Watching from the other bench, Mike Babcock couldn’t help but smile. After a 4-0 victory over his former team in Detroit, it couldn’t be more obvious that the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings are on completely different trajectories. The Leafs, once the bottom feeder of the Eastern Conference, is rising like a phoenix out of the ashes. And the Red Wings? Once the darling of the league, they now sit where the Leafs called home for several seasons.
Why? There are opinions everywhere and they vary from writer to writer. But here are a few thoughts:
- The Detroit News’ Bob Wojnowski writes that general manager Ken Holland has quite the mess to fix in Detroit. Though the Wings move into their sparkling new home next season, the product could sour what should be a happy housewarming. Wojo weighs the usual: how did they get here, what could Holland do to make it better, and what’s the reality behind all of it. Wojnowski quotes Holland as saying that he “can’t make three blockbuster trades” to suddenly make the team better. But it’s interesting because the current predicament faced by Detroit is because of Holland. From overvaluing players to handing out terrible contracts for long terms, Wojo points out that Holland’s rebuilding on the fly mantra has failed.
- That takes us to Winging It In Motown, where blogger J.J. From Kansas analyzes Holland-speak and what it could possibly mean. First, he points out Holland’s notion that rebuilds take 8-10 years took a hit after realizing that the majority of Red Wings fans recognize such a rebuild is necessary to reclaim the franchise’s once proud status as a contender. What he sees interesting is that Holland changed his tune a bit, showing that in Wojo’s aforementioned piece, Holland turns up the rebuilding timeline to just 5-6 years of pain. The reason? From J.J.:
If Holland knows he has to bring on the pain of risking constructive losing to end the pain of pointless losing, it’s in his best interests to sell it as well as he can. Honestly, I’m a little shocked he didn’t sell it as a 3-4 year plan instead.
- In one final piece from outside of Detroit, Craig Custance gives a non-partisan view of the Red Wings and the grade book isn’t kind. Custance writes that the Red Wings are deserving of a C-, and pens that “injuries, disarray on defense and the regression of Petr Mrazek” have gotten the Wings to where they are. He lists Detroit as sellers and lists Thomas Vanek and Brendan Smith as bargaining chips for rebuilding.
Between all three pieces, it’s obvious that change is coming in Detroit. The only question remaining is how quickly can the Wings return to the top?
A rebuild is 3 – 4 years for a good GM, 8 – 10 years for Holland.
That is not a pretty situation
Lots of over reacting.
Another factor is that it appears the players have not bought into the coaches plans or the coaching is just that bad. The players looked confused. Not one player on this team is improving, this too is on Holland. He was a great GM before the cap because money wasn’t an object….time for changes throughout the organization.
One or two pure defenseman and the Wings would be right back in the game. Nothing wrong with goaltending except defense is missing too many rebounds. Need more physicality along the boards too.
They have to change the after game quote from “we have to do better ” to “we are better”. They can be better by playing more aggressive and physical in offence and defensive zones.
Holland is a bad GM, but a nice guy. I met him once, couldnt have been kinder. That being said like wally pointed out, when there was no cap he was a great GM, but he just had to write checks to make a team of all stars. Now he’s overpaying guys because he has some sort of misguided loyalty that doesn’t work in the salary cap world. Cleary, helm, miller, erickson just to name a few while talented, hungry guys with the griffins rot on the vine or are lost for nothing because they run out of options to protect them from waivers. While guys with no upside (not going to name names) play on the 3rd & 4th line (or higher). Anyone could see the log jam going on with numbers this summer & then he would shell out too much money & term for someone who should be out the door because there isnt a spot left for them and there limited or obsolete talent. Except holland couldn’t see it. I still see the Cleary deal as the summarization of Holland as a GM. I couldn’t believe Philly offered the money & term length they did & then Holland says wings will basically match it, yikes.
Holland is in over his head in this new cap era
I think it would be in excusable to let holland stay as gm if he can’t get a decent haul of picks and prospects trading anyone other than AA mantha Larkin and mrazek . Their goaltending is not the problem it’s all defence
You improve defence goals against go down and if you can get the puck out of your zone (which they can’t do if their life depended on it ) then you have more opportunities for your scorers !!
Lastly the blasthill experiment is an epic fail wings all around players have gotten a lot worse under his watch
Hope we can get a real coach in the off season or snag Claude julien if Boston fires him