OT: Red Wings acquire Legwand from Predators
Here's the article from MLIVE:
It will be good to have him around for the playoff push considering the physical state of Zetterberg and Datsyuk.
Datsyuk is on the shelf for 3 weeks, per Holland :-(
Looks like a good idea if we can sign him to an extension.
I'm of course assuming the player we traded away was *not* one of the top Grand Rapids prospects.
Top 5 in Redwings system in the first site I looked at. But the wings are loaded with prospect forwards. Needed one that could contribute now.
The rumor is that Jankrok wasn't happy sitting in the minors and was going to go back to Sweden.
Legwand becomes the 2nd grad from Grosse Pointe North to play for the Red Wings. Go North!
You don't see those pansies from South producing Red Wings.
for puppy
Man that chart is ugly. I count 115-333 from two-point land not under the net. Wow that's bad.
ACT Scores!
Seriously though, North has had a better tradition of producing top-level Hockey players. And this is coming from a South student.
Well we all know why the ACT scores are not, um, balanced.
1st GPN grad to wear the winged wheel: Jimmy Carson. Who I pitched batting practice to as a youngster.
For those who don't want to click through:
The deal is Legwand for Patrick Eaves, Calle Jarnkrok and a 3rd round pick. Legwand is a FA at the end of the year.
Only younger players (less than 27 years or 7 seasons in the league) can be restricted free agents, as a way of protecting your draft choices/prospects. He's wayyyy unrestricted.
according to the comments in that article the other player is calle jarnkrok http://www.griffinshockey.com/team/roster/index.html?player_id=229
we definetely needed help with zetters, datsyuk, weiss, and helm all injured. IDK if we would keep legwand around next season if everybody gets healthy especially with sheahan, glendening and anderson all able to fill the 3rd/4th center roll. ideally in my opinion with everybody healthy we would have:
zetters datsyuk franzen
abby weiss/helm nyquist
jurco sheanhan tatar
andersson helm/weiss miller
Legwand has 40 points on a team that is 27th in the league in goals scored. And that would be good enough for 2nd in scoring on the Wings' current roster.
Seems like Holland's making moves just to keep the playoff streak alive, which is fine with me. This team is not winning a cup with all these injuries, but without doing something they probably weren't headed for the playoffs this year. We'll see if Legwand can affect that at all. I lean towards no unfortunately.
Screw that. I'd rather miss the playoffs for a year and keep our best prospects for when the vets hang it up.
Holland works for Mike Illitch, who's 84 and doesn't know how many years he has left. I think he's justified in being short term oriented.
The Wings have plenty of guys who can pass the puck to get assists. We don't have many guys who score.
I'm seriously at a loss for words with this trade. Calle Jarnkrok may have been the Red Wings best all around prospect. He is a 22 year old sweedish playmaker who has been compared to Zetterberg on more than one occation. The fact that we just traded him away for a 32 year old center (that isn't THAT good), who is a free agent at the end of the year is an unbelievable overpayment. Compare this trade to LA trading a 2nd and 3rd round pick along with a 26 year old winger with 6 points this year for Gaborik, and MTL sending a comparable package to NYI for Thomas freakin' Vanek as the Wings did for Legwand. Holland got utterly fleeced in a moment of desperation with the injuries piling up.
I said he was a "top prospect" which he was. We traded him and a 2nd or 3rd round pick for an impening free agent center that will at best get us to a first round playoff loss. Horrible
Your view that Ken Holland "is the most overrated GM in sports" is contrary to popular opinion. I get that not every signing or trade has panned out well (Weiss, for example), but given Detroit's success since 1996, I think he's one of the best GMs in any sport. Not that Sports Illustrated's opinion is dispositive, but they had him RANKED as the second best GM in all of sports for the 2000s, including NCAA ADs. He can't just wish for high draft picks every year, especially given their perrenial playoff team status.
Do you have a counterargument? Or is your post more of an emotional reaction to a trade you don't like? (One counterargument would be that the same SI article had Joe Dumars ranked as No. 9 overall, which, like ... yeesh.) By most measures Holland's stewardship of the Wings seems to have been very solid.
made since Hossa? Holland rode the coatails of Develano and Scotty to all those cups. Since then cap has been instituted he has been revealed as being a one trick pony and having no balls in the new cap enviroment.
I agree that Holland's not made the noise the past couple years that he did earlier in his career, but it is a different environment with the new cap structure. But I don't mind the Mike Modano signing one bit, just as an example.
What you overlook is that Holland has kept the core of a great team together: Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Johan Franzen, Niklas Kronwall and Jimmy Howard come to mind. Keeping the Eurotwins on the roster in particular is a great bit of management. And he helped keep Niklas Lidström engaged in the team for many years while Lidström's family wanted to move to Sweden.
I think it's a mistake to focus primarily on trades and free agent signings, when the Wings run one of the top scouting/draft departments in sports, and tend to their own quite well.
If you think Ken Holland is overrated, you don't pay very close attention to the rest of the league and don't understand how difficult it is to be as consistent as the Wings have been the last 20+ years, especially with the implementation of the salary cap. When the cap was implemented, everyone in hockey expected the Wings to suffer more than anyone else. Instead, they have slowly retooled their roster from stocked with Hall of Famers to a younger, faster lineup while winning a cup, going to another finals, and never missing the playoffs. Only the Sharks and Wings have made the playoffs every year since the lockout.
Look at the top teams in the league right now. Pitt, Chicago, St. Louis, Boston - all of them sucked at some point in the last 10 years and piled up high draft picks as a result. Toews, Kane, Crosby, Malkin - all top 10 picks. Holland has NEVER had that luxury and has had to use player development and timely acquistions to keep the Wings competitive. And it has worked, if not for injuries, they would once again be right in the mix come playoff time (and they still might).
Because we both have Chris Farley avatars-good call and love your name. Regarding hockey, I tend to agree with your points above. Although, Columbus' trade wasn't as beneficial as people think. Gaborik has been hurt most of the year. In addition, he really hasn't played well since being traded-his point totals just aren't that good. I guess there's always that potential that he'll turn into his old form, but, after watching him for a year, I just don't see that happening. Columbus didn't get a great return for Gaborik but they didn't get hosed either.
It's unrealistic to point to the Vanek trade as a knock on Holland and Gaborik is one of the most injury prone players in the NHL.
The only reason Montreal got Vanek was because Garth Snow drove such a high asking price that every team declined. When there was no time left to trade a player that they had to trade, the Islanders took the only deal left.
Who else would they have traded for?
There was a lot of potential traded this week, but only a handful of proven commodities. I have no problem seeing Holland sit on what they, rather than giving up assets to try and make a playoff push.
As for the the Vanek trade, that may go down as one of the worst trades in NHL history. Not only do they trade Moulson, they end up losing Vanek for nothing and the pick they gave up to Buffalo will probably be used to draft a once in a generation talent in McDavid or Eichel.
There must have been truth to the rumors that Jarnkrok had threatened to leave for Brynas.
— George Malik (@georgemalik) March 5, 2014
Well who is he going to play over at C? Datsyuk, Weiss, Helm, Sheahan/Glendening are your 4 C's and Jarnkrok isn't going to get called up for 4th line minutes. Now obviously you can argue that Helm and Weiss won't be healthy (totally valid) but he still probably wouldn't get top 6 minutes so there really isn't a reason to have him up here.
Kenny certainly has his faults and these last few years have shown that, but the Wings are in transition and are still playing competitive hockey. I mean shit they had the SC champs on the ropes last year and were a goal away from the Conference Finals....so obviously Holland has some idea of what he's doing.
This is frustrating. First of all, Jarnkrok's nickname is IronHook, how badass is that? But really, I'm assuming Ken Holland knows something about his intentions to head back to Sweden if he stayed in the AHL.
I remember watching Legwand on the Whalers as a kid back in the day. He's aging, but at 33 still should hopefully have some productivity in him. Wings need it right away to make this playoff push.
I think this trade is conditional also, if we do make the playoffs we give up a higher round pick. Guess this assumes Legwand is the difference-maker. We'll see...
First of all, yes that nickname is indeed amazing but Kukla's Korner keeps tweeting out information that Jarnkrok was really holding the Wings over the coals to get called up or he's leaving. So what do you do in that situation?
It's tough but they got something for him and most likely would attempt to re-sign Legwand for a 2-3 year deal. The pick becomes a 2nd rounder if the Wings make the playoffs to, so like I said it seems like an overpay but if Jarnkrok was indeed leaving then it was probably worth it.
Right right, I agree. I guess the best news is that it was an opponent in the West.
If we are stuck with a guy who gives us the ultimatum but we can't make room for him, then we have to try to get any value out of him that we can. For the Preds, he will probably make the big club much sooner (maybe this year?) than if he stayed. It's better this way for the player and the Wings than the alternative of just going home to Sweden.
Not a fan of the trade. Jarnkrok could have been big. I know the Wings and affiliates have some depth at center, but even if Jarnkrok hadn't been needed, if he developed more over the next couple seasons they could have gotten a lot more out of him than Legwand. Seems like a move just for the sake of making a move.
I guess it's cool to have yet another Michigan-born/raised player on the Wings, probably gotta be just about the most local players of any US-based team (Glendening, DeKeyser, Miller, Abdelkader, now Legwand). But, like the playoff streak, that's yet another thing the Wings don't exactly get a plaque for. I don't like this trade.
I now view the preservation of the playoff streak as a hindrance. If there wasn't such a fixation on it, Holland would've either stood pat or made a trade for a top-4 D to help long-term. Instead, a panicked, short-term move was made for C. I don't like it. Holland's been in decline since 2008.