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Hey, look whose's "caddying" for Uncle Gary!

The NHL-FU

Last year, forcheck sucked. Cycle was ok. Lacking in drive could have been attributed to the injury rash and everyone playing hurt. Dats and Lids were out for portions so Z couldn't rest at all and Cleary was a medicine ball. Mule got hurt too, but we were better when he was out and Nyquist was at .7 ppg before he came back. The hunger and dirty, hard-nosed demolition men....we got Tootoo and Eaves should be good to go. We'll have more speed in the top 6 hopefully with slow ass Hudler gone and Nyquist and Brunner possible top 6 guys that both have wheels. Sammy's not half bad for speed too. The new angles and shot options completely changes the attack. The Wings will have something we haven't had in a number of years having almost no RH forwards for the better part of 5-6 years and that's the element of surprise. When you have a team with only 1 RH player, teams know you can't attack as good from the left side and they load up the D on the side that you can actually one-time the puck from and you can plug the opposing team with a small box defence. Look no further than Tampa. We don't have a guy who can shoot like Stamkos, but when you have him and St. Louis on the ice at the same time who can both pass great to the guy across the ice and blast one-timers, it makes the defence spread out more and gives the offence more opportunities to get the goalie moving side to side and get him out of position. We should see a lot more shots with the goalies less square than we're used to seeing.

TheAxe is that you Emmerton? rofl. Dude, we understand you love the kid but don't let it fog your vision. He is not ahead of Miller and Eaves in the depth chart, to even comprehend that is uncanny. If anything he's going to get packaged for the D man Holland is looking for after the CBA is announced because we can't afford to lose him strictly off waivers and he isn't good enough to crack the lineup this year. Emmerton has wheels, but he certainly isn't the fastest prospect. Just let me ask you this, in your honest opinion you're going to tell me that you would rather dress Emmerton over Eaves who is one of our best PK'ers and right handed shots?

Others have said much of what I am thinking about "building from within" sounding like a bit of a crock in light of his pursuit of countless big names, so I won't go over it again. But, "the price wasn't right"? Where do you get that? He's thrown everything and the kitchen sink at many guys and they signed elsewhere or were traded elsewhere. "The price wasn't right" makes it sound like Holland backed out of these deals when that simply isn't the case at all. He's even said as much himself. The "build from within" amounts to nothing but damage control in light of Ken Holland's actions this summer. And what is it they say about actions and words? (P.S. I like White and Quincey, a lot in fact, but to bill them as replacements for the holes left by Raffie and Stuart is a lot to put on them and quite a stretch if you ask me. Again, I like the guys and the signings a lot, but given the holes that have been left, that that's the best that can seemingly be done is worrisome.)

i want him purely for the name on the back of the jersey

Sure but you can't deny Holland operates in a different way then most other GM's. Holland is an extreme on the spectrum. Plays extremely close to the vest, conservative, long-term game. On the other end of the spectrum you have Holmgren. Plays balls to the wall, high-risk high-reward, blow up the team to get that cup now game. Everyone else falls somewhere in between. Sure Holland chased Nash, and Suter, and blah blah blah.....price wasnt right though and so he didnt pull triggers on things. Thats him. He's not the kind of guy who gives up Zetterberg for *insert Dman here*.....Holmgren is that guy. Mike Richards and Jeff Carter is all I gotta say. So yes this off season is due to his decisions....bad or good....but those decisions were made by him and his philosophy of hockey business

Well, I admit I am wrong. I thought Fehr and the players were going to lowball the union. This is good progress made by the players. Instead of being pricks like the owners, they took the high road and they put forward a good proposal. Lets see what happens with the owners now.

I think you're trying to divine a philosophy to fit what happened, as if it's all just part of the master plan. I'd say the reality is far, far simpler. You can't always get what you want. And despite Jagger's claims to the contrary, trying won't necessarily get you what you need either. Given a mulligan for the last couple years, Kenny would likely take a different approach. The better defense, in my opinion, is, "So what?". He made some decisions, passed on some options hoping for better, but it didn't work out. So what? There's nothing particularly bad about maybe not being one of the top contenders for a few years. Much of his job relies on making educated guesses about the future. Sometimes, the guesses will be wrong, or someone else will guess right quicker. So what? It isn't Holland's philosophy that put us in the spot we are now. It's that the rest of the league isn't required to follow it. Some of his critics want to say they still support him: 'not saying he sucks, just that he could do better'... And they've been saying it at every opportunity for the past month and a half. I think if that's really all they wanted to say, they'd be satisfied at having said it innumerable times already, but whatever. There may be a big difference between "sucks" and "could have done better", but there's also a big difference between "could have" and "should have".

Devereaux was integral, as well.

The "Youth Movement" is lol on many levels. For starters: there is no youth movement, just a couple younger guys in the top-6 (Brunner, Nyquist) and Smith on the third-pairing. I guess you could say that's a youth movement by our standards. And hey, who knows, maybe Tatar, Sheahan et al. will see NHL ice. But we added Sammy and Tootoo, and Holland was hard for Doan, etc. That, to me, doesn't scream "Youth Movement!" Then there's Kenny's comments about the importance of building from within. Drafting well, cultivating your young talent - that's how we've got to do it these days. To which I say: 1) that's always been the case (not with us, but generally for everyone else), and 2) you're saying this while nearly matching Minnesota's bid for Suter and chasing after Nash and Doan and a thousand other free-agents and giving up a first-round pick for Quincey? (Not that I object to his having pursued free agents. And, turns out we need Quincey now.) I could go on.

we saw Nyquist get a handful of games in the top 6 and then get relegated to the 4th line with Homer and Emmerton so Mule could float around. Also, Cleary was providing jack skating around on 1 leg. As good as Stuart's been, he wasn't all there last year and was terrible in the playoffs. Homer needs to just retire already and not take up a roster spot. Conklin provided no support as a back up and then Joey Mac got injured. Smith should have been in the lineup. And lastly off the top of my head, we had 1 right handed player. ONE! now we have on top of White 5. Brunner, Sammy, Tootoo, possibly Eaves back. That completely changes the way the Wings can attack the opposition being able to more efficiently use both sides of the ice and one-time from both sides and actually get the other teams goalie moving instead of tossing s*** at the net from the outside. Just wait dude. adding a mix of righty's to the Wings is gonna be just what the doctor ordered.

I will say in defense of the Holland defenders that I have no idea why people keep bringing up Parise and Suter in this argument. I mean, sure, it's loosely relevant, but it's scratching the surface of a broader issue and ultimately, their decision to sign elsewhere was among the least of things you can blame Ken Holland for given the circumstances. It's a stupid argument and it's utterly non-sensical to continue to suggest that we didn't offer enough money or didn't push hard enough. Suter wanted to head home to Minnesota and avoid media attention (so we pretty much lost this one when we decided to start calling Detroit "Hockeytown") and Parise only left the Devils to play with his friend in his home state. If Suter signed in Detroit or anywhere else, he was staying with the Devils. How this incredibly obvious and simple conclusion isn't enough for some people is truly mind-blowing to me.

I agree about Kronwall; he's a great defensemen that has been integral to our success over the years. However, he's also proven to be a bit fragile in the past. And we didn't just lose Lidstrom. In the last year and change, we also lost Rafalski and Stuart. Rafalski was a star and a big name guy long before coming to Detroit and could've been most teams top defenseman and Stuart could easily be many teams #2; at worst, Stuart's among the best 2nd pairing defensemen out there. So what still bothers me isn't so much that we haven't replaced Lidstrom, it's that we haven't replaced 3 of our top 4 defensemen in any way shape or form in the last year. It'd be one thing if we had been able to zero in on even one guy that could sit in the middle of the talent pool of the pack we lost; I'm not even talking a Suter level guy here. The problem to me is that we haven't even come close to filling any of our defensive holes, again, left by the departure of 3 of our top 4 guys, including one who's among the best players to ever live, who at retirement was still a bona fide superstar capable of being the best player on the ice still nearly every night. Everyone keeps focusing on Lidstrom because it is a huge a dramatic change we're being forced to accept, but what worries me far more is that we haven't even touched on the loss of Rafalski and Stuart. Now, I certainly didn't expect Holland to just pull another Rafalski out of his hat the day after he retired, but again, the writing has been on the wall for awhile, and it's been screaming at everyone since Rafalski retired. We knew Stuart almost certainly wouldn't be back for at least a year now if not more if you count most people's gut feeling. We just watched Rafalski retire. And Lidstrom was firmly in his 40's. Maybe we didn't know for sure if Lidstrom would be back, but the departure of both Rafalski and Stuart alone would warrant some meaningful replacement, even if Lidstrom was returning, and we haven't even gotten that. And I know people hate it and love to dismiss it, but I just can't help but think that Holland could have done something prior to this summer to better prepare for this. Again, at least something to address the collective loss of Stuart and Rafalski. I'm not saying the guy should be tarred and feathered or that he's a terrible GM overall at all, but when a team like Detroit that prides itself on being competitive every year watches 3 of their 4 top defensemen leave and nothing is done to address it, you've got to admit at the very least that this is hardly Holland's finest hour. And before we assume once again that we're just being ungrateful fans, don't forget the Babcock was "pissed" (direct quote: "I'm pissed off." -Mike Babcock, http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/41032-Brent-Burns-trade-moves-Sharks-closer-to-Stanley-Cup.html) last summer when Holland didn't make moves that could have been made, when Babcock said all along that they needed to add a guy to strengthen their defense. We still had Lidstrom and Stuart at that point. How do you think he feels about everything now? You think he's happy? Sure, you can't get upset about Suter given the circumstances, but Babcock obviously has felt for awhile that changes need to be made as well, and nothing happened. Again, how do you think he feels now? And when do we stop defending Ken Holland by suggesting that it's of benefit to us that he's been conservative? And why is it so hard for people to admit that even the best can struggle, and even the best can drop the ball, and even the best need to change? There's a tremendous difference between "I think you suck" and "I think you can do better." You know what George Martin, primary record producer of The Beatles, said even to the obscenely successful band, The Beatles??? "I think you can do better." Hey, Ken Holland, I think you can do better.

This, we already lost a season of a still prime 35 year old Lidstrom. Are we potentially about to lose a season where Dats is 34 and Z is 31? They're going to have to put an asterisk by total stats for players whose career fell under Bettman's reign because they lost a season and a half (and counting) of hockey and had to suffer through a decade of clutch and grab before the league did anything about it.

Seriously guys, no love for Freddie Olausson?!?

Are we talking just playoffs here? Tough call for best player. As someone else said, Yzerman was the most valuable player with his leadership playing on one leg, but I would have to go with Dom - he set a record for most shut-outs in the post season, out-goaltended Roy in the WCF, and hung in there when Irbe was standing on his head. Favourite player was Feds.

I'm downright offended that you left off the clear cut choice for MVP and obvious best player on the team that year, Jiri Slegr. Shame on you. After all, he played one game in the playoffs. That one game just-so-happened to be the game where we won the Stanley Cup. If that doesn't scream "Most Valuable Player", then I just don't know what does... Back to reality... So many pieces on that team clicked together perfectly. Stevie putting the whole team on his back in the first round. Dom stonewalling Colorado (who had us on the brink) in Game 6. Lidstrom leading the defense in his usual always-perfect self, winning the Conn Smythe. Larionov always making the perfect pass, and scoring the iconic triple overtime goal. McCarty with the Hat Trick on Roy in Game 1. I had to pick Nick as the MVP, and Stevie will always be my favorite Red Wing, so that was an easy choice for me.

I love how it says the contract can be broken for "only 100,000 dollars". I wish I had "only 100,000 dollars" in my bank account.

Philly, Nashville and the Blues are now all said to be bidding for JBo - agree he is going to be too pricey. At this point the Wings should trade a bottom 6 forward and draft pick to San Jose for Doug Murray and hope an opportunity presents itself at the trade deadline... or maybe Volchenkov from NJ (though like JBo he has a no-trade clause) . SJ and NJ have too many defensemen right now.

Im usually about giving every player a chance....especially wings draft picks.....but every eye for hockey I have says this kid has nothing....I'm used to be an upper for the wings! but I honestly have no faith in this kid! he'll be gone soon!

I laughed hard at this. Also, If we could get JBo for a sniff of Holland's taint I'd take it....as long as Huds is the one sniffing.

I'm usually a glass half full kind of fan, but there's just no getting around the fact that our defense is not very good. Kronwall, White, Ericsson, Smith, Kindl, Quincey. That's it. Kronwall is good, White is sort of an uneven or unknown commodity without Lidstrom around to play with, Ericsson has become a bit more solid but he's still not good, Quincey had a rough run with the Wings but maybe, just maybe he'll improve, and Smith is an unknown commodity. But realistically there's little chance he plays better than 5th d-man. Compare that to other defenses around the league, and we don't stack up well. We've got a #1 in Kronwall, a #3 in White, and two #4s in Quincey and Ericsson, and a #6 or 7 in Kindl. We still need a #1 or a #2 to even have a good defensive corps.

Holland's lost nothing, it's called the Salary Cap era. If we want Detroit to be a top destination again, get rid of the Salary Cap. We can spend based on what we bring in instead of being weighed down by broke teams like Phoenix, Florida and Columbus.

Holland knows that building from within is the secret to success in a parity filled league. He doesn't overpay free agents or overpay in trades unless it's absolutely perfect for that reason. Plan A is always to build with homegrown talent and not to overpay for outside help. Holland has already assembled the next wave of quality prospects so I fail to see how he has lost his mojo. No we won't be a favorite to win the cup this year, but over the next few seasons our prospects will be entering the league, giving us an influx of cheap and talented youth. It begins with Smith and Nyquist this year. Holland knows the game better than anyone/