Call in the Auctioneer!

[SpikeDDS]

What a pathetic performance tonight. It was mildly heartening that the Wings brought it back to within one goal, and it was nice that Jensen got his first NHL goal, but otherwise this was more poop on a platter.

 

Ya gotta feel sorry for Z having to try to answer the press after so many of these just dreadful performances, even as he found a way to score, himself.

 

Oh how the mighty have fallen, and have fallen HARD!

 

And so it is time for the guy who talks faster than you can understand but somehow gets you to raise your little sign to buy stuff. Hope we can get a decent return for the pieces we are able to market. If anyone was having any doubts that this season was over, this loss to NJ should put the nail in the coffin.

[yave1964]

Not one but TWO short handed goals against! Finally found a way for some scoring to occur on our power play, unfortunately it was against us.

 

  I am 52 and a lifelong sports fan, using baseball here but in 68 the Tigers won the series with guys like Kaline, McAuliffe, Cash, Northrup, Stanley, Gates Brown, Lolich, Hiller,, ect... and by the early seventies they were all still there, living in the past and drifting towards mediocrity but the GM was reluctant to deal any of 'his boys'.

 In 72 they hired Billy Martin who came in and lit a fire and got them all in a tizzy and they won their division and almost bested the Athletics losing the final game in a heartbreaker. Then the players revolted, ran Billy out of town and went into a horrible downward spiral that took a decade of bad management and playing on the field to become relevant again.

  That is the Wings with the end of the Babcock era being Billy Martin. The players tired of the constant pushing and threatening, like Jim Campbell of the Tigers Holland looks at these guys as 'his boys' who he drafted and nurtured and loves, trades that should have been made years ago were not and in the pre-cap days we could have signed a Parise or a Suter when we had a hole pop up but now when an UFA can get the same money give or take from half a dozen sources he goes where the heart is because the money is the same everywhere, or he goes where the best chance is to win a cup. More and more this is not Detroit.

  So we sign a nice middle six center in Nielsen and ask too much of him and he tries, we sign a reclamation project in Vanek who has been pleasant when healthy, but then what? We are still farting around hoping that some day Tatar, Nyquist, Helm, Abdelkader, Smith, Ericsson, Kronwall and Sheahan will reward the loyalty by becoming something that they are not.

  I am not saying that they are bad players, for the most part they all have something to offer, it is not any one particular, it is the combined weight of all of them. They are average to good, being rewarded with contacts that pay too much for too long, we need a GM to step in and take a clinical look at the team and say, 'he is a good player but does not fit what we need' and clear out the deadwood and rebuild.

  Blash may be a good coach but I doubt we will ever know, the team needs an RA, a jerk to take over the club, a Boudreau type who threatens and keeps those threats and holds a player who takes the night off on the ice accountable and who lights a fire. We need a GM who hasn't watched the kids grow up and acts as if they are his own children instead of the assets or liabilities which in fact they are and who sees a problem and aggressively attacks it.

 So @SpikeDDS I love the title of your thread and wholeheartedly agree and feel it needs to start at the top with Holland as I have said for several years now the game has clearly passed him by.

[MadDevil]

I see a lot of parallels between Holland and Lou towards the end of his tenure with the Devils. A once great GM who no longer has the magic touch and whose loyalty, once considered a great strength, is now crippling his team. I feel your pain Wings fans.

[WingNut722]

For what it's worth, Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press said essentially the same thing.  Win against the Devils and the team still had a glimmer of hope that the playoffs could be attained for a 26th straight time.  Although she doesn't answer the all-important question of what happens when you GET to the playoffs...lose in 4 straight to the Habs, but hey!  the streak continues! 

 

I'm truly at a loss for what is going on.  Although Ken Holland reminds me of Kevin Bacon in the last scene from Animal House.

 

 

I just threw up in my mouth a little talking about her.....