Wings offseason thread

[Drake_02]

Feel few to talk everything wings

[TSE]

We should make some trades.

[TSE]

We should make some trades.

Yeah what he said. Just like we should have done this year, last year, the year before that, and every year since we last won the cup. Anybody can get on top with enough time, but true greatness is defined by resolutely staying on top, by being...the greatest. Dictionary don't lie. And every game has components that also can be looked up and understood.

Understand the game and then play the game; be great.

[Lionlifer]

Wild just pulled a robbery, landing the top two is crazy, although me thinks they overpiad.

I hope the wings take a look at Semin, something short though, I don't trust him with a long term deal.

[ajaX82]

Offseason has been an unmitigated disaster as of now. I'm waiting to see if we make any other moves (signing Doan or trading for a #1 D-man/top-6 forward) but I'm not optimistic. I'll post my complete thoughts once we're pretty set, but it isn't pretty today

[joseph mamah]

does anybody think illitch spending so much on the tigers payroll is forcing him to cut corners with the wings. i dont follow hockey usually til about playoff time so im not too knowledgable about the situation. was our offer to suter comparable to minnesotas ?

[Rodya]

does anybody think illitch spending so much on the tigers payroll is forcing him to cut corners with the wings. i dont follow hockey usually til about playoff time so im not too knowledgable about the situation. was our offer to suter comparable to minnesotas ?

Absolutely not. The Red Wings are Illitch's first love. The only restriction is the soft cap. If anything, as he's begun to really get up there in years, he's become more willing to overspend in an attempt to see the team win one more. Ken Holland, IMHO, is the best GM in the league and won't handicap the team with unnecessarily overpriced talent.

This will be a down year for the Wings, but I still expect a playoff appearance. Anyways, a depleted line up allows for other guys to step up and gives management an opportunity to better evaluate/display talent in the farm system. Who knows, if Howard gets hot at the right time, we could still make a run in the playoffs. Not the first time a goalie would have carried an 8th seed team deep into the playoffs.

Never overspend on talent in a salary cap system. Anyways, I think Babcock's track record has proven that he does well with relatively low talent teams (Anaheim).

[joseph mamah]

I think its going to be tough to make the playoffs this year unless we do something to upgrade our D. you cant go into the season with ericsson as your best defenseman, especially with howard in goal he's liable to get exposed. too bad fischers career was cut short lidstrom to fischer wouldnt have been too bad of a transition.

[ajaX82]

I think its going to be tough to make the playoffs this year unless we do something to upgrade our D. you cant go into the season with ericsson as your best defenseman, especially with howard in goal he's liable to get exposed. too bad fischers career was cut short lidstrom to fischer wouldnt have been too bad of a transition.

I don't know how you consider Ericsson our best defender...Kronwall? White? Hell Brendan Smith is going to be worlds better if he isn't already. And on that point, I'm very excited for Smith and think he has a shot at the Calder.

I certainly expect a playoff appearance but some of Kenny's moves have made me think he doesn't get it. The Bertuzzi extension (in year) and the Samuelsson signing are crazy bad. I actually really like the Tootoo signing and think he provides an element we haven't had in a while. But we are still an older team who isn't tough. I'd love to jettison some of the older guys and go with a youth movement, but god knows that won't happen

[joseph mamah]

none of those guys except maybe smith down the road have elite potential, white didnt show me much last year and ericsson and kronvall are a solid 2nd line pairing but not a number 1. It might be time to blow it up while datsyuk and Z still have high trade value. id hate to see datsyuk go though. yeah after bertuzzis first go round with the wings i could never understand why holland brought him back. at least we'll find out if howard is the real deal this season.

[ajaX82]

none of those guys except maybe smith down the road have elite potential, white didnt show me much last year and ericsson and kronvall are a solid 2nd line pairing but not a number 1. It might be time to blow it up while datsyuk and Z still have high trade value. id hate to see datsyuk go though. yeah after bertuzzis first go round with the wings i could never understand why holland brought him back. at least we'll find out if howard is the real deal this season.

Well yeah I don't think anyone is arguing Kronwall or White as elite. Both are fine as second pairing guys but Kronner will work as a first pairing. We're still missing a #1 though, I concur.


I don't think it is "blow it up" time, but rather "let some young guys play" time. We have a really good farm system, which speaks worlds for our scouting and drafting ability given we never, ever pick high. I'm super high on Nyquist (going to be a star, mark my words) and think at least a few of the Jarnkrok, Tatar, Jurco, Sheahan, Pulkkinen group will turn out to be great. And with Sproul and Ouellet in the system as D-men, and Mrazek rising like he did as a goalie, we have depth everywhere.

Point is, I think we have a bunch of young talent; some close, some a ways out. Time to start playing them though. Nyquist should be a top-6 guy this year and Tatar could make the team. Let's see what the kids have got instead of overseasoning them in GR and then jerking them around (aka the Kindl syndrome). I'm not optimistic we would do this though

[joseph mamah]

yeah the wings definitely need some new blood it seems like they've been kind of stagnate the last few years, and Dat and Z aint gettin no younger.

[TSE]

Ken Holland, IMHO, is the best GM in the league and won't handicap the team with unnecessarily overpriced talent.

You mean like last year when we spent a massive number of millions on one player, Lidstrom, and the team still didn't win and now that money is with Lidstrom and he's not returning. Where is the ROI on that payment to Lidstrom and how can you argue that it is not a handicap to all future players that could have had that money instead of him? Holland has handicapped us crazy with overpriced talent, if the prices were right for our talent then we would be winning! You have to count the opportunity costs too in addition to the hard costs!!

[TSE]

yeah the wings definitely need some new blood it seems like they've been kind of stagnate the last few years, and Dat and Z aint gettin no younger.

Yep, a finite amount of years until they are gone. We can either make the most out of their time here and win, OR we should trade them to somebody that will win so we can profit from the exchange. Those are the only 2 logical options and we have picked zero of these options over the last 4+ years. The new blood we need is management new blood so that we can fix all of these problems and start using efficient logical winning strategies that make sense and are appropriate and respectful.

[joseph mamah]

yeah ive been reading your philosophy the only flaw i see in it is that it doesnt take into account the human element. teams need to time grow , they need time to gel. if your team is just one big revolving door that can never happen. you end up with a team full of players who are just waiting to be traded, they never become emotionally invested in the team.

[TSE]

Not a revolving door team, a revolving door is continuous. My door would stop when I jettisoned the low ROI assets and acquired a full team of high ROI assets at each positional group. Then it would be a system of replacing those high value assets with a much lower future turnover rate that would be the most advantageous turnover rate in the league. The result is the best totality of players AND with the most time to gel for the most relevant core(s). That element that you identify as a flaw is actually one of the biggest bullet points of success that I am clamoring for that I think is attainable.

[joseph mamah]

Anybody know who this Colaiacovo guy is, is he any good?

[TSE]

He was a high draft pick about 10 years ago and had many years of injury problems, and the last couple years he has been extraordinarily average. He's just a fill-in guy and not a gamebreaker or a value for the future. He probably doesn't have many seasons left either.

The guy I am most excited about right now is our goalie prospect Petr Mrazek. I have been anxious for years to see him develop and make it to the team. He will be playing in Grand Rapids this year I believe I heard. I have been excited about him since he was at the bottom of our prospect list. Now he's number 4.

http://www.redwingscentral.com/prospects/

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.

[joseph mamah]

So basically another average guy to toss onto the pile of average defenseman that we already have.

Im not a big hockey guy, but I always thought Holland did a pretty good job drafting. i know he got Dat and Z in the later rounds. honestly thats about all I got, ive always given him the benefit of the doubt since we usually pick late in the 1st round and for a lot of years there it seemed like we were trading away our 1st round picks most years. and we always seem to have young talent.

[TSE]

Yeah his percentage of picks being good is very low. Trust me if he really knew how valuable Datsyuk and Zetterberg were, then he wouldn't have waited until the 6th and 7th rounds to nab them. He got lucky. Sure I will give him credit though for scouting and winning on those picks, that's great, but his record is abysmal. And every draft I think he has blown because of the way he goes about it. He doesn't know how to manage our team and make use of our resources. He doesn't understand how to do trades.

I'm not proclaiming to be an expert hockey scout, but I know the strategy of setting up drafts and filling positions when you need to fill starting spots and depth spots and a pipeline for the future. I have disagreed with so many picks of his on positional choice alone because of the lack of logic in prioritizing certain units. And then when you miss out on FA to bring in guys because you commit to an expensive Lidstrom in a swan song season, well you need to consider all of your choices and create a plan to win. It's the same classic mistake that most lousy GMs make, and that is they lose leverage and efficiency by believing their odds to win a title are higher than they actually are. And then they get weak ROI across all assets and piss away the team's wealth and resources. Then you come back and you do good drafts that make sense to strengthen the areas that are needed or to open up flexibility to trade from your strength, and there are multiple combinations of draft strategies we could have done, yet Holland has figured out how to restrict our options to the max and leave us terrible exit strategies with almost every player we acquire.

It's just a mess. And now there aren't many good FAs this year we can go after, we didn't anticipate well, we have weakness in the trade market, and it seems like we are near the bottom of the league in having a stockpile of young top talent for the future. He has destroyed this team almost as if he was intentionally trying to hurt us without being obvious, that's how terrible of a strategist he is.