Would the Wings have been better than last year if

[SoupNazi]

If we want to see a better team, it is. Because it is cap space.
Holland wastes too much cap space on too many unnecessary players that could be used on fewer impact players that address the team's needs while also allowing opportunities for the young guns to contribute and develop.

Who are we spending that cap space on this year? None of our FA targets wanted to come here for one reason or another. Cap space is not a huge concern no matter how hard you try to make it one.

 

[Flowah]

i think mrazek is better than gus at this point. and gus didn't deserve the contract that he got.

but i don't think it will hurt his progress to play ton of games in AHL. better be too safe with goalies.

It'll be the worst of both worlds if he ends up riding the bus and bench most of the season instead of playing because of Gus's constant groin injuries. The dude only played 32 games in GR last year and only 9 in the NHL.

I don't see how that would benefit him at all.

 

[Johnz96*]

Good for you that you called that but let's not pretend your a GM unless you are one.. Yes this is a message board but I am not a GM so i don't spectulate I know more than the Wings management.

I know I am not a GM. But neither is Holland. He is an idiot. Simple as that.

 

[wings95]

That is not true and Holland admitted it. You aren't doing what's best for the team when you pick the garbage player over the younger and better player.

"Gustav Nyquist makes our team better."

Welcome back Dan Cleary.

Nyquist goes to GR.
Will Gus be better than last season or will he be as good or score less??? Holland, does what is best for the team, IMO.

 

[WingedWheel1987]

That is not true and Holland admitted it. You aren't doing what's best for the team when you pick the garbage player over the younger and better player.

"Gustav Nyquist makes our team better."

Welcome back Dan Cleary.

Nyquist goes to GR.
Will Gus be better than last season or will he be as good or score less??? Holland, does what is best for the team, IMO.

Wrong. Ken Holland flat out stated that Nyquist makes the Wings better.

Nyquist on the Wings for 82 games > Nyquist on the Wings for 56 games + Dan Cleary for 50+ games.

He knew he was making the team worse by bringing back Cleary.

And he knows he is doing it again this year. He doesn't care about putting the best team on the ice anymore. He just wants to take care of his friends.

 

[wings95]

I know I am not a GM. But neither is Holland. He is an idiot. Simple as that.

That is your OPINION. Wings owners don't agree otherwise he would be fired, IMO..

 

[WingedWheel1987]

That is your OPINION. Wings owners don't agree otherwise he would be fired, IMO..

Because an owner having confidence in his GM means he is still a good GM.

Sound logic right there.

 

[SoupNazi]

I know I am not a GM. But neither is Holland. He is an idiot. Simple as that.

Odd, considering a Ken Holland is listed as GM of the Red Wings.

 

[wings95]

Wrong. Ken Holland flat out stated that Nyquist makes the Wings better.

Nyquist on the Wings for 82 games > Nyquist on the Wings for 56 games + Dan Cleary for 50+ games.

He knew he was making the team worse by bringing back Cleary.

And he knows he is doing it again this year. He doesn't care about putting the best team on the ice anymore. He just wants to take care of his friends.

Your OPINION. Glad wings have a GM who sticks to his word. It is debatable whether or not Cleary will make this team better. Hope he does but if he doesn't than at least Holland was an honorable man. Guess that is more important to me than whether or not I agree with him.

 

[WingedWheel1987]

Your OPINION. Glad wings have a GM who sticks to his word. It is debatable whether or not Cleary will make this team better. Hope he does but if he doesn't than at least Holland was an honorable man. Guess that is more important to me than whether or not I agree with him.

Ken Holland did not owe Dan Cleary anything. A contract was signed and completed. End of transaction.

A GM with a functioning brain would have told Dan Cleary that he can come back for one year, but unless he perform's, he cannot guarantee him another contract."

Gustav Nyquist was better than Dan Cleary last offseason. Ken Holland admitted it.

Tomas Jurco is better than Dan Cleary right now and forever. (this is my opinion, but good luck finding anyone who thinks otherwise.)

Holland is not an honorable man. He is just some plutocrat taking care of his friends.

 

[wings95]

Because an owner having confidence in his GM means he is still a good GM.

Sound logic right there.

That is debatable. You have your opinion and I have mine. Sure I don't like the fact the Wings missed out again but do I or we know 100% what is going on behind the scenes. By your logic you go by what you think you know instead of knowing everything. In my line of work you go by what is 100% known or you can kiss careers or lives good bye. I understand this is a game and all but I don't change my values.' Good discussion.

 

[RedWingzz]

We are still gonna be a playoff team, if we can have a healthy Datsyuk and Zetteberg (and Weiss, Helm, Ericsson etc....) Our division is bad, so based on that alone we will make the playoffs. We are not good enough to go deep though, and I expect another first round loss.

Boston- Got slightly worse, are still the best team in the division.

Tampa Bay- Improved, will be better, especially with a full year of Stamkos, as well as having the potential calder winner in Drouin, add in some impressive offseason acquisitions (Stralman, Morrow, B.Boyle, Nabokov) . I expect them to challenge Boston for the division.

Montreal- Stayed the same, I ultimately think they overachieved a bit last year, and we will battle them for 3rd in the division.

Toronto & Ottawa- Got worse, don't expect them to be too competitive.

Buffalo & Florida- Improved, and are taking strides, still not good enough to compete.

I see us finishing in 3rd/4th in the division.

 

[WingedWheel1987]

That is debatable. You have your opinion and I have mine. Sure I don't like the fact the Wings missed out again but do I or we know 100% what is going on behind the scenes. By your logic you go by what you think you know instead of knowing everything. In my line of work you go by what is 100% known or you can kiss careers or lives good bye. I understand this is a game and all but I don't change my values.' Good discussion.

Me not being behind the scenes does not change that fact that Gustav Nyquist and Tomas Jurco are better than Dan Cleary at playing hockey.

If your goal is to improve the Red Wings, do you play Cleary over Nyquist? Do you play Cleary over Jurco?

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

I think they would have been better but this is very much a grass is greener and nobody can prove you wrong argument.

Listen another thing about how that unfolded is yes we needed the youth, but when we endured bad periods even with them in the lineup there was ready made excuses. Now when you play a young lineup there should be some forgiveness, but say you bounce everyone out from day one the expectations and demands change drastically for a group.

I want this team to go with the younger options because I believe in them. But I do think this would have a different feel and different expectations, I am fine with those and quite frankly with the depth they could revolving door some of them to go with who is hot and who builds chemistry. But a lot of what we hate about depth played out last year. Keep in mind not just the old guys got hurt, Smith missed chunks, DeKeyser, Ericsson (who is not that old), Nyquist missed a couple games, Jurco got his ribs broke. The NHL has a lot of attrition even for the young players.

I think given overall where we are at we could go with these options, but that is not to say Monster, Legwand or Alfie were dead weight they weren't a lot of the time last year.

But this could be an issue for some of these guys, if Tatar is falling short of a 20 goal season this year, Nyquist plays under a 60 point pace and Sheahan slips to around a 30 to 35 point center what then. Their expectations will be a little different and the target and gripes will start to come, sure others will be blamed but this isn't looked at in a vacuum. Changing several factors doesn't produce your ideal outcome, I believe they would have been better, of course the best way for them to be better would have been Howard playing better and Z and Datsyuk playing more. Really of our biggest guns Kronwall was the only one that had an ideal season, that was the story of it for me and we can hope that goes a lot better next year.

 

[Johnz96*]

Ken Holland did not owe Dan Cleary anything. A contract was signed and completed. End of transaction.

A GM with a functioning brain would have told Dan Cleary that he can come back for one year, but unless he perform's, he cannot guarantee him another contract."

Gustav Nyquist was better than Dan Cleary last offseason. Ken Holland admitted it.

Tomas Jurco is better than Dan Cleary right now and forever. (this is my opinion, but good luck finding anyone who thinks otherwise.)

Holland is not an honorable man. He is just some plutocrat taking care of his friends.

Dumb ****.
What about loyaly to the future of the team.
Babcock and Holland conspired to ensure that LFG would be in both outdoor games (Detroit and GR) thus robbing Jurco of the experience at either.
Pandering to a career fringe NHL player while neglecting a potential superstar is a perfect analogy of how those 2 operate.

 

[odin1981]

Alfie can still play. He should be excluded from present company.

 

[Flowah]

That is your OPINION. Wings owners don't agree otherwise he would be fired, IMO..

You're basically saying that Ken Holland can't be wrong or make mistakes, at least identified by us, until he's fired.

That's ridiculous.

It doesn't take a GM to see that signing Cleary is ridiculous. It's pretty much unanimous around the league. Reporters, analysts, fans of other teams, everyone knows it was stupid. Don't pretend like GMs have some amazing inside knowledge no one else is privy to. Unless Holland has an age-reversing serum or something that magically cures all busted knees, Cleary ain't returning to 2008 form.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Dumb ****.
What about loyaly to the future of the team.
Babcock and Holland conspired to ensure that LFG would be in both outdoor games (Detroit and GR) thus robbing Jurco of the experience at either.
Pandering to a career fringe NHL player while neglecting a potential superstar is a perfect analogy of how those 2 operate.

Pandering to a career fringe NHL player? Or bringing up a guy who's game is that of a shutdown C/W type at a time when they need a player like that?

I swear, it seems like half of this board is just dying to complain about everything that Holland and Babcock do, damn the facts or any logic behind the decisions.

 

[drw02]

You don't know if it's true that Pulks or Jurco would have been better.

And quick question: where would we have been without Gustavsson last year? Again, you don't have a guarantee Mrazek would have been better.

27 GP-2.63 GAA-.907 SV%

9 GP-1.74 GAA-.927 SV%

Mrazek pretty much was better.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

You're basically saying that Ken Holland can't be wrong or make mistakes, at least identified by us, until he's fired.

That's ridiculous.

It doesn't take a GM to see that signing Cleary is ridiculous. It's pretty much unanimous around the league. Reporters, analysts, fans of other teams, everyone knows it was stupid. Don't pretend like GMs have some amazing inside knowledge no one else is privy to. Unless Holland has an age-reversing serum or something that magically cures all busted knees, Cleary ain't returning to 2008 form.

He can and has made mistakes. The Cleary signing is indefensible. However, signing a bottom 6 forward for 2.5M is not some terrible crime. If some of this board had its way last year... the Wings would have David Clarkson on the books for 5M for the next five or six years instead of Toronto.

Ken Holland, overall, has made more positive moves than mistakes for the Red Wings his entire career.

 

[WingedWheel1987]

He can and has made mistakes. The Cleary signing is indefensible. However, signing a bottom 6 forward for 2.5M is not some terrible crime. If some of this board had its way last year... the Wings would have David Clarkson on the books for 5M for the next five or six years instead of Toronto.

Ken Holland, overall, has made more positive moves than mistakes for the Red Wings his entire career.

I never saw one person say they wanted David Clarkson.

The money is irrelevant. It's the roster spot that matters, and continues the trend that we have been seeing the past five years.

Holland is picking the bad player over the good player.

This isn't some kind of random bad signing. He makes this bad move every year. It has hurt the Wings every year. Almost every FA Holland has signed during the past five years has been a prime candidate for a compliance buyout. This isn't hindsight either. The signings were panned before they happened.

How on Earth can people still defend Ken Holland? The guy is about to deliberately not ice the best team possible on opening night, for a second straight season.

The argument sounds like, "20 good years of Kenny doing a good job should allow him to do a bad job for 20 years."

 

[ArGarBarGar]

I think we need to get back on track here. There are enough threads dealing with Holland in general. This is about if we would have been better off without a specific group of guys last year.

 

[Johnz96*]

Pandering to a career fringe NHL player? Or bringing up a guy who's game is that of a shutdown C/W type at a time when they need a player like that?

I swear, it seems like half of this board is just dying to complain about everything that Holland and Babcock do, damn the facts or any logic behind the decisions.

They called up LFG from GR and scratched Jurco so LFG (who had already played in the AHL WC at Comerica Park a few nights earlier) can play in the WC.

 

[Johnz96*]

I think we need to get back on track here. There are enough threads dealing with Holland in general. This is about if we would have been better off without a specific group of guys last year.

If we would have been better off without all the unnecessary mediocre signings the Holland always makes.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

Luke doesn't deserve the F in his name, sorry come on. What was Luke Glendening blowing for us last year, guy went from in the ECHL to playing well heads up with some of the titans of the NHL in a little over a Calender year. I am closer to putting LMFG as a descriptive because the guy drives other teams insane and I find it funny.

Also as someone who grew up a huge Spartan fan, cannot believe how much of my future is likely tied up in not only rooting for U of M guys but actually liking them in Glendening and Larkin. Heck huge fan of Trouba and JMFJ too, what is going on, curse you Red Berenson.