kipwinger

Make the playoffs for the last five years. Bottom half of GMs. Lol. Only on LGW. Again, just to clarify. Holland "took over" a team full of Hall of Famers that HE DRAFTED. And then he acquired like 5 more Hall of Famers. The only Hall of Famer he had nothing to do with was Yzerman.

I think that he's saying Nyquist draws a lot of penalties by diving and often not getting caught. Or at least that's how I interpreted it. Anyway, shame on Pulkkinen. I hate that s*** and I'm glad he got caught.

Tyler Wright. And he deserves the lion's share of the draft successes and failures since 2013 (mostly successes). That's how it works. If Holland is in charge of scouting and drafting players in 1989 (he was) and we have a ton of success in that area, then he gets the credit. If he's in charge of putting together an NHL roster (and he has been since 1997), and we go to the playoffs every year, the Cup finals 5 times, and win 4 championships, then he deserves credit. Holland is demonstrably the most successful GM in the NHL. By a mile. More championships, more wins, more playoffs, more everything. The core of the teams he won with were scouted, drafted, and developed by him. The key free agent acquisitions during that time? Him too. Aside from hiring Scotty Bowman and drafting Yzerman, there was not a single part of those dynasty teams that wasn't directly the result of Ken Holland. Lidstrom, Fedorov, Osgood, McCarty, Konstantinov, Larionov, Fetisov, Shanahan, Hasek, Chelios, Hull, Robitaile. All of them were Red Wings, in one way or another, as a result of Ken Holland. And he has the rings to show for it. Four of them. Maybe. But I think people get too hung up on the NTCs. I've been guilty of it too, so I'm not pointing fingers. Who cares if he gives an NTC to a guy he's never going to trade in the first place? It's a bad idea to give one to Mikael Samuelsson. It's not a bad idea to give one to Abby. Holland has no intention of trading him, ever, so why not give him one in exchange for a smaller dollar amount? It's just negotiating leverage.

Wings: 5 (Tatar (2), Zetterberg, Nyquist, Kronwall) San Jose: 3 Lots of scoring tonight. LGW! It's a free for all!

I don't really think that Abby had Holland over a barrel though. I think the contract is a little long sure. But I don't think Holland had no choice. If he'd have played hardball he surely could have gotten Abby down on term. It's not like Abdelkader wants to play anywhere else. He's "all in" on the Red Wings mythos. I think Holland gave Abby a long term deal because A) he knows and believes that Abby is a future team leader, B) He's doing the hometown kid a solid for putting in an honest effort every single day, C) he's sending a message to future high end players that he'll scratch their backs in the long run if they cut him a break on their bridge contracts.

1. The Red Wings Organization: 1995-2002 Avalanche (arch); 1995-2002 New Jersey Devils (Nemesis) 2. Steve Yzerman: Sergei Fedorov (arch); Joe Sakic (nemesis) 3. Nick Lidstrom: ? 4. Chris Osgood: The long floater (arch), Dominic Hasek (nemesis) 5. Pavel Datsyuk: ? 6. Ken Holland: ? 7. Mike Ilitch: Peter Karmanos (arch); Dan Gilbert (nemesis) 8. Henrik Zetterberg: The Selke Trophy (arch), Datsyuk (nemesis) 9. Johan Franzen: ? 10. Darren McCarty: Sobriety (arch), Lemieux (nemesis) A couple of these are actually kinda tough.

Know what else he did? Hired Hakan Andersson. And Jim Nill. Not Bowman though. He's the responsibility of the other much aligned front office guy, Devellano. If I'm understanding the argument correctly. A whole bunch of other people made Ken Holland successful. But not him. Despite the fact that he's the one who went out and found all these other people. And somehow that's NOT exactly what a good manager would do.

You know what Ken Holland was doing during the fabled class of 1989 draft? Scouting and drafting them. He was the Director of Amateur Scouting. You know what those other guys where doing for the Wings organization in 1989? Nothing. They didn't work here yet. If you're going to attribute his success to that class, fine. Give him credit for scouting and drafting them since, ya know, he did that. He's literally the only person you mentioned who had anything at all to do with getting those guys into Red Wings sweaters.

Someone already said that. And yes, yes he can lol. Or maybe Pulkkinen was just being a pantywaist like Echophilia said above.

I realize he doesn't average over two goals a game. I was exaggerating for effect. However, I'm not sure that we made a strategic decision to leave Ovechkin uncontested. And if we did, it worked. At least for now. So I'm not sure what else we should have done. Played him the way everybody else does? Everybody else he scores on regularly, that is. There's no good way to cover him. But I don't think that means Blashill specifically chose NOT to cover him. He's just really really really good. And his whole team was feeding him, so get got a bunch of shots. Won't happen again I'm sure.

Well you've certainly got to admire his commitment to being a bonehead. He's got moxie. He's like the Cool Hand Luke of dummies.

Smith and Pulkkinen get scrappy in practice? Lol. http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2015/11/tempers_flare_between_teemu_pu.html I'd call Smith a ****** for going after one of the smallest guys in the league, but he did go after the biggest too, so maybe he's indiscriminate. Either way, looks like Riley's brother is all in on trying to earn a solid spot in the lineup. That or he's dumb. Really, really, really, dumb.

I believe it. We did the same thing last year when Pulkkinen first got called up. Guys were force feeding him the puck. At the end of the day, I don't really think there's an effective way to shut down Ovechkin. If there was, he wouldn't be as good as he is. I think you play him just like you would any other good right shooter, and hope the goalie sees the puck and anticipates the shot well. Which Mrazek did. If, in doing that, he gets 15 shots then so be it. As you've correctly pointed out, that probably means the rest of the team isn't doing much, and you might steal one.

Everybody is lucky he doesn't score 2 goals on them. Many times he does. There just isn't a good way to shut the guy down. None.

Abby is like Dan Cleary 2.0. He's a heart and soul guy who's inauspicious start will yield a very productive player for the next handful of years. After which time we'll renegotiate as he declines. I haven't felt this good about talent management since Dolph Ziggler cashed in Money in the Bank on Del Rio. And we all know that turned out just fine.

I like the contract. Takes his through his prime years, but not by much. And you get to renegotiate with him when he's 35 and on the down swing of his career. I don't love 7 year contracts for non-stars, but at least you're signing this one while he's still in his 20's. Good deal.

What's wrong with the strategy? If you haven't notice, no other strategies seem to stop him from scoring either, so at the very least it's a wash. It's Ovechkin, there's really not much that can be done with him. We shut him out, once, so for the time being I'd say we handled him just fine.

I agree...sort of. Not 4 months ago LGW resoundingly supported the claim that "Toews is overrated" but many go apes*** for Kopitar, who is probably not as good defensively (but only marginally) and a little better offensively (but only marginally). Both are elite level talents, but neither are the best centers of their generation. Yet only Kopitar gets recognized for being as good as he is. Actually, now that I think about it, I think Toews is just undervalued. But that's another discussion.

AA reminds me exactly of Ryan Kesler. And everybody know how I feel about that guy.

Used our speed to get to lose pucks, battled hard, had good active sticks. I liked our defensive game tonight.

Marchenko looked strong tonight. So did Kindl. Smith better be careful or he might find himself the odd man out.

Mrazek standing tall!

Huge kill here.

We are absolute puck hounds tonight. Our breakouts look really good too. Nice effort so far boys. Let's keep it up.

AA!