Confirmed with Link: Quincey Re-Signed, 2yrs/$4.25 AAV

[Cyborg Yzerberg]

I bring them into the discussion because I'm thinking about all the tools available to Holland. He doesn't need to handcuff himself to players he no longer needs if he has better options. Given the bottom three--- Kindl, Quincey and Lashoff, I think Q is the best one of the group. Moreover, he has played a decent amount of time, and none of these guys can fill that.

I've always been a proponent of bringing up very promising prospects sooner than later. I HOPE that the Wings will do so, but I also feel that the more conservative approach is to keep as many of your better D and then create the room, not to keep the weakest and throw the rookies in there with them.

It's nice seeing you posting around here again Fugu, it's been a while. But I suppose there haven't been any Bowman vs. Babcock debates lately, though I'm surprised you didn't stick your neck out for Smith when he was the subject of debate a while ago.



Anyway, I've skimmed the last couple of pages and am completely with you on this. The net gain of letting either Marchenko or Ouelett take the year to develop over either Kindl or Quincey outweighs letting the same 7 defensemen patrol the blue line this year. Granted they are young and make mistakes, but that won't be sheltered at all. When Kindl and Smith broke into the league as mid-twenty year olds, they were still prone to the same mistakes all rookie defensemen make. I'd rather bring them up sooner than later, give them an opportunity to develop into the defensemen that they have the potential to become, rather than overpay defensemen who have likely reached their developmental peak and are not only detrimental on the ice, as per possession numbers, corsi numbers, and basic statistics, but also against our cap. Bring one up now, the other the following season, and then we'll see where Sproul is in a year or two, who probably actually needs more time to develop his game.


In summary, while icing Ouelett, Marchenko, Kindl, and Quincey all have a high probability of hurting our team in the short run, it's evident what will be best for the organization in the long run.


I hate Lashoff as a 7th defenseman, I'd rather nor run with a 7th defenseman at all and call up Marchenko/Ouelett, Sproul, Backman, Jensen, whomever, as needed.


Also, like Bench, I needed a recess from the insanity.

 

[Fugu]

It's nice seeing you posting around here again Fugu, it's been a while. But I suppose there haven't been any Bowman vs. Babcock debates lately, though I'm surprised you didn't stick your neck out for Smith when he was the subject of debate a while ago.

I mostly stayed away from the Wings section, still posted over on BoH regularly. With Smith, I felt like I said all I could say. He was a rookie and he was going to screw up a lot. He also wasn't being sheltered much. I kind of felt like it was pointless to show up after every game and just repeat the same thing. It takes time. The kid had to face a lot NHL talent, get in an entire year, see different styles, conditions, etc. I could see him getting more confident towards the very end. I still think Smitty will be better than E, Kindl, or Q, and I like the physical edge he can have that you don't necessarily see in Kronner, save for the open ice hits. (not a fan)

The one thing that confused/disappointed me was Babcock refusing to play him on the PP more, and the reason being that he knew his game was fine offensively, so he wasn't going to get that until he fixed up the defensive side. A bit of cutting your nose off to spite your face? Not sure really what they were thinking at times, but I was glad to see the forward prospects come in and break things open. In fact, my enjoyment of the Wings games increased exponentially once the Nyquist, Tatar et al became more regular fixtures. It was fun.

Anyway, I've skimmed the last couple of pages and am completely with you on this. The net gain of letting either Marchenko or Ouelett take the year to develop over either Kindl or Quincey outweighs letting the same 7 defensemen patrol the blue line this year. Granted they are young and make mistakes, but that won't be sheltered at all. When Kindl and Smith broke into the league as mid-twenty year olds, they were still prone to the same mistakes all rookie defensemen make. I'd rather bring them up sooner than later, give them an opportunity to develop into the defensemen that they have the potential to become, rather than overpay defensemen who have likely reached their developmental peak and are not only detrimental on the ice, as per possession numbers, corsi numbers, and basic statistics, but also against our cap. Bring one up now, the other the following season, and then we'll see where Sproul is in a year or two, who probably actually needs more time to develop his game.


In summary, while icing Ouelett, Marchenko, Kindl, and Quincey all have a high probability of hurting our team in the short run, it's evident what will be best for the organization in the long run.


I hate Lashoff as a 7th defenseman, I'd rather nor run with a 7th defenseman at all and call up Marchenko/Ouelett, Sproul, Backman, Jensen, whomever, as needed.


Also, like Bench, I needed a recess from the insanity.

I'm not upset by this signing-- yet. What I hope is that Holland uses the next couple of years wisely to accelerate the way this organization works in prospects. It was quite stunted from the point after Kronwall was brought up.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

Since I can't sleep:

I think the Wings have a tough decision here. They're going to want to add a prospect defenseman, but it's not necessarily clear which one they should pick. Marchenko is mature, but his style isn't exactly what the Wings lack. He's a decent puckmover, but he's not a guy who's going to wow you in that department. He's also coming off of an injury, so it's hard to know if he'll be ready to go out of the gate.

Ouellet is in a similar boat. He's great defensively and has excellent hockey sense, but he's not going to give the Wings what they don't have. He's also LH. In my mind, Ouellet right now isn't a guy you have on the roster with Quincey—he's a guy you have on the roster instead of Quincey, and maybe as early as next season in that department. The other thing is, Ouellet still has a lot of things he can work on (primarily his offense).

Backman is the wild card in my book. Anybody who didn't watch GR this postseason missed a helluva audition from this guy. Backman showed an excellent puck moving game, was excellent on the PP in Almquist's absence, and overall showed that he had another gear offensively. To give you an idea, Backman was running the #1 PP instead of Sproul in the playoffs, and he did a great job. This guy is an excellent skater, too. Smart defensively, but not physical. Has the raw ability to wow you with flashy stickhandling, passing, and a nice wrister.

The concern? He's left handed and he's a bit light at 176. But if he can put on 5 or so lbs to get up to 180, I won't be worried about that. He's a really smart player and you won't see him get smashed like that very often. and for my money, handedness means less than having a quality defenseman who can move the puck.

I like to think Babcock would agree with me on Backman. After all, he did say this at the end of the season:

“There’s a kid named Mattias Backman … He’ll step in and play on our team next year. He can really skate, really move the puck.” — Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock (May 2014, NHL Live).

 

[joe89]

There's not one of our D prospects I can say "he should really be in the NHL next season, anything else is madness". Like a Nyquist or before that Smith.

But right now, we have about two seasons to make up our minds on Ouellet, Sproul, Marchenko and Backman. You can add Nedomlel who's not gonna make it with us no matter what he does from here on. Soon that's gonna be 1½ season if neither starts in the NHL. All this will lead to are more Callahan and Ferraro situations, where you want to keep guys but you don't know if they can actually play in the NHL because you never tried them out.

I'm fine with only 3 out of 10 legit prospects making it, but I'm not fine with throwing the other 7 away that you've developed for 3-5 years. Either you try them out or you trade them away. At the very least you don't let garbage like Emmerton and Lashoff stand in the way, but Kindl and Quincey aren't far off either. I can already tell you that by the time we are good again, none of them will be on our team. At most they will be eating our cap in the press box.

 

[Run the Jewels]

All this will lead to are more Callahan and Ferraro situations, where you want to keep guys but you don't know if they can actually play in the NHL because you never tried them out.

I'm fine with only 3 out of 10 legit prospects making it, but I'm not fine with throwing the other 7 away that you've developed for 3-5 years. Either you try them out or you trade them away. At the very least you don't let garbage like Emmerton and Lashoff stand in the way, but Kindl and Quincey aren't far off either. I can already tell you that by the time we are good again, none of them will be on our team. At most they will be eating our cap in the press box.

Yep, it's yet another shortcoming for this organization. I'm pretty sure the only reason they parted with Jarnkrok was due to the injuries and Andersson was centering a scoring line.

All in all there needs to be more of a plan in place to develop prospects and to trade prospects who do not fit in with the organization. Will that begin to happen under Martin? There's a chance - see the Jarnkrok trade - but it could be that was a one-off due to desperation to keep the playoff streak alive and will not happen again.

We are clearly drafting bigger players and are letting guys like Almqvist walk for nothing - holding onto his rights in the futile hope he might one day be an NHL player.

So with that being the case why not start to trade your smaller prospects who still have some value? Why not trade/waive Kindl to open up a spot as a carrot for your top d-man prospects to get them NHL experience?

 

[Run the Jewels]

Since I can't sleep:

I think the Wings have a tough decision here. They're going to want to add a prospect defenseman, but it's not necessarily clear which one they should pick. Marchenko is mature, but his style isn't exactly what the Wings lack. He's a decent puckmover, but he's not a guy who's going to wow you in that department. He's also coming off of an injury, so it's hard to know if he'll be ready to go out of the gate.

Ouellet is in a similar boat. He's great defensively and has excellent hockey sense, but he's not going to give the Wings what they don't have. He's also LH. In my mind, Ouellet right now isn't a guy you have on the roster with Quincey—he's a guy you have on the roster instead of Quincey, and maybe as early as next season in that department. The other thing is, Ouellet still has a lot of things he can work on (primarily his offense).

Backman is the wild card in my book. Anybody who didn't watch GR this postseason missed a helluva audition from this guy. Backman showed an excellent puck moving game, was excellent on the PP in Almquist's absence, and overall showed that he had another gear offensively. To give you an idea, Backman was running the #1 PP instead of Sproul in the playoffs, and he did a great job. This guy is an excellent skater, too. Smart defensively, but not physical. Has the raw ability to wow you with flashy stickhandling, passing, and a nice wrister.

The concern? He's left handed and he's a bit light at 176. But if he can put on 5 or so lbs to get up to 180, I won't be worried about that. He's a really smart player and you won't see him get smashed like that very often. and for my money, handedness means less than having a quality defenseman who can move the puck.

I like to think Babcock would agree with me on Backman. After all, he did say this at the end of the season:

Yeah, I've been a Backman fan ever since he was drafted. The most important thing is he has Babcock in his corner. That would give you 3 legit points for your power play units:

Kronwall-Smith
Backman-DeKeyser?

I know Smith has received virtually no power play time but since Holland whiffed on signing a true PP QB you might need to give him a shot. I don't think DeKeyser has shown anything thus far on the power play but they keep rewarding him with ice time so maybe they see something in practice that has yet to translate in game situations.

I personally don't want Alfie back - no offense, 41 year olds with bad backs don't seem like a good idea to me - but if he does come back he performed well on the power play. So in that case you can go with:

Kronwall-Alfie
Backman-Smith

The best thing by far is it begins the development for one of our prospects.

 

[detredWINgs]

Since I can't sleep:

I think the Wings have a tough decision here. They're going to want to add a prospect defenseman, but it's not necessarily clear which one they should pick. Marchenko is mature, but his style isn't exactly what the Wings lack. He's a decent puckmover, but he's not a guy who's going to wow you in that department. He's also coming off of an injury, so it's hard to know if he'll be ready to go out of the gate.

Ouellet is in a similar boat. He's great defensively and has excellent hockey sense, but he's not going to give the Wings what they don't have. He's also LH. In my mind, Ouellet right now isn't a guy you have on the roster with Quincey—he's a guy you have on the roster instead of Quincey, and maybe as early as next season in that department. The other thing is, Ouellet still has a lot of things he can work on (primarily his offense).

Backman is the wild card in my book. Anybody who didn't watch GR this postseason missed a helluva audition from this guy. Backman showed an excellent puck moving game, was excellent on the PP in Almquist's absence, and overall showed that he had another gear offensively. To give you an idea, Backman was running the #1 PP instead of Sproul in the playoffs, and he did a great job. This guy is an excellent skater, too. Smart defensively, but not physical. Has the raw ability to wow you with flashy stickhandling, passing, and a nice wrister.

The concern? He's left handed and he's a bit light at 176. But if he can put on 5 or so lbs to get up to 180, I won't be worried about that. He's a really smart player and you won't see him get smashed like that very often. and for my money, handedness means less than having a quality defenseman who can move the puck.

I like to think Babcock would agree with me on Backman. After all, he did say this at the end of the season:

I'm restraining myself when it comes to Backman because all I've seen is what he did in the playoffs, but I'll be damned if he didn't immediately impress me in a way that none of the other D prospects have. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up being an elite talent with a more complete game than Sproul.

With that said, I'm not sure he should be penciled in on D just yet. I'd like to see more North American play from him, but he'd be my favorite in terms of a guy who could steal a spot before anyone thinks he can. He might be my favorite prospect right now.

Also, the problem here is that while we don't have great puck movers, we don't have great defensive defenseman either. This is part of the reason I hate the Quincey signing; he's not a stay-at-homer.

 

[theanomaly]

this is sad. i would prefer most ahl plugs over kfq. wheres huskins when you need him?

 

[vladdy16]

I bring them into the discussion because I'm thinking about all the tools available to Holland. He doesn't need to handcuff himself to players he no longer needs if he has better options. Given the bottom three--- Kindl, Quincey and Lashoff, I think Q is the best one of the group. Moreover, he has played a decent amount of time, and none of these guys can fill that.

I've always been a proponent of bringing up very promising prospects sooner than later. I HOPE that the Wings will do so, but I also feel that the more conservative approach is to keep as many of your better D and then create the room, not to keep the weakest and throw the rookies in there with them.

Right on. I don't think the idea that the wings would be better off going in a direction that involved 0 of the 3 should be dismissed, but i think your voice of reason is more applicable to the vison that the coach/management has for the team obviously. I'm just bitter about it. There are many different directions the team could've gone since 09, and the writing was on the wall well before we gave 4.25 million dollars to kyle quincy.

I will say, you never know with defensemen, eliminating mistakes is 90% of the battle, and learning to do that can come at any time. So maybe someone smarter than me with the drw sees more room for quincy to mature. I'd still trust oullette before i'd trust quincy.

 

[NHL Dude 120]

Ok guys, we will just wait two years and everything will be fine. it's Holland's seven year plan

Nah it'll be worse, Holland will see hes a legit top pairing D and offer a 7year 7 million contract with a NMC and NTC. but in all seriousness the reaction in this forum is amazing and KFQ should be as far away as Detroit.

 

[Hobnobs]

Compare Quincey to another vet free agent out there, Sami Salo. Do Q really have an advantage over him?

 

[Sami]

Compare Quincey to another vet free agent out there, Sami Salo. Do Q really have an advantage over him?

Yes, he can stay healthy . But that's not a good thing .