Wings offseason thread

[joseph mamah]

I dont know about his drafting, but Hollands been arguably the most successful GM in professional sports over the last 20 years, he must be doing something right.

Yeah the inability to add a frontline defenseman bothers me, I guess ive just been spoiled assuming the Wings are going to have a shot at the Cup every year.

I dont mind the fact that they brought Lidstrom back even if it was for a swan song, as far as im concerned as long as he wanted to be here there was a spot waiting for him. he was imo one of the main reasons this team has been as successful as it has been over the years and I think his loss is going to really hurt.

[ajaX82]

We don't have much because I feel our GM is one of the poorer drafters in the league. Not only is he weak at picking players, but his strategy is nonsensical at the core which is the real problem.

I really don't want to belabor a point with you but it is statements like these that show you don't have a clue when it comes to hockey. Which is fine, but other people might read this and think it's true. I actually do follow hockey pretty closely

We have the 10th best farm system in hockey according to HF and we never pick high. Hell we often don't have first rounders. We have two arguable top-25 prospects in Brendan Smith and Gustav Nyquist (These aren't top-5 picked guys mind you). Here is most of our top-10 prospects and where they were picked (not including this years picks):

Nyquist: pick 121.
Mrazek, the guy you seem to like: pick 141
Jarnkrok: pick 51
Sproul: pick 55
Smith: pick 27
Tatar: pick 60
Andersson: pick 88
Ouellet: pick 48
Jurco: pick 35
Sheahen: pick 21

Nothing but value. Insane value. I count two late first rounders and two more players before the first 50! As for strategy and diversity at drafting, we have depth at defense with a bunch of different types of players, from all around (Ouellet) to PP QB (Sproul) to big nasty (McKee). Goalie has a rising star (Mrazek) and one of our recent picks in Paterson. Forward has two way guys (Tatar and Andersson), power forwards (Shehean), snipers (Pulkkinen), playmakers (Jarnkrok and Jurco) and even a scraper or two (Callahan)

Point is, Ken Holland is arguably one of, if not the, best drafters in hockey. I haven't even brought up picks like Datsyuk, Ericsson and Zetterberg yet, which only strengthens my point. Nothing else to say here

[TSE]

I dont know about his drafting, but Hollands been arguably the most successful GM in professional sports over the last 20 years, he must be doing something right.

Yeah the inability to add a frontline defenseman bothers me, I guess ive just been spoiled assuming the Wings are going to have a shot at the Cup every year.

I dont mind the fact that they brought Lidstrom back even if it was for a swan song, as far as im concerned as long as he wanted to be here there was a spot waiting for him. he was imo one of the main reasons this team has been as successful as it has been over the years and I think his loss is going to really hurt.

Well it's a matter of perspective, I'm not sure what criteria you would use to make that statement, as my criteria would suggest nearly the opposite. If you inherit a billion dollars, then in one year people in your community could say wow that guy must be doing something right, because he's rich! What if he lost half of that money and only had 500 million. The presence or appearance of wealth can't be used to qualify performance outside of full context of what another person could have done in that same situation. That's my measuring stick. And I think he has blown many opportunities for us to dominate year after year with what we had as a strong core back when we won the last cup. Since that last title he has been deplorable and I accept no excuse for the countless illogical decisions that he has been making. We could have won and SHOULD have won more cups with what he had to work with and it was his fault that we didnt.

And yeah Lidstrom's loss will hurt, that's why a good GM needs a proper exit strategy for him and a proper entrance strategy for somebody else. That's nice that you like Lidstrom, I liked him too, but we made a 7 or so million dollar investment in him and didn't win, that's a 0% ROI of cup titles on 7 million bucks. That's also an opportunity cost of not picking up one of the available players on the market that we had to pass up as a result. We gave up the 7 million AND a piece of the future for what I felt was a lost cause since we didn't have a qualified team to make a run fueled by sacrificing the future. He did that several years now and across ALL of our players.

If you buy a Corvette for $50k what do you think it's worth after one year when you drive it? How about year 2, year 3? And so on. Look up a depreciation chart to see how an asset that has an expiration date can be VERY costly if you don't manage it right. We have 2 superstars in Datsyuk and Zetterberg and nobody is lauding him for pissing away all this value. We are talking about him costing the franchise something that is worth MANY tens of millions of dollars. In other words if I was the GM for the last 5 years I could have very likely produced an extra 50 million of value on top of what Holland brought, and that's not doing a good job even if every one of his competitors did a worse job. What they make is irrelevant if you can still make an extra 50 million by doing things right. And I don't need to scout a single player, the scouts can do that, I wouldn't need any talent there in order to fix the team's problems and have put them in a strategically dominant position through proper trades of assets that have no other logical exit strategy, and with drafting the right positions to get the depth and flexibility to make those moves. He was negligent and mismanaged the team.

Oh and your buddy Lidstrom I heard was moving back to Sweden and taking all of his money that he made in this country to go spend it over there now. Maybe no concern to the Red Wings, but still something to think about. I don't like people using America to get extremely wealth that don't give back, and he didn't give back. I can't blame him for taking the money either. My displeasure is with the GM who orchestrated giving his "buddy" a ridiculous sum of money that was not justified or appropriate.

[TSE]

We don't have much because I feel our GM is one of the poorer drafters in the league. Not only is he weak at picking players, but his strategy is nonsensical at the core which is the real problem.

I really don't want to belabor a point with you but it is statements like these that show you don't have a clue when it comes to hockey.

It's statements like that which show you don't have a clue for proper discussion since this is a matter of opinion and you can't know or be sure that you are right and I'm wrong, because the nature of an opinion based argument is that there is no such thing as a right or wrong. You have failed at the very basic element of logic here that we can't even get one sentence of dialogue where you're already disqualified from having any validity to your point because of that such illogical premise.

Further, I stand by my position that my observations here are spot on, and I believe that you have a very poor understanding of this sport as evidence by the fact that you can't see the overwhelming failure that seems so obvious to me. Still disagree about his drafting talent in a big way, but more importantly is the overall value as a GM which is the main thing we are talking about and even if he was a good drafter and I conceded that to you, he still failed other elements that contributed to not winning. That's what this is about as a global argument. So if I changed my opinion slightly to say I'm giving 10% more credit points at being a good drafter, well then the sum of what he has done would have to take that other 10% from some other category of his job that maybe I'm not being harsh enough of a critic. I'm looking at the totality of wins, titles, and present position of the roster and the farm. Sure I would agree that he is better at the drafting element than the element of identifying and executing trades which is just about the worst score possible you could get since he basically stood pat every year with an unqualified roster design. He could use our next 1st round pick to draft my grandmother and still be a better drafter than a trader, because Datsyuk and Zetterberg and your list there would make up for it get him back above zero. The overall grade is a disaster when you compute it all no matter which category is worth the most positive points.

I could have come here and said great job Holland, I'm proud of you and appreciate your efforts for this team, you are a great GM! But I can't do that and that's not my fault nor should I be lauded for it, Holland did that on his own and he's getting paid big bucks for doing a terrible job, and I have all of the leverage here being paid nothing to be more intelligent than he when it comes to managing a hockey team, despite that's not even my sport of greatest expertise. That's really, really sad. But it is what it is because Holland made it possible.

Also, let's do this at least for now since we likely won't agree here. In 5 or so years I will still be here and let's see how that list you cited pans out. I think you are overstating the value of those players and I am not nearly as excited as you are from my researching those players of which I have spent time and studied all of them and what the scouting reports and stat history has looked like. I don't think those people project as well as you do and I expect less success than what you probably expect with your exuberant excitement about how much value is there. If it doesn't work out though then Illitch can lose another $50MM in value or so.

At least it's not as bad as the $100MM+ he lost over the last 5 years with his baseball team and the $100MM+ I'm confident he will lose over the next 5.

[joseph mamah]

I dont know about his drafting, but Hollands been arguably the most successful GM in professional sports over the last 20 years, he must be doing something right.

Yeah the inability to add a frontline defenseman bothers me, I guess ive just been spoiled assuming the Wings are going to have a shot at the Cup every year.

I dont mind the fact that they brought Lidstrom back even if it was for a swan song, as far as im concerned as long as he wanted to be here there was a spot waiting for him. he was imo one of the main reasons this team has been as successful as it has been over the years and I think his loss is going to really hurt.

Well it's a matter of perspective, I'm not sure what criteria you would use to make that statement, as my criteria would suggest nearly the opposite. If you inherit a billion dollars, then in one year people in your community could say wow that guy must be doing something right, because he's rich! What if he lost half of that money and only had 500 million. The presence or appearance of wealth can't be used to qualify performance outside of full context of what another person could have done in that same situation. That's my measuring stick. And I think he has blown many opportunities for us to dominate year after year with what we had as a strong core back when we won the last cup. Since that last title he has been deplorable and I accept no excuse for the countless illogical decisions that he has been making. We could have won and SHOULD have won more cups with what he had to work with and it was his fault that we didnt.

And yeah Lidstrom's loss will hurt, that's why a good GM needs a proper exit strategy for him and a proper entrance strategy for somebody else. That's nice that you like Lidstrom, I liked him too, but we made a 7 or so million dollar investment in him and didn't win, that's a 0% ROI of cup titles on 7 million bucks. That's also an opportunity cost of not picking up one of the available players on the market that we had to pass up as a result. We gave up the 7 million AND a piece of the future for what I felt was a lost cause since we didn't have a qualified team to make a run fueled by sacrificing the future. He did that several years now and across ALL of our players.

If you buy a Corvette for $50k what do you think it's worth after one year when you drive it? How about year 2, year 3? And so on. Look up a depreciation chart to see how an asset that has an expiration date can be VERY costly if you don't manage it right. We have 2 superstars in Datsyuk and Zetterberg and nobody is lauding him for pissing away all this value. We are talking about him costing the franchise something that is worth MANY tens of millions of dollars. In other words if I was the GM for the last 5 years I could have very likely produced an extra 50 million of value on top of what Holland brought, and that's not doing a good job even if every one of his competitors did a worse job. What they make is irrelevant if you can still make an extra 50 million by doing things right. And I don't need to scout a single player, the scouts can do that, I wouldn't need any talent there in order to fix the team's problems and have put them in a strategically dominant position through proper trades of assets that have no other logical exit strategy, and with drafting the right positions to get the depth and flexibility to make those moves. He was negligent and mismanaged the team.

Oh and your buddy Lidstrom I heard was moving back to Sweden and taking all of his money that he made in this country to go spend it over there now. Maybe no concern to the Red Wings, but still something to think about. I don't like people using America to get extremely wealth that don't give back, and he didn't give back. I can't blame him for taking the money either. My displeasure is with the GM who orchestrated giving his "buddy" a ridiculous sum of money that was not justified or appropriate.

My criteria is 15 straight playoff appearances and 4 Stanley Cups with pretty much 3 different teams during his tenure. he was able to retool the team twice with Cup winning talent and still make it to the playoffs every season. that tells me he has to know what hes doing, not many GMs in any sport have a better resume over the last 15 years

When you have special talents like Dat and to a lesser extent Z, you cant trade those guys and maintain a Stanley Cup caliber team, which we have been for most of their careers. we may not have always brought the Cup home, but we went into the playoffs with a legitimate shot at it. the only reason you would trade those guys is if it was rebuild time or somebody made a godfather offer.


As far as not having a plan for Lidstroms departure, I think Holland like pretty much everyone else assumed all we had to do was make an offer and we could get any free agent we wanted, we're "Hockeytown". Suter threw us a curveball that most people Holland probably included werent expecting.

Im not going to hate on Liodstrom for taking his money and going home, especially with whats going on in this country these days. If I could id move to Sweden in a heartbeat and its not even my homeland. I wouldnt call Lidstroms contract a ridiculous sum of money or a buddy hook up, im not positive but id be willing to bet he was top 5 in the Norris Trophy voting last season, he earned his money.

[TSE]

Well I wasn't proposing to trade Datsyuk or Zetterberg specifically, the solution could be to trade everybody or anybody other than them. Or it could be to trade them. The solution to win the coup could come from either path. The only question is what is the easier path to take. Either way though, the worst thing you can do is use up their talent and value and NOT get paid by trade if you are also going to NOT win a cup. That's the worst case scenario because you are not getting salvage value OR converting on a win. That's unacceptable to do with ANY asset of even a dollar's worth. The name of the game is to minimize how much waste you have and then conversely as you do that you increase your odds to win along with your financial profits tied in as well. Understanding the logic of that relationship and then solving for a maximum efficient solution with understanding those dynamics is the key and the formula to arrive at maximum success with maximum odds. That's my core belief for strategy in any of the major sports that are designed with these types of components and mechanisms such as players that have finite career lengths, and veterans or proven players getting paid more, draft picks being present, trade and FA options present. Each sport has a slightly different way to marry these constructs together for harmony and efficiency.

Holland assumed what? Stop right there that's the problem. Holland is not doing what I'm doing. I'm living in Logicland where I systematically use intelligence to do something that is plausible to work in my favor and I'm creating efficient exit strategies and payouts of scenarios for any conceivable scenario. I consider every possibility and look at the entire picture of ALL possible choices for ALL possible transactions of ALL types, and I see the entire decision tree. I can then reverse engineer and move along the path from start to finish on the most logical path that has the best risk/reward throughout the entire path. That's Logicland and it takes a genius mindset in order to be able to build and comprehend that entire set. Holland now, is not able to do that, his mind does not work that way. He's at a disadvantage that he is left at assuming things, that MAY or MAY NOT work out. And that's a conundrum I deal with in my Logicland as well, but in Holland's Assumptionland of unsophistication due to the lack of the logic, he is leaving himself exposed to bad pot odds for his calculated decisions. Just like in any game of chance, take roulette for example, if you found a roulette table that only paid you half as much as a standard casino table, well you are going to lose in the long-run. If a certain bet option is supposed to pay you 3-1, and you accept 2-1 odds, then you are a sucker. That's what's happening with Holland. His choices he is over-investing in plays that have a lack of payout associated with the risk he takes on.

I'm certainly not going to hate on Lidstrom for taking the money, that's absolutely of no interest to me. The reason is because it is irrelevant and it's in the past now so it's of no consequence at this point. And that was a GREAT move for him personally, he would have been dumb not to take a massive amount of millions. Just because it wasn't good for the team doesn't mean you can expect a guy to donate millions to the fans of Detroit. Sure would have been nice, but that's not a fair expectation. His family is more important to him then each Detroiter getting a $5 rebate by sharing that money with us. If every Detroiter wanted to give me $5 each for no reason well I'd take that too because $5 won't hurt them much individually, but it would mean the world to me and I could do great things with that money. The thing I hate on, is that he was given the choice to get that money. That was were the issue is, that should NEVER have been a choice for him to have on the table! I foresaw in advance that the logic didn't justify that transaction, bottom line, that's it! Extending that offer to him was conclusively a disqualified option based upon my Logicland principles.

But now that Lidstrom is retired, guess what, if I was the owner of the team and I fired Holland immediately, well if he wants to take a vacation in the future I bet he would have an invitation to go to Lidstrom's house. Lidstrom should buy him some nice dinners and throw some nice parties for him, and introduce him to hot Swedish chicks, and buy him a car. Either way Holland, through a absolutely terrible thing that he did to this town, is now personally enriched in his own life at our expense. That's the sick twisted nature of a person doing a bad job in a position of high power. The community takes the hit, and the culprit gets wealthy off of that hit and probably doesn't even realize that's what's happening. It's just a kick-in-the-butt side effect that has nothing to do with our team going forward as it is a sunk cost, yet I'm not going to let this guy get away with it without at least acknowledging the dynamics of what's happening in the overall picture. If we can't get the money back from Holland and Illitch that I feel they essentially stole from Detroit, then they can at least deserve to be lambasted for it. After all they were the ones that had the great power and responsibility and let us down to their ignorance and not being qualified to handle that power and responsibility appropriately on behalf of the people that live in their communities that they get rich off of.

[joseph mamah]

Lidstrom played at a high level last year, he didnt steal any money and Suter was pretty much the only guy available other than maybe a core changeing trade, that could have come close to replacing Lidstrom. once he spurned us we were kind of screwed for this year. maybe Holland should have had a contingency plan in place, but I think Suter was the only guy he was willing to give a big contract to, he'd rather give the kids a chance then sign a subpar player to a big tract.

Kennys going to do what he does, it'll be a down Red Wings year where we still probably make the playoffs and he'll have a plan in place to reload after evaluating the kids this year and seeing where to go from there. it wont be the first time hes done it.

I dont see where you get that Illitch stole from Detroit, The Wings were a laughingstock before he bought them and theyve been the class of the league since.

[TSE]

Lidstrom played at a high level last year, he didnt steal any money and Suter was pretty much the only guy available other than maybe a core changeing trade, that could have come close to replacing Lidstrom. once he spurned us we were kind of screwed for this year. maybe Holland should have had a contingency plan in place, but I think Suter was the only guy he was willing to give a big contract to, he'd rather give the kids a chance then sign a subpar player to a big tract.

Kennys going to do what he does, it'll be a down Red Wings year where we still probably make the playoffs and he'll have a plan in place to reload after evaluating the kids this year and seeing where to go from there. it wont be the first time hes done it.

I dont see where you get that Illitch stole from Detroit, The Wings were a laughingstock before he owned them and theyve been the class of the league since.

Yeah again Lidstrom didn't commit a theft. That's not the issue. Holland made a poor choice to invest in him instead of using that investment to fix our problems and build the team. He pissed that money away because now that money is 100% irrecoverable and we didn't get a trophy for it, nor did we get a high enough probability to win it to justify the investment. That's the problem, Holland felt our odds were higher than they actually were and therefore he gave away extra money for no logical reason. ALL of that money we have nothing to show for it now. That's a massive -100% "Trophy Factor ROI" on a full 7 million bucks. You can't do that in the business world and get away with it, but you can absorb it in hockey if you want to not win and not make a profit and you are a billionaire. Lidstrom did play at a high level, but his personal skill is a different issue than our team strategy, and he didn't logically fit into that plan to warrant or deserve that much of an investment.

And no Suter was not the only choice. We could have had ANY defenseman in the game that we wanted. We didn't have to get a FA, we could have made a trade (as you did mention) using our money and player resources of which LIdstrom was a money resource. Our entire team could have been any combination of players through FA and trade, and freeing up that 7 million would have made it more flexible to do any and all moves we needed to make to secure the #1 best D-man in the game.

Well you can have any perspective you want, but just because the Red Wings were a laughing stock beforehand doesn't mean Illitch did anything good for us. It only means he was better than the last guy who was even worse. Illitch is the lesser of those two evils, but he is not on the positive side in my book. He has raped our town and stolen from us a huge amount of enjoyment, happiness, and financial prosperity in our communities by not properly managing our baseball and hockey teams. 1 point or 1 dollar in my pocket might be more positive than nothing, but if I'm in charge and I believe that I can easily bring 10 points and 10 dollars because of a competent and logical and appropriate handling of that important responsibility, then it's not 1 to the good, it's 9 to the bad of what we SHOULD have and COULD have had. Illitch won't lose much sleep because he's a billionaire, it's ok for him to deal with this inefficiency, but that's not cool for every other person that lives in Michigan in my opinion. He has been a deplorable Michigander and he has gutted the non-rich people his entire life and has failed to give back an appropriate amount based upon my opinions of what is right and what is wrong and what should be considered fair and just.

[joseph mamah]

I dont see how the anchor of our team for the past 15 or so years and still one of the best defenseman in the game was a bad fit all of a sudden for our team. bringing him back last year was a no brainer imo, what I was trying to say with Suter is that theres not many guys in the league that we could bring in to replace Lidstrom and not have a significant drop off. he was plus 21 last year, he wasnt the reason we didnt win the Cup. with him we had a shot without him, unless there was a top 5 FA defenseman waiting to sign with us, we wouldnt have had a shot.

You do realize that theres 29 or so other teams that are trying to win also, dont you, its unrealistic to expect to win a Stanley Cup every single season. while under Illitches ownership the Wings have been the most successful team in Hockey, he must be doing something right. hes spent a lot of money, but I think weve got a pretty good return on the investment. Sports ownership isnt really a business and you cant really look at it as one. its more of a hobby/status symbol for people who have made and continue to make there money in other places. wins and championships are more important to most good owners than the bottom line as long as theyre not bleeding money.

Hollands been down this road before and hes been able to retool us into Stanley Cup champions twice now. I dont really have any reason to believe that he cant do it again.

[TSE]

Because you can't win with one good defenseman. You need a crew of them, and a good goalie, and a good offense. It's a team game and we didn't have the rest of the team. We spent all of this money to get 80% of the job done and we took a nap.

And I wasn't looking for one man to replace Lidstrom, but what if I added Chara instead, or Shea Weber, or both? Maybe Lidstrom was better than Chara and Weber, but not the pair. Plus then how do the next 10 years look now that we have that duo? I'd rather have that duo, or just one of those guys for 10 years than to have Lidstrom for 1 year when the team wasn't built right with good cup winning prowess.

And that doesn't mean we had to have those particular players. We could have added to the offense, or added to the defense, or added to the goalie position for this year and the future, and what we chose was to come up SHORT this past year, AND NOT setup a future foundation that is impressive. We needed to pick at least one of those choices. I wanted to do BOTH, but we did NEITHER.

Yeah I realize there are 29 other teams out there, but they aren't aligned with my strategy choices so they don't get in the way. They are doing their own program and that's what I want them to do, because I'm playing off of how they position themselves to seek what my strategy is going to be. They can carry on and do what they want and I will carry on and get what I want, which is a respectable and dominant team of players. They can't stop me from doing that, because they aren't colluding against me and I'm making individual deals here and there where those specific teams are happy with themselves furthering their own agenda and they like that whether I agree with their strategy or not.

I'm not looking at it as a conventional business, since the profits don't concern me personally. But logically if Illitch could have an extra $50MM in his pocket from profits, then he is going to be more likely to spend than otherwise and profits can help the team in that way and many other ways. I'm looking at it as a business through an analogous lens. i.e. you wouldn't give your hard earned money to some guy and have him lose it all and accept that. There's no excuse to lose any money if you don't want to, some investments guarantee a positive return. If you lose 100% of your money then you are just a real dimwit. Especially when there's obvious ways to get big huge returns that are just sittin' out there.

Of course he COULD do it again, that's not a dispute at all! But look at our team, it looks weak as crap compared to what we should have by now. The fundamental problem I have is the odds that he COULD do it again. If you were playing poker, and you have 2 5's in your hand, you COULD win that pot. But if I told you that I had the power to allow you to change those 5's into two Aces, what would you pick? Now suppose the game goes on and another 5 comes up and you would have won with the 5s. That's not a justification to taking the 5s into the game BEFORE you know the future cards. Do the math, look up the math, the statistical probability of winning with two Aces is flat out higher than the two 5s. Would you pick two 5s? I see Holland as sticking with that when I feel he had the free right to trade them in for a higher pair and take free odds. Giving it up is completely inexcusable.

You can't deny that if the last 4 years if we scrapped those years and invested into this year and the next 4 years that we wouldn't be better off now! We CHOSE to put our eggs in those previous baskets which were UNQUALIFIED baskets. We have had a team full of Corvettes sitting in the garage and we have won nothing! Again as a business analogy, you don't take a $100MM inheritance, and buy a fleet of new Corvettes, let them sit, and say that you are going to sell them in 4 years. That's not an investment, that's STOOPID. That's what we do with Illitch ran sports teams!

[joseph mamah]

4 years ago we came within 1 game of the Cup, the next two years San Jose had our number. they whooped us in the first matchup but the second went 7 games. Rafalskis departure was somewhat unexpected and set us back last season. Hollands shown over the couse of his career that he doesnt have to scrap years in order to reload. this season is going to be about as bad as a Holland team gets, and next offseason hell make the necessary moves to get us back on top.

yeah Chara and Weber would have been nice but it probably would have cost us 12/14 million a year for those guys and if we signed them to 10 year deals it would have tied our hands salary cap wise for the next decade.why do that when we have a young guy like Brendan Smith who could prove to be a cheap viable option to pair with a top line defenseman going forward, if given the opportunity. one defenseman obviously does not make a winning team, but with the guys we have if we could add a top guy I think the rest of the D would fall in place, and without a good D in place I worry about Howard being exposed. im harping defense because I think our wings and centers are good enough to get the job done. its defense and goalie that has me worried.

we're probably going to have to agree to disagree on Illitch. I believe hes pretty much always tried to supply the resources needed to help the Tigers and Wings win championships, and thats all you can really ask for out of an owner.

[TSE]

4 years ago that was a close effort, and that's nice, but the name of the game TO ME is what odds are you giving yourself to win this year, AND what do you leave yourself with for the next season and the future if you do not win it this year. It's a package deal and we failed at delivering the package because we only had HALF of that equation down. And then we got worse and worse and worse from there. And now we are even worse than we were last year, cause now we don't even have Lidstrom!

Chara / Weber COSTING us?? WHOA BUDDY! Costing us what? A few million bucks? We blew 100% of our team payroll to not win the last 4 years or set up the future. Talk about accounting for sick costs that go unjustified! I'm not talking about increasing our costs and our bills, I'm talking about MAKING MILLIONS in profits for the business. Adding those players might take money as an input, but if we can receive more money than what we put in to the team, that's not COSTING us anything, that's calling making MONEY! That's a good thing, plus it's packaged with a much higher chance to win trophies! Cost is a bad word there, cause that's what I'm arguing for is to stop playing the let's take on unnecessary costs game, and let's turn it around and make money bleed out of our pockets and also have the glory of winning.

And wow, I am going to disagree with you harder than ever before on your last sentence which is the craziest thing I've heard yet! Yes he tried, I'm not suggesting he attempted to do wrong, but he certainly did! With great power comes great responsibility, and you seem to want to take responsibility out of the equation. I think an owner should not only be asked, but be DEMANDED and INSISTED upon doing at least a competent job and to at least hire somebody smart to pierce the veil of ignorance. I ask him to represent us in an intelligent and professional manner and I think that's totally reasonable for the power he has over our community after we allowed him to become a billionaire, unfairly mind you and undeservingly, so the least we could force him to do is have a sense of responsibility to make appropriate decisions on behalf of our most important teams that we rely on in our community here.

I'm fine with agreeing to disagree, that's ok, but I'm still going to counter any point that defends Illitch and his ways after all the terrible things that he has been doing to us. He should not be allowed to get away with it. How would you feel if Romney won the Presidency, and then he said he's going to stay home and work from there and just make 10 phone calls a day and call that his effort. He's not trying to do us harm, but he's not going out of his way in the interests of the people he represents. You wouldn't be upset because you don't think he has a responsibility of any kind with his important job either do you? As long as he technically tries, and doesn't intentionally cause harm on purpose, that's all you can ask for right? Americans should feel entitled to more imo, and so should the good residents of Detroit. WE DESERVE MORE, and Illitch is interfering with that.

[joseph mamah]

we were coming off of back to back stanley cup appearances the season following the penguins loss we werent going to blow that team up to rebuild. that season we ran into a buzzsaw in San Jose, instead of panicking and blowing it up Holland made some adjustments it wasnt quite enough, but we took them to 7 games the following year. at that point the writing was on the wall that Lidstrom/Rafalski werent going to be around much longer, instead of going out and throwing a bunch of money on free agents,(its not the cost as much as it is cap ramifications) he decided to roll with Lid/Raf for one more season to give the kids a chance to become a little more seasoned, Raf left throwing a monkey wrench into the plan. this year the plan is pretty much throw the young guys against a wall and see who sticks. why spend big money and max out the cap if you can potentially cheaply fill those needs in house with a little patience.

Im going to go back to my original point, the Red Wings were a mess when Illitch bought them and he has been the most successful owner in his sport during his time with the Wings what more can you realistically ask for.
the Tigers were the same they were a joke during the end of the Monahan years now they are a perennial playoff/world series contender. you may think Dombrowskis an idiot, but look at the Randy Smith era if you want to see what an incompetent GM can actually do to a team. all you have to do is look down the road to 3 Championship Drive after Mr. D passed to see what truly bad ownership is capable of doing.

[TSE]

I wasn't asking for them to blow that team up. We already won, those trophies were in the bag. We had a new season and a new future to worry about and we didn't have to make wholesale changes, although it was an option as well. And moreso than changing that team up was the draft picks of those years that would put us in a position to make moves today. So maybe we don't change that team at all but we change this team through trades today that are possible by drafting the right guys back then. Maybe we draft a Chara or Weber and now we have our Lidstrom departure problems solved.

I already told you what I can ask for, and that's an owner doing a competent job, and Illitch has been an utter failure in my opinion. I'm not the guy who made all of his mistakes, I was sitting right here making all of the right decisions as he was making all of the wrong decisions. I ask him to do the simple job of either having me make the decisions for him if he can't figure out the right thing to do, or if not me, then hire somebody that is at least better than me and that would have satisfied me as well. Instead he banked on Holland who drafted miserably over the last 5 years AND has failed to make any FA or trade decisions that he could have made that would have been available to him and MUCH better options to standing pat with an UNQUALIFIED roster mix.

And yes I think David Dombrowski is far worse than Holland. He is a very stupid man that has no clue about the basic science of baseball, let alone being a shrewd manager to sign the right players or make the right trade decisions. DD has a LOT more to work with because there is no cap and he has a MASSIVE spending advantage. That guy is a major case of trouble and he is seriously brain damaged in the baseball center of his brain. He's the worst person associated with Detroit sports of ANY player, coach, or manager, and by a mile and a half. He's even worse than Dumars who is worse than Holland. Holland looks like a genius next to DD. God is he a sick and sorry baseball man. Obviously the owner can trump him because he's the guy that hired him and could have removed him at any time.

[joseph mamah]

we may have our Chara or Weber in Smith, but we wont know until we see what he can do.

DDs more debatable than Holland, but hes not horrible. yeah hes swung for the fences and whiffed a couple times and yes with our payroll we should own the Central but all in all the Tigers have done pretty well during his tenure, but ill agree that he could do better.

[TSE]

we may have our Chara or Weber in Smith, but we wont know until we see what he can do.

Right, so instead of having a known superstar, or 2 or 3, now we have just 1 maybe. That's not good enough. Waiting to see is irrelevant because you can't know the future as you make decisions yesterday and today. So what's the plan to dominate this year? To me it's a compromised plan of what we could have had if we thought about that question 5 years ago, as well as 4 years ago, as well as 3 years ago, as well as 2 years ago, as well as 1 year ago, as well as every day that passes by that we stand pat with the same stale and flawed logic.

[joseph mamah]

id love to have 2 or 3 superstars on D, but theyre not that easy to come by and the hard cap doesnt really allow for it . Charas 35/36 years old if we were to sign him to a long term contract it more than likely would have come back to bite us. Weber would have been a good get at the right price, I dont know what his situation was last year but once Raf left we should have had the cap space to sign him, so keeping Lidstrom shouldnt have had any bearing on getting Weber.

Right now I would rather give the kids an opportunity and maintain cap flexibility for when the right move or two comes along than sign guys to potential albatross contracts. even Suter unless it was a 2 or maybe 3 year contract probably would have hurt us in the long run.

the only other GMs in professional sports who can boast similar success to Holland that I can think of are Buford, Kupchak, Pat Riley and Pioli/Belichik are all those guys garbage too?

[TSE]

I'm not going to get into an analysis of 5 different GMs as a subtopic within this topic, that's quite a bit of undertaking and could be an endless conversation. I think it's glaring how bad of a job Illitch and Holland are doing, and I'm not really interested in agreeing to disagree here and then moving on to 5 new cases of GM analysis. But if you feel Holland is in that league and those are the top guys to compare him to then more power to you and I'm happy for you that you are very happy and satisfied with our team and our results. To me, that's a good GM if you can make the fans happy, so if you are happy then Holland did his job for you. He just failed me and that's between me and Holland and that shouldn't interfere with your satisfaction and happiness and enjoyment with the team!

As far as those other GMs though all I'm going to say is I'm not a fan of Pioli and Belichick. Those other guys I don't know enough about without extensive research to take a position right now, other than Riley who I have liked from a distance but I still have no clue as to what the history and details are of his moves so I'm really completely ignorant without looking into it. But I believe that Belichick is the most overrated manager/coach in the history of the NFL. You can't top him in that category, try it, name one who has received more undeserving praise than he has received. He actually cost his team the game today by using a bad strategy.

[joseph mamah]

I'm not going to get into an analysis of 5 different GMs as a subtopic within this topic, that's quite a bit of undertaking and could be an endless conversation. I think it's glaring how bad of a job Illitch and Holland are doing, and I'm not really interested in agreeing to disagree here and then moving on to 5 new cases of GM analysis. But if you feel Holland is in that league and those are the top guys to compare him to then more power to you and I'm happy for you that you are very happy and satisfied with our team and our results. To me, that's a good GM if you can make the fans happy, so if you are happy then Holland did his job for you. He just failed me and that's between me and Holland and that shouldn't interfere with your satisfaction and happiness and enjoyment with the team!

As far as those other GMs though all I'm going to say is I'm not a fan of Pioli and Belichick. Those other guys I don't know enough about without extensive research to take a position right now, other than Riley who I have liked from a distance but I still have no clue as to what the history and details are of his moves so I'm really completely ignorant without looking into it. But I believe that Belichick is the most overrated manager/coach in the history of the NFL. You can't top him in that category, try it, name one who has received more undeserving praise than he has received. He actually cost his team the game today by using a bad strategy.

Who do you consider a good GM?

[TSE]

Who do you consider a good GM?

Well the first name that instinctively comes to mind would have been Pat Riley actually. In the NFL or MLB there isn't a single good GM. I'm not saying just that there aren't any great GMs, but there's nobody that I'm comfortable with that is good, because whoever is doing the best job between those 2 leagues I'm certain has made a ton of mistakes because I follow these leagues very tightly as baseball and football are my wheelhouses. There aren't many people on the face of this planet that are in tune with the strategy of those sports to my level. I consider myself to be THE foremost expert there is in those 2 sports based not only on my potential ability to GM teams, but also to scout and coach players and to communicate with them as I also have a Psychology background and expertise in addition to my mastery of Logic and Game Theory and Strategy. In the NHL or NBA I'm not sure as I'm not studying those leagues that intimately to have an acute awareness of what any non-Detroit GM is specifically doing.

The only NHL GM I really have paid much attention to is Yzerman. That's another reason I don't like Illitch, because I have now seen several things that he has done that have impressed me so far. I can't call him the best GM in hockey though since I am not looking at everybody else, but he looks interesting so far based upon just a couple of things that he has done.

For fun though since I mentioned Belichick as the most overrated NFL personality in history, I like Jon Gruden as my most underrated NFL personality of current times. If I was an NFL GM that guy would be my coach in a heartbeat as first choice. He lacks some of the logic and strategy genius that I would bring and by giving him the support there and being on the same wavelength with other stuff, man that guy and I would lead a football team to uber-domination, the rest of the league would shudder because we would be a threat to go 16-0 every season after we dug our heels in and got situated.