FlashyG

He's at least a couple years away from that, He's already committed to Western Michigan of the NCAA and will be playing in a league without fighting for the next couple seasons.

As far as #1 is concerned, I think the key words in the title are "over-restrictive". Kenny has handed out 6 NTC's to players on our roster and 1 NMC. The NMC was to Datsyuk and it expired in 2011, it's now just a partial NTC. Of the other 6 No Trade deals, Cleary's has expired completely, plus Bertuzzi's, Gustavsson's and Ericsson are all on modified NTC's making them less restrictive. The only 2 full NTC's on the team are for Kronwall and Samuelsson, and one of those was on a short term deal. In 2018, Kronwall's deal changes to a Modified NTC where he can submit 10 teams the Wings can deal him to. I don't think the NMC/NTC's handed out to the Wings players are very restrictive at all with the exception of Kronwall's.

http://www.coppernblue.com/2012/2/8/2202287/ken-hollands-draft-success This isn't any new data but it shows the odds you have of drafting a successful player based on your position in the draft between Holland's first year as GM until 2005. To be considered a top player in this chart you have to play at least 200 NHL games with a PPG average at or above .5 PPG. The second chart is Holland/Nill's success in the draft compared to the rest of the league. Basically what it shows is that during that time period the Wings were better than the league average in every single slot, but more than twice as likely to land a top player past the 101st pick in the draft. They were also an astounding 7 times better than the league average drafting between 51 and 100. Some of that might be luck, but 7 times better has to have some skill involved as well. Credit where credit is due, our management team's preference of skill over being NHL ready has paid dividends for this team over the years.

He said the owners were ranch owners and players and employees like himself were the cattle, and without the ranch owners they'd be out of work. Conveniently when the comment was printed by most media outlets or read out on TV they left off the tidbit where he refers to himself as cattle and edited it so it looks like he was only referring to the players. I doubt Ownership felt embarrassed by it at all, in fact I think every owner out there was probably nodding in agreement. Illitch probably even paid the fine for him.

He's only 57, which isn't very old for a front office guy. I think this is wishful thinking on the OP's part. He'll likely finish out this contract (runs through 2015, then get promoted to Develanno's job who will be in his mid 70's then) Nill will take over and the status Quo will continue. Personally I think Nill is so good with our drafting that I wouldn't want to move him out of that position and I personally don't think there is anything wrong with the job Holland has done. I'd be ok with them staying in their current positions indefinitely.

Notice something familiar about all those teams? Florida - Worst team in their conference, Tampa - Second worst team in the conference, Edmonton in RNH rookie year - one of the worst teams in the league, Same goes for the Islanders in Tavares' rookie year. The only one of those guys who played on a good team was Marchand and you have to qualify him but using his 2nd season because his first year where he played 20 games he was hot garbage. Tatar played played fewer games than Marchand did in his short stint and put up 7x more points, while being a + player vs Marchands -3. Unless you have a crystal ball that says otherwise Tatar might turn out to be even better than Marchand. The Wings prospect pool is at its deepest point in the franchise's history, why are you in such a rush to write off everyone in it?

I don't think the Wings ever planned to be active in the FA market this offseason, with the cap dropping the only way we could afford to sign anyone is by buying someone out. I think the team we will ice next season will be almost exactly the same as this seasons with the only differences being Cleary, Miller and White out and a couple of our prospects getting regular shifts.

Of course Cleary isn't as good as Gaborik, I was just pointing out that Gaborik is having a terrible year, and at this point we'd have been giving up 3 roster players gambling on a guy who is producing like Dan Cleary, our favorite whipping boy.

I agree that they learn by playing but we don't need to be teaching 10 of them at once, A couple this year and a couple next is a far more efficient way to get kids ready to play in the NHL. We have 7 rookies on the team already, there is no reason to carry half the team as rookies unless you are tanking for a lottery pick.

The Wings will be right up against the cap just re-signing some of our FA's. I wouldn't hold your breath for any free agent signings unless there is a buyout or 2 beforehand.

We're giving the kids a ton of experience, 1/3 of our roster is kids. Also if you're so sure we won't be doing anything in the playoffs why not let some of those kids get some experience in the AHL playoffs with a team that has real championship potential?

Because as good as Nyquist and Tatar are offensively they are still prone to rookie mistakes, same goes for the rest of the rookies in the line-up. I think using a roster of half rookies is a recipe for disaster defensively. The reason those guys are playing with Datsyuk is because they are better playing along the boards than our rookies and someone needs to go to those areas to get the puck for Datsyuk. Everyone is freaking out because we didn't trade several roster players for Gaborik, when he has 1 more goal than Dan Cleary this season. I wish Wings fans could just enjoy what they have for once instead of falling victim to greener grass syndrome

We are currently playing 6 rookies in the starting line-up with a 7th being slotted in as soon as Thursday. How many rookies are you comfortable playing at one time? Should we just go with Datsyuk, Zetterberg and 18 rookies?

How many rookies do you guys want to play? We already have Lashoff, Brunner, Nyquist, Smith, and Andersson playing regularly, with Dekeyser about to join that group shortly. That's 1/3 of the playing roster. The only Griffin who should be with the Wings is Tatar and if he comes back it will be at the expense of Nyquist most likely.

Until the Wings miss the playoffs for a couple seasons, and Mike Babcock is fired there won't even be a discussion about replacing Holland. Keep dreaming guys.

Comeau cost the Flames nothing at all they got him off waivers, and Columbus is just filling the roster spots vacated in the Gaborik trade. This is easily the best deal Feaster made this year. I actually think the Gabby trade could hurt Columbus more than help it, they were coming along nicely and they lost a lot of depth for a guy with 1 more goal than Dan Cleary.

We traded Kent Huskins.

I don't understand everyone's surprise. Coming up the the deadline both the GM and the Coach said not to expect anything. Babcock even said he hopes nobody gets traded from his roster, and now when the deadline comes around everyone is upset that they weren't lying and that they didn't make any trades.

I'm as high on Sproul as any prospect in our system but he still has a long way to go before playing for the Wings. He struggles with Defence in the OHL, even jumping to the AHL i expect him to make ample mistakes leading to a lot of -'s. I do think his offence is unlike any defenceman we have at any level of our system though, he will quarterback the PP and put up pts even if he gives up a few going the other way. I think he'll be much improved next year if he's paired with a strong defensive guy like Ouellet. Next year is going to be a big one for Grand Rapids, although they will probably be hurt up front losing Nyquist, Tatar and Andersson (Hopefully)

Strawman alert. I didn't say Franzen was better than Parise, I actually clearly stated the opposite. However I did point out with facts that Franzen has provided more value for his cap hit than Parise or Kesler this season. I told you to step back from the Keyboard for stating that Kesler is 10 times the player PARISE is not Franzen.

I'm starting to wonder if you guys are actually watching them. Franzen has more assists than goals this season and most of his assists are of the primary variety. He is also 3rd on the team in +/- behind only Datsyuk and Kindl, so he hasn't been any kind of a defensive liability either. I don't have to make a case that he's worth his contract right now, its an absolute fact that he's worth his contract right now, but you might be right about that not being the case 3 or 4 years down the road. This is why I call it a perceived problem with Franzen, in reality he is 6th among our forwards in hits, and 1st among our top 6 forwards. In blocked shots he's 5th among our forwards and 2nd in the top 6 behind Datsyuk who has an advantage as a penalty killer. Of our top 6 forwards which one do you think is on the ice for the fewest goals against...That would be Franzen, which player do you think has faced the highest quality of competition on the team...Franzen again. But Franzen haters don't care about #'s and stats, they fly in the face of the conclusions they've already formed and continue to cling to despite evidence to the contrary. I'll leave it at this, If those numbers I just provided are the production of a guy who is gutless, heartless, soft, and continually floating then when playing at full effort he must be a perennial Hart, Selke, Art Ross, and Maurice Richard Trophy favorite.

I just showed you the stats a few posts ago. This season Franzen has produced more than Iginla, Carter, Brown, Richards, Lucic, Callahan, Horton, Selanne, Richards, Heatley and Gaborik, The longest stretch he's gone without a pt is 6 games and that was when he was battling a hip flexor and playing hurt. Outside of that the longest he went without a pt is 2 games. That is consistent production. Not only that Franzen being back in the line-up is directly responsible for Abdelkader and Datsyuk's line breaking out of their funk. He's been a massive upgrade over Cleary, he forces defenders to cover more than just Datsyuk and he's been the primary assist getter on most of their goals since his return. The last half of your post is so utterly ridiculous that its difficult to respond to. It seems you are as guilty of overrating Kesler as you are at underrating Franzen and even more so Parise. If you think Kesler is 10 times the player Parise is, you should back away from the keyboard now. Parise is by far the best player of the 3, but he gets paid twice what Franzen does for an extra 3 or 4 pts so far this season. Kesler hasn't been able to stay healthy and is a -4 on a team full of plusses.

There is absolutely no chance in the world that Holland gets demoted....None at all. When we get a new GM it will be because Holland was promoted to Jim Develanno's position and it will likely be Holland making the decision on who to hire as his replacement. I would be willing to bet it will be Jim Nill who will run the team in an extremely similar fashion. Yzerman likely wont last his contract with Tampa, if they don't have a significant improvement next season he'll be fired. As beloved as Yzerman is to the Wings they aren't going to get rid of the current management team for a GM with 3 years experience who would have just been fired by one of the worst teams in the league. People need to step back from the ledge, I think Holland would be smart to offload some of our extra depth tomorrow, but I don't think he should waste any time trying to bring anyone in. The prices are ridiculous and the amount of talent available is very low. I'd rather he do nothing than I would see him make a trade for a rental given the current state of the team.

And yet despite all those perceived short comings he produces better than guys making almost twice his cap hit.

I know its possible, I even said so in the post you quoted.. I said the odd's aren't in his favor. Would you like me to quote you all the goalies drafted after the 1st round who didn't make it to the NHL? It will be a far longer list than the one you just posted. Also, none of those goalies were thought of as Franchise goalies when they were drafted they developed into one. Thats all I'm saying, lets see if Mrazek can develop like some of them did before we start throwing around terms like elite and franchise goalie. He's got a lot of work to do to be in the company of those guys or even Howard.