gcom007

I liked the move and still do but I don't think Babcock would agree with this analysis. And I don't think we would be foregoing our Cup chances by trading pieces and prospects to get a top-tier defenseman to play alongside Lidstrom before retiring. I also think we likely hurt our Cup chances by not shaking this team up a bit more. New blood might've added more urgency, and if guys saw that the front office wasn't above shipping out players (that have likely felt untouchable for awhile now, unhealthy...) it might motivate them to perform better day in, day out. We also have had an incredibly unbalanced offense since the summer of 2009 and Holland has failed to address that time and again. In my mind, and I think many others, Babcock's included last summer, Holland didn't address the needs of this team to get them ready to make a run for the Cup. No matter what he told Lidstrom, Holland's been dropping the ball again and again on this team for 3-4 years now. Like I said before, I'm not talking about Holland's performance this off-season. I'm talking about 3-4 years of Holland utterly and completely fumbling to address the needs of this team in the present and in the future, as in, being set up for right now. Do you see me saying anything about signing lower-middle tier guys to excessive contracts just for the sake of doing something? No. It would be dumb to go crazy right now, but that would be about the only thing dumber than what Holland did the last 3-4 years to help land us in this position in the first place.

Maybe, but how fun will it be if it blows up in our faces? And what's more likely to happen at this point? And some of these guys have had time to prove themselves and have continually fallen short. Others are getting older despite still being elite players. And in some of these cases, it's not necessarily a matter or effort or ability so much as chemistry and balance, and that's something that needs to be addressed by bringing in the right parts and selling off what isn't working or what you can afford to lose. That's not to say that the season doesn't have potential to be exciting and rewarding, but you also can't say that we've had more than a bit of time to observe this team and many of these players in moments of adversity the last few years. We had holes then and terrible injury luck at times, and now we just have more holes, as well as the biggest hole we've had in the modern era, and still more players getting older. I'll cheer the team on no matter what, but this is just an ugly situation any way you shake it.

I'd be shocked if Illitch had anything to say about conserving money at the expense of the team's ability to win.

That's why you sometimes have to trade people to bring talent in, especially when you're talking about replacing one of the best players to ever live. But March was fun and all; like a trailer. And maybe, like a trailer, we saw the "highlight" (if we're previewing the low points of a Red Wings team without Lidstrom…), but either way, the Wings without Lidstrom was an ugly, ugly, scary site. Now we've lost Stuart too don't forget, and Holland hasn't addressed that loss, which arguably should have been easier to do! No cakewalk in this day and age, but more of an attainable goal than replacing one of the best who was still playing great hockey.

I'm really surprised that so many are still defending Holland here. If it were just the lack of moves this offseason at play, then I'd understand. It would be dumb to throw too much money at low-quality talent because we didn't pull off the main plan. But as I've said in the past and many others are seeing now, this is a problem that's been brewing for four years now. He should've made the moves to have pieces in place to build on when Lidstrom left 2-3, maybe even 4 years ago, but he didn't want to move anybody. He should've been actively shopping for a big time young defensemen after we won our last Cup, and yes, he should've given up legitimate, Red Wing-developed talent to do so, hard as it may. If you ask me, Holland's chief and most critical objective for the last five year has been coming up for a replacement for Lidstrom. They knew it was coming, and they knew the loss would be huge; there could be no bigger hole than the hole left by Lidstrom in this era. The way it's looking now, it is highly likely that the 2012/13 season will start and Holland will have failed to come even remotely close to addressing the hole left by Lidstrom. But again, to be perfectly clear, Holland didn't fail this summer. He failed for the last 4 years. He keeps coming up with nothing in the off-season and he even admitted in 2009 that he was shocked and unprepared for what happened when all our free-agents walked and we had no real Plan B. Hell, people are pissed we didn't get Parise this year at a cap hit that would've sat around $7.5 million, but we let Hossa walk who could've been had for a $5 million cap hit because we didn't want to part with guys we developed, despite the fact that they've been inconsistent or wholly unproven performers. But to be fair, I'm no saying Holland's a bad GM or wouldn't be capable of building a winner again, but I am increasingly of the opinion that he has run his course as the Wings GM. I think he's become too soft and cautious, and I'd venture to say at times out of touch with reality (again, see summer 2009). I think it's easy to gravitate to extremes on this issue and say Holland is a mastermind because of what he accomplished in the past just as easy as it is to say he rode on the coattails of Scotty Bowman's influence. Maybe the true answer is somewhere in between. Maybe he's just too close to this organization and the people in it to make objective opinions. And maybe he's not. But in any event, in the last 4 years, any way you shake it, he's given no reason to believe that he's still got even a hint of that magic touch still, and even if you want to focus on the positives in his history and his overall capability as a GM, you still have a long way to go in defending the last 4 years of mediocre GMing. After all, even he admitted he blew it in '09, and Babcock all but slammed him about his lack of moves last summer to address problems he saw in the team.

I don't think we'll get Doan because I don't think we look like a team that's Cup-bound at this moment, but I'd love to have him. He'd be a great addition and we can certainly afford him right now.

1) I would have signed or traded for a top-tier defensemen the summer after we won our last Cup, despite likely having to give up some of our own young talent via trade or due to lack of cap space to do so. Our stock was never higher as a team so we were as much of a destination for top-tier talent as ever, and shaking things up after winning it all isn't necessarily a bad thing even in the short term, let alone the fact that allowing Lidstrom's replacement to have time to actually play with Lidstrom and LEARN would certainly be the wisest long term move I could make, knowing that sometime soon, Lidstrom would retire. 2) I wouldn't have had to worry about it! I would've signed Hossa after '09 who I'd rather have than Parise anyways for a far better cap hit and let Flip and Hudler go. And I would have already moved mountains to bring in Lidstrom's replacement so signing Suter wouldn't be a necessity. And chances are, these moves might have made Detroit a more attractive destination to both Parise and Suter anyways! Suter wouldn't have to come in and deal with all the pressure of filling Lidstrom's hole and Parise would have 3 legitimate superstars to complement him up front. But again, I don't think I would've put myself in a position to have to pay these guys this much money because I was desperate and had no better option. 3) At this point, you've got to get in bed with the decisions you've made and realize that you set yourself up to have to pay guys like Parise and Suter that much money. That is the NHL today, like it or not. Are they really overpaid if so many teams were willing to pay it? The $8 million difference between our offers is negligible, as I'm sure we'd have matched it if it came to that. We didn't lose these guys because of money. We didn't have the team to sell them on that would've made them look away from what is more like "home" them. 4) See answer 1. This should've happened 3-4 years ago. Really. 5) See 3. If it was the money, we would've matched, and that's simply not the issue. It isn't exactly Holland's fault that we didn't sign Parise and Suter, but it's absolutely his fault that we're in the desperate situation we're in. He's been coasting for far too long playing it cautious. I hate to feel vindicated over arguments about this matter I've been making for years now, because right now, this really does suck, but I've been pissed at Holland's management of this team for quite a while now. I've never felt less bad about my opinion of Holland being at least at this point an overrated, ineffective GM. Maybe he was as good as everyone said he was 10 years ago, but he hasn't been close to anything one might call "good" for 3-4 years now.

(I posted this in another thread about Holland, but it might be more relevant here.) I said it last week and I'll say it again, if Holland doesn't land Parise and/or Suter, it's going to be viewed as a failure no matter the reason, and it's going to be yet another off-season failure in a string of off-season failures. These were less his fault than '09's for example, but it's no matter, because he's had enough failures that were entirely his fault at this point. Everyone wants to defend the guy because we've been so successful, but for the last 3-4 years, the guy has dropped the ball again and again and failed to set us up to be in a good position when Lidstrom retired. You can say that it's a different league now and we're not the draw to free agents we were 3-4 years ago, but that was all the more reason why he should've been making the deals then to set us up for this particularily dramatic off-season. But he's made too many emotional decisions in keeping guys (and gambling on guys...) we developed over pursuing better, proven talent at the expense of home-grown guys that had yet to live up to potential or do so consistently. He's played it too cautious and sat on the sidelines while our value as a destination team to players diminished. You know, everyone's pissed about losing Suter now, but he should've made a deal to bring in a guy like Suter 3 years ago so he could sit next to Lidstrom and LEARN so we'd have his replacement in place and more ready than ever to take over Lidstrom's role. The fact that it didn't happen was a supremely regrettable and in my mind inexcusable lack of foresight. I don't claim to be an expert and I know Ken Holland knows a lot more about the game than I do, but too much of this was obvious even to me and it's been obvious to me since we were winning our last Cup, when things were good. I started to see it and started to worry then. And if a casual fan can start to pick up on this, then there's little doubt that Ken Holland was probably aware of it as well, but again, he failed to act. Why that was is still anyone's guess, but again, I think he simply was too close to the situation and made too many moves for emotional reasons that didn't serve the team well in the long run. That is why in my mind he has failed, and failed quite enough to get many if any more chances to manage this team heading into another off-season.

I said it last week and I'll say it again, if Holland doesn't land Parise and/or Suter, it's going to be viewed as a failure no matter the reason, and it's going to be yet another off-season failure in a string of off-season failures. These were less his fault than '09's for example, but it's no matter, because he's had enough failures that were entirely his fault at this point. Everyone wants to defend the guy because we've been so successful, but for the last 3-4 years, the guy has dropped the ball again and again and failed to set us up to be in a good position when Lidstrom retired. You can say that it's a different league now and we're not the draw to free agents we were 3-4 years ago, but that was all the more reason why he should've been making the deals then to set us up for this particularily dramatic off-season. But he's made too many emotional decisions in keeping guys (and gambling on guys...) we developed over pursuing better, proven talent at the expense of home-grown guys that had yet to live up to potential or do so consistently. He's played it too cautious and sat on the sidelines while our value as a destination team to players diminished. You know, everyone's pissed about losing Suter now, but he should've made a deal to bring in a guy like Suter 3 years ago so he could sit next to Lidstrom and LEARN so we'd his replacement in place and more ready than ever to take over Lidstrom's role. The fact that it didn't happen was a supremely regrettable and in my mind inexcusable lack of foresight. I don't claim to be an expert and I know Ken Holland knows a lot more about the game than I do, but too much of this was obvious even to me and it's been obvious to me since we were winning our last Cup, when things were good. I started to see it and started to worry then. And if a casual fan can start to pick up on this, then there's little doubt that Ken Holland was probably aware of it as well, but again, he failed to act. Why that was is still anyone's guess, but again, I think he simply was too close to the situation and made too many moves for emotional reasons that didn't serve the team well in the long run. That is why in my mind he has failed, and failed quite enough to get many if any more chances to manage this team heading into another off-season.

I think we're already there. Trading our way to the major impact players is going to weaken the team in many other ways. I was all for trying to make deals for Nash for example a couple days ago when it seemed as if Suter was coming with Parise a possibility too. Then you're at least bringing in a lot of top notch guys to make up for the mid-level depth you give up to get a Nash. But at this point, I don't see how we make trades that don't cause as many problems as they solve. We needed to get at least one of either Parise or Suter to make trading a reasonable option. And given our desperate situation at this point, I think it's going to be all the harder to make reasonable trades. Barring the unimaginable, this is going to be a rough, rough season coming up. Only upside is that it could be a good opportunity for some of our young guys to get some quality NHL experience a bit earlier. It won't help this season most likely, but there's always next July 1st... There's a part of me that wonders if Pavel will sign another NHL contract. I have nothing but a hunch to base it on, but I just wouldn't be shocked to see him head to Russia early for his families sake, especially if the team is less competitive in the coming years.

It's sad that this almost seems like the best option right now. And a knee jerk long term deal for Semin would not be ideal given his history.

I don't think it matters at this point. I don't think we will have a very competitive team next year. Missing out on both Parise and Suter hurts too much. To get lesser quality options now, we'll have to weaken out team through trades first. I'm not trying to be dramatic, but I don't think you can underestimate just how much it hurts the Wings to lose out on Suter in particular.

Tootoo and $3M for Sammy seem long forgotten thoughts on this joyous day!

He has. It was confirmed earlier that some teams have been told that they're out. If a team has an offer in and hasn't been told that they're out, they're likely still in.

Exactly. We should be encouraged that it's obviously not just about the money if his decision has taken this long. I think we'll be trading too, I was just saying that I don't think the other big name FA's are sweating the situation as hard as fans think they are.

He probably does. That's why there aren't still 20 teams in the running. But have you considered that there are many places he might like to play for a variety of reasons, each with pros and cons? And that despite playing it through your head, you have no real idea what you're dealing with exactly until teams can actually call and send over their offers, and they couldn't do that before 30 hours ago, and they likely couldn't reasonably start sorting through it until about 24 hours ago. So the guy and his agent have had about 30 hours to deal with concrete choices and actually have discussions with teams about those choices and your upset because he wants another 12-24 hours? You're sitting on a message board. He's debating a decision that will have an enormous affect on the next 12 years of his life. Take a step back and think about that for a minute. And for the record, his agent was quoted as saying a decision could still come tonight if made early enough about an hour ago, so again, try to have a little patience and empathy for the guy.

Doan's not doing anything until next week and Semin would be dumb to sign before Parise as his stock will go up as soon as Parise's off the market and the losers look to FA Plan B. The lower tier guys aren't affected by this. There's little to see here. Despite what the foolish rumor mongers desperately try to suggest, there just aren't that many dominoes waiting to fall this off-season.

Womp womp. "Mark Masters ‏@markhmasters Parise on taking his time: 'It's such a long-term, important decision, you have to make sure you look at everything'" "Pierre LeBrun ‏@Real_ESPNLeBrun Agree RT @CraigCustance: Why are people mad at Parise? He's one of the most conscientious players . He's earned right to take his time."

No one's saying he's got it rough. They're saying give the guy a few days to sort through his options now that his options are concrete. There's nothing wrong with that, at all. Who has a bigger entitlement issue right now? Guy A, who wants a few days to decide where to work for the next 10-12+ years and where he'll start his family or Guy B, who is posting on a message board pissed off at Guy A for not making an instant decision.

You don't think things get more complicated when the reality of the decision starts to set in? You don't think given New Jersey's complicated ownership situation that it's not adding another layer of complication for him? He likely does want to stay in NJ in many ways, which is totally fair and reasonable, but he likely has some very fair and reasonable concerns that are hard to sort through. He'd be taking less money to play on a team that likely will not be able to stay competitive in the coming years. Then you have the other teams likely in the mix: Detroit, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Philadelphia... Minnesota is going "home" for him, and from what the Wild brass has said, they're certainly willing to pay him more than enough money to make it worth his while to come "home." But the Wild aren't exactly a contender now, are they? Difficult decision. Pittsburgh has the Crosby angle working for them. Sid and Parise have history and Sid's arguably the face of the game right now. Pittsburgh also has the Crosby angle working against them. Crosby's a hard check away from retirement and given his recent contract and the Pens overall financial situation, I'd bet that the Pens offer is for significantly less money than any other team in the mix. Then you've got Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia. All teams are capable of being contenders; two of them have won the Cup in the last five years and one has made it to the Semi's and Finals in the same span. All teams have likely thrown big money at him, and all are attractive destinations in many ways. All three have positives and negatives though as well. Bottom line, I don't think this is an easy decision for him, and no matter how many times you play it in your head, until you have to face the reality and actually sort through the deals and talk to the teams (which you cannot do before July 1, it's all merely informed conjecture/speculation/fantasy/darts...give the guy time. I expect he'll make a decision by tomorrow at 6 PM, just two days and change past the start of free agency. Two days in which he must decide what the next 10-12 or more years of his life will look like. I think we fans can manage for another 24 hours. And hell, it's better news than him signing in Pittsburgh, isn't it? Count your blessings, there's still hope! See above. Concur. I started adding this to my previous long post but cut it as it was already getting long. It's silly that we put so much added pressure on these guys to decide their futures just because Twitter exists and no one knows how to wait for anything anymore. I'd like to see anyone here have to make a major life decision of comparable weight as swiftly as they'd like to see Parise make his decision.

I don't blame the guy at all. In fact, I respect him for taking his time and heading home to speak to his family about the matter. It's a huge decision that none of us here truly understand. Don't get me wrong, I'm as anxious to know as anyone, but unless this drags on for over a week, I don't think the guy is doing anything wrong. The only thing wrong here in my book is people giving these guys s*** for taking their time to decide where they want to call home for the rest of their careers in the NHL, as if that's such an insignificant decision.

And for the record, it's been over 30 minutes since it was reported that Parise would "talk to reporters here in about 5 mins." Perhaps the report wasn't accurate to begin with. TSN was still reporting that Holland and Co. were set to arrive at the agents offices after it was clear that Holland was still in Detroit. Also, TSN Radio Toronto just updated on the situation that "Parise could be announcing a decision in the next hour."

I think we need Suter and Parise/comparable scoring threat equally. Anyone who thinks we have enough pure firepower upfront is kidding themselves. The defense isn't going to be as good Suter after losing Lidstrom and Stuart, and last time I checked, we could barely put the puck in the net in the playoffs and lost because of it. Offense is absolutely more important than ever. Hell, if we don't get Suter, all the more so.

As much as I hate the Pens and Crosby, it'll be tough to get too upset at Parise if he goes to the Pens given their history and that it's likely that the Pens offer was likely featured the worst financial terms of all the teams in the mix. I don't see him as a Pen unless he's signing for less than the rest of the market is willing to pay, and yes, that's because the Pens have Crosby.

If true, I think Nash will be a Wing in the next 24 hours.