Tatar to Montreal

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

The revisionist history of Holland defenders has always struck me as odd. A large number of the deals the Wings hated, Ericsson, Howard, Abdelkader, Helm, were thought to be horrible the moments they were signed. Kronwall and Zetterberg were good contracts at the time, and helped fill their role, and viewed as such. Really the only bad contract that I, and seemingly majority of fans, thought was good during the time of signing was Dekeyser's. Everyone else's deals either worked out as expected.

Granted, a sizable amount of people were arguing we should re-sign Smith last offseason, as was Holland.

-Ericsson is revisionist history. People weren't thrilled about it, but it was a "well, he's a top 4 D, that's what top 4D get paid. The handwringing started when he had the bad hand injury and the hip injury like a year after signing it.
-Howard is revisionist history or people who simply don't like to spend on goalies. At the time of deal, he was an above average goalie that got above average salary for term. And hell, if Petr Mrazek didn't have his shooting star season where he looked like a future superstar, nobody would have said a damn thing about Howie's deal. It turned bad because Mrazek shot out of the gate like a cannon and Howie wilted because he would try to do too much to hold off Mrazek and keep his job.

Abby and Helm. Hell yeah, they were bad deals even before the ink dried.

Kronwall and Z's deals weren't just good. They were FANTASTIC contracts until the league decided to toss the retroactive punishment that made them immovable and unable to actually retire when injured. A #1D for 4.75M and a #1C for 6M? Those are fantastic deals and before 2012, they had no risk because the guy could just retire and no harm, no foul.

I hate the reductive nature of "Holland defenders", "Holland apologists", etc. As well as the other side too "Holland bashers", "Holland haters".

Ken Holland has made good moves and he's made bad moves. He probably should have been fired a few years ago. He also has done things like landing Mantha, Larkin, Zadina, Veleno, etc. that reasonably have bought him time. He's not as good as people who staunchly defend him say but he's certainly nowhere near as bad as the people who want him gone at all costs think that he is.

 

[Hatter of the Beach]

-Howard is revisionist history or people who simply don't like to spend on goalies. At the time of deal, he was an above average goalie that got above average salary for term. And hell, if Petr Mrazek didn't have his shooting star season where he looked like a future superstar, nobody would have said a damn thing about Howie's deal.

This is just simply untrue. Even if in context of stats, it SHOULD have been received as a fair or good deal, all forms of social media I can recall were pissed at it, including the majority of posters on this site. We're not talking at whether or not it should have been a good deal because in real life fans are not impartial. A lot of people, myself included, didn't believe Howard was as good as his stats, as he was still prone to giving up bad, back breaking goals, at the worst possible time.

The primary narrative about Howard from 2010-2014 was essentially "Above Average Goalie who you couldn't trust to make the big save". Howard's penchants of soft goals has followed him ever since his rookie season. In many ways, he's the Anti Osgood, who was a mediocre regular season goalie most years, but made the unexpected save when you needed him too. Fans, well educated (in regards to following the team closely) and typical FB commentators, alike didn't trust Howard.

As for Ericsson's, I for one do think he is still an ok 4th-5th defenseman, and many people (including myself), expected him to grow into that at the time of that contract. But everyone knew it was a risk, similar to Filpulla's 5x3=15 mil deal. Overpay in the short term and hopefully they make it a bargain later. Ericsson didn't make it a bargain.

 

[Invictus12]

2013 was 5 years ago. 2-3 years was after getting knocked out in the first round 2-3 years in a row.

I thought the young guns had a shot to make something of themselves and pull off a run after 2013. 2014 demonstrated that to have been fool's gold, and even with the Wings playing the Lightning tough in 2015 there really wasn't enough there to indicate we could just sign some players and turn the core at the time into a contender.

2-3 years ago is when we started to pile up on the picks so not sure how we'd farther ahead at this point. (Perhaps more depth in the prospect pool?) In 2014, as I saw it, we were easily getting ouplayed by being physically outmuscled. Had bery little to do with skill. Ultimately, same happened against Lighting to a large extent. Our forwards, the go to guys for scoring were just simply outmuscled and we couldn't reciprocate the same on their forwards but did well on controlling the play nonetheless. Which kind of indicated not a lack of skill but lack of grit. 2015 is where it just became pretty obvious that none of our youngsters would pan out the way we hoped and then Datsyuk bounced. The way Holland handled it however, tells me that he would have handled it the same way if we were projecting to miss the playoffs earlier. Because as soon as it became a long shot, Holland traded just about every contract he could to get picks in return. That very much started with Datsyuk's cap hit. Oh and yes, Holland to this day is doing the same thing. If this team picks up and challenges for the playoff spot this season, don't expect him to sell off. Only difference between now and then is that I don't think Holland will try and sell off picks to make the push. It would be more about see how our youngsters handle themselves in the playoff environment.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

This is just simply untrue. Even if in context of stats, it SHOULD have been received as a fair or good deal, all forms of social media I can recall were pissed at it, including the majority of posters on this site. We're not talking at whether or not it should have been a good deal because in real life fans are not impartial. A lot of people, myself included, didn't believe Howard was as good as his stats, as he was still prone to giving up bad, back breaking goals, at the worst possible time.

The primary narrative about Howard from 2010-2014 was essentially "Above Average Goalie who you couldn't trust to make the big save". Howard's penchants of soft goals has followed him ever since his rookie season. In many ways, he's the Anti Osgood, who was a mediocre regular season goalie most years, but made the unexpected save when you needed him too. Fans, well educated (in regards to following the team closely) and typical FB commentators, alike didn't trust Howard.

As for Ericsson's, I for one do think he is still an ok 4th-5th defenseman, and many people (including myself), expected him to grow into that at the time of that contract. But everyone knew it was a risk, similar to Filpulla's 5x3=15 mil deal. Overpay in the short term and hopefully they make it a bargain later. Ericsson didn't make it a bargain.

Well, that tells me more about the people complaining than anything.

And "Anti-Osgood"? Why do you think the Wings let Osgood get drafted by the Islanders in the waiver draft? You are full of **** if you say that late 90s Osgood was "the goalie who was okay in the regular season but made a stop every now and then. The Wings brought in Vernon and then brought in Ranford and then brought in Hasek. They were always looking for a guy who wasn't Chris Osgood. He was that guy in the late 2000s. The really underwhelming regular season stats turned playoff stud.

Bearing Down Red Wings goaltender Chris Osgood has allowed some soft goals in the playoffs, but he's determined to dispel Motown's doubts about whether he's Cup-worthy

A part of this sounds an AWFUL lot like what you're saying about Howard. Or CuJo or literally any goaltender in hockey.

Forgive me if I don't take the admittedly impartial opinion that Howard's contract was a bad contract to heart when the city has repeatedly thrown every goaltender out on their ass unceremoniously. Curtis Joseph in a series where the Wings scored 6 goals in 4 games got *****ed about and *****ed about. 2-1, 3-2, 2-1, 3-2.

TL;DR - If people were losing their minds about Jimmy Howard's contract, it was based on the fact that they don't want ANY goalie in Detroit more than a couple years.

 

[Hatter of the Beach]

Well, that tells me more about the people complaining than anything.

And "Anti-Osgood"? Why do you think the Wings let Osgood get drafted by the Islanders in the waiver draft? You are full of **** if you say that late 90s Osgood was "the goalie who was okay in the regular season but made a stop every now and then. The Wings brought in Vernon and then brought in Ranford and then brought in Hasek. They were always looking for a guy who wasn't Chris Osgood. He was that guy in the late 2000s. The really underwhelming regular season stats turned playoff stud.

Bearing Down Red Wings goaltender Chris Osgood has allowed some soft goals in the playoffs, but he's determined to dispel Motown's doubts about whether he's Cup-worthy

A part of this sounds an AWFUL lot like what you're saying about Howard. Or CuJo or literally any goaltender in hockey.

Forgive me if I don't take the admittedly impartial opinion that Howard's contract was a bad contract to heart when the city has repeatedly thrown every goaltender out on their ass unceremoniously. Curtis Joseph in a series where the Wings scored 6 goals in 4 games got *****ed about and *****ed about. 2-1, 3-2, 2-1, 3-2.

TL;DR - If people were losing their minds about Jimmy Howard's contract, it was based on the fact that they don't want ANY goalie in Detroit more than a couple years.

The iteration of Osgood I was referring to was late career Osgood. That's on me for not specifying.

As for your last sentence in the TL;DR, that probably is the reason, but it's also a good reason. In today's NHL, there are more than 30 goalies capable of being a starter for a playoff team. Signing a non top 10 goalie (even at Howard's peak this was very arguable) for more than a few years is needlessly limiting your options.

 

[Red Stanley]

This is just simply untrue. Even if in context of stats, it SHOULD have been received as a fair or good deal, all forms of social media I can recall were pissed at it, including the majority of posters on this site. We're not talking at whether or not it should have been a good deal because in real life fans are not impartial. A lot of people, myself included, didn't believe Howard was as good as his stats, as he was still prone to giving up bad, back breaking goals, at the worst possible time.

The primary narrative about Howard from 2010-2014 was essentially "Above Average Goalie who you couldn't trust to make the big save". Howard's penchants of soft goals has followed him ever since his rookie season. In many ways, he's the Anti Osgood, who was a mediocre regular season goalie most years, but made the unexpected save when you needed him too. Fans, well educated (in regards to following the team closely) and typical FB commentators, alike didn't trust Howard.

As for Ericsson's, I for one do think he is still an ok 4th-5th defenseman, and many people (including myself), expected him to grow into that at the time of that contract. But everyone knew it was a risk, similar to Filpulla's 5x3=15 mil deal. Overpay in the short term and hopefully they make it a bargain later. Ericsson didn't make it a bargain.

I disagree. It's not easy to compare two goalies whose styles are so different, but to say that Howard is the anti Osgood because he gives up soft goals at bad times is to ignore the fact that Osgood gave up plenty of "soft" goals in bigger games and playing behind much better teams. That really is the biggest flaw behind this sort of argument, in my opinion. One goalie played for championship-caliber teams. The other one never did. I'd argue that Howard's style lends itself to a higher degree of consistency and any lack thereof has been due largely to injuries. The stats clearly back this up, especially when examined within the context of him playing for a team that got progressively worse in all categories and was arguably kept afloat due to solid goaltending for longer than it should have.