Leaderboard

I can´t really see why a lot of people here are so pessimistic. We already have a few good pieces in the lineup and there´s more pieces waiting in the pipeline. As I said before, we had a stretch of 15-20 games where we were one of the best teams in the league, when we were healthy. There were a lot of players taking steps in the right direction, Larkin,Mantha,Bert and AA + the last stint from Hronek were very promising, Cholo and Zadina got their first taste of NHL hockey to see what it takes. If we are able to strengthen our 2nd line to start the season and stay relativly healthy, we have a chance to be close to the playoffs this year. With Cholo and Seider hopefully being the top pair in GR and continued growth of our prospects, 2020 looks good to me.

Got me interested, so... Points earned over the course of the season:

I totally agree with you to be aware of that, but it´s a light at the end of the tunnel. Last season we started real bad and never got out of that hole. I don´t have the numbers, but would guess that we were not that far off of a playoff position if you take the first 20 games away and in Larkin,AA,Mantha and Bert you have players which have taken significant steps and any of the four looks better to me than any of the aforementioned 3. Nyquist and Tatar just reached their potential quite early but are still good players. As this is the 2020 thread and with 28 unsigned prospects (10 of them 2nd and 3rd round picks), at least 10 promising prospects signed but currently not on the roster, 9 picks in 2020 (5 in the first three rounds), the eventually coming extra picks at the deadline and with continued growth I am really optimistic for 20/21.

You're not wrong. And it would have been interesting to see what Holland would have done with this off-season too. Does he make these meaningless stop gap moves that Yzerman did, or does he do a more Jeff Gorton approach and play with the big names to accelerate this *****? I get the feeling Holland would have spent more money this offseason for better or worse. I also don't necessarily agree with the notion that Yzerman needs, or is taking, a year to evaluate this team. He's been an NHL GM working in the same division as us, and by all accounts was scouting for us this entire past year. He also officially worked side by side with Holland until Ken's departure. He knows what we have and don't have. He's not evaluating this team. He's tanking. And yeah changing GM's because fans are unsatisfied seems dumb, but we do pay the bills so to speak. Gotta keep customers happy. The warm glow of Yzerman should keep a lot of fans onboard during the next 3 years of sucking. Fans: "Caertainly this is rock bottom for our franchise" Yzerman: This really connects with my inner 1993 university student studying sociology. Tribal tattoos will be cool forever. Weed cures cancer. We had a stretch of 15-20 games where we had one of the best lines in the league.

Well DK is taller so obviously he's better.

#Pray4Lafreniere

Except Val Filppula, Yzerman loves him some Val Filppula.

I guess I'm kinda neutral on all of this; I was ok with Holland staying on and I'm ok with Yzerman replacing him. I'm not convinced Yzerman is an upgrade over Holland (I discussed my concerns about Yzerman at length a few months ago), but, either way, it was probably time for a change. Fan resentment towards Holland had gotten so loud that it was threatening to become part of the Red Wings brand. Bad energy. Bad vibes. It became clear this past season that the Yzerman-or-bust movement would only continue to grow louder and louder until A) we got Yzerman or B) those angry fans became apathetic and tuned out. From a business perspective, the only thing worse than angry fans is numb, disinterested fans. Do I think Holland would've been crucified for doing what Yzerman's done this offseason? Yup. Do I think that's stupid? Yup. Do I think the fart-sniffing pundit class has, for years now, been too quick to shower Yzerman with praise and equally quick to rain scorn down on Holland? Yup. Do I think that's stupid? Yup. Do I think it's very possible that if Yzerman doesn't inherit Stamkos and Hedman, the Lightning rebuild goes sideways and he gets fired after a few seasons? Yup. Is any of this enough to keep me up at night? Nah. I'm willing to give Yzerman the benefit of the doubt for the time being. I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm telling myself that the brain trust is just trying to run out the clock on a number of our veteran contracts and that the end of those contracts wil be the end of the status quo holding pattern we've been stuck in.

HYPE!

This isn't a defense of Holland, but rather an observation. I do think that it is much easier to trade a player if you just walked in to become GM, opposed to trading a player that you personally signed, and quite possibly said things like "we want you to finish your career as a Wing" to. Not that Holland said that, but I have to think that things like that have to factor in on your decision making. Also, in Edmonton they are in win-now mode with McDavid, here we were re-building where I'm sure the urgency to move a contract like that was significantly less. With that said, I agree with your point. Yzerman coming in means he has no emotional ties to any player, and that's probably a good thing.

Furreal. Good on Holland. Not sure what Calgary is thinking here.

Seattle Pinkos

That is a pretty bold statement given that a team build by Yzerman just won the Presidents Trophy by a mile and almost beat a record held by a pre-cap Red Wings team, that was supposed never to fall in a league that promotes parity like there is no tomorrow. Yes, that team also lost four in a row in post season after that. It happens in sport. But four ******* games don't make or break Yzermans superb performance as a GM in Tampa.

No convincing needed. I think apple seider is tart yet delicious

I can only imagine your reaction when he hires Babcock to replace Blashill...

The Wings missing out on Krug I feel like was a mistake that goes un-talked about. He was undrafted and playing in our backyard. Now he's the Bruins top paid Dman. But we gave $5 mil to DK out of wastern so we go that going for us.