Updated at 2:23 PM: Red Wings GM Ken Holland appeared on 97.1 the Ticket’s Jamie and Stoney show this Thursday morning, speaking for 20 minutes regarding cursory post-season topics:
Also of Red Wings-related note this afternoon:
- Crain’s Detroit Business’s Bill Shea reports that the creditor which is tasked with redeveloping Joe Louis Arena’s footprint is asking for a 2-year extension to be mediated between itself and the City of Detroit;
- FYI:
There’s still time to register to paint the ice at @LCArena_Detroit on Thursday, April 26! ? #LGRW
Reserve your spot –> https://t.co/bkeRiTLl0c pic.twitter.com/eqkJOxbl3x
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) April 12, 2018
Update: Among 97.1 the Ticket’s Will Burtchfield’s partial transcript highlights:
If Holland has an alibi, it’s that his hands may have been tied toward the end of the playoff streak. Late owner Mike Ilitch was justifiably hungry for one more championship. Was Holland under some kind of edict to win at all costs, to push for the playoffs under the premise that anything can happen once a team gets in?
“That was my philosophy,” Holland told 97.1 The Ticket.
Maybe he’s in a position to answer that question truthfully, maybe not. To him, the answer is academic. The rebuild was coming one way or another.
“Whether you say it should’ve started in 2015 or in 2013, you’re still going to have to live it, and you would have lived it from 2013 to 2017. There’s going to be a period of time that a franchise needs to rebuild,” Holland said. “You’re talking about different years, and I’m just saying, what’s the difference?”
Then he pointed to the past, mentioning the Red Wings were the last team to miss the playoffs in the salary-cap era. They survived from 2005-06 to 2015-16.
“During those 10 years, we won the championship, we went to the finals twice and at the end, from 2007 to 2013 — a seven-year period — six of the years we went to the second round or further. There’s your run, there’s you run, ” he said. “We tried to milk it a little bit longer.”
Sigh. I just don’t think Kenny gets it. He’s repeating the excuse that 2016-17 failed because of injuries. We had the most man-games lost in the NHL. But he doesn’t mention that most of those man-games lost were for depth guys, or guys like Joe Vitale who was never even a viable option. Like in that year…Zetterberg, Nyquist, Tatar, Nielsen, Larkin missed a total of 11 games. Glendening missed just 8 games. Oh but Drew Miller missed 27 games so that hurt us!! Dekeyser played every single game. Green missed just 10 games. But I guess Kronwall missing 25 games really killed us, even though our record was better without him. So basically he’s saying 2016-17 was derailed by all these injuries…so he figured if we can stay healthy in 2017-18, and add Daley and improve on the PP, we’re going to be fine.
Also won’t accept responsibility for mistakes, claiming that its just hindsight. And claiming that whether he started the rebuild now or a few years earlier doesn’t matter. Sigh. Really Kenny. You don’t think the awful contracts handed out in the last 1-2 years make this rebuild more difficult? Imagine if you traded Helm instead of signed him. Imagine if you didn’t bother with Frans Nielsen? You don’t think this matters? Guy is totally clueless.
Also, I was lectured last week for my sharing my opinion that it was NAIVE to think that Mike Illitch was meddling in hockey decisions. I believed Illitch gave Kenny the max budget and then stayed out of it. So it was Kenny who decided on Weiss versus Filppula. Kenny decided Nielsen was a great addition. Kenny decided that Helm and Abby deserved their contracts.
Well, well, well…Kenny admits here that he was NOT pressured by Illitch to extend the streak. He was NOT instructed by Illitch to do this, or do that. He accepted responsibility that it was MY PHILOSOPHY to “get in and anything can happen”. So I guess that settles that conspiracy. Rest in peace Illitch. Hope people stop blaming you and realize Kenny made these stupid decisions…
This is the only time I’ll respond to you but I think it’s important for you to know. You’re ruining George’s site. Please stop making this blog about your feelings.
An up-vote on Randy’s comment!
FS needs to overcome his fierce inferiority complex—views any alternative view as a personal attack.
OK. Sorry. I noticed that not a single person had posted anything today. So I was simply trying to start a discussion, and had written about the actual topic at hand. But if you prefer to read George’s an articles without anyone actually discussing them…then why not just read his article and move on. If my posts are so terrible, then just don’t read them. Cheers, FatSavage
no you weren’t. there’s nothing in your post that is engaging to other people. You are ranting, that’s all you usually do.
upvote.
Isn’t it about the feelings too? If it’s not what is about?
“So I was simply trying to start a discussion, and had written about the actual topic at hand”
Um…no you weren’t, how is
“Also, I was lectured last week for my sharing my opinion that it was NAIVE to think that Mike Illitch was meddling in hockey decisions.”
trying to start a discussion? It’s more like you waving your hands, saying “see see I was right and all of you was wrong” it’s playing victim and rather pathetic.
The rest was an rant in hindsight which you’re preaching against KH for using. How does that work?
Not everything is about you and how everyone is against you. That’s how you get everyone against you.
Dueces ✌✌
Sorry. But this myth of “Illitch made him do it” has been talked about for years now. This is the first time that I can recall when Kenny has emphatically said this is not true. The push to keep the streak going and “get in because anything can happen” came from Kenny himself.
I’m pretty sure if anyone here was chastized for an opinion…and then a week later the GM reveals information affirming their view as being correct…we’d have all kinds of others saying I told you so. But I’m so sorry I did that. Feel free to start a new topic. Was there anything you found interesting in Kenny’s interview? Please share and let’s discuss.
who cares… is he wrong? I agree with the position that Holland is making excuses and living on past success.
that said, we are stuck with him (Holland… not you FS) . So lets see him now step up and do his job. To be fair every owner in the NHL whose team finished below Vegas need to have a WTF discussion with his management teams!
Yeah the “what’s the difference” comment – about when you start a rebuild (apparently it’s cool to put it off forever and make decisions counterproductive to both actually winning and rebuilding) isn’t helping his case.
He sounds petulant and defensive and it’s far from the first time.
Holland has been panned now for more informed readers and by a number of more insightful, connected hockey writers (outside the of crew who must follow the company line in most of their writing) and for a few years now.
He just doesn’t have a good explanation for many of the moves he made. I understand his job now is to move forward and that he doesn’t want to start a new deal by admitting how much he messed up during his last one.
But part of why fans have gotten increasingly frustrated is the condescending, arrogant tone (“well, we still have to honor those contracts”. Well, actually, many of his peers stopped signing mediocre vets to deal like that a good while ago. And started promoting younger, faster, cheaper players at a time the league was changing and the league and cap both required more youth, speed and skill – often at entry-level prices. Many of his peers have found ways of moving seemingly impossible contracts. Many of his peers have been willing to bite the bullet and buy out a contact or two. I guess it helps when you aren’t still paying for Weiss.
Kenny says he is doing a rebuild now. OK. But the braintrust is long-gone. And the days of having an unparalleled scouting group in distant locations is gone, too. Other GM will draft higher than Holland. And have given themselves more cap flexibility. And others are also more creative and aggressive at finding way to add younger talent. And at attracting younger talent from college and abroad, because those players believe the team they’re joining will not only give them a chance, but is actually going somewhere.
To get anywhere, we are going to have to continue trying to draft a little bit better than our rivals for the basement and manage to hit a couple home runs. We’re going to have to avoid bad deals for middling players who are already at or past their prime. Holland says he’d love to make a “value for value” trade. Well, what’s stopping him, other than a demonstrated inability or unwillingness to make hockey trades, let alone good hockey trades. Maybe his peers simply aren’t interested in most of the players we have, an indictment in itself.
Cheering for a genuinely rebuilding team is not as hard as Holland makes it sound. And mortgaging the future for very iffy teams that stay stuck in limbo is not as nice a gift to fans as Holland makes it sound.
It will be interesting to see what he will come up with that we haven’t seen and heard hundreds of times before.
lefty30 says:
April 12, 2018 at 8:03 PM
Very good assessment of the situation and well written.
I for one feel KH is going to proceed as he has in the past, thinking he has the Illitch’s backing and the rest does not matter. BS baffles brains, in his opinion
don’t know what’s wrong with FS posts. He just voices his opinions..He respects the people he respects people he exchanges thoughts with..
He is simply not a KH fan. That’s all. I don’t agree with him all the time and that’s the beauty of a civilized argument.
Yeah, I say ignore the parts of a post by a poster whose ideas don’t interest you. Or if you don’t like anything, skip or move on.
I see the strengths and weaknesses of FS’s posts, but find some good arguments, relevant use of facts and/or stats, etc. and an overall high level of knowledge for a fan. If a post is too much of the same thing, or gets too personally involved, I just skip it, but that doesn’t mean the next post might not be a good read.
I see where the other posters are coming from with some of their frustration. I get it.
IMO a thread that becomes about posters or devolves into an endless back and forth between posters, and is not focused on the team we follow, is a thread that’s run its course.
But the more, the merrier. It’s fun and valuable to hear the thoughts of Wings fans from all over the continent and sometimes beyond. I’d like to think I could enjoy a beer (or whatever one’s choice is) and a game with pretty much everyone here. That’s the spirit one aspires to anyway. Life isn’t easy. This is a nice outlet.
I’ll have a beer with you, or anyone, anytime. Well almost anyone. There are a couple of people who clearly wouldn’t be able to have a civil conversation with me. Oh well. Doesn’t bother me. I’d say let’s all plan a meeting at a Wings game, but I haven’t entered the new arena and refuse to do so until Kenny is out of the organization. Refuse to spend a dime on this team. So maybe we find a neutral site? Vegas?
“IMO a thread that becomes about posters or devolves into an endless back and forth between posters, and is not focused on the team we follow, is a thread that’s run its course.”
Yeah, and that’s quite easily demonstrated below. haha. It’s the way we write things, because we have nothing else to go back on, which really dictates the way conversations go. Both sides gotta take some responsibility for the back and forth. No one will, and thus the cycle repeats.
Good to see you back, Lefty. Your comments are always well thought out and fair.
“There are a couple of people who clearly wouldn’t be able to have a civil conversation with me.” Does that include yourself lol
Is that another schizophrenic joke? Yeah mental health is real funny. LOL.
Can’t wait for the ignore feature. While I know some people don’t appreciate my posts, I can’t imagine there are many people who look forward to reading your contributions. Perhaps if you focussed on hockey instead of me we would all get along better. Thanks, FatSavage
making fun of mental health? that’s a big stretch especially after your character assassination of danny d. lol get outta here son. maybe you could get focused on spelling or not getting banned from 3 wings blogs lololol
FS—as Lefty pointed out, you display “relevant use of facts and/or stats, etc. and an overall high level of knowledge for a fan.” As such, I’m sure most of us do appreciate the content within your comments–you are possibly, George aside, the most knowledgeable of this group.
That said, however, reading your comments is quite painful & unpleasant given your dismissive, often sarcastic, style when anyone provides an alternative view. As said before, I can’t believe you act this way in the face-to-face world and succeed.
I believe you need assistance in that area.
giggle.
I’m from Montréal and when i’m in Detroit i have a local gang (hockeytown Cafe) where we meet before a game.
Would love to meet some of you…even FS ! But i guess we will have to wait for next year. In Detroit that is cause the Wings in Montréal are usually a joke !