OT: Can Ken Holland Please Just Go Away Now?
What we got for Vanek / Still having half the cap hit on our hands is just unacceptable:
EDIT: I realize keeping half the salary means only having 1.3 mil on the books for the rest of this season, which doesn't really amount to anything but the cash. I'm more upset becasue teams are looking at Vanek as renting a solid contributor to make a strong push for / make some noise in the postseason. He should bring a second and a third for this year's draft, not a third with a no-name D-Man whom no team has wanted (he's been shipped around a TON).
EDIT II:
Yeah, but my "best" wouldn't have been very good either -- Still a pretty bad "best."
Maybe Vanek really just isn't that good:
http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/thomas-vanek-traded-small-return/
Playing devil's advocate, they dealt a slow, sheltered, one-dimensional winger. Maybe the return is not so bad.
Interesting article about why Detroit didn't get more for Tomas Vanek.
http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/thomas-vanek-traded-small-return
-Of the 400-odd NHL players who have played at least 200 minutes at 5-on-5 this season, Vanek is the most sheltered in terms of where his coach deploys him.
-Vanek has been used as an offensive zone specialist to an amazing degree. Over the entire history of the analytics era, only four NHL forwards have ever had an entire season in which they were on the ice for more even-strength faceoffs in the offensive zone than the neutral and defensive zones combined.
-Florida didn’t pick up a true top-six forward on Wednesday, someone comparable to a Radim Vrbata or even an Alex Burrows. Instead, they grabbed a player who is a pure specialist, in much the same way as a faceoff-winning/penalty-killing fourth-line centre is. Vanek can score, but he’s a player who at this stage of his career needs to be carefully handled lest he become more liability than asset.
Wrong. The Holland 'haters' in this thread are correct in their opinion that GMs only value regular season points scored this year. Winning faceoffs, playing defense, killing penalties, etc are not important in playoff hockey. Since Vanek has scored a bunch of points, he is more valuable to playoff teams than Brendan Smith, Jarome Iginla, and pretty much every other deadline traded player.
Vanek played nearly twice as many minutes in the Red Wings losses as he did their wins. Either
1) Times when he was limited by injuries randomly corresponded with the Wings going on a lucky hot streak,
2)Wings only played him significant minutes when we were 2+ goals behind and were desperate for goals to get back into the game,
3) Increased Vanek ice time negatively affected the Wings' chances of victory.
"Winning faceoffs, playing defense, killing penalties, etc are not important in playoff hockey."
You're joking right? Offense tends to decrease in the playoffs (see pretty much every top 6 forward for Detroit during the last two playoff years), which makes the three things you listed above so much more important. Vanek is a risk because when the playoffs come, if he's not scoring, his inability to do other things well (i.e. defend) will end up hurting the Panthers.
"Since Vanek has scored a bunch of points, he is more valuable to playoff teams than Brendan Smith, Jarome Iginla, and pretty much every other deadline traded player."
This is also not true. Although scoring is valuable, there is more to hockey than just point totals, especially when you consider Vanek's point totals are inflated due to sheltered minutes and being deployed almost exclusively in offensive zone situations.
I thought it was pretty obvious I was being sarcastic, especially with the second part of my post which hints at Vanek not being really that great of a player overall.
Ok, fair. But something tells me Holland was completely and utterly unaware of this. I guess he wouldn't need to be (only the buyer would have to know to drive his price down), but still; compared to what the Kings paid for Iginla (pretty much the same as FLA paid for Vanek), we still could have gotten at least a little bit more.
Ken Holland plus the pucks/new fridge. Not seeing the upside here.
LOL sorry, I read your post as "Ken Holland for Ken Holland."
But he's shown 0 ability to play at the NHL level. It's a big ask to have it suddenly click for him.
And if he does, that speaks a lot to the Red Wings and their coaching/management.
The only part of that I believe has a chance is Holland being let go now that Chris Illitch is in charge and the streak is over.
I feel like they will probably retain him next season to finish his contract out then hopefully go in another direction.
little bummed with return for Vanek...not that bummed. Need more picks....MORE PICKS
we'd have more than a third-rounder. Vanek is UFA next year; we can compete for his services aloing with everyone else. We lose him for twenty games that don't matter -- worst case for Wings is they drop draft positions with a really strong finish -- and add another pick (which could be at the very top of the third round (go, Panthers!). And, a big D-man, who is probably destined to finish in GR, but who knows. Cumong, man. Holland has had some whiffs over the years, to be sure. This is not one of them
Trading Vanek for little helps us tank at the very least. He is one of the reasons we aren't in last place at this point. We needed to get rid of him even if it meant selling low.
I wasn't happy with the Vanek trade at first but I guess it was the best we could do. Strange that there aren't more teams trying to go all in to improve their chances to win the Cup.
The Wings are certainly stockpiling 3rd round picks. Saw this chart on the Winging It In Motown board which shows that a 3rd round pick historically has a 15%-25% of playing at least 200 NHL games.
