OT: Can Ken Holland Please Just Go Away Now?
What we got for Vanek / Still having half the cap hit on our hands is just unacceptable:
EDIT: I realize keeping half the salary means only having 1.3 mil on the books for the rest of this season, which doesn't really amount to anything but the cash. I'm more upset becasue teams are looking at Vanek as renting a solid contributor to make a strong push for / make some noise in the postseason. He should bring a second and a third for this year's draft, not a third with a no-name D-Man whom no team has wanted (he's been shipped around a TON).
EDIT II:
Yeah, but my "best" wouldn't have been very good either -- Still a pretty bad "best."
Touche
that is worth next to nothing. Very poor return.
Trouba and Fowler may be local boys but that doesn't mean either of them wants to come play for this team. I wouldn't!
A couple of sources believe Vanek's value isn't as high as people think because he's known to disappear in the postseason (for Minnesota and Montreal)
likely to be somewhere else at the start of next season. One part of the trade that's more beneficial is that we take Arizona's third instead of Florida's if Florida makes the playoffs which they likely will. So it might be the first pick of the third round.
He still has 20 goals in 63 career playoff games. That's about the pace at which he has been scoring this year. I'd take that.
Kenny clearly blinked first which is not a surprise I guess. He's been afraid to make real tradees for years. He obviously was afraid to wait until the last minute to get maximum value for Vanek.
Which runs the obvious risk of the market drying up entirely. Kenny would really have been raked over the coals if he'd failed to trade Vanek at all, and I'd have joined in. What guarantee is there that Vanek would've brought in more of a return three hours later? There's only a finite number of contenders, after all.
This deal is dissapointing but not a disaster. KH got outfoxed, period.
If anything I think it just makes it more clear that the Wings need a new GM and new voice to commit to a rebuild. I doubt he will be fired before his contract is up, but after next year, SAYONARA!!
And getting a decent first round pick for a change. Hate to see my Red Wings in a downward spiral. I guess I thought we could challenge for the Cup forever. But I do agree that we need someone that can help rebuild the right way.
I'm going to give Holland the benefit of the doubt on his GM abilities. I have a feeling he had to push for the playoffs and avoid rebuilding for as long as Mike Illitch was alive/owned the Wings. I don't think it's a coincidence that Holland is making all these trades at this particular trade deadline (as opposed to recent years past). I also think Holland is smart enough to have tried to move as many bad contracts as he can--Z, Franzen, Helm--but can't find any takers. Given his history, I'm willing to see how Holland rebuilds.
His history is nicely divided by the introduction of the salary cap. Before, he could overpay for anyone and convince most FA's to come to Detroit to win a cup. After, he has made bad move after bad move, whether it be signing bad contracts, making bad trades, or missing out on signing FA's. He hasn't made a valuable move since the salary cap was introduced and wasted the final years of the Datz/Z core.It's time the Wings moved on.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, actually, but he did win one Cup and had the Wings in the playoffs every year since the cap began in '05-'06. I didn't like any of this long-term contracts of late either, but I have a feeling (and I could be wrong, of course) that it was Illitch who insisted on keeping a core together for a playoff push for as long as he was alive. Remember too that Holland never had high draft picks due to their 33 years of being a playoff contender and being a buyer at the deadline. When they did have a 1st round pick after 2006, Holland chose: Brendan Smith, Riley Sheahan, Anthony Mantha, Dylan Larkin, Evgeny Svechnikov, and Dennis Cholowsky. I don't know anything about the last two guys, but his other picks show two very promising young guys (Mantha, Larkin), and two decent pros (Smith, Sheahan). Not too bad, and the ceiling is high for these and several of his other picks. Most of the time he was picking in the bottom third of the round. The highest was Larkin at 15. Anyway, like I said, you make a lot of good points, but I'm willing to see how he does when given the opportunity to rebuild, which I don't think he's had before.
"2 Decent Pros"
**checks Sheahan's stat line**
"ahem, 1 decent pro"
Fair enough. For a first rounder, he needs to have produced more. Being just a pro isn't good enough at his draft position. Still, he's relatively young. Maybe he turns it around?
Umm, Ken Holland is the one who offered those bad contracts, and keep going, there are more: Kronwall, Abdelkader, Ericcson, Dekeyser. I don't believe Ken Holland deserves the benefit of the doubt any more. He is incompetent and needs to go.
"If you are expecting Cups you are in the wrong league."
-Ken Holland
Its time for Chris Ilitch to make a call down to tampa and bring the captain back.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this is Kenny's last season due to the inheritance of ownership. Just like when Martha got hold of the Lions and was like, alright, fuck this, give me a stack of pink slips.
Holland was good when Ilitch gave him a blank check in the no salary cap era, not so much in the cap era.
Call the captain, Chris, make us a winner again.
It was rumored that Florida and the Kings were the two teams with the most interest in Vanek but then the Kings decided to move on to Iginla. They only had to trade a conditional 4th rounder to get him.
That fourth-round pick is contingent on the Kings making the playoffs and Iginla re-signing with the Kings when his current contract expires at the end of the season. If those conditions aren’t met, the Avalanche will get nothing. Colorado will also eat 50 percent of Iginla’s $5.3 million cap hit this season.
This makes the Vanek trade look not so bad.
Look what Stevie did for Tampa. Holland has been living off Scotty Bowman's laurels for years and if finally caught up with him
I dunno, this isn't a great return, but it's foolish to say this should be "the last straw".
Holland can only take what other teams are offering, and just because one team overpaid for someone doesn't mean everybody else will bite.
Yeah, Vanek has been having a good season, but he's also 33 years old, is only a rental, and has a reputation of disappearing in the playoffs. The disappearing reputation might be unfair, but in this league, reputations stick.
Hell, Montreal just traded for Steve Ott because of his "grit and leadership" reputation, even though he's one of the worst NHL players in terms of possession, and is the 7th worst NHL forward when it comes to Goals For %.
Also, if you swap the returns for Vanek and Smith, I bet the majority of people would be happy.
Overall, the Wings are in a better place than they were 2 weeks (for the future anyways, this current team is still bad)
LA traded a conditional 4th rounder for Iginla, which I would assume becomes a 3rd.
Iginla is 39; his salary is higher and he has 8 goals. If that doesn't tell you Holland messed up on this trade I don't know what will.
I'm digging the way you just responded to your own comment twice.
There were many times to complain about KH this season and in the last five seasons, but this selling trade deadline is not one of them. He turned Steve Ott into assets somehow! I get the sense that this rebuild is going to be really hard on some of these unrealistic Red Wing fans.
I still think Kenny can flip a few of our picks (I think we have 12 in 2017 now?) for a higher pick. Multiple 1st round picks is how you rebuild. Part of me still wishes that if we were going to suck this bad, we could have done it in the year with Matthews or McDavid, but getting the streak to a quarter century is damn impressive.
whose holes were more exposed by a change the way Holland's have been since the cap was instituted. After basically skating on the remains of the 90s teams to win an additional title while filling in with the Datsyuk-Zetterberg-Kronwall types, its been a mess, aside from one or two guys, as far as development is concerned, and post-Hossa, we can't seem to attract an elite free agent to save our lives.
I guess you could make a case the Dumars went the same way, though I chalk that up more to either going on either an unbelievable hot streak from the Hill sign and trade through maybe the McDyess signing (with the draft being a notable problem spot other than Prince), or an incredible cold streak afterwards, essentially GM-ing on tilt. But this seems all consuming.
other teams want Vanek or other players right now for the playoffs
Vanek has a history of disappearing in the playoffs - how you gonna get value for that guy?
Harbaugh came home....Yzerman needs to come home too. Easier said than done I suppose but would be nice.
Tampa bay is closer to us than a playoff spot in the standings. Not the BEST EVER GM we all hoped. Still would be nice to get him back.
Stevie doesn't decide who gets inured and who doesn't.
When the train started rolling against him.
But to say he's the best GM in all of sports in the last 25 years is just ridiculous.
Sorry for upsetting your family Mrs Holland.
Because it very well could be true!