gcom007

Pav is my favorite player of all time. He deserves to have someone to play with. The guy is still so dominant. Get him someone really good to play with and who knows maybe he re-signs for a couple more years.

I'd rather lose a first and a good prospect for a star player plus two more years of pav playing with that star player

This is why I could see the benefit of going for it now and leveraging your future a bit. We're going to be a competitive team most nights that we have Pavs and Z in the lineup, so while we have the benefit still of having these guys in the lineup, why not put the best team we can together right now and go for it. Strike while the iron's hot. After all, even if Dats stays, he's not getting any younger. Nor is Z, and his back is likely to slow him down faster than Datsyuk as well.

People say we should be happy because we're a playoff team still and that's the new thing in the cap era, but we're a playoff team because we still have two of the best players in the world at the core of this team. Does anyone truly believe this team is even close to a playoff team if Datsyuk were to leave or Z has a long term injury, considering that even with these guys, most anyone with half a brain realizes we're overachieving this year with this lineup, not to mention the absurd injury streak (though I'm not convinced that the injuries haven't actually helped us...).

But anyways, if we're a playoff team largely because we're still building around Dats and Z, there's certainly an argument to be made that we could move back to contender status a lot easier than some seem to think. It's more than one or two deals; we're not a "Shanahan" away and it's not 1997. But what one or two deals we make now or maybe could've made over the summer might have been the difference in deals made right now.

What people keep failing to recognize is that a deal or two made last summer might've been the difference between leveraging a great deadline deal for someone like Iginla and not even being on Iginla's list of teams. Like it or not, we live in a "what have you done for me lately?" world, and it's becoming all the more true in the cap era of hockey. And while to us, that last Cup series which we barely lost doesn't seem so long ago, four teams have won the Cup since we last won it, and two of those four teams in particular keep finding ways to go for it in the Hawks and Pens. But you hear people talk about how the cap will get them and or about the Crosby/Malkin and Kane/Toews advantages, seemingly ignoring the fact that we still have a very real Dats and Z advantage. And the Pens and Hawks have had to make tough decisions and continually work around the cap, they keep finding a way to go for it. They are perceived as teams that are out there to win, and they have a core in place that attracts talent. In my mind, Holland really should've been doing this while he still had Lidstrom, as the team had far more potential to be a contender while #5 was still with us. We might've been one or two deals away at that point. 

The big difference between our team and theirs is that our management seems scared to go for it, continually putting off making moves citing either the cap, "leveraging the future," or waiting for the "much better free agent market next summer" that has been MIA since Holland first brought it up back in 2009 I believe. This year it's the cap decrease and the inevitable buyouts. Wonderful logic there, by the way. It's about as brilliant as those who think we can trade our scraps for stars. Everyone wants and expects us to buyout Sammy. What kind of players do you think other teams are going to be buying out?!?!? Overpaid, mid-level, aging clunkers. Depth level guys at best, and clearly, we have more than enough depth guys. Tangents... In any event, something always seems to come up that forces us to come up with the next "next year it makes way more sense to go shopping" scenario. Other teams make more dramatic moves to swipe the talent up, or guys sign with other teams, or it just boils down to Holland muttering something that's started sounding about as logical as "the rent is too damn high." 

At this point, given what has become of the situation and what seems to be our inability to land anyone noteworthy via trade or free agency, I'm not convinced it wouldn't be better to just sell off what we have, sink in the standings for a couple of years to get some decent picks, and stock up through the draft. Considering we've got a descent farm system and group of young guys ready to come up, we might be in a better position to trade picks and prospects for legit NHL talent when we have a plethora of it. This is all the more true if there's any truth to the rumors about Datsyuk heading back to Russia after next year, and if Holland doesn't really have a strong hint one way or the other, he's not doing his job. He needs to be dealing with that situation if it's a situation, one way or the other, much sooner rather than later. We already know he's not good at dealing with big player departures later. It meant one thing with Lidstrom when this team still had Dats and Z, but in this situation, with no one coming close to replacing holes left by Lidstrom, Rafalski, or Stuart and then you have to deal with losing Dats too, it might not mean find a replacement so much as stock up on as many draft picks as you can over the next few years.

It's absolutely true that we are not one or two solid moves from being a legit contender, but I tend to agree that that fact alone doesn't mean we shouldn't be moving towards something. By that I mean, if we're not a contender, and we're not going to land rentals on a bargain that would make us a 2nd round team, we better be trading guys like Flip for whatever we can get. If you want to do a song and dance about building your team through the draft and developing prospects, when you know that it's highly likely you're going to lose the guy for nothing, trade him now. We're not making a run this year, and the way Flip's playing lately, it wouldn't be the most horrid loss anyways. (And to be fair, this could still happen in the next 20 hours or so, I realize that, but it's looking unlikely.) 

This is what kills me lately about Holland and the whole situation. What he says and what he does regarding this team just seem beyond all sense and reason. You know he and everyone involved with this team knows they don't have the team to make a run unless a lot of flukey things happen and Howard turns it on and plays out of his mind. If other teams get battered and Howard gets hot, we've seen time and again that a seemingly weaker team can ride that wave a long ways in the playoffs. But you can't bet on that. So yeah, we're probably a playoff team, but we can't reasonably say we're contenders. If you're serious when you say we can't afford to leverage our future for the present, you need to move Flip by the trade deadline for whatever you can get and anyone else that a team might want that we can afford to lose. Some have suggested White. Maybe. We surely can afford to trade him for a later-round pick in 2014 if someone actually wants him, because lately he's watched games from the press box and he's not likely to be brought back.

I'm fine that Holland didn't land Jagr. If cheaper, it would've been nice as it gives us more of a shot if Howard were to heat up in the playoffs, but he wasn't worth the price. I shrugged and thought nothing of it when Iginla was traded to the Pens. I had no real opinion about Bouwmeester; I saw upsides and downsides. All in all, I'm not thinking that it was a bad move to skip out on the bigger names available right now. But in doing that, you have to be honest about what it means to this team's immediate future, because your overachieving team didn't improve at all while all the legit contenders just got even better. If you're serious about how you believe you have to build a team in the cap era, you unload Flip at the very least right now. I keep running it through my head in different ways and trying to see both sides of it, but I see no other options. If you have the team we have now, and you basically are giving up on improving it at the deadline, you have to do what you can to move assets so you might be able to improve it in the future.

That is, unless you truly don't know what you want to do with this team, which I fear more and more to be the case as time goes on.

I don't know if it's cynicism or realism at this point, I admit that, but I don't expect Holland to do anything at the deadline. Whether he should or shouldn't, I don't really know either. Tough call this year if you want to get honest about where this team is at. If you don't bring in someone worthwhile who will stick around after this season, you've almost gotta say, "what's the point?" I just wish Holland would make up his mind about what he wants to do with this team.

If you're going to try to be good and really compete right now, you've got to trade draft picks and prospects and make a real investment in "right now." If you're going to forego "right now" for the sake of keeping prospects and draft picks, then start selling assets and trade for more draft picks and/or prospects. Let the team really sink for a year or two so we get a descent spot in the first round a couple of times. This shooting for the middle approach absolutely isn't sustainable. You lose Datsyuk and this is a very, very, very different team. And if you keep him, he nor Z and his back are getting any older, and I think it's safe to forget about Franzen being a force again.

So if we just continue to stand pat with a middle of the road team, drafting in the middle of the first round at best, we're going to be left with a team full of these "depth players" Holland refers to with no legit talent to support. I just don't see how there's any way out other than getting insanely lucky again in the draft like we did with Dats and Z, but you can't count on that when you're building a team. So in my mind, he really needs to make a choice about what he wants this team to be. Trade some of your "future" to be truly competitive right now, or trade some of your "right now," even if it leads to struggling, so you can get busy really rebuilding from the ground up. I'm fine with either path really, as I think both are better than this middle ground he's walking that will likely lead to nowhere.

The longer this goes on, the more unlikely it is that he's signing in Detroit. But either way it goes, some of y'all need to get a grip. It's a big decision however you shake it. If you want on-demand entertainment, sign up for Netflix.

Yes, but it has little to do with Parise and Suter. That being said, had better decisions been made in the preceding years, I think we would've had those guys signed easily, maybe for less than Holland even ended up offering. We overpaid for unproven mid-level talent on the hope that it'd blossom in time, instead of underpaying legit stars (who you could afford to rig up with a long contract for a low cap hit because their declining years would be stronger than most mid-level guy's peaks) when we had the leverage. We were constantly caught scrambling in the off-season, failing to secure talent, left to chase scraps, and if you don't think that that has an impression on how outsiders view our team, you are absolutely kidding yourself. Had we made wiser moves and been more aggressive to replace top-end talent, we still would likely be "chasing scraps" due to cap issues, but the story would be phrasing it as "bargain hunting." And those "bargains" would end up looking a lot more like descent low to mid-level guys while playing alongside a top notch core.

We're not a bottom of the barrel team, but we are no longer a top-tier team. It's not like we weren't one of the few remaining teams in the conversation for Suter and Parise, though from what was said after the fact, Parise seemed less interested in coming here than Suter. But I guess at the end of the day, all the more so if nothing happens between now and the deadline, not landing Suter and Parise certainly will be hanging in people's minds more in the future as more people continue to ponder this question. 

What kills me about many Wings fans and Jagr in general is that had the guy been drafted here instead of Primeau, he'd likely be a hero and celebrated for all of his, umm, "eccentricities" and his hair and whatever else people whine about. He's always had his issues, but he's always been a phenomenal hockey player and has proven that he's still capable of being quite effective out there. And I haven't heard anything too negative about him lately, though I haven't followed him closely. If he was a relatively cheap option, he'd be a great pickup heading in to the playoffs. I highly, highly doubt that it will happen, but to just automatically write off the idea of it because of stuff that mostly happened over ten years ago just seems silly.

Look at the system Jagr came up in too. He watched Mario Lemeiux run Scotty Bowman out of town. He saw a bunch of guys throw tantrums, then some were traded, and the team had to tighten up on D, but they won a Cup, and then they sent Bowman on his way. Things might have been different for Jagr had he come up with the Wings, who had a little bit better character in the locker room and management that was committed to Bowman's management, not to mention, Bowman in general shaping this guy. Jagr might've turned out more like Federov in terms of level of obnoxiousness and less like he did.

But Paul Coffey no doubt would've been traded by Bowman again. No. Effing. Doubt. 

The NHL instituted a salary cap in 2005.  The Wings have made the playoffs every year, won a Stanley Cup, made it to game 7 of the Stanely Cup finals, several conference finals and we can't say Holland is a great post cap GM?  Who would be then?

Since we were really feeling the cap when we were still paying Zetterberg around $2.5 million/season? Or when we had one Stanley Cup winning goalie playing for around a million (who won us our last Cup) and another Stanley Cup winning goalie playing for $2 million and bonuses? Or when Franzen was making less than a million and actually producing? Or when Flip was doing as much as he does now for less than a million? Or when we still had Lidstrom, money be damned?

We didn't have to start putting together a real cap team until 2009-2010. We were so stocked before the cap because of Mr. I's wallet that we didn't have to rush any talent, so by the time we start using some of our prospects, we had solid NHLers who were contributing far more than one would expect from typical guys making the kind of money they were. Once Holland had to start making cap decisions and signing our younger guys to real NHL deals, he has struggled in my opinion. And again, I'm not saying he utterly and completely failed, but I don't think he was great and I absolutely don't think he put the best team on the ice that he could. Whether we make the playoffs or not, if you can look at the situation and say, "you could do better," than something isn't right.

He's had a pattern of favoring guys that we develop, whether it made the most hockey sense or not, and in multiple cases, it didn't, and it really bit us in the ass. I still think the worst off-season was the summer of 2009 when he failed to sign any of our FAs, but made sure to sign Franzen to a lifetime deal before the regular season ended. He could've signed Hossa for around a million more per year, but instead prioritized the signing of Franzen, a one-dimensional player with only a couple strong seasons to his name, and Hudler, another small, one-dimensional player who ended up leaving for Russia anyways. When you have a chance to lock up a legitimate superstar who will outwork nearly everyone on the ice every night at both ends for a $5 million cap hit or less, you don't focus on Franzen and Hudler, or hell, Samuellson for that matter, who also left.

But it ended in an interesting manner, because he picked up some solid guys on the cheap because he had no other choice when he failed to sign anyone. And oddly, I'd say this is his strength. He's pretty good at finding descent NHL level guys like Patrick Eaves for very little money, bringing them in and getting a good amount of solid hockey out of them. What's nuts is that if he had his priorities straight, he could've kept Hossa and still would've ended up signing these types of guys to fill out the team with the cap space he had left.

But he keeps going back to the same old well for a lot of the same old guys. For the love, we signed Samuellson again this last off-season! And sure, we're making the playoffs, but like I said, there's that nagging "you could do better" factor. After all, when you have a team with Dats and Z and a descent goaltender, let alone when we had Nick Lidstrom anchoring our defense, I would hope you'd be in the playoffs every year! But I didn't know we were supposed to be satisfied with that, especially when it's practically a given when you have Dats and Z and Lidstrom and descent goaltending? Sure, it's nice, and I'm not saying it's not an accomplishment, but we should be there with the guys we have. That we don't go farther with the guys we have when Holland has had the power to put a better team on the ice and hasn't is the problem.

Most every good thing that's happened to this team in the cap era is a gift from the pre-cap era. Since the cap has started to catch up with us, things haven't looked so hot. And hell, when you've got whispers around time from guys who know and blatant remarks made to the press from the coach about dissatisfaction with what Holland's been doing, especially when we've had cap space and when we have enough prospects to move guys without leveraging the future, you've got to wonder if this is more than Armchair-GM critique at some point.

Bottom line, we've had a lot of guys leave the last few years, and little has been done to address it. We've had plenty of questionable signings. We've let guys slip away. We've failed to make moves to improve the team when opportunities are out there. We utterly and completely failed to prepare for the loss of Lidstrom before we were placed into a position of desperation.

And for the love, I don't care who was or wasn't available. Bottom line is, when you know you're going to lose a guy like Lidstrom, you move mountains to make a deal to land someone who can help bridge the gap and instill confidence. You really want to try and tell me Holland couldn't have brought in a solid guy capable of serving in that #1 role before Lidstrom left? I don't care if you have to give up prospects, picks, solid roster people, or overpay. You're in an infinitely better position before you lose Lidstrom than after, when every team or player is going to be demanding all the more from you, knowing you're desperate, all while you no longer have the benefit of being able to say, "you're going to be on a pairing with one of the greatest hockey players in history until he retires." You really want to try to tell me Holland couldn't have shaken enough trees to find even another Kronwall-level guy to at least help ease the pain somewhat before Lidstrom left? Please.

We have a core in place still that allows this team to compete every night, but the core deserves better. This should be a team that's not just able to make the playoffs, but have a legitimate chance of going the distance. I expect this team to get by in the regular season these days, but I don't expect anything out of the playoffs, when nearly every other team in the playoffs the last couple years has been able to show they're capable of making a racket? Why do I think that is? We don't have another level to go to anymore. We've got a lot of tired guys who don't have nearly as much to play for anymore after winning Cups and feeling the grind a few too many times. I'd rather have young, unproven guys than some of the guys we have hanging around still, because at least they still have something to prove. That is what motivates guys to find another level for the playoffs. We were lucky enough to be able to let our guys get ripe in GR so we could pay them less when they could contribute at a high level before, but I really don't know how much longer that's going to work in the cap era. It's one thing to let vets carry you through the season, but these mid-level vets with little left to play for don't get the job done in the playoffs.

And lastly, again, some of the guys Holland's ended up bringing in the last 3-4 years haven't been bad guys at all. I'm fine with Eaves, Miller, Tootoo, and a few others here and there. But he brought those guys in when he had no other choices. He could've done the same thing and made better high-end choices before he was up against the wall only to come up dry. That's the real problem with Holland. I think he could be a great cap-era GM if he gets back to making splashes like Rafalski or Hossa and then finding cheap guys who can contribute and have something to prove. I'm glad he hasn't thrown a ton of money at a goalie as I think it's one of the dumbest investments some teams make. But all in all, the "you could do better" thing hangs over the last four years like a cloudy sky on the verge of rain.

I tend to agree that those who get upset at Holland for failing to make things happen since last summer are off-base, as he did do all he could when in those situations, as I'm sure he's doing now. But it doesn't tell the whole story. What most Holland-bashers screw up on is thinking Holland dropped the ball say last summer with Parise and Suter or if DeKeyser doesn't sign here, then he obviously dropped the ball because it was an easy set up. But it's ultimately irrelevant what he does now with these guys in many ways when it's the team that's been put together over the last 4-5 years that's going to speak more to these players than what Holland says now. If Holland dropped the ball, it's been in not doing more to address player losses in years past, or failing to prepare for the loss of Lidstrom before he was up against a wall and desperate.

After all, does anyone really think this would be a question for DeKeyser if the team looked more competitive on a consistent basis? If Holland had done a better job since our last Cup win at helping this team evolve, he likely wouldn't have to do much selling at all to someone like DeKeyser.

But in any event, what happened happened, and while I haven't been a fan of many of the decisions for some time now, I can at least say that Holland is trying to do what he can since last summer to address issues. There's nothing more he can really do now, and presently, given the situation, you can't say he's not trying and doing the best he can. But he is stuck playing catchup you could say, and for that it is in many ways his own fault.

A team with Hossa instead of Franzen and a legitimate number one defensemen replacement installed before Lidstrom retired instead of some of our tradable assets over the last few years is going to be a more attractive team to anyone he's trying to sign today. He got sentimental when things were still good and we weren't feeling the full heat of the cap, and the team that emerged out of that was not the team that he could use as leverage to get guys to really want to sign here, let alone for less than market value anymore. You could say that it's just the effects of parity brought on by the cap, and that's absolutely right on many levels. But if Holland was as good of a GM in the cap era as some thought he was prior to the cap, he would've done a better job of maintaining this team's prestige when he had the opportunity 3-4 years ago to do so. That's when he truly dropped the ball; back when things were good and people weren't paying enough attention.

And yes, I know this team isn't terrible, and it's impressive that we're still in the playoff hunt with the team we have this year. That's all fine and dandy, though make no mistake, it really does help that we still have Dats and Z hanging around. But that's also the tragedy, as we still have Pavs and Z, which almost by default make this team competitive every night. And if a few more pieces were in place that could've been in place, this team wouldn't consistently still be a team that could make the playoffs, but a team that could legitimately challenge for the Cup every year. I know you don't win every year, but while you have the benefit of having Dats and Z on your team, it'd be nice to think a little more than, "we have a good chance of making the playoffs," and Hossa, a Lidstrom successor at least in title of legitimate number one defenseman, less old scraps and more youth would've been a big step in that direction. And if we had those things, we might've had a better opportunity of landing solid veteran help willing to play for less to win a Cup.

Or a better opportunity of signing a much sought-after free-agent defenseman with potential to contribute right away.

But we don't have that same leverage anymore. That didn't happen last summer, and it didn't happen while Holland was chatting with DeKeyser. That happened because over the last four years, when it was clear to anyone willing to admit it that some of our guys wouldn't play forever, and some of our newer guys weren't so proven, when the team needed to be truly evolving, nothing was done.

I'm surprised more people aren't on board with the idea of trying to land Iginla. I'm not going to be heartbroken if he doesn't arrive as I highly doubt it will happen, but it's just silly to believe he wouldn't still be an impact player even at his age for 2-3 more years. The Wings could use a real power-forward as well. Maybe Franzen could learn a thing or two from him, or at least become embarrassed enough to start trying a little harder again to live up to his now-irrelevant nickname. But again, the likelihood of him landing here is very small. I don't think it would have to do with us being strong suitors so much as willing suitors, if the other teams undoubtedly ahead of us aren't willing to pay the price. Still, unlikely at best.

Do you think that Lidstrom or Yzerman would ever have changed their minds?

 

Selanne no longer has anything to prove, nor anything that he can plausibly accomplish beyond what he's done already, and he's got a boatload of money.

 

Can you come up with one equivalent player---the operative word being equivalent, i.e. already won a Cup, lots of scoring, etc.---who decided to leave his very longtime team (Selanne has played the past eight seasons with the Ducks, and six more before his stint with the Sharks), with which he identified closely, and go somewhere else at the very end of his career?

Lidstrom and Yzerman aren't even remotely equivalent players to bring up in this conversation; they each spent their whole career with the same team, weren't being pinched out by the cap, and they each retired earlier than Selanne likely will. Yzerman could barely skate without extreme pain and Lidstrom "lost the hunger" or something before this could become an issue. Obviously, the Wings can still afford to pay Lidstrom whatever he wants (are you reading this, Nick???).

How many teams has Selanne played for? Oh yeah, four.

We're not even talking Mike Modano or Ray Borque level decisions here, having literally spent their entire career with one team only to switch teams late in their career for one reason or another. But when there's hunger there for a Cup or to keep playing and your longtime team can't afford you or make a place for you or put a team together that can make a run, you find a way to rationalize things, painful as it may be in some ways. And again, those guys hadn't already changed teams four times before, like Teemu has.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's incredibly likely that he'll play for someone else, nor am I trying to suggest that he doesn't feel a sense of loyalty to the Ducks organization at this point, I'm merely saying that if the guy wants to keep playing but the Ducks can't come up with the money to make it work, push comes to shove, I think it's entirely possible that Selanne might change his mind and play for someone else. Granted, I don't think he would do so 2-3 years from now at 45, but after this season or next, if the Ducks can't make it work financially, I absolutely believe that he would entertain other options if he still had the hunger to play. 

Yzerman and Lidstrom? Seriously? 

It just wouldn't be nearly as hard for him as it would be for someone like Yzerman or Lidstrom, because after all, it wouldn't be the first time he went to a new team, it'd be the fifth time. I'm not trying to take anything away from Teemu as I think he's a great, great hockey player and he seems like a great person off the ice. I don't think anyone wouldn't absolutely love to have the guy on their favorite team; he's one of the greats and a pure class act. But no matter what he may say now (and what else would you expect him to be saying now?), if he wants to keep playing and it's not looking like it's going to work out in Anaheim, if there are other intriguing options out there, I don't think it'd be outlandish at all to think that Teemu Selanne might switch teams for the fifth time.

None the less, I think you've got to be dreaming if you think he'd come to Detroit at this stage in the game. I mean, sure, it's possible and there are reasons to believe it'd be on the shortlist, and it may still be, but I kinda doubt that we'll be signing Flip to an extension and that would be a large part of the draw to get him here. Furthermore, he's not going to want to join a rebuilding team at 42, and I think it's getting harder and harder to suggest that we're not in a sort of rebuilding stage right now. It's too bad though. He'd look great in red and white and he might be able to help Flip be better than he knows how to be on his own. Dreams...

Edit: I think it's also worth bringing Chris Chelios up as equivalent players who made dramatic shifts. First of all, just him coming to Detroit at all was no small feat, and he was no spring chicken when that deal went down. And at a much later age when he had absolutely nothing whatsoever to prove to anyone, no need for money, and really only shame to gain, he left Detroit to try and make something else work. Guys who want to play well into their 40s are hungrier to play than just about anyone, and despite their best intentions, they're not going to be tied down by a feeling of loyalty. If Selanne wants to play and believes he still can, he will find a place to play, Anaheim or not.

This issue has inadvertently lead to a decline in my visiting here. I've progressively used the iPad more and more for web content the last few years, and LGW on the iPad is just a mess with the ads. Starts to feel like more trouble than it's worth after awhile. I'll have to check out the Tapatalk option. Just another step into the app-centric world...

I gotta say though, Babcock never prepared this team whatsoever and Quincey kept getting turned inside out and causing goals and he led the team in ice time that's badf****** coaching no way around it. Not to mention our PP was some of the worst hockey I've ever witnessed and our PK has been a joke for 3 years.

What is Babcock supposed to do if these guys don't want to skate hard? What can he do if they're so absent-minded out there that they can't even get the fundamentals down? What Babs has wanted to do for awhile was dump guys that don't work and bring in guys that will work hard. Holland hasn't helped there at all, which Babock has openly been "pissed off" about for some time. It's not as simple as just having any old parts and then having a coach magically make them work great as a whole. In reality, sometimes you just have the wrong parts. Any great coach will tell you that.

If you've got a lot of guys that don't skate hard, then clearly, you have too many wrong parts. Babcock can't make trades, he can't sign guys and he can't release guys. That's Holland's job, and as far as I'm concerned, he's been doing a piss poor job of it since 2009. He hasn't adjusted to the true reality of the cap era, and he's rested on his laurels. It's not worth debating his past success at this point, because it doesn't mean anything if you can't get the job done in the present. He's been dropping the ball again and again since 2009, and one could say that was when the cap era truly started to have an effect on the Wings.

Before that, we had a lot of the pieces already in place, had 2 capable Stanley Cup-winning goaltenders playing for practically nothing because they were old, and we were lucky enough to be the first team to figure out a loophole in the cap. And when the cap kicked off originally, we were paying Z what, $2 million a year or something? We got really lucky when it first kicked off, any way you shake it. Now that we have to operate in a similar fashion as the rest of the league, how have things gone? How has Holland responded? Can you really say he's done all he can to ice the best team the last few years? And bear in mind, I'm not even talking about last summer. He went out and tried and got turned down by the top guys for reasons that were reasonably out of his control. But he had multiple years before that where he failed to address issues and failed to begin setting up for a smooth transition into the post-Lidstrom era.

They say great players make the players around them better. In Lidstrom's case, I think he was also making the GM look better. It's obviously going to not be as bad as it was last night every night, but if you can't see how many glaring holes and issues there are in this team, you're not watching hockey. This teams looked shaky the last few years, but Lidstrom really was a player that was great enough alone to be a sort of glue that held the ship together. But he's gone now, and this ship is a mess, and Holland's running out of time to prove he can run a team in the cap era.

There's a phrase, "To whom much is given, much is expected."

Red Wings' players are given a lot.  An awful lot.  They're treated very well by ownership and management, rewarded with contracts that some of us fans say are for too long or for too much money, especially when a player is past his prime.  The players that fit into the team's structure are kept here for a long time, usually only leaving when they choose to retire or to move on.  They're largely sheltered from the public, they don't have to do all the appearances that players in less-traditional hockey markets have to do.  And they're (for the most part) adored by the team's fans.

What's expected in return is that they give 100%, play well, win more often than not, and do well in the playoffs.  Last night's game was a total failure in every way possible.  There was no effort, no emotion, no pride, no appearance of any desire to even be there playing NHL hockey.  I don't think that's what we will see all season, far from it.  But that was no way to start the season, especially after what transpired this summer and fall.  Can you imagine if that was a home game?  The stands would have (or should have) been completely empty by the third period.  It was unacceptable by anyone's standards and especially for a team that says they expect to compete for the Stanley Cup every season.

A couple of you have said the team is due for an overhaul.  I couldn't agree more.  The locker room seems to have become a country club over the last few seasons, there is no price to be paid for under-performing.  Nobody gets traded away, nobody gets let go, nobody gets benched.  Helm's line was the team's best line in way too many games last year.  Other guys continually disappear for long stretches but continue to play here.  Players who don't "fit the system" aren't looked at as possible acquisitions.  Now, what we have is a collection of redundant players and a team that can't adapt to an opponent who outworks the Wings or who can shut down their puck-possession style.  They couldn't dump and chase if their lives depended on it.  An aggressive forecheck is out of the question, 3 or 4 players excepted.  And there's no real hope coming up through the ranks.  Yes, Nyquist, Tatar, Andersson, and Sheahan are all NHL-ready or very close, but what are those guys going to do when they get here?  3rd line, maybe fill in on the 2nd line?  We don't have anyone like Tarasenko, Skinner, Henrique, Andrew Shaw... someone who can quickly step in and produce at an NHL level.  Andersson and Sheahan project as 3rd liners and Nyquist and Tatar have talent but are small.  Same as the roster we have now.  It's time for an organizational shift, this season or this off-season.

Yep. Way too many guys are way too comfortable. You always hear the line's like, "that would've never happened under Bowman's watch" and attribute it to Bowman just being one of the most masterful coaches in the history of sports. But I think in some cases, it boils down to Bowman didn't put up with crap, and if a guy was lazy or half-assing it, he got benched or worse yet, traded the hell out here. If you didn't buy into his system, if you didn't work hard, you weren't coddled. You weren't rewarded with new contracts. You weren't given the same playing time game in and game out. You got benched or traded and all along the way, he was going to be screwing with your head at every opportunity to remind you whose boss.

I've said it numerous times in the last day, and I've been emphatic about it after one game because it's a problem that goes back well before even last season: there are too many guys floating out there and not giving anything close to their best effort. Some say that Babcock's message isn't getting to them anymore, but to me, that just doesn't matter at all. These guys are professionals getting paid a ton of money to play a game. The coach can be an absolute joke as far as I'm concerned and they still should be giving 100% every night. If you're not giving 100% and complaining about the coach, then as far as I'm concerned you can pack your bags and leave. If you give 100% and do what the coach is telling you and it's clear that the coaches strategies just aren't working, then I'll look at the coach. But if you're just floating out there, not even trying to pay mind to the fundamentals, then you have no business whatsoever complaining about the coach. You need an attitude adjustment, and if booting your ass out of town is what it takes, so be it.

I'm really just completely sick of seeing these guys half-ass it. This is not a new problem, and we no longer have the talent to get away with it. Last night was a joke. It'd be funnier if it was a fluke, but when the same old guys make the same mistakes and fail to skate hard, just like the last few years, it really ought to make any fan angry. Again, these guys are getting paid a tremendous amount of money to play a game. There's no excuse for them to play it as lackadaisically as they have the last few years, and now that we've lost the core of our defense, there's no one to hide behind. There's very few guys left on this team that appear to have any pride. The rest are a joke, and to them I say, good riddance. I'd rather have young guys up here working hard, even if it means losing games as they mature, than watch a bunch of underachievers coast and flop around on the ice.

What makes you think Filppula is going to give us a good return?  So Selanne likes him.  Teemu is also 41 and not likely to be playing much longer.  So the Ducks are going to trade for him so Teemu can play with is buddy when they don't know how much longer he'll play? So he sucks, lets trade him, and we'll get someone really good in return?  What value does Cleary have? He's old, often injured and overpaid.   Emmerton?  What picks and prospects? 

 

I always have to laugh when fans think our players suck, but yet they think they're incredibly valuable to someone else.  If small skilled players aren't the "in" thing, why would other teams want them? 

Aside from Dats and Z, who aren't going anywhere, we have no guys who are worth anything alone. Flip and Franzen are the only guys we have that we can live without that will be of any interest to teams that might deal top-end talent, and they both come with significant caveats.

Flip's a very valuable trade asset generally, but not in the final year of his contract, hence why I was suggesting moving him the last couple years especially considering our depth at center and the impending retirement of Lidstrom.

Franzen alone won't be worth as much as he would've a couple years ago either, so again, only thing that might work, and it's still a stretch at this point, is a package with Franzen and Flip and a maybe a prospect and draft pick.

The idea of Cleary having any value is absurd. He might find a way to get it going down the stretch, but even if a team would trade for him, it's not going to net us much in return.

Bottom line, we need major help on D. We need a top-pairing guy who can come in and stabilize the defense and play a lot of minutes. No way that comes in without Franzen and Flip going out, and they won't go alone. We don't have much to work with at this point and we're up against a wall, desperate. The asking price will be high, but Holland doesn't have many choices. Franzen's been floating and inconsistent and it makes sense to just cut the experiment off if we can add a solid defenseman. Flip, as said, is in the final year of his contract, and there's no guarantee that we'll sign him anyways. Sure, we "want" to keep him, but if he expects a big raise and our defense hasn't improved, I have to wonder if we'll even be able to afford him under the new cap. It's early enough in this weird season that Flip might have more value to a team looking to add a strong, experienced 2-way guy especially if they think they can sign him this summer.

And worst case scenario, I think Flip gets dealt at the deadline even if no other moves are made. If nothing gets done before, I don't think this team has a prayer of landing in the playoffs, so dealing Flip for even mid to low draft picks is a better scenario for the team than holding on to him until July 1 just for the sake of holding on to him. They can still try and sign him this summer if they really want to, after all.

But any way you shake it, we're between a rock and a hard place. We need to shake the team up, but we have no leverage and very few worthwhile assets. Add to that the likelihood of a dry free-agent season and we could be in serious trouble for some time. We haven't been a destination spot for a few years now, and it's only going to get worse the way things are going. That's why I really think Holland has to do all he can to make a big move to improve the D. He's got to send a message to this team and the rest of the league that he still wants to win. These current Wings players (sans Dats and Z) could really use a reminder that they're expendable; maybe it'll finally get their feet moving and they'll magically start "hearing Babcock's message."

Lots of rust, lots of uninspired play. Perhaps Z is not fully in his Captaincy role yet. I know that both Yzerman and Lidstrom spoke of having to rally the team from a leadership standpoint....it might take a bit for the new C to settle into that. 

 

As for the rust....well, Howard looked worse than Monster. I'm glad for a big upgrade over last season in the backup role. 

 

Franzen....this guy is going to get bought out if he repeats this performance all season. 

Not to take anything away from Monster, but by the time he was in, I don't think the Blues were really trying too hard either. They were still skating circles around us, but half as fast as they were earlier in the game.