Speculation: What if DET doesn't make trades after 2012 ?

[Henkka]

Found this interesting story from Reddit.

Scenario of Red Wings trying to stay competitive.

Lazy Experiment: If we had never made a trade since 2012

A lot of people think of 2012, the year Lidstrom retired, as the year we might need to invest in a rebuild. Instead, obviously, we stayed competitive for 4 more years. Why would we make no trades? Who knows! I'm bored.

So in the shallowest of dives, I present the differences in our teams, from an NHL perspective...

Conclusion:

With no trades, we are a fringe playoff team with no future. We keep some good players, but they are all mostly past their prime or are depth pieces. Speaking strictly in a binary sense, our trades turned out pretty good. Our current core of Mantha, Bertuzzi, and Hronek are the result of these trades. Most of the trades we made turned out to be nothing, but we have a lot more chances at something good moving forward.

All in all, good job Holland. maybe it could've been better, but the do-nothing idea is, obviously, not a great one.

I once made the opposite scenario, like full rebuild after 2012. Selling Datsyuk to Rangers at 2014 deadline (instead of Martin St. Louis). But interesting to see this "lazy view" of the other end.

Click to read more...

 

[Marky9er]

I still agree trying to compete was the right decision, but the retirement of our greatest assets is how we got here. (Not trading Jarnkroks and Janmarks.)

Boston traded Bourque, I might have a look back on how that affected their future.

It's all good. We just need another 1989 draft and we're good to go.

 

[MBH]

We made so many "half measure" trades, pissing away assets for second and third-rate acquisitions.
Legwand. Cole.
If I go back in time...
These are key changes I make - understanding these are positions I held at the time.
1) Don't sign Cleary to the 5 year deal. Replace him with Eaves.
2) Sign Hossa and Franzen, let Sammy Walk and play hardball for Hudler, even if it means losing him to Russia for a year.
3) Don't acquire KFQ, force Babcock to use Kindl/Smith.
4) Draft Kuznetsov over Sheahan (I had this on draft day,
5) Do not trade away Jarnkrok and picks.
6) Do not sign Ericsson, Howard, Abdelkader or Helm to their long-term deals, even if it means losing them.
7) Do not sign junk-ass players like Daley, Nielsen. Keep guys like XO and Marchenko.
8) Earlier call ups and top 9 roles for Tatar/Nyquist. Use players like Jurco/Pulkkinen in top 9 roles with skill players.
9) Fire Babcock around before 12-13, assuming we haven't won another cup, and keep Filppula.
10) Keep Mrazek

So checking in...
Around 2012-13, our lineup is:

Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Eaves
Franzen-Filppula-Hossa
Nyquist-Andersson-Tatar
Adbelkader-Helm-Miller/Mursak

Kronwall-Ericsson
Kindl-Dekeyser
Smith-UFA

Howard.

I think that lineup gets us past Chicago in 2012-13 for two reasons.
1) We get Hossa and they don't.
2) A different coach might have kept Datsyuk-Zetterberg together longer.
3) Flip was a solid 2C in Tampa and would have been just fine with big minutes between Hossa and Franzen.
4) Having Hossa around helps us with the injuries to Franzen, and just gives us that one other big-name guy to worry about.

But like I said, not resigning Howard, could mean he walks.

By 2015-16, it's the end for Datsyuk.
Our team is now looking like

Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Larkin
Tatar-Filppula-Hossa
Nyquist-Kuznetsov-Pulkkinen (or Jurco)
Janmark-Glendening-Jarnkrok
(Franzen LTIR)
(Helm/Abby gone to UFA)

The defense is totally different.
Kronwall - Dekeyser
XO - UFA
Smith - Marchenko

Mrazek/whoever


Today:
Tatar Kuznetsov Mantha
Athanasiou Larkin Bertuzzi
Nyquist Jarnkrok Jurco (Maybe Janmark)
Filppula Glendening Whoever

Defense:
Dekeyser Hronek
XO UFA
Cholowski Marchenko

Goal
Mrazek/Bernier (?)

The biggest early change would have been having Hossa for 5 years in the 2010-15 range. Maybe that brings a cup.

The biggest late change is Kuznetsov. Having Kuznetsov/Larkin as 1-2 centers to build around would have substantially changed our ability to rebuild on the fly.
We still slide, but how much?

 

[Roomba With a Bauer]

I love it when people play what if games, especially when they are clearly done to justify a biased viewpoint.

What if Datsyuk got a cybernetic body and proceeded to score 4 consecutive 100 point seasons and we won the cup every year from 2014-2018? Good job Holland!

Here's a what if game; what if Holland actually made decent trades and signings and didn't insist on stupid moves like dragging out the corpse of Dan Cleary for three seasons?

 

[Henkka]

These are key changes I make - understanding these are positions I held at the time.
1) Don't sign Cleary to the 5 year deal. Replace him with Eaves.
2) Sign Hossa and Franzen,

This is just re-writing the history in bad way which was not even possible.

Like "don't sign Cleary and keep Hossa+Franzen"

Cleary was signed for his 5-year deal on March 18th 2008.
Hossa is calling to Detroit on July 1st 2008.

There was no time machine and also "don't sign existing UFA early and wait for miracle to happen a superstar from free agency" it's just the least realistic way to build. That miracle did happen, because the team had so much talent and it was attractive to Hossa, Cleary included.

Cleary also was underpaid for that 5-year deal with his 2.8M caphit and what did he gave to the team. It was fairly good deal that was made and any GM does pull that trigger on that case.

 

[MBH]

This is just re-writing the history in bad way which was not even possible.

Like "don't sign Cleary and keep Hossa+Franzen"

Cleary was signed for his 5-year deal on March 18th 2008.
Hossa is calling to Detroit on July 1st 2008.

There was no time machine and also "don't sign existing UFA early and wait for miracle to happen a superstar from free agency" it's just the least realistic way to build. That miracle did happen, because the team had so much talent and it was attractive to Hossa, Cleary included.

Cleary also was underpaid for that 5-year deal with his 2.8M caphit and what did he gave to the team. It was fairly good deal that was made and any GM does pull that trigger on that case.

???
Don't start that 5 year deal to Hossa, Let him walk as UFA and then you can afford Hossa and Franzen in 2009-10.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

???
Don't start that 5 year deal to Hossa, Let him walk as UFA and then you can afford Hossa and Franzen in 2009-10.

Henkka is saying that if you don't sign Cleary to the 5 year, 2.8M deal, the team is overall weaker heading into 08-09 and you don't have Hossa calling Holland to jump on a Cup favorite. That would be deciding not to re-sign the guy who had the 5th most points on your Stanley Cup winning roster (and most of your non-superstars) for 2.8M AAV.

And frankly, 2.8M wasn't the barrier between keeping Hossa and Franzen and not.

Detroit in 2009 with keeping all of those guys would be in a Toronto situation where you are paying Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Hossa, and Lidstrom half your cap. It was something that was very bad roster planning to go after. Cleary at 5x2.8 at that point was a good value. It wasn't until around the time of the lockout that Cleary started to become a lead weight and no longer worth his deal.

No, the issue was that after Lidstrom retired and Rafalski called it quits, followed by Ryan Suter flipping them off at the negotiation table, the Wings did nothing to supplement their defense in a material way. They were so good because they had crazy defensive depth. Then, they added a bunch of young guys who all flopped hard (sans Danny D, who was a spaghetti armed Brad Stuart). They put all their eggs in the Kindl, Ouellet, Sproul, Smith, Marchenko basket and 100% of them flopped as anything but roster fillers. Guys like Quincey and Ericsson were not ever anything but acceptable NHL players. Mike Green was signed too late into his career to be a true top pairing guy... and by the time they signed him... their forwards were in shambles.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

We made so many "half measure" trades, pissing away assets for second and third-rate acquisitions.
Legwand. Cole.
If I go back in time...
These are key changes I make - understanding these are positions I held at the time.
1) Don't sign Cleary to the 5 year deal. Replace him with Eaves.
2) Sign Hossa and Franzen, let Sammy Walk and play hardball for Hudler, even if it means losing him to Russia for a year.
3) Don't acquire KFQ, force Babcock to use Kindl/Smith.
4) Draft Kuznetsov over Sheahan (I had this on draft day,
5) Do not trade away Jarnkrok and picks.
6) Do not sign Ericsson, Howard, Abdelkader or Helm to their long-term deals, even if it means losing them.
7) Do not sign junk-ass players like Daley, Nielsen. Keep guys like XO and Marchenko.
8) Earlier call ups and top 9 roles for Tatar/Nyquist. Use players like Jurco/Pulkkinen in top 9 roles with skill players.
9) Fire Babcock around before 12-13, assuming we haven't won another cup, and keep Filppula.
10) Keep Mrazek

So checking in...
Around 2012-13, our lineup is:

Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Eaves
Franzen-Filppula-Hossa
Nyquist-Andersson-Tatar
Adbelkader-Helm-Miller/Mursak

Kronwall-Ericsson
Kindl-Dekeyser
Smith-UFA

Howard.

I think that lineup gets us past Chicago in 2012-13 for two reasons.
1) We get Hossa and they don't.
2) A different coach might have kept Datsyuk-Zetterberg together longer.
3) Flip was a solid 2C in Tampa and would have been just fine with big minutes between Hossa and Franzen.
4) Having Hossa around helps us with the injuries to Franzen, and just gives us that one other big-name guy to worry about.

But like I said, not resigning Howard, could mean he walks.

By 2015-16, it's the end for Datsyuk.
Our team is now looking like

Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Larkin
Tatar-Filppula-Hossa
Nyquist-Kuznetsov-Pulkkinen (or Jurco)
Janmark-Glendening-Jarnkrok
(Franzen LTIR)
(Helm/Abby gone to UFA)

The defense is totally different.
Kronwall - Dekeyser
XO - UFA
Smith - Marchenko

Mrazek/whoever


Today:
Tatar Kuznetsov Mantha
Athanasiou Larkin Bertuzzi
Nyquist Jarnkrok Jurco (Maybe Janmark)
Filppula Glendening Whoever

Defense:
Dekeyser Hronek
XO UFA
Cholowski Marchenko

Goal
Mrazek/Bernier (?)

The biggest early change would have been having Hossa for 5 years in the 2010-15 range. Maybe that brings a cup.

The biggest late change is Kuznetsov. Having Kuznetsov/Larkin as 1-2 centers to build around would have substantially changed our ability to rebuild on the fly.
We still slide, but how much?

1. Replace with Eaves who wasn't traded to Boston and put on waivers to be available for pickup until another 3 and a half weeks after Hossa already signed in Chicago?
2. Play hardball with your team's 7th leading scorer (and first who wasn't Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Hossa, Lidstrom, Franzen, Rafalski) when you would have again gotten him for 2.8M for a couple years. Hudler and his agent played hardball with them. That's why he was gone. That's why he signed in the KHL. Also, he was 25 and not asking for the absolute moon while potting almost 60 points. You would be going insane if the Red Wings were in line to lose a guy who wasn't old who was producing basically over 500k. See reactions to the last younger guy who attempted to sign a KHL deal when the Wings didn't give him what he wanted.
3. Kindl was given 18 minutes a game. Smith was given around 18m a game. Kindl got a 4x2.4 deal because he looked like he was growing. His usage went down when he showed his ass on the ice. Same as Brendan Smith. That wouldn't change if Babcock was "forced" to use them. They weren't good hockey players. Give Kindl heart and courage to actually use his big frame and let's talk. Put Smith in a position where he could react instinctively instead of having to think and you'd have a better Brendan Smith. That's why Playoffs Brendan Smith looked like a real top 4 guy and regular season Brendan Smith looked like Cledus the Slack Jawed Yokel.

Mrazek is not a good goaltender. Or rather... he isn't any better than Howard. He also would not be substantially cheaper. They did need to choose between the two though. (Just looked at it... Mrazek's stats are not flattering after his first season and a half)

Lastly, giving more playing time to them would not make XO or Marchenko or Sproul would not make them better players. They were what they were.

I do agree with you on Kuznetsov. I would have worried about the Russian Factor if my job were on the line as those scouts were... but he was a ludicrously talented guy who could easily have made it worth it if you took the shot. I think Washington kinda knew from Ovy that he could use his influence to get Evgeny to stick with them.

 

[Winger98]

2. Play hardball with your team's 7th leading scorer (and first who wasn't Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Hossa, Lidstrom, Franzen, Rafalski) when you would have again gotten him for 2.8M for a couple years. Hudler and his agent played hardball with them. That's why he was gone. That's why he signed in the KHL. Also, he was 25 and not asking for the absolute moon while potting almost 60 points. You would be going insane if the Red Wings were in line to lose a guy who wasn't old who was producing basically over 500k. See reactions to the last younger guy who attempted to sign a KHL deal when the Wings didn't give him what he wanted.

I do agree with you on Kuznetsov. I would have worried about the Russian Factor if my job were on the line as those scouts were... but he was a ludicrously talented guy who could easily have made it worth it if you took the shot. I think Washington kinda knew from Ovy that he could use his influence to get Evgeny to stick with them.

Hudler got $4m for going to the KHL for a year. That wasn't him playing hardball as much as him being offered a stupid amount of money go play elsewhere, and I don't blame him at all for taking it.

With Kuznetsov, I keep thinking there were a bunch of rumors going around that he had made it known he was interested in the caps and only the caps but I might be mistaken. I'm pretty sure the talk of him refusing to come over was more than just a rumor among the teams, though.

 

[SantosHalper]

 

[MBH]

1. Replace with Eaves who wasn't traded to Boston and put on waivers to be available for pickup until another 3 and a half weeks after Hossa already signed in Chicago?
2. Play hardball with your team's 7th leading scorer (and first who wasn't Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Hossa, Lidstrom, Franzen, Rafalski) when you would have again gotten him for 2.8M for a couple years. Hudler and his agent played hardball with them. That's why he was gone. That's why he signed in the KHL. Also, he was 25 and not asking for the absolute moon while potting almost 60 points. You would be going insane if the Red Wings were in line to lose a guy who wasn't old who was producing basically over 500k. See reactions to the last younger guy who attempted to sign a KHL deal when the Wings didn't give him what he wanted.
3. Kindl was given 18 minutes a game. Smith was given around 18m a game. Kindl got a 4x2.4 deal because he looked like he was growing. His usage went down when he showed his ass on the ice. Same as Brendan Smith. That wouldn't change if Babcock was "forced" to use them. They weren't good hockey players. Give Kindl heart and courage to actually use his big frame and let's talk. Put Smith in a position where he could react instinctively instead of having to think and you'd have a better Brendan Smith. That's why Playoffs Brendan Smith looked like a real top 4 guy and regular season Brendan Smith looked like Cledus the Slack Jawed Yokel.

Mrazek is not a good goaltender. Or rather... he isn't any better than Howard. He also would not be substantially cheaper. They did need to choose between the two though. (Just looked at it... Mrazek's stats are not flattering after his first season and a half)

Lastly, giving more playing time to them would not make XO or Marchenko or Sproul would not make them better players. They were what they were.

I do agree with you on Kuznetsov. I would have worried about the Russian Factor if my job were on the line as those scouts were... but he was a ludicrously talented guy who could easily have made it worth it if you took the shot. I think Washington kinda knew from Ovy that he could use his influence to get Evgeny to stick with them.

2) My point is, Hudler left anyway for a year.

 

[MBH]

Hudler got $4m for going to the KHL for a year. That wasn't him playing hardball as much as him being offered a stupid amount of money go play elsewhere, and I don't blame him at all for taking it.

With Kuznetsov, I keep thinking there were a bunch of rumors going around that he had made it known he was interested in the caps and only the caps but I might be mistaken. I'm pretty sure the talk of him refusing to come over was more than just a rumor among the teams, though.

The teams that didn't buy into the Russian fear...
Tampa.
Washington.
St. Louis.

Washington and St. Louis have already been rewarded.
Tampa's had a pretty good run of it.

 

[Dotter]

No one will ever convince me Ken Holland wasn't given instructions by ownership to make the playoffs at all costs so Mr. I doesn't have to bare witness to it before his passing.

The timing makes too much sense with Mr. I's passing, new arena construction, and the "rebuild" button being pushed near the same time... and the eventual flip from Kenny to Stevie.

I seriously suspect they won't fix the goal horn until this team is ready to make the playoffs, and they'll ramp up the LCA to something even more special.

 

[Retire91]

I like the concept and I appreciate @MBH for going into depth. Although I am passionate about the topic I don't have energy to go into all the what ifs because there are simply so many. Any time you challenge the go-for-it crowd you get piled on with stuff I don't care to rebuttal anymore for 6 pages. The truth of the matter is the wings achieved a historically bad team by the process of death by 1000 cuts. It is not one or two moves over the span, its was the constant inflating of your talent with UFA and rentals and bad signings for one more year on the bubble while giving up opportunities to improve down the road in the process. A perfect example of that is the Daytsuk trade. Literally nothing about that trade made the team better and we gave up the better defensive prospect in the process. All we had to do was wait one season and he was off the books.

To a team rebuilding it's a no brainier. But that move was a giant signal flare that the wings were still going for it with a deceased roster with no end in site and giving up draft spot after prospect after terrible contract to do it.

So we suck now at least there is some excitement about prospects and drafting knowing they are not going to be crowded out to keep Dan Cleary for another year. Those were dark days to be a fan even more so than the 80's dead wings.

 

[Dotter]

Daytsuk trade. Literally nothing about that trade made the team better and we gave up the better defensive prospect in the process. All we had to do was wait one season and he was off the books.

To a team rebuilding it's a no brainier. But that move was a giant signal flare that the wings were still going for it with a deceased roster with no end in site and giving up draft spot after prospect after terrible contract to do it.

So we suck now at least there is some excitement about prospects and drafting knowing they are not going to be crowded out to keep Dan Cleary for another year. Those were dark days to be a fan even more so than the 80's dead wings.

Hronek > Chychrun

Add in Cholowski

Based on what we know today, I would not reverse that trade.

 

[Retire91]

I said it before and I'll say it again but only one time here because its been gone over ad nauseam. Hronek was still on the board when we had our own 2nd. We didn't need an extra second to get him. At the end of their careers it's quite possible that Chycchurn will fill the gap between Hronek and Cholowski making it all a total wash. The trade was as nonsensical then as it is now.

The presence of Hronek on this team didn't doesn't and never will justify the trade seeing as we could have had him anyway and could still end up with a defensive talent deficit once careers are in the books.

 

[Dotter]

Interesting because I remember Givani Smith being selected with Detroit's own 2nd pick. That fact kinda throws a HUGE monkey wrench in y'all's "ad nauseam" useless nonsense theory.

Say hi to Givani Smith, 46th overall from the '16 draft...

 

[Winger98]

The teams that didn't buy into the Russian fear...
Tampa.
Washington.
St. Louis.

Washington and St. Louis have already been rewarded.
Tampa's had a pretty good run of it.

It wasn't just baseless fear. Historically, around 17% of Russians have made it to the NHL and averaged 82 games and ~34 points, iirc. Which isn't a bad average considering it's everyone who makes it. but between 2000-2010, it was around 8% of drafted Russians made it to the NHL. Now, I'm sure the fewer drafted/fewer make it definitely comes into play, but I'm also willing to bet that a lot of those mid-range Russians that were staples of rosters in the past (I'm thinking of a guy like Nikolishin, for some reason) are the guys who were most likely to not see a big point in coming to NA. Especially if the KHL was able to cash the checks they were promising.

Also ran across an article from 2014 or 2015 talking about how the NHL was adapting to the KHL and teams were feeling more comfortable with drafting Russians as long as they "did their homework" on a guy. Which seems to be saying that there were guys who just didn't have an interest in coming over, but they also weren't hard to root out.

Something else that was mentioned was that even with teams that were willing to draft a Russian in the first, they often had some cushion with the pick - either it was late (Kuznetsov, Varlamov, Samsonov) or the team had multiple 1st rounders and were maybe a little more willing to take the risk (semin, Varlamov (again), tarasenko).

It would have been nice if Detroit had been able to get into the Russian draft pool a bit more, but the teams that did were also in positions where they either had the draft capital to take the risk, or were drafting in a spot where the risk wasn't as big of a deal. Looking back at that 2010 draft, Washington might just be fortunate that St. Louis didn't have a third 1st rounder to spend on Kuznetsov. Or maybe Kuznetsov's desire to only play for certain teams (or a team) was an actual thing.

 

[Retire91]

Interesting because I remember Givani Smith being selected with Detroit's own 2nd pick. That fact kinda throws a HUGE monkey wrench in y'all's "ad nauseam" useless nonsense theory.

Say hi to Givani Smith, 46th overall from the '16 draft...

If you could make out my "hello" through my yawn, we'll see if he is able to hit the roster and outperform any ol standard UFA acquisition. Outside of that his pick won't move the dial and make 5 years of Neilsen worth it. But by all means keep up the keyboard gymnastics to justify Hollands epic trades.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Overall people need to look further back in time for what caused the downturn of the team. Even near-optimal moves in 2012 onwards was not going to save us or make the rebuild speed up a ton.

04-11 is mainly the period where we sealed our fate.
Remember nearly all ’rewriting history’ moves from ’12 onwards likely loses us some/all of Mantha/Larkin/Hronek/etc, so you need to replace them rather than add to them. That’s why rebuilding is so damn hard, it’s a many year process.

 

[ArmChairGM89]

If you could make out my "hello" through my yawn, we'll see if he is able to hit the roster and outperform any ol standard UFA acquisition. Outside of that his pick won't move the dial and make 5 years of Neilsen worth it. But by all means keep up the keyboard gymnastics to justify Hollands epic trades.

His point is we wouldn’t have hronek because we took Smith.

 

[Frk It]

Depends entirely on what they do with their higher/extra draft picks... hard to say.

 

[Retire91]

Overall people need to look further back in time for what caused the downturn of the team. Even near-optimal moves in 2012 onwards was not going to save us or make the rebuild speed up a ton.

04-11 is mainly the period where we sealed our fate.
Remember nearly all ’rewriting history’ moves from ’12 onwards likely loses us some/all of Mantha/Larkin/Hronek/etc, so you need to replace them rather than add to them. That’s why rebuilding is so damn hard, it’s a many year process.

Not to mention if we started an actual rebuild we would have been drafting higher too so its likely the prospect cupboard would have had a higher tier on top of maintaining the draft picks instead of trading them.. We would have actually been in the McDavid Marner MacKinnon Matthews type sweepstakes. That is what makes these revisionist experiments so hard. If we would have only had our 2nd round pick in 2016 and only our second round pick would they have still taken Smith? We might not have taken Chychrun at 16. No one can really know.

 

[Dotter]

If we would have only had our 2nd round pick in 2016 and only our second round pick would they have still taken Smith? We might not have taken Chychrun at 16. No one can really know.

Yes... if Givani Smith was still available at 46, Wings would have certainly -- without a doubt -- still selected him 46th overall.

He was on their board above Hronek.

*if* the Datsyuk trade never occured, then no Hronek. Would they have selected Chychrun at 16? I doubt they were too high on him since they welcomed the trade in the first place knowing AZ was only trading to take Chychrun. That tells me DET was, at best, indifferent about Chychrun.

 

[Retire91]

If they don't think Hronek makes it to the third round they could absolutely draft him 46 especially considering how badly they need to stock the D cupboards same reason they drafted Seider at 6.