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Detroit Red Wings: Ken Holland’s Unfixable Mess

By Patrick Rocca

Jan 23, 2016; Detroit, MI, USA; A general view of the Joe Louis Arena during the opening face off between the Detroit Red Wings and the Anaheim Ducks. Mandatory Credit: Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 23, 2016; Detroit, MI, USA; A general view of the Joe Louis Arena during the opening face off between the Detroit Red Wings and the Anaheim Ducks. Mandatory Credit: Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports /
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Ken Holland’s expensive, long-term signings have doomed the Detroit Red Wings for 2016 and beyond. He should be thanked for the past, then fired.

The Detroit Red Wings are 13-12-4 through the first 29 games of the 2016-17 season, good for 12th in the Eastern Conference. That is a far cry from the overwhelming dominance that Red Wing fans have become accustomed to. The Detroit Red Wings organization is now in utter shambles, and Ken Holland is to thank for it. The once venerated general manager has shown all of us that the league has passed him by.

It goes without saying that Red Wings fans should still hold Holland in high regard when all is said and done. After all, under his supervision the Red Wings have won five Western Conference Championships, three Stanley Cups, and three President’s trophies. The Red Wings’ amazing European scouting of the 1990’s and early 2000’s, as well as owner Mike Ilitch’s open pocketbook went a long way in seeing that success as well.

However, a never-ending pocketbook means nothing in today’s NHL. With the salary cap implemented, teams today have to be cautious before handing out long-term contracts. Unfortunately, it seems Ken Holland didn’t get the memo. As a result, the Red Wings have handed out expensive long-term contracts like Oprah hands out cars. If the Red Wings want to recover, it is time for the Red Wings and Ken Holland to go different ways.

This decade’s Detroit Red Wings are a complete mess. The stars of the team are either old, declining, or overpaid, and there is a lack of good, young talent on the roster. While players like Dylan Larkin, Gustav Nyquist, and Andreas Anathasiou show promise, they are not franchise players. The rest of the forward core is either aging (Zetterberg, Nielsen, Vanek), or unskilled (Tatar, Glendening,Miller) . The defensive core looks even worse. With ridiculously expensive long term contracts to underwhelming players such as Danny DeKeyser ($5.2M AAV) and aging veterans like Mike Green ($6.0M AAV), Jonathan Ericsson (4.25M AAV) and Niklas Kronwall ($5.5M AAV), the blue line is poised to suffer for a long time.

Capfriendly.com projects the Red Wings to have a cap hit of $68,396,212 going in to the 2017-18 season. Assuming that the Red Wings are able to offload goaltender Jimmy Howard at the trade deadline, or to the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft, that number becomes $63,104,545. With a projected salary cap of around $75 million next season, the Red Wings could have up to $12 million of cap space to play with next season.

While that seems promising at face value, some of that $12 million will have to be allocated to resigning Andreas Anathasiou and giving franchise goaltender Petr Mrazek  a contact extension. The Red Wings will also still be saddled down with all of the terrible contracts that I have listed above.  With Zetterberg, Nielsen, Green and DeKeyser signed into the 2020’s, expect the Red Wings to be a bottom ten team for the foreseeable future. That is of course, unless some other general manager loses his mind, and bails the Red Wings out of this mess.

Next: Detroit Red Wings 2000-09 All-Decade Team

Red Wings Nation can only hope.

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