kipwinger

If you hate Helen St. James as much as I do, do yourself a favor and read this. It takes hackery to an entirely new level. If I'm understanding this correctly, especially the last paragraph, her argument seems to be, "Wings fans shouldn't be upset about free agency because this year FAs had reasons to go elsewhere". Which, apparently, is totally different than every other year when free agents just sign willy nilly. Daniel Alfredsson leaves Ottawa after 17 years and it's "time for a change of scenery", but Dan Boyle signs with NYR and it's "couldn't be avoided, he and Martin St. Louis played together ten years ago". She actually suggested that Niskanen signed in Washington because his former coach now coaches there. As if that's special. If that's all it takes to woo FAs can we hurry up and hire some former assistant coaches? http://www.freep.com/article/20140703/SPORTS05/307030047/detroit-red-wings-optimism

Tatar just had a better rookie season than Datsyuk did, on a much worse team. I'm not sure what else he's got to prove for you to think he's a future top six player. As far as your asking price for Green. I don't think Washington would even ask that with a straight face. Holland's the king of making moves from a position of weakness, but even then, he's insane. He gave a prospect and a pic for a top six center in Legwand and that was universally considered an overpayment. Asking for a future top six forward in return for a guy on an expiring contract, who isn't a first pair defender, isn't happening. I can't think of even a single example.

You maybe be right, I can't really say. What I can say is that he'll probably only get better from his already impressive rookie year, and that he's NOTHING like Helm or Abby. His first year in the league is already miles better than anything those two have put together. I'd trade either of those guys in a heartbeat. A guy that can score me 20+ goals and it tenacious and gritty? Not so much.

A week ago he probably could have traded for O'Reilly and not had to go to all that effort. He doesn't want to be there, and had the return been cheaper than his contract Colorado would likely have been able to keep Paul Stastny. But Holland's player acquisition skills, such as they are, don't allow him to make those sorts of shrewd business moves. Also, you're crazy if you'd trade Tatar over Nyquist. He's harder to play against than Nyquist by a mile. Everybody is always clamoring for Detroit to get tougher, and then when confronted by two guys who are roughly equal in talent they want to keep the softer one because he's flashier. Stick Nyquist on the third line and let his ultra lucky shooting percentage come back to earth and they probably produce the same amount of points too.

Aha. Well surely we can all agree that it's still funny regardless of whether Crosby's involved.

A trade for an injury prone, one dimensional, offensive defenseman in the last year of an overpriced contract is going to require a young, future top six, roster player in return? In what universe?

Why would that be better? Dude, don't get me wrong, I love Tatar as much as the next guy. But staying up late drinking in your apartment is not even in the same ballpark as getting drunk and punching a cab driver or going to a college party in a different state, at a school you didn't go to. If I'm drafting one hockey player for my beer olympics team, it's Kane, hands down. One a real note for one second. Just imagine how good Patrick Kane would be if he tried and/or gave a damn.

It's a long post, so I bolded the things I agree with, and italicized the things I don't. My main counterpoints are as follows: 1) The fact that we're not having losing seasons is not a good reason to avoid making smart personnel moves. Pittsburgh fired their GM and coach after 4 or 5 early playoff exits. We pat ours on the back and tell them they did a good job because at least they weren't as bad as Buffalo 2) Our standards as an organization should be higher than "competing in a weak conference". Holland used to say he wanted to challenge for the cup every year. Now he's content to scrape into the playoffs and "see what happens. 3) It's not either/or when it comes to letting kids play vs. acquiring pieces we need. We've got more kids than spots. Some of them can be used to acquire players that help us now. We can't give all of Quellet, Sproul, Marchenko, Backman, and Jenson spots. Not while keeping Knonwall, Ericsson, Smith, and Dekeyser. Likewise there's probably not enough room for all of Nyquist, Tatar, Jurco, Pulkkinen, Sheahan, Mantha with the roster we have. And IF you keep all those guys then there's definitely not room for all of Helm, Glendening, Miller, Abby. And all of that is assuming that Kindl is traded, Lashoff is traded, Andersson is traded. Oh, and before the ill advised Quincey signing we also had about 14 million in cap space to do it. Fact is, we've got more than enough assets to make our team competitive now without mortgaging the organization's future. So why not do it?

If recent history is any indication we'll get butchered by a better team in rounds one or two. That's not going to change with a bad defense, an average goalie, and a bunch of kids who are improving just as fast as our core players are declining. And it's most definitely not going to change if Ken Holland, and his apologists, have an endless list of excuses for not making the team better. Every other team in the league has young talent playing for it too. If our strategy is to "just let the kids develop" without doing anything else, how are we any better off than any other team who's letting their young players improve as well? You think Boston and Pittsburgh don't have young guys who are getting better too?

Dude, I agree with your general point which seems to be "don't freak out because we've still got some reasons to be optimistic" but I think you're underselling just how good some of these guys are in order to make that point. Niskanen is worth every penny of 5.75 million. Even if he never improves his point production (and he probably will), you're still getting a 27 year old defenseman who can give you 40 pts., run a powerplay, log big minutes, AND is actually good at playing defense for under six million. Ditto for Ehrhoff (except the age part). These are VERY good players for their salaries. Are they Doughty or Subban? No. Do they get paid to be? Nope. Boyle, Stralman, and Robidas are a different story and we should be glad we didn't over commit to them. But you do have to wonder what's up with Holland's concept of value if Quincey is worth 4.25 mil for two years, Boyle is worth 5.5 mil for two years, and Niskanen is worth 5.5 for seven years.

I'm so tired of this, "if we weren't injured" argument. Datsyuk and Zetterberg weren't injured when we lost in the first round to San Jose in 2010. They weren't injured when we lost in the second round to San Jose in 2011. They weren't injured when we got embarrassed by Nashville in 2012. They weren't injured when we blew a 3 games to 1 lead against Chicago a year ago. And they very likely weren't the only people playing injured in this year's mauling by Boston. Another thing, people play hurt in the playoffs all the time. Bergeron was nearly dead a year ago and Boston had no trouble making it to the finals. Anybody that thinks a healthy Pavel or Hank change the outcome of our series isn't looking at recent history, and isn't taking into account the fact that injuries don't only happen to Detroit. We lose because our "elite" players aren't good enough anymore. Our up and comers aren't good enough yet. And everybody else is just average.

I know him! It's Ziggerwaggelitus and Figglywigbandersnatch's son. What a lovely family. I have to remember to send them a Christmas card this year.

Favorite post of the day for both style and substance. +100 and the keys to the city for you.

No way can Giroux out party Patrick Kane. I mean, he gave it a valiant effort, but there are drunken douchey assholes, and then there's this guy...

Supposedly. Given how wrong each and every reporter was about each and every free agent I'm going to take reports about offers that were never made with a grain of salt. Keep in mind these are the same reporters that went on and on about the Wings being "in on" Boyle, Niskanen, Ehrhoff, etc. when not only were we not "in on" them, they were actively avoiding us. But I don't want to single you out. Lots of people who get paid to report on hockey were saying Niskanen would make over 6 million too. Granted, these are the same people who said Christian Ehrhoff wanted 5 years, Dan Boyle wanted 5.5 million, and Thomas Vanek would easily make 7 million dollars a year.

In Ken Holland speak, "last year we got the players we wanted" roughly translates to "last year we got one free agent and Daniel Alfredsson fell into our laps".

100% true.

Soooo, what you're saying is that Matt Niskanen didn't sign for 6 million dollars or more lol?

I think you're dealing with two extremes. Holland won't make a move to save his life, and Holmgren makes ill advised moves constantly. I'd imagine the middle ground between the two should be the target. Anyway, back on topic...everybody point and laugh at Claude Giroux. He's a real dummy.

Kudos to Quincey's agent by the way. Seriously. How he managed to get his client a raise is beyond me. You know who I feel bad for? Kyle Quincey. I know he's not that good, and I know that he should be playing for someone else, and I know that he's now getting drastically overpaid. But you can't blame him for signing the contract. He just wants to play hockey. But because Holland was such a massive failure yesterday, Quincey is back, and now any little mistake he makes will be magnified 2000% because people are (justifiably) pissed off. Final thought: How funny is it that the story prior to free agency was "The Wings would like to re-sign Kyle Quincey but it's believed he'll seek a raise on the open market". The irony is killing me.

To me, the funniest part is not that that he was grabbing someone's ass, or that it was a cop, or that it was a male. The funniest part is that he REPEATEDLY did it haha. Apparently once isn't enough when you're having an Ottawa good time! Aside: I wonder if he'll get taken to task for being a drunken idiot the way that Patrick Kane did?

What happened to Niskanen's going to make "Eleventy Billion dollars and get paid like a first pair defenseman"? Some predicted upward of 7 million. Anybody wanna raise their hand and call a mulligan on that one? Holy s***. I just realized I can see the future lol. Although, to be accurate it wasn't just Niskanen turning down because our GM is cheap and complacent.

Going a little far here. I'm as irritated as the next guy, and probably more than most. But rather than "tank it" how about we just give open spots to deserving kids and see what they can do? Seemed to work out well last year. I don't know about anybody else but I'd love to add a 6'4 200+ lb Mantha, and a 6'4 200+ lb Sproul to our lineup. As long as he doesn't trade anything valuable away and/or sign some washed up old guy (Alfie) we could very well see Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Mantha Franzen-Weiss-Nyquist Jurco-Sheahan-Tatar Abby-Helm-Miller Kronwall-Ericsson Smith-Dekeyser Quincey-Sproul Probably won't compete for a Cup, maybe won't make the playoffs even. But maybe, just maybe, we get a little bigger, a little faster, a little bit more hungry, and a little harder to play against.

Speaking of which, is #KenHollandisaf*ckup trending on Twitter yet?

At least Yandle is worth it. He plays close to 82 games every year and scores 50 pts like clockwork. I'm afraid we're going go lose a bunch of assets and the return will be some project defenseman like Myers. God forbid Holland ever go for a sure thing.