By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
October 13, 2016
Over the last few years we have lost a disturbing number of outstanding entertainers to premature death, but none impacted me more than the drug overdose of Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
The Academy Award winner was my favorite actor (the thespian equivalent of Mike Trout or Barry Sanders) and I mourn the incredible appearances we missed out on due to his needle and the damage done.
One of Hoffman’s most underrated roles came in the overlooked Tom Hanks movie, “Charlie Wilson’s War.” In that film, PSH played a CIA agent named Gust Avrakotos who was instrumental in assisting the Afghan rebels in ridding their country of the U.S.S.R. during the eighties.
At the end of the movie, after Congressman Charlie Wilson’s secretive assistance from Capitol Hill helped Avrakotos’ operatives turn back the Soviets, Avrakotos warned Wilson that this was just the beginning of the aid Afghanistan needed. This was that discussion:
The reason for that parable? Because Avrakotos knew if the U.S. refused to help fund the Afghanistan rebuild, some serious shit would boomerang on us. So Wilson went back to Congress and attempted to get money to rebuild Afghani schools and to purchase food for our Cold War heroes and he was summarily refused.
Surface to air missile launchers, yes. Money to educate youth? Nope.
Of course, we all know what occurred in Afghanistan in the subsequent years. The Taliban took over the country and gave Osama Bin Laden a safe haven to plan 9/11 and that was our own “We’ll See” reminder.
That Zen Master story reminds me of the situation we are currently stuck with regarding Red Wings General Manager Ken Holland.
Because while it’s OBVIOUS that no one would regret the windfall the franchise received from the 1989 draft (Sergei Fedorov, Nicklas Lidstrom, Dallas Drake, Vladimir Konstantinov) or Håkan Andersson’s draft day steals (Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk) leading to FOUR Stanley Cup banners, we are definitely getting our “We’ll See” moment right now.
Because without Mike Ilitch’s blank-check approach to free-agency — evaporated due to the salary cap era — along with Andersson’s return to mere mortal status and the loss of assistant GM Jim Nill to the Dallas Stars a few years back, the Detroit Red Wings are currently stuck with the worst General Manager in the National Hockey League.
Yes, I said worst. And that’s not hyperbole. Because of the team’s past success — over which Holland’s influence can be debated — the organization is now tethered to this man who has been leading us into an abyss for years.
With the year 2017 just around the corner as the puck drops tonight on the season, this franchise STILL doesn’t have an analytics department to assist Holland with the changing dynamics of roster construction and the doling out of ice time.
While Stan Van Gundy has built one of the largest advanced metrics departments in the entire NBA — if not the biggest — and the Tigers have added Apple’s Jay Sartori and promoted Sam Menzin, the Wings’ mathematical department is as antiquated as their current building — which they are about to blow up.
Look, if you want to know why almost every forward in the regular lineup played more minutes last season than Tomas Tatar it’s because of the team’s total aversion to sabermetrics.
If you wonder why the Red Wings’ best defenseman in 2015-16 (Brendan Smith) was a HEALTHY SCRATCH for the first two playoff games while Jonathan Ericsson and Kyle Quincey played critical minutes in Tampa, it’s due to Holland’s flat-earth beliefs.
And if you think the Red Wings have hit rock bottom…all I can tell you is, “We’ll see.”
Because the past few months have been Holland’s masterpiece and I warned all of you folks that this was going to occur before the summer transactions even happened.
It was my belief that the WORST thing that could have happened this offseason was Holland dealing Pavel Datsyuk’s dead cap contract away in exchange for the ability to add free-agents, but not even I could have imagined how disastrously that plan would work.
I figured some organization that needed to get to the cap floor would end up taking Datsyuk’s final year off our hands and that might cost Holland a couple of prospects like Teemu Pulkkinen and Martin Frk.
What I could not have POSSIBLY seen coming is not only would he lose those commodities for absolutely NOTHING in return, but Holland would further damage the Wings future when making the Pavel trade.
But that is exactly what he did when he sent the albatross contract (brought to you by Dan Milstein) to Arizona instead of drafting the Sarnia Sting’s Jakob Chychrun.
Chychrun was the no-brainer selection at that point in the draft. During his draft season, Chychrun was considered the second best prospect available behind only Auston Matthews. Ever hear of him?
For whatever reason, a kid who was considered the best defenseman in the 2016 Entry Draft fell into the Wings’ lap at #16. Instead of running up to the podium to grab a left-handed, puck-moving defenseman, Holland decided to dump Datsyuk’s salary cap hit in exchange for the 20th pick and a second round selection.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Holland used the first round pick on defenseman Dennis Cholowski. A kid who is a project, was considered a second- or third round pick at best and about whom Holland HIMSELF said on draft night that he was AT LEAST four years away from making the NHL.
Chychrun? Well, he had one of the best training camps of anyone in the 2016 draft and MADE the Arizona Coyotes opening night roster. At the age of 18. Here were some comments from an article Bob McKenzie posted about Chychrun on TSN.ca.
So while the Red Wings’ 23-year-old defensemen (Ryan Sproul and Xavier Ouelett) can’t crack a top six that includes Ericsson and the perennially banged-up Niklas Kronwall, Chychrun at five years their junior is wowing the NHL.
And let’s talk about Sproul for a moment. In March of 2015 the promising defenseman — who once won the equivalent of the Norris Trophy for the Ontario Hockey League — skyrocketed up the Hockey News’ list of top prospects.
Yep, Sproul was rated the 49th best prospect in the world 19 months ago. And yet, we could be a week or so away from Sproul suffering the same fate as Pulkkinen and Frk as he will most likely be the odd man out when Kronwall returns.
So, either the Wings are AWFUL at developing their promising young talent or they are constantly misevaluating their own prospects. Pick your poison.
Because on that Hockey News list of Top 50 prospects, the Red Wings had FIVE players listed. And only one of them (Dylan Larkin) is starting this season with an important role on the team.
Anthony Mantha is in Grand Rapids.
Pulkkinen is in Minnesota.
Ouelett is a spare part defenseman who will most likely be in the press box once Kronwall returns.
And Sproul will probably be exposed to the waiver process — and lost — once Nik is ready to come off short-term IR.
And yet what might be the most depressing part of this past offseason was the juxtaposition of the man who IS our GM and the person who SHOULD be the franchise’s GM.
Because while Holland did nothing to improve the Wings’ defense, added a scumbag like Steve Ott to the roster — which further buried Andreas Athanasiou, Mantha and Tyler Bertuzzi on the depth chart — (not to mention helped cost us Pulkkinen and Frk), re-upped with Darren Helm, handed Luke Glendening a new deal and gave a soon-t0-be 33-year-old forward (Frans Nielsen) a SIX-YEAR contract, Steve Yzerman was in the middle of having one of the best summers a General Manager has ever had in the NHL.
Before I go on, just remember that Mike Ilitch wanted to keep Yzerman when the Hall of Famer left Detroit to run the Lightning back in 2010. Mr. I asked Holland to take a promotion upstairs and let Stevie Y. run the show. Holland refused his owner’s request so Yzerman exited town.
And while Holland was busy trying to salvage Thomas Vanek from the scrapheap of hockey and unwisely spent every dollar allotted him due to the foolish Datsyuk/Chychrun deal, #19 was busy bringing back Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman and Nikita Kucherov for HOMETOWN, team-friendly discount deals.
Yzerman was also able to massage the cap and keep Alex Killorn, Vlad Namestnikov, Andrei Vasilevskiy and J.T. Brown as well.
Nobody in the NHL thought Yzerman could pull off ALL of those moves and yet he amazingly positioned the Lightning as Stanley Cup favorites. And I didn’t even mention Yzerman refusing Jonathan Drouin’s trade demand last winter and then watching the young forward blossom in last year’s postseason.
That’s what we could have had. Instead we are stuck with a manager who couldn’t figure out a way to trade Jimmy Howard’s contract, handed Datysuk a FRONT-LOADED contract extension when he KNEW Datsyuk desired a return to Mother Russia and doled out contract extensions to aging players like they were 20% off coupons to Bed, Bath and Beyond.
And things are only going to get worse. The organization has barely any cap flexibility moving forward. Arguably Detroit’s best forward (Tatar) is a restricted free-agent next summer, their best defenseman (Smith) is unrestricted and there were whispers this summer that Zetterberg is ALREADY contemplating retirement which would leave the franchise in an untenable bind due to the NHL’s rules regarding cap-circumventing contracts like the one Holland gave the team’s captain back in 2009.
Holland thought he was being cute by signing the then 29-year-old Zetterberg to a TWELVE-YEAR contract but the subsequent CBA penalized those types of deals. So one day the chickens will come home to roost and the Wings will have even more dead cap space to deal with. I’ve been told that could come as soon as next season.
Even more aggravating is an organization that made its bones with European players seeming to now to be taking a xenophobic, Don Cherry approach to roster building.
How else can you explain receiving absolutely NOTHING in return for Mattias Janmark, Calle Jarnkrok, Pulkkinen and Frk while players like Riley Sheahan, Glendening, Helm and others get every opportunity to not only make the team, but get huge minutes?
Which leads me to the most frustrating part of being a fan of this team. A majority of the fanbase (at least the vocal portion) have been ready for a youth movement for years. The hardest thing for a sports executive to sell is patience — playing inexperienced players on the theory you might need to take one step back to take two steps forward.
Yet Wings fans have been begging Holland to utilize this approach and instead we are given the Brad Richards and Ott experience while guys like Pulkkinen are never given a fair shot. It’s like your pre-teen children BEGGING you to serve them broccoli and asparagus and to set an early bedtime and responding by feeding them McDonald’s and forcing them to watch Jimmy Kimmel before going to sleep.
People ask how I can call for Holland’s head while the team is in the midst of a 25-consecutive-season playoff run. Like, we are supposed to be impressed with consistently qualifying for the postseason on the last day of the season and then getting eliminated a mere ten days later in the first round?
Because as bad as the situation is today, it’s only getting worse. Holland is compounding mistakes and the only way to right this ship is to take away the wheel from the person who is steering it straight into an iceberg.
In THREE years, the Red Wings will have over $36 million in salary dedicated to the following players:
- A 40-year-old Zetterberg
- A 36-year-old Nielsen
- A 33-year-old Abdelkader
- A 33-year-old Helm
- A 31-year-old Glendening
- A 30-year-old Danny DeKeyser
- A 36-year-old Ericsson
- The dead cap space of the ghost of Stephen Weiss
So let’s summarize where this organizations stands ….
The team’s GM is on record as saying this current team isn’t a Stanley Cup contender.
They have zero cap flexibility next offseason when they’re moving into their new arena.
Not only is the team in salary cap purgatory for the foreseeable future, that won’t begin to clear up until AFTER the 2019-20 season at the earliest and that’s only if Holland doesn’t make any additional boneheaded signings.
Can shit get any worse for this once proud franchise?
We’ll see.
(You can follow the writer of this piece on Twitter @JeffMossDSR. Also, you can join in on the discussion of this article on Facebook by clicking here.)
