Pro scouts suggesting signing someone and then not using him at all and signing someone else very similar right afterwards.
Whole thing played out very oddly, IMO
In terms of how it played out in relation to Petry... he fell into our lap after the Holl signing, no?
I think it went something like:
- Red Wings had a need for a 2nd/3rd-pair right-side defenseman who can play defense (as opposed to, say, Ghost)
- Red Wings pro scouts scan the market and identify Holl as the best candidate they can realistically get their hands on
- Red Wings sign Holl
- Petry, whom the Wings consider to be in a higher tier than Holl, falls into their lap
- Holl now becomes redundant and relegated to mostly unneeded depth
- Holl ultimately gets waived because there's just no real role for him to play, and his roster spot was better utilized for something more valuable (looks like Watson for now)
In this scenario, I can't really blame Yzerman or the pro scouts too much, although I still do think Holl wasn't worth that contract, even if Petry never showed up and Holl got a bigger role. Maybe that's more on Yzerman, but we don't know how hard the pro scouts were selling Holl to Yzerman. In the end though, it's a pretty minor "error" in the grand scheme of things.