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Andy Pred 48

Babs calls out Kenny, sort of!

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Well. I definitely see where Babcock’s coming from, and we’ll likely hear from Holland in a few days.

BUT, anyone else think that the coach gladly took this opportunity to cover his ass a bit? First.

During the regular season, he had no problem blaming himself and the coaching staff for lack of preparation when the team didn’t show up to play. Now, all of a sudden, the team he had to work with wasn’t good enough?

Babcock is usually the MFing man, and I understand his frustration, but I just thought I’d throw all of this out there for debate.

Edited by rick zombo

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This is something I've tried to to articulate before, all hockey fans have a massive tendancy to over-rate their own prospects. Plus it seems like all our top prospects are (yet more) undersized skill players.

Trade him for something, anything, anyone. Even if its a salary dump type trade. Right now its more important to shift his bone-idle arse out the door than it is to get "value" for him. A message needs to be sent to the entire roster that loafing will NOT be tolerated, and that is 10 times more important than whatever player or picks we get in return.

Smith 6'2

Jurco 6'2

Sheahan 6'2

Andersoon 6'2

Aubry 6'4

Nicastro 6'2

Tvrdon 6'2

All seem like very good chances of playing for the wings in the future, so they aren't that undersized. Granted we won't see any of those until Homer is pushing 60, Cleary in his 50's and Hudler in his late 40s'

Regardless though all this talk of bringing in grit, I'm telling you expect to see Sammy and probably Kopecky back in a Wings uniform. Holland doesn't have the balls to actually do something to dramatically upgrade the team

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Well. I definitely see where Babcock’s coming from, and we’ll likely hear from Holland in a few days.

BUT, anyone else think that the coach gladly took this opportunity to cover his ass a bit? First.

During the regular season, he had no problem blaming himself and the coaching staff for lack of preparation when the team didn’t show up to play. Now, all of a sudden, the team he had to work with wasn’t good enough?

Babcock is usually the MFing man, and I understand his frustration, but I just thought I’d throw all of this out there for debate.

I don't think he's covering his ass. If anything, I think he covered other people's asses this season, and more than a few times (see, e.g., blaming himself and the coaching staff).

Holland fielded a deficient roster. That roster, those guys, sucked in the postseason. Babs is the last one anyone should be blaming, IMO.

"Yeah but he should've adjusted lines and, and--"

Come on. The way these guys were playing....

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I don't think he's covering his ass. If anything, I think he covered other people's asses this season, and more than a few times (see, e.g., blaming himself and the coaching staff).

Holland fielded a deficient roster. That roster, those guys, sucked in the postseason. Babs is the last one anyone should be blaming, IMO.

"Yeah but he should've adjusted lines and, and--"

Come on. The way these guys were playing....

Our coaching definitely wasn't good. It was quite obvious which team had the rookie coaches.

The blame doesn't fall on one person though, Holland should have made better decisions, Babcock needed to motivate the players better, and the players needed to play better.

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Just something I find funny. Everyone always gave me s*** about not wanting Cleary back or even on the team. Yet I see all the line pairings everyone has posted for next year and Cleary is off of pretty much all of them.

Bulls***!

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Ok Ben, enjoy Cleary next season... I'm sure he'll miss another 20+ games as usual and end up being hurt during the playoffs as usual. He's a waste of a roster spot. We need young, fast, gritty guys. I've been saying this since the loss in 09' and finally it caught up to the wings as I knew it would. Our players are all old vets who've slowed down and won it all. They have no heart or desire, and they just don't care. Z, Pav, Kronwall, Lids, Helm, Eaves, Abdelkader, and Nyquist should be the only guys who are safe. Move Smith up, trade/ get rid of Hudler, Fil, Franzen (if possible), White, Kindl, Cleary (GO AWAY), possibly Miller. I actually had this same post about 3 weeks ago because I saw this coming.

Add: Parise, Suter and some gritty, big, bottom 6 players

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Smith 6'2

Jurco 6'2

Sheahan 6'2

Andersoon 6'2

Aubry 6'4

Nicastro 6'2

Tvrdon 6'2

All seem like very good chances of playing for the wings in the future, so they aren't that undersized. Granted we won't see any of those until Homer is pushing 60, Cleary in his 50's and Hudler in his late 40s'

OK, I didn't realuse Jurco was 6-2, and I wasn't including Smith and Sheahan, was thinking more along the Nyquist/Tatar/Jarnok/Pulkinnen lines

People have got to get over the idea that Franzen could be traded. Why would any team take on a contract that pays that much money and has that big a cap hit to him for eight more years, especially given his apparent loss of desire? Franzen is probably going to retire in five years, because his salary the last three years is comparatively small. But ovet the next five years he is owed almost $25M -- there is no way any team takes that on unless they can dump an equally bad longterm contract on the Wings.

There will be someone willing to take him on, someone who wants a scoring winger, or needs to get to the cap floor. If the cap goes up to ~$70m then $4m per year isn't that much, he can retire when he gets older without damaging the cap. Much as we hate him, he's not quite in the Scott Gomez untradable category.

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This makes me feel 1,000% better about the future. I'm so glad Babs is smelling what's cooking, and I hope that means Holland is, too. I don't have any specific suggestions for Kenny (although I'm definitely on the Suter/Parise party boat), but as long as they know they have work to do and get down to it this summer, that's enough for me.

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Babcock is really putting on a lot on the line by putting tremendous pressure on Holland and really calling him out. He did it as soon as the 5th game ended and continues to, which is awesome.

Wouldn't be surprised if Holland fires him though, as I'm not sure he appreciates anyone going against his whole "father knows best" mentality.

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It's been very obvious since the end of June that Babcock wasn't happy with Holland's approach lately. He's all but said it for quite awhile now and it's getting pretty overt at this point. Hopefully Holland finally responds, but I'm really not holding my breath. It's one thing for Babcock to say it, but unless Illitch steps in and tells Holland to make s*** happen or else, I think Holland will drop the ball. So hopefully Illitch steps up to the plate along with Babcock and puts some pressure on Holland.

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Babcock is really putting on a lot on the line by putting tremendous pressure on Holland and really calling him out. He did it as soon as the 5th game ended and continues to, which is awesome.

Wouldn't be surprised if Holland fires him though, as I'm not sure he appreciates anyone going against his whole "father knows best" mentality.

Babs isn't going anywhere in the next year unless it's on his own terms. He's proven what he can do with the right tools and I'm sure they're in no hurry to replace him. Holland has been heralded as one of the best GM's in sports for some time now and he is now under scrutiny for the first time, not just from us fans but from the media as well. He knows that he is the GM of one of the best organizations in sports that is rich in winning tradition and knows what he needs to do keep the ship from sinking. I'm just as irked as the next person about his lack of moves in the last offseason and deadline but the ball is now in his court and has one last chance to redeem himself. The only way that he doesn't land Parise/Suter is if they take massive hometown discounts or someone gives them unreasonable deals. At that point I expect him to start working the phones.

I have no doubt that this is going to be the biggest offseason since 2001.

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However the chemistry never did return with the injured players, and the loss of Helm was the dagger in the heart.

The playoffs exposed the Red Wings for not having a solid 4th line, i.e. the Grind Line. That should be one of their top priorities in the off season; reconstruct a new Grind Line, either with in-house players or bring in some new guys.

The playoffs also exposed the Red Wings for not having a "sniper" forward and a true "power" forward.

I'm going more with your last sentence. Can't win if you can't score.

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