Is there a plan in place here?

[yave1964]

  For the life of me I don't know what the plan is with the Wings, exactly what the thought process is as we stumble and bumble to our worst season in a quarter of a century. The 4-0 loss to the Leafs last night sums up the Wings season so well. We are just rudderless with no clue what is going on.

 

  I am convinced that Blash hates Mantha going back to the Grand Rapids days there has been no love loss between the two, Mantha is one of our few plus players and is playing responsible hard hockey in both ends albeit with the occasional rookie mistake and was on a nice scoring tear for awhile yet cannot seem to draw to a line where he is properly used.. AA went through it, Hell he still has to be the best forward on the ice in order to get decent ice time. Mantha was ridden unfairly by Blashill while trying to return from a broken leg a few years ago and coming to the team while the rest of the Griffins were at midseason form he was trying to get back into shape with a coach who did not want him.

 

  Drew Miller was waived to Grand Rapids. Then he was not and played the next night. Then he was in the press box and he is likely to be anywhere from the press box to our fourth line to Grand rapids to another NHL team by this time next week. nobody seems to know what is going on here.

 

  Jenson is a nice story, a 26 year old kid who plays with heart and has earned a roster spot but lets be brutally honest he is basically Lashoff, nothing more and will be a distant memory within a year. Meanwhile one of the few offensive dmen (remember offense?) in the organization in Sproul is serving drinks to Mr. Illitch and Mr. Holland and cutting the lawn of their Florida retreat or something, he might draw back in with Jenson hurt last night but probably not, they have five days to get well.

 

 As soon as Vanek is back in the lineup he should be dealt before he is injured for the third time this year, yes I love the way he has brought energy and intelligence to the team but he is an UFA on a non playoff team, get what we can now. The Hawks are rumored to be interested in Nyquist who plays as if he is already gone on most nights, get whatever we can, Hell a bucket of practice pucks or an autographed 8x10 of Pierre Pilote (for the old timers) and send him out.

 

 Kronwall cannot play anymore. smith never could. Abdelkader looks useless. Sheahan may be the worst regular in all of Hockey and Blashill continues to drone on about his defense.

 

 And in net we have the fragile Howard, the incompetent Mrazek who since his birthday last year on Valanetines day has been Varlamov bad and late bloomer Coreau who has a brilliant game followed by channeling his inner Mrazek the next.

 

  Blow it up, start over, if Holland does not know how to do this bring in a fresh face who does, Nill and Yzerman would have been the perfect choice five years ago but are off doing their own thing now, go (Gasp!) outside of the organization for someone who can take a good hard clinical look at the roster and not see a bunch of kids who he drafted and has molded lovingly but instead a bunch of men who are not very good and certainly not worthy of past Wing teams and players.

 

 We, the fans deserve better than this diarrhea on a plate that Holland/Blashill are serving up every night.

[WingNut722]

I can't agree more, @yave1964.  This is ridiculous.  For a while it looked they were turning it around, finally starting to construct something out of the parts.  I wouldn't have minded a loss to the Leafs so much.  As long as they play hard, a 4-3 loss would have been respectable.  Brush it off and look forward to the next one.  But the wheels just feel right off.  Back down to the cellar.  They looked like a walk-on junior college team out there.  Disorganized and slow.  

[Norman Smith]

Hey I agree they looked terrible last night.You look at the  Oilers Conner McDavid, Buffalo's Jack Eckle and Toronto's Austen Mathews these guys are good and can carry a line and skate like he'll. I'm a firm believer that you build a team out starting with the goaltender defenceman then forwards. Martha can't carry a line or even skate like these other guys he just dosent stand out I mentioned above so let's dump him before the dedline and get  get maybe Cam Fowler,Doug Hamilton from Calgarythen Shattenkirk in the off season.We could use another forward Anthony Duclair from Arizona. just a thought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[yave1964]

9 hours ago, Norman Smith said:

Hey I agree they looked terrible last night.You look at the  Oilers Conner McDavid, Buffalo's Jack Eckle and Toronto's Austen Mathews these guys are good and can carry a line and skate like he'll. I'm a firm believer that you build a team out starting with the goaltender defenceman then forwards. Martha can't carry a line or even skate like these other guys he just dosent stand out I mentioned above so let's dump him before the dedline and get  get maybe Cam Fowler,Doug Hamilton from Calgarythen Shattenkirk in the off season.We could use another forward Anthony Duclair from Arizona. just a thought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think that Mantha is a future 30 goal scorer and as we cannot score with any consistency he has to stay. His defense which was considered his weakness in Juniors has improved to where at the least it is acceptable.

 

  The 'Yotes are not tading Duclair. Not happening. As for Fowler the Ducks are not dealing him without a huge return at least during the regular season as their window for cup contention is closing with the aging Getzlaf/Perry and they want to make a run in the weakened Western Conference. Hamilton has been on fire, the Flames GM threw a fit and told reporters he was tired of hearing Hamilton rumors and swore he is not going anywhere this year. I know a lot of teams use smokescreens to cover future trades but I really believe Hamilton is staying put.

  To me, this season is lost, it is over, we need to clear the mines and salary so that we can attempt to contend next year. Chicago has expressed interest in Nyquist or Tatar an if we could dump one of their contracts it would be a logical place to start. Do not expect a huge return, maybe a second rounder and a sort of defensive prospect like a Ville Pokka or Gus Forsling. The real return in a Nyquist deal is clearing the salary off the books to allow us to make a run at next years free agents.

  I am not against us resigning Vanek, if possible by the deadline but if he doesn't then he has to go soon. He has been brilliant, at times our best forward at both ends of the ice but his expiring deal and low salary make him extremely valuable to a contender, he might net a first rounder.

  Brendan Smith to whoever for whatever. So disappointed he never quit making the same mistakes over and over. If Howard returns and we can manage to donate him to a team like the Blues who desperately need goaltending that would be fantastic.

  I like Mike Green, his feet never stop moving he still has serious speed which as a team we seriously lack but he only has a year left on his deal and might net a fair return from a contender. We need to at least consider it.

 

  So that leaves us the money to:

 

Sign Shattenkirk who is the top power play producing defenseman in all of hockey which is our biggest need.

Sign a skilled stay at home guy like Oduya/Alzner/Kulikov. none are sexy but all can play the game the right way.

Make a run at a goalie such as Ben Bishop or Fleury in the offseason as well. Mrazek and Howie are not the answer, Coreau is an okay backup but that is it.

Get a few more of our own kid forwards into the mix.

 

  so forget the season it is time to move onto next year early an preparing for our move to the new barn.

 

[SpikeDDS]

@yave1964

 

I had had started my own diatribe, but saw your diarrhea on a plate comment and decided yours is better. Besides, I think I already used "Ick" in one of my titles. "Diarrhea on a plate" is synonymous. And funnier!

 

The hardest part of letting go of this, blowing it up, and starting over is first admitting we need to. And what makes that so hard, other than the ego hit that it will take on KH, is that occasionally you can see what talent we have play like they should. We are NOT the least talented team in the league. But we might very well be worst on defense.

 

This decline in the D--not the one in Detroit--was predictable. You could see it coming. And yet nothing was done. The way that I see this, the Wings chose to do the rebuild differently than most. They decided to run with mostly what they had, thinking that just getting to the playoffs would somehow be construed as "excellence," and that is how they marketed the streak.

 

And as they committed to doing that, they eliminated every possible alternative to being left with a couple of solid, but aging, leaders, an AT BEST mediocre second tier of flawed, overpaid players, and then a crop of young kids that have potential to become very good in a couple more seasons as they mature their game.

 

I've thought about this question of what the plan is--because it IS confusing--but I've come to the conclusion that KH's managerial style is one that tries not to manage much and let things try and work out for themselves. This was a perfectly acceptable way of doing things when you had a talented leadership core as talented as we had for so long. You relied on those leaders to make statements both on the ice and in the dressing room which meant you wouldn't have to. Combine that with KH's predilection towards being loyal to a fault--and the loyalty DOES have a positive side, as players respect an organization that rewards service--and it means you can get very comfortable not moving players. But it can also mean assigning a higher value to your own players than you ought to, which leads to bigger and longer contracts than are deserved in order to preserve that.

 

Think about it: when was the last time Holland traded a significant player and it wasn't because he HAD to?

 

When you keep being stagnant, eventually the pond gets muddy. You eventually lose all of the talent that was keeping the pond drinkable, and you are left with bitter, ugly water. Here we are.

 

What do we do from here? I've over-said it for long enough, so I won't belabor step 1: new coaching leadership. We've got way more offensive talent than our PP shows. That's a coaching problem. It doesn't solve our D problem, but it does allow us to at least use the talent that we DO have. Whether that talent will be kept or dealt makes no difference. Either way, it helps us if our forwards can be coached to score more.

 

The D problem is ONLY solved in the next 3 years by working the cap and obtaining talent that way. Vanek may be our best bargaining chip. I wonder if we might be able to let him go at the deadline and perhaps resign him next year also, letting him know before the deal that that's our intention in order to get more help for him. He at least SAYS that he is happy here. If he means it, it might be a good strategy. But without losing some of the cap hit we have, we have no way of competing for a guy like Shattenkirk. He may be what we need, but the only way we get a guy like that is to blow it up. So...blow it up!

 

I'm with @yave1964 on Mantha too. Too soon to move him. His size is what I think we need even more than his finishing skill. Don't get me wrong, we need that too. But AA provides that particular skill very well. But we really have no one that combines his size and skill. Abby is probably the closest, but he's job Mantha!

 

I really hate to say it, but I think resigning Helm was a mistake, if for no other reason than that his skill set was already covered by others (AA and Larkin with speed, Nielsen for defensive/PK work.) The good news is that his skills, especially his speed, are still desirable. The problem is his contract length was too long and his salary too high. We have a number of those!

 

Howard to St. Louis might be a possibility as their window is closing on a serious Cup run. Truly though, I think they will be kinda stupid if they keep Shattenkirk and try to buy to make a run after losing Backes and Brouwer after last year. I don't really think it's smart for them to be big buyers this one last time. I don't like their chances even if they DO get a goalie like Howard. If they still had the other two, then yeah maybe, but they don't. And if I was them, I'd think VERY hard about whether losing Backes, Brouwer, AND Shattenkirk and getting NOTHING for any of them is smart. But if they wanna take Howard and his big contract off our hands, I'm game. I just have a feeling they may deal Shattenkirk if they can. Their team will end up looking like ours if they don't start getting some return for their assets.

[yave1964]

@SpikeDDS

 

For literally years, since the days when the Wings were still relevant I have been scrfeaming for defense. I watch enough Griffins games to know that defense was going to be a problem that we simply had none in the system other than stopgap players. Even when the Griffs won the Calder with kids like Tatar, Nyke, Sheahan, Ect.... our leaders on defense were Chad Billins who other than a handful of games in Calgary has bounced around Europe and is now in the Vancouver organization somewhere and little Adam Almqvist who can shoot but has no size and is afraid of getting hit, hence his return to Europe where he belongs. Lashoff was our most nhl ready d-man off those clubs (not counting DK who joined the team out of school for the run) which is not a good thing.

  You are dead on, we just went status quo, finally after two years post the perfect human we added Green who was okay last year and has been pretty solid this, but it is like dropping a quarter down a well and saying it is full. Too little and too late, E and Kronner got old, Smith never developed, Dekeyser is screwed up by their forcing him to be all things in all situations instead of taking advantage of what he can do. The kids, Oullet isn't bad, which is the biggest compliment you can give any of the faceless, colorless group vying for ice time. They are just there, just bodies until the real NHLers come along.

  As for St. Louis, they replaced Brouwer with Perron which I consider at least a lateral move, I like Brouwers grit but Perron can score more. Backes has been aging and has been moved to the wing in Boston to keep him fresh (wow what an original idea) but St. Louis is supposedly in the market for a top tier center and a rental goalie for Hitchcocks final ride before he retires at seasons end. I don't know if Howard qualifies as a rental and nobody in their right mind would touch Mrazek right now but it would be nice to dip into the Blues deep farm system for a prospect or two.

 

  Helm signing was terrible, too much for too long and indicative of what the Wings do. As for last meaningful trade, whew, Larry Murphy donated by the Laffs, Shanny for Primeau and Coffey, lol. Saying this half jokingly but seriously it is that era that we did our last major move. Trading to get Larionov back after losing him, trading for Doug Brown after Nashville drafted him, but those trades were bringing our boys home. Cheli for Eriksson from the Hawks. Looking at the 2008 cup winner, Cleary and Samuelsson came from other organizations as low risk free agents that worked out brilliantly, BRAD STUART. There. The last meaningful trade was for Brad Stuart from the Kings for a second in 2008. Seriously.

 

 Holland is not the one who can possibly lead a rebuild, we need someone who can look at the team and say this guy has gotten too comfortable and complacent he needs to go and then do it, shake it up a bit, maybe deal Tats and Nyke as an example to spark the rest of the team and cut/shoot/whatever Sheahan. We are stuck with the long term deals to Abby Helm Z and Kronner and nothing we can do about them but we need to move out some of the forwards and spend the money on defense. Wings are the easiest and most cost affordable pieces to add, defense clearly not so much. But we need someone to see the forrest through the trees and change the culture in the entire organization.

[SpikeDDS]

@yave1964

 

Preaching to the choir, and pretty much the same message I am singing. It's really not hard to see if you can be objective and brutally honest about things. But to continue to let KH continue out of respect for the things he did for this organization 9 YEARS AGO and prior--with the exception of moving Pav's cap hit, of course--and not evaluating him by his performance which should be determined by the quality of the product we have put on the ice AND the predicted talent of our draft picks in the farm system collectively, is to do EXACTLY what KH has done when he has signed all of our longer-termed veteran players to let them play for more and for longer than they should. That's how we got in this mess, and we cannot let this continue.

 

Yes, this will mean--IN THE SHORT-TERM--an alteration of what we have been doing to deserve the perception that our organization is loyal to those who have served it. That perception is a good thing...to a point...and then it becomes a bad thing; a liability; a curse! What needs to be said OUT LOUD is that for the good of the franchise, we are letting KH & Blashill go because a new perspective is needed to change how we are doing things until we have enough talent and resources to where the kind of management that we have enjoyed that was successful for so long might be able to return. And I say might, because in the post-cap world, I just wonder how possible that kind of management can be if success is the goal.

 

Look at Chicago, the best franchise example from the last 10 years. They have been forced to move players that they didn't want to move--Patrick Sharp, Shaw, etc.--to allow them to keep their core talent. And it has worked. But even now, as that core talent begins to age, they are going to be forced to either make more of these tough decisions, or else the same thing that happened to the Wings will likely happen to them.

 

My sig line rocks once again!

 

I think what the Wings did was extraordinary, and the fact that it lasted as long as it did even after the cap was put in place is worthy of praise. But we are long past the time for it to be considered praiseworthy. Even if we radically change now--which is probably the best thing we can do for the good of the franchise--it's way too late, and the damage is mostly done already. Nowhere to go but up though...unless we are unable to move even what we have. If we can't get anything back, this looks very ugly indeed for the short- and medium-term, and we will just have to pray for generational-like talent to rise in shorter interval than it normally does and that we get lucky and pick the right talent to fill in the gaps.

 

Depressing to think about it!