I know that you guys are disappointed with the last season or maybe 2?but 25 years of playoffs! ,a couple of cup contending teams and you finishing in the top of the draft, and you still have some amazing prospects! Mostly up front, but you'll be getting a great young player in the first round! And Hollands scouting department has always been able to come up with gems in the latter rounds ,so theirs work to do for sure but they'll be exciting times for the wings and fans (new arena )some young players! Good luck guys with the draft and offseason!
- MR.Hunter
Thanks but this team has been on a steady decline since 2009. Holland is clueless in the Salary Cap era and doesn't understand that you can't overpay depth players which eat up all your cap space and handcuff your team with long term contracts.
He set this team back 5 years in last year's draft when he passed on Jacob Chychrun who fell all the way to 16th overall. Holland traded down with Arizona and drafted 21st instead. All so he could dump Pavel Datsyuk's zombie contract. Then he signs a 32 year old Frans Nielsen for 6 years at 5 mil AAV, Steve Ott, Tomas Vanek.
He re-signs Darren Helm for 5 years and re-ups Abdelkader for 7 years. Why? He drafts Dennis Cholowski at 21st overall. He scored 1 goal last season playing for St Cloud St. Chychrun had a great rookie debut in Arizona logging big minutes and putting up good numbers for a rookie.
Next season, Cholowski might make Grand Rapids but is more likely to play in the WHL. The Wings biggest need was and is a young franchise defenseman. Holland blew his chance to draft one. What will he do this time? Likely trade down again and draft another project who will likely not make the NHL.
This team finished 16 points out of the playoffs. Nuff said.