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And I'm sorry, I don't buy for a second that anyone can honestly say they're comfortable with our chances of being a successful team with our defense consisting of Kronwall, White, Ericsson, Smith, Quincey and Kindl. I mean, really...? Really...? I'm not knocking them as individual players right now, I'm just saying, look at that group and remind yourself that it's the core of your defense right now. Really consider that Lidstrom and Stuart are gone from that group. Maybe it hasn't fully sunk in yet. Maybe you're good at forgetting how lost this team looked last year in March without Lidstrom? I don't blame you; we all wanted to forget that. Let's just forget about making the playoffs for a second... Are we even a .500 team with that defense? Maybe in a couple years with more NHL development for the youngans, but next year? Seriously? Don't forget or overlook how important Lidstrom's contribution to our offense was as well. I don't want to s*** on anyone trying to be optimistic; it's a noble thing and I will cheer this team on next season no matter what. But none the less, I don't think people have really accepted what we're going to be dealing with next year, nor are people willing to admit how much Holland has mishandled the whole situation the last 3-4 years. You can talk all you want about how "smart" it is to not make ridiculous reactionary moves now, but we never should've been in this position. And we've been talking about how "smart" Holland is for sitting on his hands because of the "cap" or some player's "potential" for four summers in a row now, and here we are: Lidstrom's gone, Stuart's gone, Hudler's gone again (I'm completely okay with that one, but he still scored goals and that hasn't been our strong suit...). We didn't land our primary free agent targets. We added Tootoo and an older Samuelson (and a good backup goalie, but hopefully that'll be a fairly inconsequential addition this year). Our defense as of now features Kronwall, White, Ericsson, Smith, Quincey and Kindl. No Lidstrom. No Stuart. Very, very, very few options left. Smart?

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

Maybe, but how fun will it be if it blows up in our faces? And what's more likely to happen at this point? And some of these guys have had time to prove themselves and have continually fallen short. Others are getting older despite still being elite players. And in some of these cases, it's not necessarily a matter or effort or ability so much as chemistry and balance, and that's something that needs to be addressed by bringing in the right parts and selling off what isn't working or what you can afford to lose. That's not to say that the season doesn't have potential to be exciting and rewarding, but you also can't say that we've had more than a bit of time to observe this team and many of these players in moments of adversity the last few years. We had holes then and terrible injury luck at times, and now we just have more holes, as well as the biggest hole we've had in the modern era, and still more players getting older. I'll cheer the team on no matter what, but this is just an ugly situation any way you shake it.

Well Holland's not an idiot. He won't tell the media "HOLY s*** I'M DESPIRATE! I'LL PAY ANY PRICE". He's obviously going to lean towards tank/youthgrowth or find that perfect trade. Kneejerk reactions won't replace Nick Lidstrom.

It's time to have faith in our youth and brush off a bit of the "guaranteed success" mentality. It's going to be an interesting season to say the least, it's the first time I can remember going into a season wondering if we are actually gonna make the playoffs. I'm not ripping on the team in the slightest, but there has been some drastic change this offseason and the team is a bit foreign going into October. I really don't know what to expect, I HOPE Smith is another Karlsson story and just explodes this season but i'm not banking on it. We didn't expect Flip to have the season he just had and i'm looking forward to being surprised again and seeing who steps up and gets it done for us. It's been sticking in my head since the Wild signed those who shall not be named (and I don't mean Voldemort) that what if we did sign them both to those huge contracts, Smith proves to be an elite defensemen over the next couple years and we can't afford to resign him because we locked ourselves up with those massive contracts? Sometimes things happen for a reason, and if we can't add any big name players then i'm sticking to this logic so I don't go nuts.

Which one supposedly has ties to the Russian mob? Whichever one it is, the other guy is worse.

Seriously? You honestly believe this to be true? P.S. It's "couldn't" care less.

This is an interesting point. The fall of the Soviet Union could have played a major part in the shift, if there indeed was a shift, in attitude. Under Soviet rule the mentality was strict and of do whats best for the team/country/organization, teamwork achieves the utimate goal. The fall of the Soviet Union was a very interesting event as the country shifted from a strict regimented communist country, to a wild-west true-capitalist gangland utopia in a very quick fashion. And the mentality thus shifted from "teamwork" to "self/money, etc."

And Larionov. There's just something about certain guys like Semin and Kovalev that spells lazy. You can say the same about Penner before the Kings cup run this year. Franzen is lazy. There's lazy players from everywhere...

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

Or the more likely reason is that he's just playing the media, and you always say you are happy with your team no matter what. Holland can't go out in an interview and say we NEED a top 6 forward and top pairing defensemen!!!! That's just going to hurt him in the trade market.

Good God, that is not what he even said.... Stop twisting things to make it sound the way you want it to. He said they have guys that can fill in, so it's not like they are down to 4 defensemen. " Obviously, with the loss of (Brad) Stuart, the loss of (Nick) Lidstrom, we're not as deep as we've been in the past in defense. Two players that are going to replace him that weren't here (last year) are Brendan Smith and (Kyle) Quincey, so it's not like we've lost two guys and don't have any players." Please don't just make everything fit your doom and gloom attitude... Oh thank you for some sane voices on LGW.... I swear the level of doom and gloom is off the charts. People are acting like the Wings are now Calgary or something.... not even close! Yeah, risk bringing in a guy who has, by all accounts, a horrible attitude and questionable worth ethic. Risk that because it's not your money, so let's just go on a spending frenzy and grab all the average players we can. Holland is smart not to blow everything up by spending like a 16 year old girl the weekend before Prom. Get a grip people, the sky is not falling. The team, as is, will make the playoffs and will compete. Remember when everyone wrote Datsyuk off as a non-playoff contributor? How did that turn out?

That line has been on loop for the last 4 years.....

Concerning the member in question here: the warning in the thread causing tonight's ruckus has been made. Anything further from him will result in removal. Be patient, it'll take a week for him to respond to that.

esteef

Just google 'floating' you'll be sure to find it.

Nothing against Doan as a hockey player but I've never liked him. His comments after PHO lost this year really cemented, in my mind, my dislike for the guy. That being said, he is definitely the type of player the Wings need. I think he would thrive here so if the Wings sign him I'd actually be pretty happy.

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...