Holland: Free Agent Shopping is Probably Done

[al48 1]

i don't think the Kings defense is anything to sneeze at. put Hasek on that team and I think as it stands right now, the Kings are a much better team than the Wings. their GM did his job, ours didn't. ours is just hoping he lucks out and a few of our unknown commodities has a bust out year.

i think this looks like a playoff calilber team. of course, they don't have hasek, i was just put him in their to illustrate what i'd have been like if he had accepted their generous offer.

if the Kings can acquire a decent goaltender - look out!

Frolov-Handzus-Kopitar

Nagy-Cammalleri-Brown

Calder-Armstrong-Willsie

Ivanans-O'Sullivan-Thornton

Blake-Stuart

Preissing-Modry

Johnson-Visnovsky

Hasek

Cloutier

The Kings are banking on LaBarbera pulling a Miller out of the AHL. Granted, LaBarbera has seen his share of NHL time already. Otherwise, they're stuck with Beachball.

[Viperar 16]

Gelinas or Asham would be awesome

[Kp-Wings 3]

no, that was my whole point - as it stands now, Hussey, Ellis, and Bootland are our NHL tested depth players. I am not saying they deserve to be - I am saying THEY ARE. and it is Holland's fault.

Bootland no longer plays for the Wings.

Their NHL expierence doesn't mean anything. Hussey is a decent faceoff man, but we don't a player like that. He really doesn't do anything else. Matt Ellis is useless. He won't make this team.

lol thanks, i was waiting for someone to notice the subtle change!

I always pay attention to detail.

[HenrikRules40 14]

I can't say I'm surprised. I mean, I wish I was. I know Kenny pulls off some amazing deals for us but the days of free agency a la free agency 2001 is over. 4% of me still thinks Kenny will make a genius move. The other 96% is pretty sure Brian Burke kidnapped him.

[Detroit # 1 Fan 2,204]

I can't say I'm surprised. I mean, I wish I was. I know Kenny pulls off some amazing deals for us but the days of free agency a la free agency 2001 is over. 4% of me still thinks Kenny will make a genius move. The other 96% is pretty sure Brian Burke kidnapped him.

Hes been taking everything from us lately so I wouldnt be surprised!

[Flip-check 6]

Hes been taking everything from us lately so I wouldnt be surprised!

Burke has Kenny's phone tapped and the man's balls clamped in a vice.

I want to start the season off with more than this, not look for it at the deadline. There's nothing left though. Nothing.

Edited July 6, 2007 by Flip-check

[Kp-Wings 3]

Hes been taking everything from us lately so I wouldnt be surprised!

What all has he taken that's worth anything though?

He signed Schneider. Ok, that's a loss. Holland, to my utter surprise, goes out and signs Brian Rafalski. Even though Rafalski isn't my totally type of player (gritty fighter), I do like him, since he's a good offensive defenseman, and he is definitly a better player then Schneider. He doesn't suck defensivily like Schneider either, and actually had more points then Schneider last year also. Overall, that was a good signing by Kenny. I like Rafalski, and think he will fit good here. Hence my signature too.

Our other loss? Todd Bertuzzi. In my opinion, this is addition by subtraction for the amount of money Bertuzzi will currently be making now. He was, oh how do I put this, ******* useless here. He showed no flash of the power foward he once was. He was a damn puss out there. Initially I wanted him back, but now I really don't. He isn't worth it.

All the other guys like Shane Hnidy and such were never actually confirmed to come here. That was just classic Eklund bulls***. Don't put too much into it.

I am only defending Holland right now over Anaheim's signings of our own players, since he really didn't lose much. But still, I have a feeling he is still letting Burke assrape him this offseason. And if Holland doesn't sign Arron Asham... well, I'll have to ask Lou and motorcitykid to save me a seat on the "Holland sucks" bandwagon, since I'll be hopping on!

Edited July 6, 2007 by Kp-Wings

[Darius099 0]

Man you people are hilariously fickle. The cry for years has been to let the youngsters play, and now that we have a chance, you balk at the prospect of prospects. They have to develop somewhere other than the AHL, you know. And if the past successes of our organization in scouting is any guide, we will have some strides forward this year in our crop of fresh faces.

[Guest Agalloch]

Wow, Holland is an absolute moron. I've always stuck by him, but if Samuelsson is going to be in our top six, I'm not happy at all.

[Booster313 138]

Honestly, with what's on the market right now I'm not surprised. Khan said tonight in his blog that one official doesn't think Detroit will even talk to Yashin (probably the best of what's left on the market at this point).

Am I disappointed they haven't landed a Top 6 forward? Yes -- but only to an extent. Some of the price tags being thrown around for certain players ($4.5M for Guerin? $4M/2Y for Bertuzzi?) would make me hold off, too.

So we've got a few extra mil in the piggy bank when the season starts. So what? There *are* some kids that have to go out there and play, so let's let them. There's always the trade deadline and certain things can develop as the season goes on.

I'd rather still have options and see what the kids can do than lock up cap space on players I didn't really want but "settled" for.

Good call Matt, at this point I feel the same way, don't sign someone just for the sake of signing them. That being said, I wish that Holland would have given Bert the extra year when he asked for it, they had agreed on price, term was the issue. On a side note, depending on what Avery expects to earn after arbitration I wouldn't mind signing him again, he's not big but he certainly is gritty.

[kylee 727]

Wow, Holland is an absolute moron. I've always stuck by him, but if Samuelsson is going to be in our top six, I'm not happy at all.

hey it might work for the Wings good.

Mikael Samuelsson : never seen a shot he didn't like.

[Kp-Wings 3]

Wow, Holland is an absolute moron. I've always stuck by him, but if Samuelsson is going to be in our top six, I'm not happy at all.

Typical LGW response: He did score 20 goals 2 years ago!!!!11one!!!1!!!11!!!!!1

[Guest Agalloch]

Actually, as I think about this more, I'm not too mad about not signing a top six forward. I love Hudler, Filppula, and Franzen, and I think they're definitely all top six forwards. Unfortunatly, Babcock hates Hudler, and Franzen will probably play a checking role again (which sucks, because he's awesome), so I still don't have a good feeling about the second line.

The division should easily be ours, and when the trade deadline comes around, we can load the roster with whatever we need.

[Mighty Wings 0]

Its frustrating.... every year kenny plays his wait and see game. It was a little more different this offseason because they were less than 1 minute away (gm 5) from potentially going to the SCF. Every player was upset, not just because they lost the series but they had a hell of a team, and had an awesome shot at going all the way.

I think Chelios was the one who said if they brought back bert (hopefully healthy), dom and schneider, this was a cup contending team. He did replace schneider with rafalski, and he just pretty much had to bring bert back, since they were close to re-signing hasek. But now, this team is not going to contend for the cup as is.

He sat there and watched anaheim get better, his reaction is "well we can't give anybody more than 2 yrs because hank will be a FA." As if bert was really asking for 4 yrs/18mil. Brian Burke had the balls to sign bert and schneider, knowing that they were gonna be close to the cap when perry and getzlaf are RFAs next year.

Edited July 6, 2007 by Mighty Wings

[HenrikRules40 14]

Wow, Holland is an absolute moron. I've always stuck by him, but if Samuelsson is going to be in our top six, I'm not happy at all.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't he top six the past two seasons for a while? Like, the same two seasons we won a President's Trophy and went to the conference finals? I'm a Sammy fan. He played well with Z and Homer when they were all together.

[Dabura 12,207]

[superstarsingh 23]

ARRON SMASHAM! SIGN SUCH NOW!

[Superman54 91]

I just hope he signs Alexei Semenov. 6'6" and 235 pounds is what we need!

[Kp-Wings 3]

Ken Holland would be great in that movie! It is a great movie though.

[Lou_Siffer 1]

Phil Connors = grit and toughness

Instead, we'd sign Ned Ryerson.

[Matt 1,048]

One thing to remember, too, regarding multi-year contracts: In addition to securing cap space for Zetterberg when his contract is up in two years, you may also be staring at the prospect of having to find a starting goaltender next summer if Hasek retires and it's determined Howard isn't ready.

The front office has excellent reasons for not signing guys long-term that they are not completely sold on (Rafalski and Datsyuk, obviously, being "sold" guys), and I think that gives them tremendous flexibility every year...

You just can't afford to have dead weight on your roster eating up cap space any more. (Unless your name is Lou.)

[Guest Agalloch]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't he top six the past two seasons for a while? Like, the same two seasons we won a President's Trophy and went to the conference finals? I'm a Sammy fan. He played well with Z and Homer when they were all together.

I don't get it. You're saying he played well with Zetterberg, Holmstrom, Datsyuk, etc. You could score twenty goals playing on a line with them. Samuelsson sucks, and passes up scoring opportunities to take crappy shots into the goalies pads from the blue line. Yes, he was top six for awhile, but not because he should've been.

[Kp-Wings 3]

Phil Connors = grit and toughness

Instead, we'd sign Ned Ryerson.

Even worse, I'd think we'd sign the camara man from the news station. At least Ned comes with that personailty of being able to annoy the other team into taking penalties.

[Matt 1,048]

Another thing... I do find it humorous how much people ***** about the job Holland is doing.

I admit I had my doubts in the past, but the guy knows what he's doing.

It's almost sad to think that if we didn't lose our No. 2 and No. 3 defensemen last spring we would be celebrating another Stanley Cup championship and some of you would still be bitching about the job Holland has done.

[superstarsingh 23]

I just hope he signs Alexei Semenov. 6'6" and 235 pounds is what we need!

I just hope you are joking. Semenov is the biggest waste I have ever seen play hockey.