Exactly where I'm at. We find good players in the draft. I think that's pretty much agreed upon. Finding useful NHL level players, even top stuff is not easy. It's less than a coinflip as soon as you get out of the 2nd round to even find an NHL regular, much less a good one. And that's being very generous with the definition of a "regular." Joakim Andersson would be included for example, and Corey Emmerton and Landon Ferraro.what sucks is that I would trust him to do well with some high picks and do a rebuild well. It's hard to screw a top5 pick up too horrily, and I have faith in our ability to continue to get useful players lower in the draft.
Yeah, the draft lottery is a dumb idea.
And it seems trades are becoming less and less of a feature of the NHL, at least where significant pieces are moved. That said, most teams that had sustained success didn't build with several core pieces through trades. We added Shanny, and that was pretty much it. The Wings patched holes here and there with UFA/trades, but the bulk of the success was always on guys brought up through the system.
In the past they had a bit of an advantage in drafting with a better setup in Europe than other teams had, but that field has leveled a bit.
The talent drop off, historically, in the top2-3 versus everyone else is enormous. It's looks like a damn cliff if you plot the data.
Just because we had pretty much maximum bad luck in last year's draft doesn't take away from our actual position in the standings. It's highly unlikely we keep finishing bottom 5 and always lose 3-4 positions due to lottery and expansion teams, nor will every draft be as (supposedly) thin on elite talent as the '17 draft was. And if we're truly screwing up our draft picks (Cholowski, Rasmussen etc), we'll only get worse and increase our chances of having the best odds in the lottery. Just have a little bit of patience. We're literally in year 2 outside the playoffs. If Holland (or whoever replaces him) fails to build a decent team now that we're starting to add top 10 picks (along with increased number of later picks) that's where my patience will run out. I just can't blame Holland & Co. for getting extremely unlucky in their first draft lottery ever or because they've not done that miracle feat of once again drafting an elite core out of the later rounds. I have to give them the same chance that every other management team in the NHL has had; to build a winner with the help of top 10 draft picks.Like Winger just said above, championship teams are built on elite talent. And statistically, the most likely place to find elite talent is at the very top of the draft.
Just like re-building on the fly....
Jim Nill / KH etc make better picks in 05-12 and Ken Holland right now looks like a genius.
As for the lottery, I don't think it's properly weighted, but I think it's fine and still doesn't mean you shouldn't tank. Your odds are still significantly better for being last. Guaranteed a top4 pick versus a top 10 is a big difference. The talent drop off, historically, in the top2-3 versus everyone else is enormous. It's looks like a damn cliff if you plot the data.
Just because we had pretty much maximum bad luck in last year's draft doesn't take away from our actual position in the standings. It's highly unlikely we keep finishing bottom 5 and always lose 3-4 positions due to lottery and expansion teams, nor will every draft be as (supposedly) thin on elite talent as the '17 draft was. And if we're truly screwing up our draft picks (Cholowski, Rasmussen etc), we'll only get worse and increase our chances of having the best odds in the lottery. Just have a little bit of patience. We're literally in year 2 outside the playoffs. If Holland (or whoever replaces him) fails to build a decent team now that we're starting to add top 10 picks (along with increased number of later picks) that's where my patience will run out. I just can't blame Holland & Co. for getting extremely unlucky in their first draft lottery ever or because they've not done that miracle feat of once again drafting an elite core out of the later rounds. I have to give them the same chance that every other management team in the NHL has had; to build a winner with the help of top 10 draft picks.
My issue with Holland is less to do with who drafts right now than how he has built this Wings team. I think he's set the Wings up to fall into that ugly purgatory of drafting in the teens for awhile, outside of draft lottery help moving us up the board, and it's going to stall any rebuild efforts for awhile.
Just like re-building on the fly....
Jim Nill / KH etc make better picks in 05-12 and Ken Holland right now looks like a genius.
It goes to whether you think any significant number of teams purposefully tank or not. It would be embarrassing for the league if like 3-5 teams just started obviously throwing games for the draft which had the next Crosby. I get that. They think by lessening the odds they make it less attractive. They're right about that.I just don't see a need for it. A lot of this came up because Edmonton was perennially lousy despite their top picks, as if being perennially lousy isn't punishment enough. That, and I think the NHL is just seeking cheap thrills to rope fans in. I'd have more sympathy for it if it restricted the lotto a bit, like maybe limiting to the five worst teams, but I don't have much interest in seeing bad teams punished more on draft day just because of blind chance.
Also I personally don't recall any instances of blatant tanking in at least the past 7 years. I think too many people confuse rebuilding with tanking because they look basically identical. What do you do when you tank? Well players aren't going to tank so the GM needs to make trades. You can't get good picks by trading bad players so you trade the good players who aren't getting it done on your team. Typically they're older, known quantities that a competing team wants and will pay some future picks to get. This makes your team worse at that moment.
All this bellyaching about the lottery is screwy.
We've got a salary cap creating parity on one end.
So now people are complaining about the lottery because it doesn't guarantee them a certain spot if they suck?
How about this?
Draft the right guys. Trade for the right guys. Sign the right guys to the right contract.
Personally, with a salary cap, i'd like to see a 31-team draft lottery -- heavily weighted of course.
Basically, that's been my fear as well.
So... if only the incredibly low % strategy they chose to go with yielded different results?
Re-building on the fly is/was the epitome of wishful thinking. Hey, let's get [really] good again without being bad. It mean, it does sound nice. But the odds are stacked against you to an overwhelming extent.
I mean, to be a little bit fair... ALL strategies to having a winning team are low percentage strategies. I mean, it isn't easy to win. There are 31 teams. 30 of them are going out of their way to **** up your path to success.
I mean, even the Pens came down to a single digit % of puling Sidney Crosby in that draft (because that was less weighted IIRC). Colorado hit on Landeskog, MacK, Rantanen, and a couple other players... and they had one of the worst seasons in league history last year.
My last thought on it is... If I have, say a 16-20% chance of landing a guy like Rasmus Dahlin, but I have to be kick my nuts bad to get enough ping pong balls to have it happen... I'd rather take my 5-8% chance of doing so and keep a team that is set up to be somewhat good at hockey. I'd rather have the pieces in place already so when if I'm lucky enough to land super mega star #1C and he can catapult me, I'm looking at a Cup contender during his ELC years, not landing him and then hoping I can back fill enough of the glue guys that all competitive teams need and/or need to jettison those pieces to pay him $10M and then get caught in that loop forever.
Kinda like Edmonton landing Taylor Hall. Have a good enough base and THEN add that guy, and you jump on success when he's a rookie.
Regarding your first sentence/paragraph, absolutely.
As for the rest, I have mixed feelings. I just hope people understand it is a double-edged sword. The more you dismantle the team to embrace drafting high, the more pieces you have to add back in later on. On the flip side, continuing to sign the Trevor Daley and Frans Nielsen's of the world give you a little buffer from the bottom falling out entirely. Both approaches have their issues.
I also think we take for granted how easy it would be to replace some of what we take about moving for draft picks. We have done well with drafting wingers outside of the 1st round, but it is actually very difficult to draft .5 PPG forwards outside of the 1st round, like Tatar and Nyquist are. It seems a lot of people just think we can do that again, but the reality is we haven't done that since 2009 (Tatar), to my knowledge. Even if you assume AA gets there and maintains it, he was drafted 5 years ago (2012). It's way harder than people realize.
There's a cost for every decision you make. And as I have said many times, I think re-building a team in the current landscape of the NHL is probably the hardest it has ever been.
Same as you I dread being in "purgatory". I'm fine with making the playoffs and drafting 15th, but missing and drafting 14th wouldn't be fun. We had bad luck last summer though, most years we get a top 5 pick there. If nothing drastic happens this year we'll probably finish in a similar position, maybe even worse. I don't think bottom 5-6 in the leagues is purgatory at all. All things considered it's a pretty good "rebuilding position". Not a total trainwreck where players are completely miserable, but still good odds at a top 3 pick and a guaranteed top 10.It feels like this is at least a partial response to me, so I'm going to chime in here. My issue with Holland is less to do with who drafts right now than how he has built this Wings team. I think he's set the Wings up to fall into that ugly purgatory of drafting in the teens for awhile, outside of draft lottery help moving us up the board, and it's going to stall any rebuild efforts for awhile.
Regarding your first sentence/paragraph, absolutely.
As for the rest, I have mixed feelings. I just hope people understand it is a double-edged sword. The more you dismantle the team to embrace drafting high, the more pieces you have to add back in later on. On the flip side, continuing to sign the Trevor Daley and Frans Nielsen's of the world give you a little buffer from the bottom falling out entirely. Both approaches have their issues.
I also think we take for granted how easy it would be to replace some of what we take about moving for draft picks. We have done well with drafting wingers outside of the 1st round, but it is actually very difficult to draft .5 PPG forwards outside of the 1st round, like Tatar and Nyquist are. It seems a lot of people just think we can do that again, but the reality is we haven't done that since 2009 (Tatar), to my knowledge. Even if you assume AA gets there and maintains it, he was drafted 5 years ago (2012). It's way harder than people realize.
There's a cost for every decision you make. And as I have said many times, I think re-building a team in the current landscape of the NHL is probably the hardest it has ever been.
The team stagnating for years after Lidstrom retired and after 5 years finally missing the playoffs to where we could start the rebuilding process is on Holland. The bloated contracts on this roster are all on Holland. The lack of trades to move things forward is on Holland.
Holland is not a proactive GM, and he has done a poor job for a while, now.
The team stagnating for years after Lidstrom retired and after 5 years finally missing the playoffs to where we could start the rebuilding process is on Holland. The bloated contracts on this roster are all on Holland. The lack of trades to move things forward is on Holland.
Holland is not a proactive GM, and he has done a poor job for a while, now.
The team stagnating for years after Lidstrom retired and after 5 years finally missing the playoffs to where we could start the rebuilding process is on Holland. The bloated contracts on this roster are all on Holland. The lack of trades to move things forward is on Holland.
Holland is not a proactive GM, and he has done a poor job for a while, now.
I think you misread my post. At no point did I say anything was guaranteed. I said that I want to maximize my chances in every way possible. The cold hard math for doing that is to finish as close to dead last as you can, and to collect as many extra picks as you can along the way.
Again, you're arguing against something I didn't say. I ASKED YOU where YOU thought the talent would come from, and I cited the observation that Detroit has gone from a premier free agent destination, to a cozy corner for retreads. So again...if it's not from the top handful of picks in the draft, where is this highly conservative, very set in their ways regime going to strike gold?
quickly turn it around by "tanking"
Sorry to quote just this piece. But I think it is important to say to others here there is no "quick turn around by tanking".
Maybe people are just mad KH didn't start the tank when they knew Mike Ilitch was living on borrowed time. Which is extremely selfish and inconsiderate. After everything Mr. I has done for the City and Red Wings... they are upset about a 2 or 3 year earlier head start. Seriously?
That seems very disgusting to me. True definition of - 1st world problems -. Show some goddamn respect to the man who brought us so many years of enjoyment. ****!
Regarding your first sentence/paragraph, absolutely.
As for the rest, I have mixed feelings. I just hope people understand it is a double-edged sword. The more you dismantle the team to embrace drafting high, the more pieces you have to add back in later on. On the flip side, continuing to sign the Trevor Daley and Frans Nielsen's of the world give you a little buffer from the bottom falling out entirely. Both approaches have their issues.
I also think we take for granted how easy it would be to replace some of what we take about moving for draft picks. We have done well with drafting wingers outside of the 1st round, but it is actually very difficult to draft .5 PPG forwards outside of the 1st round, like Tatar and Nyquist are. It seems a lot of people just think we can do that again, but the reality is we haven't done that since 2009 (Tatar), to my knowledge. Even if you assume AA gets there and maintains it, he was drafted 5 years ago (2012). It's way harder than people realize.
There's a cost for every decision you make. And as I have said many times, I think re-building a team in the current landscape of the NHL is probably the hardest it has ever been.
Regarding your first sentence/paragraph, absolutely.
As for the rest, I have mixed feelings. I just hope people understand it is a double-edged sword. The more you dismantle the team to embrace drafting high, the more pieces you have to add back in later on. On the flip side, continuing to sign the Trevor Daley and Frans Nielsen's of the world give you a little buffer from the bottom falling out entirely. Both approaches have their issues.
I also think we take for granted how easy it would be to replace some of what we take about moving for draft picks. We have done well with drafting wingers outside of the 1st round, but it is actually very difficult to draft .5 PPG forwards outside of the 1st round, like Tatar and Nyquist are. It seems a lot of people just think we can do that again, but the reality is we haven't done that since 2009 (Tatar), to my knowledge. Even if you assume AA gets there and maintains it, he was drafted 5 years ago (2012). It's way harder than people realize.
There's a cost for every decision you make. And as I have said many times, I think re-building a team in the current landscape of the NHL is probably the hardest it has ever been.
Dotter, you seem to be under the impression that Holland's only alternative to tanking was to sign guys like Helm and Abdelkader to golden parachute contracts. Even if I'm staunchly against anything resembling a tank...that doesn't force me to spend every cent I have as rashly as possible. There's a whole lot of happy medium in between 'scorched earth' and 'country club'.