OT: Time for a coaching change (Red Wings edition)

Mantha, Larkin and Athanasiou should be leading all forwards in ice time.  He keeps ragging on the young guys while the veterans who are dragging the team down get a free pass.

Holland needs to go because he butchered the salary cap situation and made other terrible free agent moves.  Blashill needs to go because he has mismanaged the team since his first season and he's gotten no better.

"Fire Kenny instead" was the answer I always got every time I ever posted "fire Blashill" anywhere on the internets last year.  I never understood why.  I know Kenny built a terrible roster and can't manage a salary cap to save his life, but the roster is still better than what Blashill's done with it.  This group of forwards is better than this.  Their collective gross underachievement is, and has always been, an indictment of the coach.

He and Kenny should both go, yesterday.  Yes, this is Blashill's fault.

Oh, he realizes it by now. And now desperate Ken will try to make Blashill his scapegoat. But it doesn't matter much who the coach is because this roster is a disaster. 

Ken Holland has been in "let's just get in the playoffs and pretend we have a chance so that I can keep my job" mode for years. He either doesn't have the creativity or the will to rebuild this team into a championship contender again. Or both.

Can't draft. Can't get good free agents to come here. Overpays his own mediocre players killing their roster flexibility.

Once a GM wins a championship in this town, he wins enough goodwill to coast and be terrible for a decade or so. Same thing happened with Dumars. It's what we do here.

I just hope Chris Illitch is smart enough to finally realize that Holland has to go. I'm not so sure. I question his commitment to winning. I really worry about the future of the Tigers and Red Wings with him in charge.

tell us how you really feel

Why would Yzerman come back?

I mean, look at what he built in Tampa vs. current day Wings...

People hated watching Babcock play both dump-and-chase along with neutral-zone-grab-and-hold hockey, but it was the best strategy available, even with two prolific puck posseson forwards in Z and Dats.

In Holland's defense, accepted rumor is that he was told to keep the streak alive, and the NHL's structure (along with every league that's not soccer in a European country) is such that you can't just stay on top indefinitely. I'm willing to believe he did the best anyone could given his marching orders. Regardless of that, time for wholesale change has come, if for nothing else than the sake of change. 

Fifteen years ago.

The Wings could just buy older veteran players and make it work.

New NHL bruh.

They actually pulled him when it was 9-1. He then passed their GM on the bench and told him he was done in MTL.

Watching this makes me sad because the DRW used to be so damn good. The Russian 5 were unbelievable. Sigh

I think the simple answer is that elite NHL prospects spend very little time in the minors. Dylan Larkin never even went to GR. Mantha was only down there for a year and a half. If you look at the kids we have in our system now there are only a handful of kids who realistically project to the NHL and probably 2nd line players at best. It is not quite like MLB where players spend 2-4 years (or more) in the minors before making it to the show. To succeed in the NHL, you need a handful of elite players with a solid supporting cast. Nobody will let a potential elite player go and they usually lock them up with long term deals so they are never available in free agency. The best way to find them (unless you get lucky and find gems like we did with Datsyuk and Zetterberg) is by picking in the top 10 of the draft.