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Exactly. It's because I respect them so much that I am holding them accountable, I'm holding their feet to the fire. We haven't seen a horrible run like this in almost 25 years. You've got to expect some backlash from the faithful. Our team stands at a precipice: we can hurl ourselves into the void and have confidence to make the bold moves which include adding the right youth, and making the one or two trades that put us right back into the elit; Or we can be timid and afraid to make these moves, and hold on too long to players who gave us their all and have nothing left to giver, and watch this team fall out of contention for years to come. You are right: we are not that far from Cup contention. But you are wrong if you don't see how easily we can deviate from that direction by holding on to long to mediocre depth veterans that have nothing left to give

What's weird about Holland is how he turns any suggestions that he disagrees with into an ideological argument. Nobody has suggest Nyquist is "The Answer," we're just flabberghasted that such a special player did not earn a place on this team with such a great performance in last season's playoffs. It's not a matter of men vs kids (wtf lol?) but putting the best players on the ice.

One problem skippy, those stats tell you nothing, take out outlier games by Franzen where he scored 4-5 goals in one game and then add in Hossa being in a different league defensively and Hossa is the better deal by a country mile.

I think your stuck in the past when there wasn't a salary cap. Sorry buddy can't have all the best players in the world on your team anymore. Why Holland chose Franzen over Hossa is clear, salary. Hossa stats 12-13 40gp and 31 points Franzen stats 12-13 41gp 31 points Hossa stats 11-12 81gp 71 points Franzen stats 11-12 77gp 56 points Hossa 2 season / 102 points Frazen 2 season / 87 points Hossa 5.275 million per season Frazen 3.954 million per season Franzen gets paid 74.9% of Hossa and produces at 85.3% compared to Hossa. Frazen is a much better value than Hossa. Good choice by Holland in a salary cap world. Ohh poor you we only won 3 Stanley Cups during this streak and made the playoffs more consecutive years than any team in the league. We better fire them because Wings fans want a Stanly Cup every single year for the rest of their lives. To bad you can't leave the Wings and root for another team because no other team in the league will satisfy you for more than a couple years in a row. How many times have we been in the Eastern Conference Championship game? How many Stanley Cup appearances? Can you say mis managed teams, OMG we only rank number 1 in all the category's. Oh your right man we have nothing in Grand Rapids we just won the Calder Cup led by our prospects... Yeah that means nothing. Landing the big name free agents you mentioned sure has been working great for Min hey??? Oh wait Min doesn't have the management and prospect pool we do to make those 2 star players worth jack chit. I would love to see you guys endure having a crappy GM who would trade off our team tank and try to build a new team that's only sustainable for a few cup runs and tanks for years again and again. Red Wings have down years, but our down years we still make the playoffs and still have a chance to compete in playoffs just like last year. We also have years where we are cup favorites. Man we got it so bad.

He is right, though. Kids are never supposed to be the centerpiece of a successful team. You infuse the lineup with youth but never rely on them. Here's where it gets interesting. If that is Holland's philosophy, then it contradicts his "we have to roll with what we have" mantra of the past few years. If you promote from within, you are relying on your youth. The best strategy, which as always worked, is create a core of players in their prime, add some veteran presence and insert one or two kids to keep energy up and to gain experience. For all the bashing of Holland re-signing vets and Babcock's stupid lineups, we do ice DeKeyser, Smith, Lashoff, Andersson and Tatar. I don't know how that stacks up league-wide, but that is a lot of kids. It's just not a lot of GOOD kids.

I know it's frustrating not seeing Nyquist up and the Wings struggling but you guys have no reason to call for Babcock or Hollands heads.I'm writing this post due to the ever increasing complaints amongst the Red Wing fans. Detroit is about 2-3 seasons away at MAX from being a cup favorite, AGAIN. They did this while making the playoffs every single year and they likely will again this year too. If you guys can't see that you're choosing the be blind. Not many other teams can pull that off. Mantha is looking like the closest thing you can possibly be from this distance in his development to look like a lock in the future top 6 and will likely be a top 1-2 player. Nyquist and Tatar are likely going to be top 3-7 caliber players. They both work really hard too so they will be hard working guys for those top 2 lines. Datsyuk and Z have a handful of good years left, especially Datsyuk as he will likely be one of those guys to be dominate until almost 40. Even when they do decline they will be an awesome second line combo. Jurco also looks pretty impressive, and if any one of the guys I mentioned don't fully pan out maybe he will and will and replace the guy who doesn't. That's how deep we are. In a couple seasons or so our guys will mostly be developed, some will be more fully seasoned than others but we will have enough seasoned players with the right mix of raw talent injected onto the team. To the defense..... Kronwall has quite a few years left, the guy is a clear cut number one defencemen and he is still getting better. Ericcson isn't going nowhere, the guy is solid and any team would love to have a solid guy on their top 4 like him. Dekeyser seems like the sky is the limit. This guy could be so good for us I don't even think most people realize what we might have in him yet. Just like Lidstrom he doesn't posses god gifted skill. He is super intelligent and is trying to perfect every detail in his game, he could be the closest thing to a Lidstrom anyone in Detroit may see for along time. Only time will tell, but at worst he will be a fantastic guy to have in your top 4. Smith has tons of talent and if anyone has ruled him out already it's a good thing you don't actually have a job in the NHL. Maybe he'll never be more than a 5 or 6 guy or maybe he will wash out of the league. But give him the rest of the season and maybe 20 or 30 games into next season. He may end up as good as he was projected to be. Kindl he is a solid bottom pairing guy anyway you cut it and will still tighten his game up in time. He may not be needed in a couple seasons in Detroit, but if we do need him to stick around he will fit that bill and be a good one for it. Sproul and Quellet are on their way they both already have proven it. Sproul is leading the Griffens defense in scoring who just came straight from the OHL. That is impressive. This kid could be a top pairing guy and the offensive D that we need. Quellet I am not so sure what he will be for us but so far I am impressed. Plug a couple of our D prospects into our current Wings D core and replace of whomever from this current batch didn't cut it and suddenly.... Suddenly wow what a potent defense we have. Bottom Six Forwards. Helm, Andersson, Glendenning, Abdelkader, Miller look at the guys we have. Oh and I forgot to mention Pulkinen and Jarnkrok. Sorry if I can't spell foreign names correctly, not taking the time to look them up. We are going to be really good guys. Count on it. What a fantastic job this organization is doing rebuilding and still keeping our playoff streak alive. This wouldn't be possible if we made trades. Our team is going to be a lot better for a lot longer than it would if we traded multiple prospects for a top player that would only make us "better" not great for a couple years. Holland tried to land big free agents, he couldn't get them and that's not his fault. Sammy and Cleary were signed to help us get to these years that I am talking about not replace these guys, likely signed more for leadership reasons to help develop our players. I'm sure these guys have a great positive impact on our young players by helping them address the areas in their game you only gain from experience and not talent. Just chill out guys and enjoy watching our young talent struggle and find a way to eventually emerge into what looks to be a fantastic future for this team.

I am beyond unhappy about this. DeKe was the player I was watching, every game, he is something special and will just get better. He's young, so I hope he heals fast.

They would have to take Cleary, and Sammy, and no give backs.

It doesn't matter how good Tatar, Nyquist and Jurco are if they're buried for the likes of Cleary, Miller and Sammy. We have the pieces to be a contender but it's a matter of not having faith in management to use them properly. Jurco may not be a Wing in time to play with and learn from Dats.

Re-pect? Is that when Sammy injured his nipple?

There goes Ken's trade deadline acquisition

"Nyquist Getting the Call" Nyquist: Hello? Holland: Hey Gustav, how are things in Grand Rapids? Nyquist: Great, I'm leading the team in scoring and we're first in our division and.... Holland: Yeahhh, that's swell. Say listen, could you give Eaves a message for me? Tell him to pack his bags for Detroit. We're calling him up for Thursday's game. K Thx, later!!!!!

It's like Holland doesn't realize that they're not one day going to magically be great on an NHL powerplay. Kids aren't "the answer" so to speak, but they need a chance to develop into "the answer" eventually.

Yeah. It's possible that you might be exaggerating the impact the 'kids' had during the hawks series....a tad.

We shouldn't get our hopes up. We will be in a real bad situation of he plays two games. We can hope Holland finally accepts it, but there will be pressure to hold off losing players for nothing by waiving them. I agree about Andersson, though. I'm not sure he'd get claimed if Eaves and Tootoo didn't, and we do have other options at center. Emmerton, Glendening, etc.

We may have a good farm, but we don't have a Datsyuk, Zetterberg or Lidstrom in the prospect system. I think our D could be great in 5 years, I'm worried though about our forwards.

It's been said that hockey is a young man's game, and if you look back at some of the great teams and Stanley Cup winners in years past most of the cores of those teams were young and/or in their prime(our '02 Cup winner notwithstanding). The Oilers dynasty in the '80s featured a bunch of young players and, today, with the Hawks being the closest thing to a dynasty, their Cup winning roster from last year boasted all of 1 player 35 or over(he was 35), and almost every one else was 30 or under. Players are developing faster than they used to and many other teams have successfully integrated these players and put together solid, speedy teams(some of which that have skated circles around us this year). So yeah, it boggles my mind that Holland thinks we still need a bunch of 35 and over players getting all the roster spots and ice time over younger, faster, hungrier players. I think his view of needing a vet-heavy roster is becoming antiquated and invalid, and if he doesn't come around to a new way of thinking, we're in for some looong seasons. How much longer does he think Pav and Z can carry the team for, anyway?

Nope, they're short a forward as is.

i'm done respecting them until they earn it. especially holland. every year we hear about how things are going to turn around. every year on here we talk about our great prospect depth an how all of these top tier free agents will be available. and then every year nothing happens... we are not getting better. and it might even be a few years before we are because so many player have had their development nerfed. it does no good to have a prospect pool of nyquist, tatar, jurco, etc if none of them play. for several years we heard that the team was saving cap space for deadline moves or for the future. yet here we are with no cap space and a totally mediocre team. our superstars are gone or aging. unless we actually give youth a chance, then how will we see if we have that next generation of star in our organization?

After hearing that from Holland from his interview with Matt Dery, I've totally lost any hope that Holland is the guy to move this team into the next phase. Thanks for what he's done, but time to move on to someone who can change with the times.

Yah we have tons of skills in the young guys, but 3 years from now Babcock will probably still be playing effin Dan Cleary on the top line. I understand Kenny has made good moves for this team, but he has also made some dumb ones that are affecting us now such as Cleary and Sammy contracts. The main problem is Babcock. He is making all the wrong decisions this year. Continuing to not only play Cleary, but reward him with ice time and, somehow he now gets on the top line with #13! To add to that he has been out coached in almost every game. We lost 3 OT's in a row in the last minute of OT because Babcock failed to make sure to have Pavs, Hank or Kronners on the ice. Simply put, he isnt getting the job done.

Should have done it anyway. Might have saved yourself from watching that game lol

RED WINGS......Y U NO WIN AT HOME???

I do believe complacency is really hurting this organization and has for years. Losing streaks bring out the worst of everyone involved (Holland and Babcock), but I do think this ugly stretch of play exposes a larger issue. I'm not advocating for one or both to lose their jobs. However, it should push them to reexamine the methods of building and utilizing a roster. It shouldn't have taken this for Holland to see the flaws and critical mistakes he has made in the past two years alone, though. I just don't know what this team's identity is yet again. Are we retooling on the fly, while still trying to seriously contend? Are we all-in for a championship? Clearly embracing youth only occurs when hands are forced. It's like the Red Wings are boggled down in mediocrity with no clear path out.