Nightfall

People said the same thing about Bylsma when he took over and led the Pens to the cup. Sullivan will probably be thrown to the wolves in about 5 years.

I really don't understand the love for making Steve Yzerman the GM. I have always subscribed to the thought that if we are going to replace Ken Holland, we better do it with someone who is a clear upgrade. Is Yzerman a clear upgrade? Is Jim Nill a clear upgrade? I don't believe so. They have taken their teams, with younger talent and better draft picks than the Wings and had varying levels of success. They have both made good and bad decisions, just like Holland has. IMHO, its not like Yzerman and Nill are making all the right moves for their respective teams. Neither of those teams are in the playoffs right now, and the Stars were tops in their division last year. I have no issues replacing Holland, but replace him with someone who is better.

Its hard to tell what Holland will do. We have never been 10+ points out at the deadline before so we really can't say if he would sell or not. As for what I think, I say we trade him at the deadline. Its safe to say that we are not a cup contending team. If our goal is to just make the playoffs, then keep him. If our goal is to win another cup, then that will take an overhaul.

I could go through the previous thread about Frk being waived and picked up by Carolina and grab at least 20 comments from people who said that Holland should be fired for wasting our talent or not trading him before waiving him. I don't think he is trash, but he is not NHL material. That doesn't change the fact that people many people here thought that Pulk and Frk were bonafide NHL talent and had an inflated value put on them. Now, I would hope that many of them have seen the truth.

This right here. Pulk and Frk are low tier prospects at this point. They may hit the NHL, but they won't ever be talent that will be above the 4th line unless they "get it" late in their careers which is unlikely. Now I will agree that maybe we look at Ott and Miller and instead of giving them minutes, we give one of our own homegrown talent the minutes instead. Just keep in mind that even if we didn't resign Miller and Ott and we used Pulk and Frk that we wouldn't see a huge difference in performance. It may be a minor one, but it wouldn't be noticeable.

I think the thing I find comical are all the fans who were claiming that we gave away the talent in Frk and Pulkkinen for nothing. Yet, each of these players played a game or two for their new clubs and then were waived. If Holland is the worst GM for waiving these players and getting nothing in return, then I wonder how fans of the Wild and Carolina feel. You see, the waiver wire is littered with a bulk of 4th line players. Everyone knows this. So when a player like Pulkkinen and Frk hit the wire, other teams aren't finding gold when they pick them up. They are doing it for short term evaluation. Anyway, the point is that the Wings aren't shedding top tier talent to waivers. They are dropping 4th line pieces that anyone can get off the waiver wire. The Wings could go hunting like this as well, but every team has 4th line plugs waiting to get into the lineup.

This is definitely great news to see Howard do well in the games he has played. Nothing really changes at this point though. Howard and Mrazek may start to alternate starts if Howard keeps up his great play, but that's about it. Now, what could happen is other teams who need goaltending help may reach out to Holland and ask for Howard or Mrazek if they are both playing well. I guess we will see if that happens though.

I guess I am disappointed that no one here has done any homework when it comes to Cleary and the Griffins. Back in June, Cleary said that he wanted to come back and play for the Griffins this season. The Griffins opted not to resign Hoggan who was the captain of the Griffins for the last 3 years. This made room for Cleary to come back and lead the Griffins this upcoming season. Cleary gets signed to a PTO, but everyone knows he is going to be going down to the AHL to provide leadership for the kids.

I would agree mainly because he hasn't even entered his prime yet. His production could go up in the next couple years and be underpaid. Right now, he is paid right about where he should be for a 3rd line player who gets about 13 minutes of ice time per game.

In order to trade someone, they have to have value. Sharp has value. Hossa and Bickel do not. Franzen also has no trade value the way he has been dealing with concussions. Before the concussions, he was our leading goal scorer on the team. Should he have been traded then? Don't know. If you have someone who is making $3.9 million a season and is your leading goal scorer, thats a heck of a cap hit for a leading scorer on your team. Holland would probably resign Dats to a $4-$5 million dollar deal, but not $6.5 considering his dropping production. Must be nice to be able to tell the future. Can you tell me what the lotto numbers will be?

In this case, he didn't improve his team. Both pieces were shipped out of Chicago. http://www.hngn.com/articles/171931/20160121/nhl-chicago-blackhawks-bail-patrick-sharp-trade-ryan-garbutt-anaheim-ducks.htm

This is the first year that the Hawks has had to deal with cap pressure. They dealt with it by not resigning Patrick Sharp, who was a key component in their cup victories. Bickell was a horrible signing but he was lightning in a bottle for them in their cup run as well. Its going to get harder and harder for them from this point forward with Hossa being signed until he is 42, and then Kane and Towes making a ton of cash. They will be in the same position the Wings are in today. I do agree that draft picks don't always work out. Development is key, and I will say that when the Griffins were run into the ground by crappy coaches like Frasier, their development took a dive. It wasn't until we hired Blashill when we saw what real development could be. He took a team that wasn't really developed and made them a Cup winner. IMHO, Blashill is a great coach for the younger kids in the AHL as he is a developmental coach. I would have signed him to a 5 million a year contract and asked him to stay in the AHL to be that valuable developmental coach that we needed. Who knows if he would have taken that or not. So I wouldn't say the Wings have botched development the last 8 years, but they did before Blashill took over in the 2012-2013 season. So much talent went through the Griffins and it was squandered. I really don't know if Tatar, Nyquist, or even Larkin are perennial NHL talents or not. They have all had one good season, and then just kinda fell off the map. Part of being a good NHL talent is being able to do it again and improve on your stats. So far, we haven't seen that from any of these players. Larkin could explode next season, or become like Tatar and Nyquist. Getting Stamkos and a #1 defenseman would be a good move for us for sure. I am also not a fan of sucking or tanking for draft picks. If you are a glass half full guy, like I am, you will look at that young core and feel that there is hope for the future. If you are a glass half empty, you could look at Tatar, Nyquist, and Larkin and say they are all one year wonders and they will all regress next season. In which case, that strong young core is garbage and we really are going to be missing the playoffs next season. Either way, we are all Wings fans here. I am hoping for the glass half full scenario.

The Hawks also got a great number of #1 picks after tanking for a great number of years. Seems that is the winning formula right there. Chicago has two guys that are making 11 million a season each and they are down 3-1 against the Blues. I think their goose is cooked. Looks like we will have a new cup winner this year. We are already seeing a changing of the guard. Teams like Florida run by great GMs like Dale Talon have got high draft picks after being in the dumps for years and are now making great teams that are going to have more playoff success than those who haven't missed the playoffs in 25 years.

We took the cup finalists last year to 7 games. Kinda hard to make that argument that we are not in a position to win when we are. I will say we are not the favorites, and that is what rubs some Wings fans the wrong way. We aren't going to be the favorites unless the league changes.

There is only 1 Stanley Cup winner. I want the Wings to be on top as well, but even the best team in the NHL Regular Season isn't guaranteed a cup victory. Welcome to the new NHL where parity is king and anyone can win on any given night. Wouldn't trending downwards be missing the playoffs? If anything, he has been staying the same. I agree. Just ask the Blackhawks how life was for them back when they were drafting high and their team was in the crapper for years. Now, they are winning thanks to those great draft picks that they had. Heck, even signing good players doesn't necessarily mean that they are going to pan out. Even trading doesn't mean that they will pan out. Then to win consistently in the regular season takes chemistry, luck, skill, and so on. Winning in the playoffs takes good special teams, puck luck, health, and so on. In the end, putting together a cup winning team is rare indeed.

I wouldn't say he is better than Holland. What he has to do with the budget he has is bring up kids into the lineup and mix them in with veteran plugs instead of quality talent. Course, I really don't know how he would do in the Wings organization. Dave Talon did pretty well going from Chicago to Florida. Chicago was a spend to the cap team and Florida isn't. Anyway, the point is that Don Maloney doesn't have a proven track record of winning. He isn't a clear cut upgrade over Holland in my mind. As for this "mess", lets put it in perspective. The Wings are considering being one of the top 16 teams and qualifying for the playoffs as a mess. There are a lot of other teams out there that would love to have the "mess" that we have.

I really don't mind all the talk about Holland being fired or being told to move on. My question is, if he does move on, who do we replace him with that is as good or better? There is no one on the market right now that I would go with that is really coming to mind as a clear upgrade. Why make a downgrade at the GM position strictly for the sake of making a move? This right here. Many people say to just unload Pulk, Smith, and so on. These under performing players aren't going anywhere because other teams see that as well. If anything, we would be shouldered with taking on another under performing player in return. Imagine trading a player like Smith, Pulk, Nyquist, or Tatar to Chicago for Brian Bickell. Thats the kind of player you get back from trading one of those assets.

He has still had injury problems. You can try to spin the stats all you like, but the fact of the matter is that he hasn't been a superstar for the last few years. I love Dats, but we need to acknowledge that some teams don't have a superstar. The Wings included.

Why does everyone think that the Wings are going to be able to trade his contract very easily. There has to be a willing trade partner, and I don't know many teams in a position to do this for us. Heck, if anyone was a GM on one of those teams, wouldn't you look to get something back in exchange for that contract?

Very few of those in the league. There are some teams that don't even have superstars. I would even venture to say that Datsyuk hasn't been a superstar in the last few years because of his health issues.

If he retires with the yotes, he won't be on LTIR. He will just be retired. He won't be paid, unlike other players on LTIR.

Lets also keep in mind that the Wings have to find a willing trade partner to take on that deal. Teams won't be lining up to take 7.5 million in cap space. Holland may be willing, but there may not be a team willing to do that deal.

http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/14685078/gary-bettman-previously-signed-six-year-extension-remain-nhl-commissioner-2022 He gets a lot of flak and some for good reason, but the league has never been more successful.

What happened should be remembered as what an All-Star game should be. The fans wrote Scott in, and while some at the NHL didn't like it, what it turned into was a great PR move. The NHL is going to learn from this mistake and keep the fan vote in as part of the All-Star game. It also made Scott a household name. He won't get a multi-million dollar contract to play hockey, but what he will get are opportunities down the road. He could go into broadcasting or some other job if he gets tired of playing in the minors. He has charisma and sometimes that is all you need to be successful. Most people when they thought of John Scott before was something like what you would see in the movie "Goon". A brainless idiot that just loves to beat the crap out of people. Here was a guy that obviously wasn't top tier NHL talent, but he loves the game and it shows.

Packing up 5 non-producers won't bring in anyone worth getting. They are non-producers for a reason. Every team can get 5 4th line plugs from their AHL affiliates.