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He has family Western Canada and wants to be close for personal reasons. A real GM like Nill or Yzerman would use pure willpower to induce a tectonic shift of the earth's crust, capable of moving the Pacific coast closer to Michigan. Holland sux.

He allegedly wants to go to Weatern Canada, not Detroit, and the Islanders want an equally skilled defenseman in return to replace him. Ie it's not happening. Of course all of the details will get lost a year or two from now when everyone says Holland sucks for not being able to acquire him for spare parts.

My interpretation of trending in the right direction is not based on record, but rather the overall direction of the team. I feel that just looking at record is a very simplistic way of evaluating the direction of the team. In the 2010 playoffs our starting 18 + goalies were the following: Johan Franzen, Henrik Zetterberg, Todd Bertuzzi, Valtteri Filppula, Pavel Datsyuk, Tomas Holmstrom, Drew Miller, Darren Helm, Daniel Cleary, Kris Draper, Justin Abdelkader, Jason Williams, Nicklas Lidstrom, Brian Rafalski, Niklas Kronwall, Brad Stuart, Jonathan Ericsson, and Andreas Lilja, Jimmy Howard, and Chris Osgood In 2010 this was a team that was build to win in the now, and in hindsight was headed towards a decline. There is nothing wrong with this, every team has an ascent, a peak, and a decline. Of those 20 players, 8 are still playing, and next year with the likely loss of Miller and Helm probably 6. If we still had most of those players playing and no talented young players to replace them and were not getting better, then I agree we would be the same team and I would not say we are headed in the right direction. However this is not the case, we have a ton of young players who have a history of winning together (calder cup) and have a ton of promise. Led by Larkin and DD, I believe that this team is on it's way of becoming a force in the league....hence, trending in the right direction.

We Believe

I'm OK with him going down, but I'd love him to stay and play wing on the third line too. I like the idea of suddenly having some size on the wings with him, sheahan, and Abby all playing there.

Regardless of what sport you are talking about, pretty much every team in the world has high points, and low points. To keep a team a contender literally EVERY single year is pretty much impossible. The only franchises that I have seen even come close to this, are the Detroit Red Wings, San Antonio Spurs, St. Louis Cardinals, and New England Patriots. All 4 of these franchises are outliers in their respective sports. Most teams before they become good, have a very very very bad period, just look at the Blackhawks and Kings. Before leading the league the hawks didnt make the playoffs 9 times in 10 years, the Kings didnt make it 6 straight years, and 11 times in 15 years. My point is, it is unrealistic to expect any team to be a championship contender forever. In my lifetime (I am 33) I have seen 3 era's of Wings, lets call it the Yzerman era, the euro twins era, and the current era. I think because Detroit made a seamless transition between the Yzerman era and Euro Twins era, people have that expectation moving forward, but with the cap that is pretty much impossible. I have seem a team being run poorly (I am a Lions fan) and the Wings are not that. Our worst case scenario/lowest point has been losing in the first round 3 times in 4 years. When you compare that to what most teams have to go through during any type of transition, that is not bad at all. I guess if you are in a mindset that Nyquist, Tatar, Larkin, Mrazek, DD and company are nothing special and not the players you want moving forward, I get the disappointment, but for those who believe in the core lets just wait and see what the kids can do. Especially with a new coach, we are not just going to become contenders again overnight. Like I have said a million times on this board, we are going through a re-build and to give up a Larkin or Mantha etc. for a rental to get us a round further in the playoffs now is silly IMO. Its not like a player like Jurco is going to get us a Shea Weber. If people want us to trade for a superstar, we are going to need to get rid of a package of kids, I would rather be great later, then a bit better now.

It's this kind of "do what I want" thinking that we need more of in Detroit. Holland plays by the rules too much. The laws of physics were meant to be broken Kenny.

Maybe you should drink more alcohol, like drink every time a goal is scored. that way you can piss on more friends.

I'm probably the only one, but I agree with Zetterberg. We won the 5 on 5 battle last night. But its hard to score when all your offensive guys are off the ice. I liked our game minus the penalties. This team is going to be fine.

agree the problem is the scoring we need legit guys who can hit the net on a nightly baises not behind the net or off the boards bury it thats what we lack right now goaltending is great and d is alright

What about some sort of 3 way deal?? Seeing as hamonic is from Winnipeg Somethings like ... Jets get Hamonic and helm (both Manitoba kids) Redwings get Byfuglien (ufa at seasons end) Islanders get Smith and morrissey

I dont mean to be rude, but you really need to read more then a headline before creating a thread. He wants to move to the western conference, a trade to Detroit makes zero sense. .

Kenny doesn't go for players like Hamonic.

No problem. I think by the end of next season Hammond will be their starter though.. or at the very least move onto a situation like we have with Jimmy and mraz.

This is really not surprising at all. AA has waiver exemption and while his game has been energizing and fun to watch, he's not setting the world on fire with his play. Of course, if we had the room for another young guy with plenty of scoring upside, I'd prefer for him to stay up. ...but until we shed some excess forwards it's back to GR.

Are you saying if Steve or hank had won they would have fizzled out? I know that's not what you're saying but it's not like Larkin is gonna be some fly by night kid he has all the tools to be an all star for a long time. Many great players HAVE won it. But I doubt he gets it, wings players never get the same respect as the big hype players

As much as it pains me to say this and I really don't want it to happen but the best thing for this team might be for it to miss the playoffs.

It's going to be impossible for him if we keep scoring 1 goal a game.

I've never liked that rule (despite living in a city where the hometown team hosted the last two WS). But you know what? Even though the rule makes no sense whatsoever, it makes the games more fun to watch.

Pretty sure they announced Anderson as the starter at the beginning of the year.Edit: yup, found a link. They named Anderson starter for the season but also acknowledged the need for two good goalies http://nhl.nbcsports.com/2015/09/13/andersons-to-carry-the-load-in-ottawa/

Being a .500 team is not a bad thing as long as you are trending in the right direction.

You shouldn't be expecting this team to be seriously contending for a Stanley Cup at this point. Our next wave of elite talent is being developed, once Larkin and co. are in their prime I will be concerned if we're not one of the very best teams in the league. Until then we still have a shot, like most teams in the league. I think everybody in the organization still strives to be the very best that they can but they're more focused on the future

I dont see it this way at all. I like our defense and goalie. We are allowing very few goals. I think we need better forwards. One more Larkin, and this team is seriously legit.

Mrazek has the 8th highest save% in the league, and when you filter out goalies who have played in less than 5 games this season, he's top 5 league-wide. I'm not sure what your definition of "stopper" in goal is, but clearly there are only four teams at most in this league who have one. I do agree that our defense needs work, but I think that's more a function of the coaching (and more specifically adaptation to new coaching), and not so much the personnel, and even that is steadily improving from the beginning of the season.