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This is what it is like trying to talk to some members of this board right now: Holland is a great GM. Period.

First, no, it's absolutely not true. But a lot of adult hockey fans in the 80's and 90's were bred with that Cold War mentality, and misinterpreted the playing styles of some of the Russians who defected at that time. Any stereotype based on an entire nationality of players is obviously unfair - Konstantinov and Darius Kasparatis were extremely rugged players who just happened to share the same nationality as guys like Alex Kovalev. But if you ever watch European soccer, there are just cultural difference in sport that Americans will not accept. For example, American athletes fully accept doing anything to gain an edge (bending the rules, steroids in baseball, trying to hurt opponents), yet diving or embellishing injury of any kind is a violation of the "man code" and completely dishonorable. In other countries, however, this is seen as a "trying to get an edge", really no different than stepping out of bounds but failing to correct a referee who doesn't make the call. Still, the "soft" or "lazy" accusation gets imputed to the whole when North American fans see something like this: I never though that Fedorov was "soft" or that Kozlov was "lazy", but I heard that all the time. There was a famous Sergei Fedorov quote where he said if his name were "Sam Jones", he would be considered a much bigger star than he was. There's been this tacit requirement that the bar for Russian players is much higher in the NHL (and still is). In other words, if you're Jordin Tootoo or Cal Clutterbuck and spend most of your time scrapping and running people in corners, North American players are romanticized for doing that, while a Russian who did that but couldn't score probably couldn't even stay in the NHL. I think it's getting noticeably worse for Russian players in the NHL, and the KHL is a prime reason for that. Nobody wants to make a long-term commitment to these guys when there's always the threat that they'll pull a Radulov or Hudler and end up back overseas. I think that's a legitimate concern for would-be employers, but we can do with out the Don Cherry-style xenophobia.

It is a better situation to have it blow up, with room to change. Than have it blow up when you are spending to the cap and have to buy out contracts. Holland is being smart.

I'm content with this group. They are a mediocre bunch who could maybe surprise some people. They're not the Leafs or the Oilers. I'm also content with the sofa that I got in 1976. It's ugly earth-tone paisley and my dad had to beef it up with plywood in spots, but it'll do until I get something better. Pretty much like the Wings. What we have is good. That doesn't mean we aren't shopping around to get better. It just means that we're not going to throw out the babies with the bathwater and blow up the team en route to getting better players. Trades? FA signings? Sure, if they improve the team at a reasonable price. One can be content and still looking to improve. It just means that what one has is servicable. Now if Holland had said, "I'm tickled pink with this team!" then I would worry.

I liked the move and still do but I don't think Babcock would agree with this analysis. And I don't think we would be foregoing our Cup chances by trading pieces and prospects to get a top-tier defenseman to play alongside Lidstrom before retiring. I also think we likely hurt our Cup chances by not shaking this team up a bit more. New blood might've added more urgency, and if guys saw that the front office wasn't above shipping out players (that have likely felt untouchable for awhile now, unhealthy...) it might motivate them to perform better day in, day out. We also have had an incredibly unbalanced offense since the summer of 2009 and Holland has failed to address that time and again. In my mind, and I think many others, Babcock's included last summer, Holland didn't address the needs of this team to get them ready to make a run for the Cup. No matter what he told Lidstrom, Holland's been dropping the ball again and again on this team for 3-4 years now. Like I said before, I'm not talking about Holland's performance this off-season. I'm talking about 3-4 years of Holland utterly and completely fumbling to address the needs of this team in the present and in the future, as in, being set up for right now. Do you see me saying anything about signing lower-middle tier guys to excessive contracts just for the sake of doing something? No. It would be dumb to go crazy right now, but that would be about the only thing dumber than what Holland did the last 3-4 years to help land us in this position in the first place.

Same old s*** from Holland. He's done nothing of significance the last several deadlines and offseasons. This offseason, his big accomplishment is signing a 4th liner that any GM could have signed and that old goof Samuelsson, who we don't need at this point. And that's coming off three early playoff exits in a row and the retirement of your best player for the last decade. I don't know what our record will be next season, but the offseason up until now has been a disaster. But Holland's mentality is, "All is well" Honesty is a b****.

Your position seems to be that unless someone can provide concrete examples of players that were available, trades that almost definitely would go through, and would almost certainly improve the team, they shouldn't complain. That's an absurd expectation. At the time who would've predicted that Holland could get Stuart from the Kings for a 2nd and 4th pick? Or taking the Kings as an example, who would've thought they'd get Richards for Simmonds, Schenn and a pick? Or trade a defenseman they'd recently signed long term to bring in Carter? And that both of those trades would be huge factors in their Cup win? It's likely you would've shot down all of those trades as unrealistic or wouldn't improve the team. But who the hell knows until they actually happen? If I could provide those kind of examples beforehand, I'd take Holland's friggin job. I'm not complaining because I think he sucks. I'm complaining because I think he's one of the best GM's in the NHL, so he better be able to come up with some moves that the average fan couldn't know about. It's awful hard to provide irrefutable evidence for a trade that didn't happen. That doesn't mean I can't be unhappy with what Holland is saying and doing. For now I'm withholding full judgment until the summer is over. But Lidstrom retiring is something he and management should've started planning for 10 years ago. Looking at our blueline right now, it sure doesn't feel like they did. Your position seems to be that if Holland made the move, it was the right one. If he didn't, it wouldn't have made the team better or it would've cost too much. The only thing I've heard you complain about regarding Holland was Ericsson, which you were wrong about.

In Holland I trust

Disappointing to say the least. Here's some highlights from a couple morning articles. Don't expect any new Red Wings anytime soon folks! http://www.detroitne...207120392/1128/

I'm thoroughly convinced that the only reason anyone thinks Semin is lazy is because other people say Semin is lazy. How often does he need to score in order to be considered consistent and not lazy? Should he score as often as Zach Parise? Oh wait, he already does. Should his plus/minus be better than Parise's? Wait, it already is. Maybe if he shot more or passed as much? Wait, he does that too...and at a higher percentage. About the only areas in which he and Parise don't match up are number of games played, and ice time. Factor those in and Semin has done as well or better than Zach Parise in every major category with MUCH less time on ice. His numbers also compare very favorably to Rick Nash and Bobby Ryan as well, and most of us (myself included) would be thrilled to have those guys. There are a lot of negative things you can say about Semin, but lazy and inconsistent shouldn't be among them.

We always seem to be on the same page with these matters, yet for whatever reason, you never get ripped apart like I do. What's your secret?

No, wait....Callahan - Abdelkader - Tootoo....Hmmmm.....do you think Holland would allow that line? There has to be a 6'2" 135lb. European somewhere that can take one of those spots...

Absolutely agree. Though I don't agree with the post you quoted, he's at least talking hockey. If people would stick to that we'd be fine. It all goes to hell when people start attacking the person for their unpopular opinion. Plus some of the smarter trolls toe the line and antagonize people without it necessarily being an outright personal attack. I don't want to speak out of turn (correct me if I'm wrong fellow mods) but Matt and the mods prefer to keep things on the looser side around here so people can speak their minds rather than clamp down on every little thing. I think in general it makes is a more fun place to talk hockey, but it also does mean there's some irritating stuff that you have to live with on occasion.

No, the best move they made was letting Hudler go!

I'm really surprised that so many are still defending Holland here. If it were just the lack of moves this offseason at play, then I'd understand. It would be dumb to throw too much money at low-quality talent because we didn't pull off the main plan. But as I've said in the past and many others are seeing now, this is a problem that's been brewing for four years now. He should've made the moves to have pieces in place to build on when Lidstrom left 2-3, maybe even 4 years ago, but he didn't want to move anybody. He should've been actively shopping for a big time young defensemen after we won our last Cup, and yes, he should've given up legitimate, Red Wing-developed talent to do so, hard as it may. If you ask me, Holland's chief and most critical objective for the last five year has been coming up for a replacement for Lidstrom. They knew it was coming, and they knew the loss would be huge; there could be no bigger hole than the hole left by Lidstrom in this era. The way it's looking now, it is highly likely that the 2012/13 season will start and Holland will have failed to come even remotely close to addressing the hole left by Lidstrom. But again, to be perfectly clear, Holland didn't fail this summer. He failed for the last 4 years. He keeps coming up with nothing in the off-season and he even admitted in 2009 that he was shocked and unprepared for what happened when all our free-agents walked and we had no real Plan B. Hell, people are pissed we didn't get Parise this year at a cap hit that would've sat around $7.5 million, but we let Hossa walk who could've been had for a $5 million cap hit because we didn't want to part with guys we developed, despite the fact that they've been inconsistent or wholly unproven performers. But to be fair, I'm no saying Holland's a bad GM or wouldn't be capable of building a winner again, but I am increasingly of the opinion that he has run his course as the Wings GM. I think he's become too soft and cautious, and I'd venture to say at times out of touch with reality (again, see summer 2009). I think it's easy to gravitate to extremes on this issue and say Holland is a mastermind because of what he accomplished in the past just as easy as it is to say he rode on the coattails of Scotty Bowman's influence. Maybe the true answer is somewhere in between. Maybe he's just too close to this organization and the people in it to make objective opinions. And maybe he's not. But in any event, in the last 4 years, any way you shake it, he's given no reason to believe that he's still got even a hint of that magic touch still, and even if you want to focus on the positives in his history and his overall capability as a GM, you still have a long way to go in defending the last 4 years of mediocre GMing. After all, even he admitted he blew it in '09, and Babcock all but slammed him about his lack of moves last summer to address problems he saw in the team.

This is how I feel. I am so excited to see Smith play. I really have that feeling that he is going to surprise us all. I would like to see Semin on our team just for a season to see how he plays with Dats but that's just my own curiosity.

All I hear is wah wah wah. I'll be smiling in May when we are in the playoffs yet again.

Maybe he just likes lightening other dudes loads

You can't teach what Homer does. It takes an abnormally thick skull.

I remember when we weren't a contender, when we didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of making the playoffs let alone winning the cup. I stood by my Wings then and I'll continue to do so. As a Wings fan you can't help but notice all the animosity, even hate for our beloved franchise. That's because even where our roster stands Detroit is still a force to be reckoned with and that team you do not want to play.

It's a simple old tale - The mind wants what the body can't do... he still has the desire and love and isn't ready to hang them up, but his body is... ultimately, I think he'll come to that conclusion and retire, but Holland is allowing him to go out with grace and rather than come out in the media and say "He's old and useless, we're not bringing him back", he's going about it the right way, for a warrior who has given this team a LOT and deserves to go out on his own terms, so to speak... He will not be back here next year as a player, I guarantee that.

Lets give it a rest with the Holland bashing ... he went all in on Parise and Suter. Parise got 3 more points than Filp last year and and now a cap hit of 7.5 mill for the rest of his career. And Ryan Suter despite being a very good player is a somewhat unproven commodity without the leagues biggest/best dman beside him. Trades dont happen overnight. Theres a plan in place and this "rebuild on the fly" might not come full circle until next off season. Do you think other GMs really want to help out the NHL Gold-standard Red Wings that much to keep our winning tradition alive? Hell no.

Go back to your Kings forum, troll.

Jarnkrok, Pulkkinen, Jurco, Frk, Sheahan, Sproul, Tvrdon, Athanasiou, Bodin, McKee...We Won't Miss Mursak, Tatar or Andersson...

dis? http://hockeyshtuffs.tumblr.com/post/3487941889/chris-chelios-derek-roy-max-talbot-max-talbots I'd love to have Wings grab Ott instead of Tootoo (not along, absolutely) and it sure looks like Wings had assets of Roy value to trade. good for Buffalo, though! Ruff has his doghouse back, I can't wait for Sabres clashing with Flyers and Sens next season... things might really get hairy in the East now...