Month: February 2018

A bit about Mike Green’s future

The Hockey News’s Matt Larkin discusses Mike Green’s status after not being moved at the trade deadline:

Mike Green

Why he didn’t go: Ugh. This one hurts. Of the clear-cut rentals, Green was the only big-ticket one not to get traded Monday. Karlsson and Pacioretty can still get traded later, but Green, a pending UFA, will now likely be lost for nothing. He agreed to waive his no-trade clause to head to the Lightning or Washington Capitals, but nothing materialized. As GM Ken Holland admitted, teams were concerned about Green’s neck injury, which has shelved him since Feb. 15, and one team even asked for his medical reports. It’s pretty clear the injury scared teams away from a trade, especially when Holland’s asking price would’ve been high, likely including a first-round pick and a prospect.

What happens now: The Red Wings have expressed interest in re-signing Green, and he likes playing in Detroit. But it’s clear the Wings are years away from Stanley Cup contention. Green doesn’t have a ring, has never even played deeper than Round 2 of the playoffs and turns 33 in October. He’s still good enough to earn a multi-year offer – he went to the All-Star Game this year, after all – so he’s not yet at the stage of his career where he has to sign a one-year “mercenary” deal and hope to get flipped to a contender at the trade deadline. Green should receive legit offers from Stanley Cup hopefuls. Maybe a reunion with the Capitals is in the offing if they can’t re-sign John Carlson?

The Red Wings want to re-sign Green and Green is at least amicable to that concept, and if I may be blunt, I’m just not surprised regarding that result. Holland still believes that a veteran core accentuated by a couple of youngsters is the way to go on defense, and Green does provide more offense than anybody else on the Wings’ blueline. That being said, Green would have to take a pay cut on a short-term deal–and the Red Wings should weigh when/and/or/if they feel that Filip Hronek, Joe Hicketts, Dennis Cholowski and Vili Saarijarvi might be able to step in and help.

As a fan, I’m not thrilled with the idea of the Wings’ defense probably looking a lot like it does now, but it would not surprise me if that is the case. It will be up to the player and GM.

Krupa Tweets out Wings’ annual meeting with Detroit Economic Club

The Red Wings held their annual luncheon with the Detroit Economic Club, and the Detroit News’s Gregg Krupa Tweeted out what was said at the event:

Continue reading Krupa Tweets out Wings’ annual meeting with Detroit Economic Club

Articles from practice: Wings will miss Tatar, understand that playoff odds are long

The Detroit Red Wings held an optional practice on Tuesday, preparing for Wednesday’s “NBCSN Rivalry Night Game” against the St. Louis Blues, and after practice, the team addressed several topics.

As noted by the Detroit News’s Gregg Krupa, the Red Wings will miss Tomas Tatar after his trade from the Vegas Golden Knights…

“Tats is one of my favorite guys that I’ve ever coached,” Jeff Blashill said, reflecting how the loss is felt personally, even more than professionally. “He’s an awesome, awesome person. Always came in with a smile on his face. I thought he was passionate. He wanted to win. Always accountable.”

What seemed to trouble Blashill is what he knows, down deep, about Tatar.

“He wanted to be a Red Wing,” the coach said. “He was proud to be a Red Wing.”

…

“As a teammate, it’s always unfortunate to see a guy go,” said Mike Green, who almost “went” himself, until questions about his injured neck, the availability of other defensemen and the Wings desire to keep him trumped any thought of a trade. “You know, Tats was a great player. I got to know him a great deal over the last three years, myself. It’s always sad. It really is. But on the flip side, we understand the business side of things, and we wish him the best. But, yeah, I think collectively, as a group, we’re sad.”

And the Wings continued while speaking with MLive’s Ansar Khan:

Continue reading Articles from practice: Wings will miss Tatar, understand that playoff odds are long

Via KK: Sportsnet’s Boylen talks Wings draft picks

Via KK, Sportsnet’s Rory Boylen took note of the fact that the Red Wings have 11 picks in this year’s draft:

It’s also worth pointing out the teams that have the most picks in the early rounds. While the Red Wings hold the most selections overall, Montreal and the Rangers pick most often in the first two rounds: New York will hold five of the first 62 picks at least, while Montreal (which holds an NHL-high four second-rounders), will also picks five times across Round 1 and 2.

One final tidbit: as the Detroit Red Wings continue to retool, draft picks have become more important to them. This is the second year in a row the Wings could pick six times in the first three rounds, but it’s almost unprecedented for Detroit to hold multiple first-round picks. Remember, in the 16 NHL drafts from 1997 to 2012, Detroit didn’t pick in the first round at all 10 times.

This year, they acquired Vegas’s first-rounder in the Tomas Tatar deal. If Detroit keeps it (which you have to believe they will), the Wings will pick twice in the opening round of the draft for the first time since the 1978 amateur draft. At that point in the league’s history, the draft age was 20 instead of 18, it was called the amateur draft as opposed to the entry draft, and ’78 marked the last selection process before the NHL-WHA merger.

Tweets from the Red Wings’ optional practice + Tweets of note regarding Griffins, Walleye and Darren Eliot on WDFN

I had to take my mother to a doctor’s appointment today, so I missed the Red Wings’ optional practice. After practice, Jeff Blashill and Mike Green spoke with the media…

And here’s a Twitter play-by-play:

Continue reading Tweets from the Red Wings’ optional practice + Tweets of note regarding Griffins, Walleye and Darren Eliot on WDFN

Ken Holland appears on the Jamie and Stoney Show, talking about the trade deadline

Red Wings general manager Ken Holland appeared on 97.1 the Ticket’s Jamie and Stoney show on Tuesday morning. Holland addressed the team’s deadline move, the team’s inability to move Mike Green and Holland’s philosophy for the team going forward:

Update: CBS Detroit’s Will Burtchfield took note of Holland’s remarks:

Holland, who has spoken recently like a general manager who expects to retain his job, isn’t worried about his future with the Red Wings. His sense of security stems in large part from his close relationship with the Ilitches.

“I’m the general manager of the Detroit Red Wings. Very proud, very honored to have this job. Obviously there’s speculation because my contract expires at the end of the year, but I’m not concerned about it because of the relationship that I’ve got with ownership, and at the same time, where I am with my career and my life,” Holland told 97.1 The Ticket on Tuesday. “So, it’s of no concern to me. And the rumors with regard to Seattle can only be rumors. They don’t even have a team.”

continued…

Update: Here’s more from Burtchfield:

“To tell you the honest truth, I was prepared to take nothing in return, nothing in the sense that it would start out at nothing and (it would increase) based upon team performance, based upon his health, games played,” Holland told 97.1 The Ticket. “I was open to negotiating all that so that the compensation risk was on the Detroit Red Wings.

“Certainly we were prepared to retain 50 percent of the salary, but ultimately when you’re trying to compete for a Stanley Cup and there’s other players on the marketplace that are healthy, nobody really wanted to acquire a player that at this stage of the game was injured.”

The Red Wings wanted to structure a similar trade to the one they drew up in regard to Petr Mrazek, whereby Green’s performance would determine the extent of the return, but the handful of teams in on the All-Star defenseman got cold feet as he continued to miss games in advance of the deadline. Then Erik Karlsson and Ryan McDonagh landed on the market, and interest in Green waned further.

Green was reportedly willing to waive his no-trade clause for both the Lightning and the Capitals (and possibly others). Tampa wound up landing McDonagh in a last-minute blockbuster with Rangers, while Washington was engaged in discussions with the Senators about Karlsson right down to the wire. It’s unclear if any other teams had legitimate interest in Green.

“There were some teams that he would prefer to go to and some teams that he would prefer not to go to, but we never got to that point in time,” Holland said. “The teams that had the most interest, he gave me the green light that he was prepared to go there, so the no-trade had nothing to do with the ultimate outcome of the Mike Green situation.”

Shoe, meet other foot

The Associated Press’s John Wawrow penned a trade deadline wrap-up, and over the course of his article, Wawrow speaks with Ken Holland regarding the Wings’ change in deadline philosophy:

Red Wings general manager Ken Holland has suddenly come to appreciate how valuable first-round draft picks are when a team’s not in playoff contention at the NHL trade deadline.

“I’ve been on that on the other side,” Holland said, recalling Detroit’s heydays in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the Red Wings were competing with Dallas, Colorado and New Jersey in vying to add top talent to strengthen their playoff run. “When those teams made a move, we were aware of it.”

The Red Wings were far from that position, sitting in a tie for 12th and five points out of contention, when the trade deadline struck on Monday afternoon. Though Holland wasn’t discounting Detroit’s chances of making a late-season push, he wasn’t exactly dealing from a position of strength.

Rather than adding a player, the Red Wings subtracted . They traded established forward Tomas Tartar to the Western Conference-leading Vegas Golden Knights for three draft picks, including a first-round selection.

“This wasn’t a rental in this case,” Holland said of Tatar, a three-time 20-goal-scorer with three years left on his contract. “But the trading of the first-round picks speaks to those teams that have had great years and feel that they’ve got to do something that really impacts their team.”

Continued

The Athletic’s Custance on Tatar and Green

The Athletic’s Craig Custance broke down the Red Wings’ trading of Tomas Tatar and retention of Mike Green this morning. Custance confirms that Green’s neck injury prevented a deal from happening, and he discusses the reasons why the Tatar deal did happen:

“He can play all over the lineup,” [Vegas GM George] McPhee told The Athletic on Monday night. “First line, second line, right wing, left wing. He scores goals and plays hard enough and competes.”

McPhee had seen plenty of Tatar over the course of the last year. He spent many nights in Joe Louis Arena last season in buildup towards the expansion draft. He was spotted recently at Little Caesars Arena while passing through town en route to the Top Prospects game in January.

He liked Tatar. So did his pro scouting staff. And so Sunday, the two sides touched base again, although it would be a stretch to say either side was optimistic a deal was getting done at that point.

“Kenny didn’t have to trade him,” McPhee said. “He was under no pressure in that way. And so until he got what he wanted and until I got to a place where I was comfortable, it (wasn’t happening.)”

The Red Wings wanted a prospect as part of the deal. That was a no-go for a Vegas franchise that has only one draft under its belt. If this deal was happening, they were dealing from their draft pick surplus not thinning out a fledgling prospect list.

Custance continues (paywall)…

Krupa weighs in on impatience with the rebuild-on-the-fly

The Detroit News’s Gregg Krupa expresses some dissatisfaction with the Red Wings’ slow-but-steady approach to “rebuilding on the fly,” suggesting that the Wings should have been more cutthroat regarding players with bigger contracts:

What does it all mean for the Red Wings, trade deadline 2018?

It means they are rebuilding and not going fast enough, with enough results.

Signs of some acceleration and greater effect are perceptible. But the reconstruction still lags.

They became sellers in 2018, just as they were in 2017, and did a nice job of collecting cherished and critical draft picks, the resources integral to rebuilding given the state of the personnel rules.

This year, by trading Petr Mrazek and Tomas Tatar, they also have finally begun moving out some salary.

That is a good, but overdue, development.

Meanwhile, Mrazek and Tatar were producers, and far from the top choices for the rummage sale the Wings are best advised to endure. But some fans are learning what management already knew: Beggars cannot be choosey.

Krupa continues, and it’s not easy to raise one’s voice in dissent, but I also don’t really know what the Wings are supposed to do with the players on bloated contracts other than endure them for a couple of years…along with the rest of us.