News Article: THN: Kenny "I don't look over my shoulder" Holland

[kliq]

What has he done lately?

I think most would point to the 2018 draft.

 

[RedWingzz]

Ken Holland has been involved drafting the winning core he did win 4 Cups and 6 President's trophies, and will be doing same again.

He is drafting our next core for the next GM who'll get all the success.

Such a great hockey-mind.

This bashing is just disgusting.

Disgusting? What's disgusting are the Abdelkader and Helm contracts. The Nielsen and the Ericsson contracts. The Dekeyser and the Howard contracts. The massive overpayment on Stephen Weiss, only to buy him out after 2 years. These contracts he has dished out are disgusting. Sure over the pat year or so he has made a couple nice trades, but the reason we are the worst team in the NHL with one of the highest cap hits can be blamed on Holland, and Holland only.

It's time for a massive culture change. A new GM and new coach are needed. These guys have overstayed their welcome, and their message has become stale. The players don't compete for them.

 

[TatarTangle]

Disgusting? What's disgusting are the Abdelkader and Helm contracts. The Nielsen and the Ericsson contracts. The Dekeyser and the Howard contracts. The massive overpayment on Stephen Weiss, only to buy him out after 2 years. These contracts he has dished out are disgusting. Sure over the pat year or so he has made a couple nice trades, but the reason we are the worst team in the NHL with one of the highest cap hits can be blamed on Holland, and Holland only.

It's time for a massive culture change. A new GM and new coach are needed. These guys have overstayed their welcome, and their message has become stale. The players don't compete for them.

I'm with you except the Howard contract. For his cap hit, and considering it's up after this season, he did his job.

And to a point, players not competing for them. Not going to argue they aren't, but I just want to say that speaks more on the players character than it does the GM or coach, imho

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Ken Holland has been involved drafting the winning core he did win 4 Cups and 6 President's trophies, and will be doing same again.

He is drafting our next core for the next GM who'll get all the success.

Such a great hockey-mind.

This bashing is just disgusting.

The last Cup win was a decade ago, as were the President's Trophies. The guy has had a great career as a GM but this is a results based business. He's never had to rebuild a team as GM and up until the last draft or so a lot of the moves he was making didn't exactly instill confidence. Like coaches, GM's have a shelf life too, regardless of their past accomplishments.

Frankly it's hard to reconcile the guy who helped build those Cup teams with the guy who handed out those contracts to Helm and Abby, but they're the same person. It's like Kenny has had two distinct chapters of his career as GM. One was all glory and the other is a lot of head scratching.

 

[kliq]

Disgusting? What's disgusting are the Abdelkader and Helm contracts. The Nielsen and the Ericsson contracts. The Dekeyser and the Howard contracts. The massive overpayment on Stephen Weiss, only to buy him out after 2 years. These contracts he has dished out are disgusting. Sure over the pat year or so he has made a couple nice trades, but the reason we are the worst team in the NHL with one of the highest cap hits can be blamed on Holland, and Holland only.

It's time for a massive culture change. A new GM and new coach are needed. These guys have overstayed their welcome, and their message has become stale. The players don't compete for them.

I think the link between the bad contracts and and us being bad is overstated. I'm not going to argue that these contracts were good, outside of the Howard contract and maybe at the DD contract, those are mostly very bad, but had Holland not signed those contracts, or if he could snap his fingers and make those contracts disappear, I don't think we are any better. Sure maybe guys like Frk, Turgeon, Puempel, Sulak etc. are probably playing every day in the lineup, but we are not any better as a team.

The reason why we are bad is because our elite talent regressed, went on LTIR, or left and we were not able to replenish with new elite talent leaving us with a team of second and third line players. Cap Space and financial flexibility only matters when you are a contender. If say the Caps or Pens etc. signed someone like Abby to a contract like his, that could be a killer to the franchise as it could prevent them from adding that final piece to the puzzle therefore decreasing their shots at winning the Stanley Cup. In our situation, all it does is increase our payroll, and possibly prevent a free agent signing that could make us marginally better. Again, this IS NOT a defense of those contracts, I just can't buy in to the narrative that they have anything to do with why we are where we are now. Do you really think that if we never signed any of those guys, and instead singed players like Stasny, Niskanen, etc. we would be cup contenders?

When things come crashing down, people like to point and all types of different reasons as to why, in our case its simple. No elite talent. Hopefully Larkin, Zadina, Chowolski, and future picks to come can get there.

I can't defend the majority of Holland's moves between 2014-2017, but from the 2017 TDL on, I think he has done a great job. Comments to the media mean nothing to me, I dont care if he says he is not looking over his shoulder.

 

[Pizza!Pizza!]

Even though that quote is a bit out of context, Holland is 100% correct. He'll always have a job if he wants it.

Look at how Mike Keenan kept getting work even though he ruined every team he ever touched and only had success once and it was (by his own admission) by riding Mark Messier's coattails.

Kenny's HOF passport is stamped, he'll always be a better GM than most of the idiots in the league. He's literally forgotten more about hockey than any Blues GM has ever known.

 

[Dotter]

By "achieving" re-building on the fly, I assume you mean "re-building on the fly to win the cup"? I only ask, because if you just mean doing it successfully and maintaining contending status, I would say San Jose did it as well.

Well considering they have more years of "did not qualify" to make the playoffs than making the cup finals, let alone never winning a cup.... I guess they did okay. But that would never fly around here if KH had the same results. And they did just draft #9 like 3 or 4 years ago. /Meh.

Feels like SJS are always in the never, never zone. Good enough to not draft superstars, but not good enough to win a cup.

 

[TheOtherOne]

The last Cup win was a decade ago, as were the President's Trophies. The guy has had a great career as a GM but this is a results based business. He's never had to rebuild a team as GM and up until the last draft or so a lot of the moves he was making didn't exactly instill confidence. Like coaches, GM's have a shelf life too, regardless of their past accomplishments.

Frankly it's hard to reconcile the guy who helped build those Cup teams with the guy who handed out those contracts to Helm and Abby, but they're the same person. It's like Kenny has had two distinct chapters of his career as GM. One was all glory and the other is a lot of head scratching.

You say "decade" like it's a long time. A decade in a 30-team league in which only 1 can win each year. And in that decade only 5/30 teams have won. And before that decade we had one of the best decades of any sports franchise in sports history. And after that decade we had the continuation of a playoff streak that KH valued (whether or not you care about that, it's over now, so the situation is completely different).

If we're still in bad shape a few more years from now, you'll have a point. But right now it is way too early to harp on this what have you done for me lately stuff.

 

[Blueliner70]

Am I the only who could see Holland being replaced in Feb? Not saying he gets fired. But, a change is made......................

 

[InjuredChoker]

Well considering they have more years of "did not qualify" to make the playoffs than making the cup finals, let alone never winning a cup.... I guess they did okay. But that would never fly around here if KH had the same results. And they did just draft #9 like 3 or 4 years ago. /Meh.

Feels like SJS are always in the never, never zone. Good enough to not draft superstars, but not good enough to win a cup.

since doug Wilson became their GM, they have missed the playoffs once and made the cup finals once.

 

[Frk It]

You say "decade" like it's a long time. A decade in a 30-team league in which only 1 can win each year. And in that decade only 5/30 teams have won. And before that decade we had one of the best decades of any sports franchise in sports history. And after that decade we had the continuation of a playoff streak that KH valued (whether or not you care about that, it's over now, so the situation is completely different).

If we're still in bad shape a few more years from now, you'll have a point. But right now it is way too early to harp on this what have you done for me lately stuff.

Kings didn't think so when they fired Lombardi. Sports are a pretty "what have you done for me lately" environment.

 

[kliq]

Well considering they have more years of "did not qualify" to make the playoffs than making the cup finals, let alone never winning a cup.... I guess they did okay. But that would never fly around here if KH had the same results. And they did just draft #9 like 3 or 4 years ago. /Meh.

Feels like SJS are always in the never, never zone. Good enough to not draft superstars, but not good enough to win a cup.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "did not qualify" remark.

They Sharks were contenders in the early 2000's after acquiring Joe Thornton. Since then they have maintained that status as a contenders pretty much every year with the exception of 2014/15 when they did not make the playoffs. They (like the Wings before them) found a way to keep up high end hockey without any draft picks in the top 5.

I agree with your point that the Wings did a great job re-building on the fly, I just think the Sharks did a great job as well since Thornton joined them. Now if we are talking playoff success, that is a different story lol.

 

[kliq]

Kings didn't think so when they fired Lombardi. Sports are a pretty "what have you done for me lately" environment.

They did fire him, but I would argue that they have regressed since. Sometimes the best move is no move at all.

A good example of this if you're looking at the Wings back in the mid 90's is when we were close to trading Yzerman for Yashin. Thank god Bowman didnt have that mentality!

 

[Cyborg Yzerberg]

Ken should be looking over his shoulder, because I'm going to take his job!

 

[Shaman464]

I think the link between the bad contracts and and us being bad is overstated. I'm not going to argue that these contracts were good, outside of the Howard contract and maybe at the DD contract, those are mostly very bad, but had Holland not signed those contracts, or if he could snap his fingers and make those contracts disappear, I don't think we are any better. Sure maybe guys like Frk, Turgeon, Puempel, Sulak etc. are probably playing every day in the lineup, but we are not any better as a team.

The reason why we are bad is because our elite talent regressed, went on LTIR, or left and we were not able to replenish with new elite talent leaving us with a team of second and third line players. Cap Space and financial flexibility only matters when you are a contender. If say the Caps or Pens etc. signed someone like Abby to a contract like his, that could be a killer to the franchise as it could prevent them from adding that final piece to the puzzle therefore decreasing their shots at winning the Stanley Cup. In our situation, all it does is increase our payroll, and possibly prevent a free agent signing that could make us marginally better. Again, this IS NOT a defense of those contracts, I just can't buy in to the narrative that they have anything to do with why we are where we are now. Do you really think that if we never signed any of those guys, and instead singed players like Stasny, Niskanen, etc. we would be cup contenders?

When things come crashing down, people like to point and all types of different reasons as to why, in our case its simple. No elite talent. Hopefully Larkin, Zadina, Chowolski, and future picks to come can get there.

I can't defend the majority of Holland's moves between 2014-2017, but from the 2017 TDL on, I think he has done a great job. Comments to the media mean nothing to me, I dont care if he says he is not looking over his shoulder.

The reason why many of them were bad were that they happened at all. Most of the players signed that people hate are exactly the ones that teams what learned how to work under the new CBA would let walk and replace with kids. Roleplayers are great to have, but paying a premium to keep them, especially entering a rebuild, instead of trading them, was a major mistake and may have set things back that much more.

 

[Steve Yzerlland]

I think most would point to the 2018 draft.

And theres no guarantee any of those players will be high quality stars. The last move he has done to make the team better is what, signing Hossa as a UFA?

 

[SCD]

What has he done lately?

How about trading down in the 2016 draft (16-20) for what turned out to be Cholowski, Hronek, and $7.5 mil cap hit?

 

[SCD]

When you look at the line of questioning that THN purportedly asked before and after that exchange, it might just as well be you who is taking it out of context. The questioner appears to be trying to get Holland to tip his hand regarding this upcoming off-season and a potential hand-off/succession (i.e. "the Steve Yzerman situation"); anyone who knows the first damn thing about this organization knows that the chances of Holland being fired or otherwise unseated against his will are nil.
He could've answered the follow-up question effectively the same way he answered the initial question: "No." For a guy who is normally tactful and almost graceful in his dealings with the press, Holland's response here was utterly revealing.

First of all, Ken Campbell is an idiot.
Second of all, Ken Campbell is an idiot.

 

[Shadywing19]

I think the link between the bad contracts and and us being bad is overstated. I'm not going to argue that these contracts were good, outside of the Howard contract and maybe at the DD contract, those are mostly very bad, but had Holland not signed those contracts, or if he could snap his fingers and make those contracts disappear, I don't think we are any better. Sure maybe guys like Frk, Turgeon, Puempel, Sulak etc. are probably playing every day in the lineup, but we are not any better as a team.

The reason why we are bad is because our elite talent regressed, went on LTIR, or left and we were not able to replenish with new elite talent leaving us with a team of second and third line players. Cap Space and financial flexibility only matters when you are a contender. If say the Caps or Pens etc. signed someone like Abby to a contract like his, that could be a killer to the franchise as it could prevent them from adding that final piece to the puzzle therefore decreasing their shots at winning the Stanley Cup. In our situation, all it does is increase our payroll, and possibly prevent a free agent signing that could make us marginally better. Again, this IS NOT a defense of those contracts, I just can't buy in to the narrative that they have anything to do with why we are where we are now. Do you really think that if we never signed any of those guys, and instead singed players like Stasny, Niskanen, etc. we would be cup contenders?

When things come crashing down, people like to point and all types of different reasons as to why, in our case its simple. No elite talent. Hopefully Larkin, Zadina, Chowolski, and future picks to come can get there.

I can't defend the majority of Holland's moves between 2014-2017, but from the 2017 TDL on, I think he has done a great job. Comments to the media mean nothing to me, I dont care if he says he is not looking over his shoulder.

Pretty bang on as far as I'm concerned.. Couldn't have said it better myself.. Ppl's like to look at what he did between 2014 & 2017 and basically put blinders on for the rest. Since they missed the playoffs he's pretty much signed stop gaps, played the kids, acquired assets for pending UFA's and drafted lots of potentialy good young kids with those assets.. He's doing exactly what he should be doing right now.. But most will forever focus on the negative while ignoring anything positive.

 

[Cyborg Yzerberg]

Holland has been pretty terrible in the 2010’s, he made some good trades the last year or two, and I liked his 2018 draft a lot. But everyone has a shelf life, and Holland’s was 6 years ago.

 

[Dotter]

since doug Wilson became their GM, they have missed the playoffs once and made the cup finals once.

They also didn't qualify in 2003 when Kenny was already playing Datsyuk and Zetterberg.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "did not qualify" remark.

They Sharks were contenders in the early 2000's after acquiring Joe Thornton. Since then they have maintained that status as a contenders pretty much every year with the exception of 2014/15 when they did not make the playoffs. They (like the Wings before them) found a way to keep up high end hockey without any draft picks in the top 5.

I agree with your point that the Wings did a great job re-building on the fly, I just think the Sharks did a great job as well since Thornton joined them. Now if we are talking playoff success, that is a different story lol.

Since 2002 they missed the playoffs more times than they made it to the SCF. On this board, if it were Kenny H., fans here would call that a massive failure, not a good rebuild on the fly.

From the outside point of view, I see it as okay. But If I were a SJS fan, I'd be sick over not getting over the hump. Jumbo Joe isn't getting any younger.

 

[kliq]

They also didn't qualify in 2003 when Kenny was already playing Datsyuk and Zetterberg.

Since 2002 they missed the playoffs more times than they made it to the SCF. On this board, if it were Kenny H., fans here would call that a massive failure, not a good rebuild on the fly.

From the outside point of view, I see it as okay. But If I were a SJS fan, I'd be sick over not getting over the hump. Jumbo Joe isn't getting any younger.

Why are you referencing 2003? I specifically am referring to the fact that they re-built on the fly as Thornton and co. aged. Thornton came in 2006, this is when they became legitimate contenders and between him, Cheechoo, Nabokov, Stuart, Marleau etc. they had a strong core. Since that time, they missed the playoffs once and have managed to re-build on the fly with mostly mid round to late round picks/free agency/trades and have stayed contenders. Its not as impressive as what Holland did because Holland actually won a cup re-building on the fly, but its impressive none the less, and to say nobody has every done is successfully other then Holland is IMO untrue.

As far as what the Det fans would be saying if they were us, you may be right. Detroit is a harsh sports town.

It would be frustrating being a SJ fan, I get that, but you can't take away that the have put a legit contender on the ice for more then a decade with pretty much zero top 5 picks. That is impressive.

 

[kliq]

And theres no guarantee any of those players will be high quality stars. The last move he has done to make the team better is what, signing Hossa as a UFA?

Not getting sucked in Jonas.

 

[kliq]

The reason why many of them were bad were that they happened at all. Most of the players signed that people hate are exactly the ones that teams what learned how to work under the new CBA would let walk and replace with kids. Roleplayers are great to have, but paying a premium to keep them, especially entering a rebuild, instead of trading them, was a major mistake and may have set things back that much more.

I am not disputing anything in the bold, nor was I in my post. If you re-read my post, you will see that I never said the moves were good.

As for the non bold, I think this is a common misconception among fans. I think fans allow their emotion to cloud their judgement, and due to the fact that they despise certain moves on principal, they create a false narrative to justify their outrage.

Lets specifically talk Helm, Abby, and Nielsen because those are the 3 contracts most talk about when discussing the bad contracts Holland has given out.

I fail to see how those three contracts have "set things back that much more."

Had we never signed Nielsen, I do not think we are much better or worse as I don't think he has made a significant difference. I think the only thing that changes if he was not here, is we have more cap (which right now means nothing), and Turgeon is likely an everyday player. I really don't think this changes our trajectory. Bad contract no doubt, and I wish we didnt have him, but I don't think it matters. MAYBE if we are contenders in a couple years and we need cap to sign a really good UFA or trade for someone to put us over the hump, then I can agree with you.

Had we never extended Abby, I also do not think we are much better right or worse. Like Nielsen, if he was not here, we have more cap (which again right now means nothing), and Frk is likely an everyday player. No change in trajectory. Maybe you can argue Abby gets us a 3rd or 4th at the TDL, and sure that would be nice and I wish it happened, but it's nothing that should effect us when it comes to acquiring elite talent. In all probability it's the difference between us drafting a bust, or a 4th liner.

Had we never signed Helm, pretty much same as above, except we likely get a worse pick and Puempel becomes an everyday player.

To be clear I 100% admit they were bad signings, and I do not want this post to get twisted, but as far as actually changing our trajectory, I don't see it. Sure there is a chance then one of the mid level picks we could have gotten could have been better then expected, but it's highly unlikely. We're a lottery team with them, we are a lottery team without them.

 

[iDangleDangle]

There's no denying that Holland is a great hockey mind, but he has run his course as a GM of this team and isn't maybe aggressive enough to command a rebuild on this day and era.

If and when Stevie returns, I'd hate to see Holland go to a different org. I'd prefer him in an advisor/presiden role etc.