GMRwings1983

You obviously didn't get the subtle joke. To me, those three guys were the same person put into one. Wouldn't know them if they walked into my room. I never thought they'd be anything special. Apparently, neither did Holland. Also, we didn't get anything more than rentals for them. But yes, it was a step in the right direction to trade a few prospects and Holland did make those trades. I wish he took chances like this earlier. Just need better luck and intuition on who we take those chances on. Legwand and Cole didn't pan out.

What did Weiss say? "I'm taking my talents back to South Beach"

It's hard to bring up Tatar and Nyquist in a positive light after these last few playoffs. They're old enough now where I wanted to see them take the bull by the horns. Instead, all I saw is that we're in trouble when Datsyuk and Zetterberg retire. Of course, I may be wrong, but you're not right either. We haven't yet seen that these two players are top tier players that can carry us in big moments. They need a star player around them, like a Datsyuk, Giroux, Crosby type for them to excel. Even then they haven't done so in the last two playoffs with Datsyuk and Zetterberg. To me, they look like followers and not leaders. Dekeyser is a defensive defenseman that can be a top 4 guy. He's not a GR player that people have raved about, because his background had nothing to do with GR. I was talking about Smith and not Dekeyser. The jury is out on Larkin, Mantha and Sproul. We'll see.

You mean in terms of quality or in terms of where Babcock will play them? Babcock had Abdelkader on the top line, but I don't think he's a top line player around the league. Same thing with Ericsson being played on the top pair.

I've been listening to people for years tell me how great our prospects are, and they turn out to be decent 2nd pair defensemen and 3rd line players, at best. I'll wait to see if those guys you listed amount to anything special in the NHL before I feel like we gave something important away. People here have a tendency to overrate our GR players. Just remember, Kirk Maltby scored 50 goals in juniors.

There's a thin line between winning and losing sometime. I don't think it's a coincidence, though, that we ended up on the wrong side of that line. We're just lacking that something extra right now to win this kind of game. Too many squandered chances in the first two periods.

None of those guys were special. And that's how I side-step points also.

Is that the same person?

Well, you should read my post in the other thread. We need to start trading some prospects for more established NHL players. Not the whole farm team, but just more open to trade. We're like Japan right now before Perry invaded them.

I would like to see Holland be more willing to trade picks. He doesn't have to trade the whole farm team, but he needs to be more flexible and less scared of giving away some overvalued prospects. We're not going to home grow a Cup contender from low draft picks. Doesn't work that way. You need some legit scorers with talent.

That's what I mean. People are falsely assuming that I consider competitive to mean winning the Cup. How about winning a playoff series. Or maybe even making the Conference Finals.

I agree. All these great young players people raved about for years turned out to be nothing more than serviceable players who aren't that useful in big games. Smith is not special. Tatar and Nyquist aren't special. Mrazek may be special but a good young goalie is hardly an anomaly in today's league. Besides, he can't score goals or play defense. I just hope people are right about Mantha and Larkin.

How do you define "competitive"? Making the playoffs every year and losing in the early round? If so, then I agree that we're competitive. Since when do we need to measure team success against Edmonton and Buffalo?

That's what McGrattan told me.

Seven years. And counting........

You wrote more than you needed to. My whole point is that Holland's previous successes shouldn't give him immunity at his current job. Immunity is dangerous at any job. If I had immunity at my job, I'd have strippers and scotch here every day

Oh come on. That's like saying that Bill O'Reilly is racist.

They should play Russian Roulette to see which one stays or goes. It's funny, but he and his two cousins (Joe Kocur and Wendel Clark) all played for the Wings at some point in their careers.

I don't remember the Wings blowing lots of 3rd period leads this season. The loss in game 4 stands out, but it was the only such game in the series. And it was still only one loss. This team is the type that could have still blown the series, like they did against Chicago a few years back.

So he's like Ericsson except he can actually shoot?

Haven't seen you in a while. I hope Holland isn't around by that 2016 offseason to make a move at any of those guys.

So which female LGW poster could that be?

"I don't know why they're not coming here" - Ken Holland

Forgot to add, we should sign Jon Jones and Brock Lesnar.

What are the chances the Pens fire their coach and get Babcock?