Post-Game Talk: The first step to losing is trying

[SoupNazi]

My point was that they needed to pick a direction and go with it, not sit on their hands.

But to address how recently a team made a tough decision, despite high success? June 30, 2015.

Only 15 days after winning the Stanley Cup, Chicago dealt Saad's rights to Columbus. Despite his 23 goals and 52 points, they spun him off, rather than (they deemed) overpay a player not (in their estimation) part of their core.

A "tough decision" does not equal the rebuild you've been calling for, and you still haven't provided an example of a team tearing down a winning team to start a rebuild.

Trading Saad because of cap problems isn't a great example, either.

 

[WingedWheel1987]

How about trading away Patrick Sharp?

Spent almost his entire career in Chicago, and he was traded because it would have hurt the Hawks in the long run if they had tried to figure out a way to keep him. He was the oldest and most replaceable player on the Hawks roster by that point.

Meanwhile Kenny won't trade away bottom six depth talent and hands them ludicrous contracts. Literally everyone with a functioning brain knew that Darren Helm was coming back, despite the fact that that the Wings had a plethora of young prospects ready to fill his roster spot.

Patrick Sharp, a former 70 point player is replaceable, but Justin Abdelkader and Darren Helm are "irreplaceable" according to the Detroit Red Wings. Oh boy, i'm so glad the Wings have those irreplaceable players locked up for the next decade.

The Wings didn't need to tear down the roster. They just needed to stop making short sighted signings that did nothing to improve the long term success of the franchise.

Trading away players like Abdelkader and Helm shouldn't even qualify as a tough decision. It's a no brainer if the organization is being managed by somebody with a clue.

Of course it's very easy to figure out why the Wings did what they did. They are a bad organization, and overpaying for multiple bottom six grinders is something bad organizations do. Good organizations don't have the highest payroll in the league while icing one of the worst rosters in the NHL.

 

[Claypool]

How about trading away Patrick Sharp?

Another situation due to the salary cap crunch. Keep trying, though.

 

[Syckle78]

Okay.

All those words and you still dodged the question. When was the last time a team with 48 wins and 102 points the previous season tore it down and started a rebuild?

You're asking for an example in a very small sample size. 42 wins and 102 points in the current system sounds nice but it isn't really an example of much. Precap era if a team got 100+ points they were a very good team. Now that's barely the floor for making the playoffs.

This is supposed to be one of the premier franchises in sports employing the best minds in the game. Shouldn't they be able to see beyond the raw points and where the team is trending? If it was so apparent to us pleebs on a message board they should of seen beyond the raw numbers and reacted accordingly.

 

[avssuc]

It would have been by far the greatest achievement in sports history if Holland had perfectly rebuilt the team ONCE AGAIN within a span of 5 years without missing the playoffs. We would be talking about the playoff streak possibly reaching 40-50 years and I'd have a picture of Holland tattooed all over my chest.
But the team has gotten younger each year, we've had more and more rookies stepping in, we've been drafting higher and higher and being less active at the TDL, and now we're getting to draft in the top 10. A rebuild takes more than 5 years, but if we can add 1-2 high-end players to this group we might avoid spending 5-10 years in the basement.

How would you, Claypool, or Holland defend the bold?

Since Nill ran the draft and waited patiently to grab two superstars in the last rounds, since Holland had little or nothing to do with drafting Lidstrom or Kronwall; all I'm seeing is the trade for Brad Stuart (a guy in a contract year that turned down an offer to stay), signing Dallas Drake, Osgood, and Cleary. Seems pretty milquetoast to me. Not that he doesn't deserve some credit there, but it's not as if he moved mountains. I just can't get on the Holland HoF bandwagon.

Make a pitch and try to get me to buy a ticket.

 

[Reddwit]

The Red Wings can make a qualifying offer this offseason and call it a day. No negotiating required. He doesn't have arbitration rights for another year. It doesn't matter if he scores 100 goals this year. He isn't owned anything more than $650,000 in salary if the Red Wings don't want to sign him to a longer-term deal.

Athanasiou's only options this offseason are sign a qualifying offer, negotiate a long-term deal, sign an offer-sheet, or sit the year out. I imagine AA will take the qualifying offer, then either sign a long-term deal next offseason or go to arbitration, but the Red Wings will have plenty of cap space then so it won't matter. Team's aren't going to bother offer-sheeting AA so don't worry.

What are you talking about? This is just wrong all over.

First of all, the Red Wings tendering a qualifying offer does nothing other than retain Athanasiou's rights.

Second, Athanasiou can negotiate a long-term deal or a short-term deal. He can negotiate any deal he wants. And he certainly doesn't have to take the qualify offer nor will he. Its hilarious to me that you think a guy who is currently tied for the team lead in goals is going to get down with the idea of making a flashy $690k next season. I'd bet dollars to donuts that does not happen.

Third, who said anything about arbitration rights? I certainly didn't. But anyone can still offer-sheet him and he is the poster child for the NHL's preferred forward these days. Moreover, offer sheets are not always made to superstars. In fact, they're more often made to young guys who show flashes of impending success rather than those who have already reached their peak. I'm sure plenty of teams would happily risk landing Athanasiou at a salary of $2.5M only to give up a 2nd round pick. And there is no telling what the expansion draft could do to alter a GM's typical outlook.

 

[jkutswings]

A "tough decision" does not equal the rebuild you've been calling for, and you still haven't provided an example of a team tearing down a winning team to start a rebuild.

Trading Saad because of cap problems isn't a great example, either.

Look, we can play cat and mouse, quibbling over details, but to get to the meat of it, let's acknowledge that there's probably never been the extreme example you're trying to paint me into a corner over. No team has ever completely torn it down while still winning. Two things:

1) If everything needs a precedent, then show me the example of another team using only late draft picks, and rarely ever making significant trades, and not managing to sign any top-notch free agents...and somehow getting anywhere near a championship.

2) Management either didn't believe the run was over, or redefined their standards of success. In terms of what many fans value about sports - and what it means to be a good front office - either of those is a problem.

 

[Flowah]

Another situation due to the salary cap crunch. Keep trying, though.

Why do you say that like it means anything at all?

Wings aren't exactly swimming in cap space. And regardless of why they let Sharp go, they still made that decision and kept their team far more competitive than we have. Sharp, Saad, Shaw, good players that are gone and yet they're still better than we are because their management team knows how to cycle players through in the cap era.

We clearly don't.

 

[Claypool]

Why do you say that like it means anything at all?

Wings aren't exactly swimming in cap space. And regardless of why they let Sharp go, they still made that decision and kept their team far more competitive than we have. Sharp, Saad, Shaw, good players that are gone and yet they're still better than we are because their management team knows how to cycle players through in the cap era.

We clearly don't.

Helps when Kane, Seabrook, Keith, and Toews are in their prime. Also, don't forget the Blackhawks that year were actually over the salary cap due to Kane's injury. They iced a team $5 million over the cap during the post season.

Post 2012 The Red Wings lost Lidstrom and Stuart, and the year before that Rafalski. Blackhawks wouldn't be able to rebound losing Seabrook, Keith, and Hjalmarsson in a two year span.

 

[Claypool]

Look, we can play cat and mouse, quibbling over details, but to get to the meat of it, let's acknowledge that there's probably never been the extreme example you're trying to paint me into a corner over. No team has ever completely torn it down while still winning. Two things:

1) If everything needs a precedent, then show me the example of another team using only late draft picks, and rarely ever making significant trades, and not managing to sign any top-notch free agents...and somehow getting anywhere near a championship.

2) Management either didn't believe the run was over, or redefined their standards of success. In terms of what many fans value about sports - and what it means to be a good front office - either of those is a problem.

Will argue with you once you give us an example of a team blowing it up after a 48-win, 102 point season. We're waiting.

 

[Flowah]

They iced a team $5 million over the cap during the post season.

Sounds like they know how to manage the cap. Unless you're trying to claim they broke the rules which I don't think you're trying to do.

Helps when Kane, Seabrook, Keith, and Toews are in their prime.

Maybe we need to do what the Hawks did to get players like that then.

 

[jkutswings]

Will argue with you once you give us an example of a team blowing it up after a 48-win, 102 point season. We're waiting.

You quoted my own words, saying it hasn't happened. Now you're just being obtuse.

And you're also ignoring all the points that lots of people have been making, saying that Detroit could have tried all sorts of things that made up a wide variety of options in between blowing it up and being passive while the roster died a slow death.

Doing what they did was an awful way of having any chance at a championship, and an awful way of acquiring any impactful talent for the future. It was the worst of both worlds, in terms of being decisive.

 

[Winger98]

Helps when Kane, Seabrook, Keith, and Toews are in their prime. Also, don't forget the Blackhawks that year were actually over the salary cap due to Kane's injury. They iced a team $5 million over the cap during the post season.

Post 2012 The Red Wings lost Lidstrom and Stuart, and the year before that Rafalski. Blackhawks wouldn't be able to rebound losing Seabrook, Keith, and Hjalmarsson in a two year span.

that would probably fit into an argument about how the Wings should have seen the handwriting on the wall and not kept signing bandaids while trying to stay minimally competitive. Losing out on Suter at that time should have probably helped hammer the point home.

I think we started seeing a bad shift in philosophy around that time, though. We let Hudler walk and signed Bertuzzi, Sammy, and Tootoo. We brought in Brunner and then both he and Flip decided to walk. In hindsight keeping Hudler and Flip should have been higher priorities. Especially with how slowly we brought up the kids until injuries forced our hand.

 

[Claypool]

that would probably fit into an argument about how the Wings should have seen the handwriting on the wall and not kept signing bandaids while trying to stay minimally competitive. Losing out on Suter at that time should have probably helped hammer the point home.

Again, they just came off 102 point, 48-win season. No sane general manager is going to blow it up.

I think we started seeing a bad shift in philosophy around that time, though. We let Hudler walk and signed Bertuzzi, Sammy, and Tootoo. We brought in Brunner and then both he and Flip decided to walk. In hindsight keeping Hudler and Flip should have been higher priorities. Especially with how slowly we brought up the kids until injuries forced our hand.

Hudler and Filppula wanted to get as far away from Babcock as possible.

 

[Heaton]

Again, they just came off 102 point, 48-win season. No sane general manager is going to blow it up.

Didn't need to blow it up, but you could see changes needed to be made and Holland never did anything proactive to plan for the future.

 

[Winger98]

Again, they just came off 102 point, 48-win season. No sane general manager is going to blow it up.

Hudler and Filppula wanted to get as far away from Babcock as possible.

Did I say they should have blown it up? They could have just been more conservative handing out contracts to people like Cleary, Berrtuzzi, Sammy, Tootoo, Quincey, etc., while being a bit more aggressive in trading pending UFA for futures and they would have probably had roughly the same amount of success while setting themselves up better for the long run.

And we refused to meet Flip and Hudler's asking price. Did they love Babcock? Probably not, but the bigger motivator was getting paid.

 

[borisbadenough]

I fear getting rid of Howard is going to create a major problem in goal next year. How many games does this guy need to lose on soft goals before somebody notices? Yes our d contributes big time every game but geez , you could bring in three guys from Europe better than him. At this point keep Howard.

 

[Ezekial]

I fear getting rid of Howard is going to create a major problem in goal next year. How many games does this guy need to lose on soft goals before somebody notices? Yes our d contributes big time every game but geez , you could bring in three guys from Europe better than him. At this point keep Howard.

A lot of goalies aren't even in the league before they're 25. Despite his terrible season he's still a .915 career goalie.

 

[Dotter]

Will argue with you once you give us an example of a team blowing it up after a 48-win, 102 point season. We're waiting.

One thing I have started noticing around the NHL the past 3 or 4 years is every-team-in-the-NHL has a group of fans that are always complaining about their GM and lack of their perceived success, or how they run their franchise.

Fans in today's NHL (around the entire NHL) think there is a magic button that could have been pushed when they analyze hindsight. We always here "If they done it my way..."

But this isn't exclusive to Red Wings. In fact, Red Wings, despite their descend, isn't the worse as far as angry vocal fans. There are fans of other hockey teams that are wayyyyy more unreasonable than Detroit fans.

What does this tell me? This tells me Bettman's parity league is working exactly the way he wanted it to. This is exactly how the NHL is designed.

You can either complain about your team's lack of dominance each and every night, or you can just watch the game at face value and know any team can lose any given night in this parity league. I chose the latter.

I would be worried if this was exclusive to Red Wings fans exclusively, but you can go to any given board on this hockey forum and read numerous disgruntled fans upset the way their GM is running their franchise and want their coach fired.

Toronto is not on that list yet because their fans are still in the "honeymoon" stage, but it'll be short lived. Just like every other NHL team around the league.

To me, I think fans should direct their anger at the game, not the player. This is what Bettman wanted; he got it. Fans are not happy with it. The solution is vote with your pocket book. NHL is making tons of cash. They are not changing it until they lose money.

Bottom line, the issue isn't with NHL teams, but the poorly thought-out system created by Bettman. Parity.

 

[Heaton]

Bottom line, the issue isn't with NHL teams, but the poorly thought-out system created by Bettman. Parity.

Maybe, or maybe it's just a lot of teams making bad decisions. That's not just in hockey, but in all sports.

 

[Dotter]

Maybe, or maybe it's just a lot of teams making bad decisions. That's not just in hockey, but in all sports.

I could also sit behind my computer and complain how poor of a design Bill Gates and Co developed Windows 1.0 in 1985, and point out how the writing was clearly on the wall.... and post about how he could have made it better had it just done it my way.

 

[Heaton]

I could also sit behind my computer and complain how poor of a design Bill Gates and Co developed Windows 1.0 in 1985, and point out how the writing was clearly on the wall.... and stated how he could have made it better had it just done it my way.

You could, and sometimes you're going to be right and Bill Gates is going to be wrong, what's your point?

 

[Dotter]

You could, and sometimes you're going to be right and Bill Gates is going to be wrong, what's your point?

My point is you should enjoy the fact that Microsoft has become such a big part of the worlds technology that helped pave the way to all these cool gadgets and tools we have now.

Had Bill done it my way would mean I am a multi-billionaire because that means I have the foresight to fix things before the other guy.

In regards to hockey, NHL is a better league because of Ken Holland, it is also a worse league because of him. It's worse because Bettman made a fool proof plan that made the league parity. Each season is proving that. Every fan in the league, even the franchises parity helps the most, fans complain about it.

Wings fans are complaining because Ken Holland hasn't 'adjusted' to it yet. But he has. He's not trading off picks and isn't forcing kids who aren't ready for the NHL yet to be in the NHL. He is being patient and has signed 'stop gap' contracts ala Abby and Helm to help the team develop.

In my views, Ken Holland hasn't done anything wrong to justify the criticisms he gets around here. They even said Wings are going to be entering dark times. That's part of parity. It's to be expected. You don't have to accept it and you can express your dissatisfaction of parity by voting with your wallet.

Focus your anger at the parity league, not the men adjusting to it.

 

[HIFE]

How would you, Claypool, or Holland defend the bold?

Since Nill ran the draft and waited patiently to grab two superstars in the last rounds, since Holland had little or nothing to do with drafting Lidstrom or Kronwall; all I'm seeing is the trade for Brad Stuart (a guy in a contract year that turned down an offer to stay), signing Dallas Drake, Osgood, and Cleary. Seems pretty milquetoast to me. Not that he doesn't deserve some credit there, but it's not as if he moved mountains. I just can't get on the Holland HoF bandwagon.

Make a pitch and try to get me to buy a ticket.

I think it's fair to say Holland was heavily responsible for the success of the 2008 Cup squad. Without a doubt beyond Lidstrom and Holmstrom this team was rebuilt quickly after 2002.

Drafts: 04 Franzen (3rd round), Hudler 02 (2nd round), Kronwall 00, Filppula in 02 (3rd round). Datsyuk (98) and Z (99). Pretty amazing success from those later picks.

Mentioned was Stuart but cannot forget other players brought in who were factors. Chelios traded for in 1999. Samuelsson was picked up in 2006. Biggest of all was acquiring Rafalski for that season!

Much of this was sheer luck and favorable conditions Holland was granted from Devellano, especially having a mentor like Bowman to follow. No matter the 2008 Stanley Cup was a great accomplishment and we have to give Holland credit for his part in run.

 

[Heaton]

Focus your anger at the parity league, not the men adjusting to it.

No. I will continue to focus my anger on the person running the Red Wings, whose job is to build this team into a contender. Anything else is a cop out.