frk It]

Personally I thought this was a good interview. Honest assessments, some reveal of previously unreported line-up plans, a non-critical recognition of the fact that Blash got his ice-time distributions wrong, and an entirely accurate representation of where the organisation sits at the moment

I actually did too, which is why I shared it. Didn't mean for my one comment on his comment on Nyquist to be the entire talking point of this thread, or I would have named this thread "Holland bashes Nyquist". It just didn't sit well with me, but oh well, not really a big deal.

The wings are gambling on some of the younger guys to grab the bull by the horns and thus avoid the reportedly inevitable future tank, while keeping/signing enough solid vets to keep the team in the playoff hunt if it doesn't happen.

Which is fine, and I am a big fan of AA, Mantha and Svechnikov. But all the players Holland talks about are on one side of the puck. That's kinda an issue.

People keep saying KH has no plan. You and I may not agree with various parts of it, but it is a plan.

His stance, by his own admission, is that we are NOT one of the 5 or 6 legitimate contenders, but rather (again, in his own words) in a pack of TWENTY teams that may get in the playoffs. So yes, that is a plan. But it's hardly inspiring. He doesn't even say he wants to work towards being one of those 5 or 6 teams. Seems perfectly content to be smack dab in the middle.

From my perspective, its obvious that the roster imbalance has led to him giving too much term to those who won't be worth their contracts in 3-5 years. If some of the other more physical prospects had panned out, JA, LG and DH wouldn't have had the same worth or bargaining power. But those three all have qualities not widely represented in our line-up or prospect pool.

And that's an issue I don't know why we don't discuss more... The amount of leverage that role players like Ericsson and Abdelkader have in negotiations is really NOT OK. But when you go from 2001-2016 without developing another top 4 defenseman, then yeah, you have to pony up for Jonathan Ericsson. And when your top 9 forward group consists of very little variety, and you have primarily smallish left handed playmakers, you pony up for Justin Abdelkader.

You know who doesn't re-sign players like Ericsson? Nashville and Chicago. They let better players walk like Klein and Oduya, because they can draft well and replace them themselves. When you continuously strike out/neglect drafting defenseman like we have though, well, you're kind of stuck with guys like Ericsson.

 

[Bench]

Of all the people to call out for underperforming on a contract... Nyquist is the one?

The entire roster is made up of lifetime Wings. Just feels weird to single him out for comfort when you have longer deals from lies productive players all over the roster, and lest we forget handshake Cleary.

The most job secure roster spots in the league, but that Nyquist guy, better mention his contract. I don't get it at all. It's not a big deal, but I just don't understand that line of thinking.

 

[lomekian]

I actually did too, which is why I shared it. Didn't mean for my one comment on his comment on Nyquist to be the entire talking point of this thread, or I would have named this thread "Holland bashes Nyquist". It just didn't sit well with me, but oh well, not really a big deal.

To be fair, apart from the initial tweet quoting, I noted your balanced stance (unlike some others!)

Which is fine, and I am a big fan of AA, Mantha and Svechnikov. But all the players Holland talks about are on one side of the puck. That's kinda an issue.

Indeed. And why my biggest criticism over the last year is not the bad contracts but the way that between him and Blash Sproul never got a chance to show us what he's got. He looked ok in his one game with the big club, but now we have to make roster decisions before we know what we have. Obviously this years draft suggests a recognition of the problem, but a little late it has to be said.

His stance, by his own admission, is that we are NOT one of the 5 or 6 legitimate contenders, but rather (again, in his own words) in a pack of TWENTY teams that may get in the playoffs. So yes, that is a plan. But it's hardly inspiring. He doesn't even say he wants to work towards being one of those 5 or 6 teams. Seems perfectly content to be smack dab in the middle.

I shouldn't have thought the long term aim to be a contender would need stating for a franchise like DRW. I think under the current ownership, us either being a contender or trying to work out how to become one is the base modus operandi. The issue is that KH thought we were contenders in a real sense for a year or two longer than we actually were. Indeed its only been about 15 months since the club has truly admitted to being a bubble team when all skaters are fit. Arguments can be made that without a lot of injuries, the loss of our main goalscorer in Franzen and the freak career-ender for Erik Cole, we might still have been, especially if Stephen Weiss hadn't screwed his career for good by not disclosing his injury when he first signed.

And that's an issue I don't know why we don't discuss more... The amount of leverage that role players like Ericsson and Abdelkader have in negotiations is really NOT OK. But when you go from 2001-2016 without developing another top 4 defenseman, then yeah, you have to pony up for Jonathan Ericsson. And when your top 9 forward group consists of very little variety, and you have primarily smallish left handed playmakers, you pony up for Justin Abdelkader.

You know who doesn't re-sign players like Ericsson? Nashville and Chicago. They let better players walk like Klein and Oduya, because they can draft well and replace them themselves. When you continuously strike out/neglect drafting defenseman like we have though, well, you're kind of stuck with guys like Ericsson.

To be fair, Nashville have also massively prioritised D-men in drafting by comparison (taking about twice as many), aided by having more draft picks, particularly high-mid first rounders. Their problem has always been the opposite - Radulov, Hornqvist and Craig Smith are the only forwards they have drafted between 2001-2012 that have made any real impact on the roster. Which is why they have Mike Fischer taking up 4m+

But yes, a lack of roster balance has been a major factor for the wings in terms of their bad contracts. Ironically, their draft intentions have been much more balanced than the roster would have you believe...its just that the bigger forwards on the whole haven't panned out. This is changing though, as our prospect pool has good size among its better players as a result of a concerted attempt to get bigger. On D we haven't drafted enough D-men, and certainly not enough in the first 3 rounds. Not helped by the fact that Kindl and to a degree Smith haven't panned out.

Re the contracts themselves, Abby is ok cap hit but 2 years too long for me. If it were 5 years it would be comparable to decent contracts elsewhere. Ericsson was just a case of putting too much long term faith in a player from a position of weakness. At the time it was fair price, but too much term again, and him injuring 3 different parts of his body quite significantly since makes it worse. His wrist and fingers have nixed 50% of his passing and shooting ability, and the guy's skating has regressed badly with his hip injury. None of us liked the term at the time, but the coach wanted him, there were no other decent options coming up as UFAs, and as you say, we had to pony up. The kind of bad contract lots of teams have 1 or 2 of. Lets just hope Abby and Helm are more successful at staying healthy....

Not sure either hurts us more currently than Jimmy Howard's contract, and his was actually quite fair in relation to his play. the year before he signed and the first 2/3 of a season afterwards he was getting Vezina attention. He was an all-star. Then he got injured and has been well below his career save % and GAA since getting healthy.

 

[lomekian]

PS - thanks to the Mod soupnazi for tidying up my prior posts.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Of all the people to call out for underperforming on a contract... Nyquist is the one?

The entire roster is made up of lifetime Wings. Just feels weird to single him out for comfort when you have longer deals from lies productive players all over the roster, and lest we forget handshake Cleary.

The most job secure roster spots in the league, but that Nyquist guy, better mention his contract. I don't get it at all. It's not a big deal, but I just don't understand that line of thinking.

But that's not what happened at all. The interviewer put out a question saying "Nyquist and Tatar scored X goals the last couple years, this past year they scored less... what up?" He said nothing about underperforming to his contract. And in a pointed question about Nyquist and Tatar and their decline, it would be really awkward to bring up a guy like Brad Richards and say "Nyquist was bad, but man, Richards really screwed us."

And also, reread the last paragraph. In particular the last line.

"What ends up happening too, and Jeff Blashill and I talked about this, when you have Datsyuk and Zetterberg, the emergence of Larkin, Sheahan, Brad Richards, Tatar, Nyquist, Helm and [Justin] Abdelkader, someone's ice is getting clipped. Zetterberg's wasn't. Datsyuk's wasn't. Larkin's wasn't. And Abdelkader's wasn't. There's only so much ice time to go around, and that's part of what I'm talking about with Jeff Blashill's experience. He's got to figure out exactly how he wants to use these people, but certainly we head into this season, we understand we have to score a little more and Tatar and Nyquist, that's what they do."

He's saying that Nyquist and Tatar need more icetime because the Wings had trouble scoring and that scoring is what the both of them do.

So, actually on a re-read... he did the exact opposite of bashing Nyquist. He said, paraphrasing of course, that we need to find Nyquist and Tatar ice time. If he thought Nyquist wasn't living up to his deal... wouldn't he be trying to cut his minutes or deal him, not subtlely slamming Blashill for not knowing how to divvy up the ice time in the best way?

 

[Bench]

Sure. What about the part about comfort in a new contract?

 

[Frk It]

Indeed. And why my biggest criticism over the last year is not the bad contracts but the way that between him and Blash Sproul never got a chance to show us what he's got. He looked ok in his one game with the big club, but now we have to make roster decisions before we know what we have. Obviously this years draft suggests a recognition of the problem, but a little late it has to be said.

Good point, I'd have to agree. Kind of perplexing that in a year where Sproul made significant strides to his defensive game, coupled with the offensive tools he's always had, we can't even get him in for a short look? Prior to the season where he needs to clear waivers? I don't really get that one, either.

I shouldn't have thought the long term aim to be a contender would need stating for a franchise like DRW. I think under the current ownership, us either being a contender or trying to work out how to become one is the base modus operandi. The issue is that KH thought we were contenders in a real sense for a year or two longer than we actually were. Indeed its only been about 15 months since the club has truly admitted to being a bubble team when all skaters are fit. Arguments can be made that without a lot of injuries, the loss of our main goalscorer in Franzen and the freak career-ender for Erik Cole, we might still have been, especially if Stephen Weiss hadn't screwed his career for good by not disclosing his injury when he first signed.

Right, which is why I understand the comments he has made recently. Understand them, even if I don't necessarily agree with what we are accepting to be in this transitional period.

To be fair, Nashville have also massively prioritised D-men in drafting by comparison (taking about twice as many), aided by having more draft picks, particularly high-mid first rounders. Their problem has always been the opposite - Radulov, Hornqvist and Craig Smith are the only forwards they have drafted between 2001-2012 that have made any real impact on the roster. Which is why they have Mike Fischer taking up 4m+

That's a fair point and worth considering. Forsberg trade was huge, and trade for Johansen was pretty bold as well. We could stand to aim for some moves like that to help with the imbalance we have.

But yes, a lack of roster balance has been a major factor for the wings in terms of their bad contracts. Ironically, their draft intentions have been much more balanced than the roster would have you believe...its just that the bigger forwards on the whole haven't panned out. This is changing though, as our prospect pool has good size among its better players as a result of a concerted attempt to get bigger. On D we haven't drafted enough D-men, and certainly not enough in the first 3 rounds. Not helped by the fact that Kindl and to a degree Smith haven't panned out.

Re the contracts themselves, Abby is ok cap hit but 2 years too long for me. If it were 5 years it would be comparable to decent contracts elsewhere. Ericsson was just a case of putting too much long term faith in a player from a position of weakness. At the time it was fair price, but too much term again, and him injuring 3 different parts of his body quite significantly since makes it worse. His wrist and fingers have nixed 50% of his passing and shooting ability, and the guy's skating has regressed badly with his hip injury. None of us liked the term at the time, but the coach wanted him, there were no other decent options coming up as UFAs, and as you say, we had to pony up. The kind of bad contract lots of teams have 1 or 2 of. Lets just hope Abby and Helm are more successful at staying healthy....

Should have said that while we did not have good alternatives lined up to let guys like Abby and E walk, realistically speaking, I'd have to concede that is pretty damn hard to do with where we normally draft. Compared to some other teams. I think we went a little heavy on the smaller Euro, skilled playmaker type for awhile there. Get our roster pretty redundant in that regard. Kind of wondering if we shy away from defenseman who are "all-out" offensive types too, they seem to like at least some pre-requsiite for defensive play, and I wonder if that is why we don't go for the Ghostisbehere or Barrie's of the world. Although Sproul couldn't really play a lick of defense, and Saarijarvi is awfully raw in that regard too.

 

[Ezekial]

Sure. What about the part about comfort in a new contract?

I would say it was more of a suggestion as to why rather than an attack. As I said previously, I don't subscribe to that belief, but it's kind of dumb that out of that whole interview we're micro-analyzing one line in this thread. It's not like he said, "well Gus got a new contract, and we didn't see any effort out of him last year and that's unacceptable."

 

[Bench]

I would say it was more of a suggestion as to why rather than an attack. As I said previously, I don't subscribe to that belief, but it's kind of dumb that out of that whole interview we're micro-analyzing one line in this thread. It's not like he said, "well Gus got a new contract, and we didn't see any effort out of him last year and that's unacceptable."

I never said "attack". You don't need to amp up my language to somehow minimize the point. All you have to do is read Holland quote directly. It's pretty simple and there's only one reasonable way to read it.

"He had the security of a four-year contract and we had a brand new coach (Jeff Blashill), and I think both factored in [to his regression]. "

He said the security of his new contract was a factor in his regression. Period. Holland said it straight forward. Any other interpretation has an agenda. And I think it's dumb to say. Particularly when as a GM you hand out lifetime deals like candy and everybody is so comfortable with their position on that roster it's nickname is the country club. Where was this commentary with Ericsson? Cleary? Howard? Weiss?

I don't think it's a big deal or a big insult, I just think it's dumb given the context. Holland used to be really boring and careful with his words and he's being a little more candid these days. I actually like it. But it also exposes the stuff I think is silly more frequently. The more you say, the more you expose yourself.

 

[Run the Jewels]

You guys think Z and Nielsen will have good chemistry?

Yeah I called Z and Neilsen on a line together. I really do think Vanek ends up on that line with them. Abby may get some shifts there however I think he's going to spend the bulk of his playing time on Larkin's wing.

 

[Ezekial]

I never said "attack". You don't need to amp up my language to somehow minimize the point. All you have to do is read Holland quote directly. It's pretty simple and there's only one reasonable way to read it.

"He had the security of a four-year contract and we had a brand new coach (Jeff Blashill), and I think both factored in [to his regression]. "

He said the security of his new contract was a factor in his regression. Period. Holland said it straight forward. Any other interpretation has an agenda. And I think it's dumb to say. Particularly when as a GM you hand out lifetime deals like candy and everybody is so comfortable with their position on that roster it's nickname is the country club. Where was this commentary with Ericsson? Cleary? Howard? Weiss?

I don't think it's a big deal or a big insult, I just think it's dumb given the context. Holland used to be really boring and careful with his words and he's being a little more candid these days. I actually like it. But it also exposes the stuff I think is silly more frequently. The more you say, the more you expose yourself.

My bad, thought you had said attack in your previous post. Now I have no idea where I got the word attack from
I agree that it shouldn't have been said(much like the Mantha thing, though I also agreed with his quote), but he expanded more about Blash and ice time admitting he and Tats need to see the ice more. That seemed like his emphasis of the greater problem.



I think it's funny in that tweet that Prashanth guy had put stuff in quotes when he was taking it out of context.
Random sidenote: How the hell did Gus average 1 minute of short handed time a game last year?

 

[Bench]

My bad, thought you had said attack in your previous post. Now I have no idea where I got the word attack from
I agree that it shouldn't have been said(much like the Mantha thing, though I also agreed with his quote), but he expanded more about Blash and ice time admitting he and Tats need to see the ice more. That seemed like his emphasis of the greater problem.



I think it's funny in that tweet that Prashanth guy had put stuff in quotes when he was taking it out of context.
Random sidenote: How the hell did Gus average 1 minute of short handed time a game last year?

Yeah, it's just a little aside from Holland that makes you go "Wait, what?" And I think part of the reason we're parsing these smaller quotes is because over the years we've been accustomed to very little criticism of the roster players.

But, as results become harder to come by, we're seeing a little more talk about struggles.

One of the big takeaways from this particular Holland interview was regarding Blashill and the expectations going into next year. He's cut his teeth on his first NHL season so going into this year we can expect a lot of the growing pains to be worked through already. We'll see!

 

[Henkka]

OMG. The sky is falling again. Ken Holland went and said something.

It tells more about readers basic view if everything Kenny ever says is always turned somewhat negative message.

Negative people will see negative messages overall and vise versa.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Lol people get angry when Holland says something good about guys like Abdelkader/Helm/Cleary/etc, and then people get angry if Holland makes a small hint that Nyquist may have gotten a little comfortable after getting a long-term deal (something that is always, always said on this board).

Sigh.

It all sounds good to me. Expecting Larkin to get the chance down the middle, talking about Blashill being more experienced and hopefully using players better. Nyquist and Tatar both need to bounce back but part of that is on Blashill giving them the chance.

 

[Bench]

Lol people get angry when Holland says something good about guys like Abdelkader/Helm/Cleary/etc, and then people get angry if Holland makes a small hint that Nyquist may have gotten a little comfortable after getting a long-term deal (something that is always, always said on this board).

Who is angry? Seriously.

I re-read the thread again. I can't find any outrage or anything like that. People comment on the GM saying a player got comfortable... what's wrong with that? It's the dog days of summer still. Slow news time.

I'm pretty fascinated with the response from people that pegs the opposition as "angry" or "freaking out" or "uppity" or some other combination of things that don't happen.

 

[lomekian]

That's a fair point and worth considering. Forsberg trade was huge, and trade for Johansen was pretty bold as well. We could stand to aim for some moves like that to help with the imbalance we have.

And of course, getting Johansen only happened because they drafted a D-man that unxpectedly fell at number four. Which was a consequence of the same circumstances that got them Forsberg - dropping out of the playoffs badly and selling off their top scorer in what ultimately became a massively one-sided trade but didn't appear so at the time. The only reason Nashville has anything of not up front was because after a decade of attempted ' rebuilding' they screwed the pooch well enough to get a lucky high draft pick and sell off their only saleable non-elite asset. Its worked well for them, but essentially it was a product of a decade's failure in drafting and developing forwards.

Should have said that while we did not have good alternatives lined up to let guys like Abby and E walk, realistically speaking, I'd have to concede that is pretty damn hard to do with where we normally draft. Compared to some other teams. I think we went a little heavy on the smaller Euro, skilled playmaker type for awhile there. Get our roster pretty redundant in that regard. Kind of wondering if we shy away from defenseman who are "all-out" offensive types too, they seem to like at least some pre-requsiite for defensive play, and I wonder if that is why we don't go for the Ghostisbehere or Barrie's of the world. Although Sproul couldn't really play a lick of defense, and Saarijarvi is awfully raw in that regard too.

Its no-secret that the obsession with 2 way guys influence drafts choices, but you have to remember who was the head coach for those drafts too. After the drafts 89-99 the wings were always likely to go a little too far on the playmaker euros as they had done so well out of it and have Hakan. You don't give up on what has been your greatest success until you know for sure its not working.
And it still got us Nyquist & Tatar & Hudler & Flip at the end of the 2nd round or later, so its not been a bad strategy.

I think that when people criticise the d-drafting, they forget that from 2001-2012 the wings picked in the first round 4 times in total. Ok twice they traded down, but both times picked up at least one borderline NHL-er (assuming Oulette & Sproul don't pan out). We can talk about Nashville and others drafting D, but they've just had more picks and a lot higher up because 1) they were mediocre to awful for a long time and 2) they weren't ever chasing the cup so rarely traded 1st or 2nds unlike the wings between the 90s and about 2011 when they were nearly always chasing the cup

 

[lomekian]

Who is angry? Seriously.

I re-read the thread again. I can't find any outrage or anything like that. People comment on the GM saying a player got comfortable... what's wrong with that? It's the dog days of summer still. Slow news time.

I'm pretty fascinated with the response from people that pegs the opposition as "angry" or "freaking out" or "uppity" or some other combination of things that don't happen.

Two reasons. 1) The reaction of those using such phrases is a culmination of dealing with the same posters posting the same comments in almost every thread. It gets wearing. 2) You don't see it because you largely agree. Not suggesting deliberate blindness on your part, rather that human nature happens, and we all are influenced by our biases....