Ken Holland’s Trade Deadline Report Card

For the first time in Ken Holland’s tenure as Red Wings’ GM,
he was a seller at the deadline. This is brand new to him so I’m going to break
down how he did trade by trade. Let’s take him to school and issue his report
card.

We could debate for days about how the Wings handled Tomas
Jurco. I view him as wasted potential but the reality is that he simply didn’t
produce in the NHL. There could definitely be outlying reasons for that but
again, that’s a debate for another day. In the end he played 16 games for the
Wings this year and registered 0 points. A 3rd round pick for him at
this point is a great return.

Brendan Smith was supposed to be the mobile, puck moving,
offensive defenseman of the future for Detroit when they drafted him in the 1st
round of the 2007 draft. While he’s been a solid player for the Wings, his
offense never really emerged. He’s a pending UFA so he was likely to leave at
the end of the season anyway. There were talks of an extension shortly before
the deadline, but that would have been a mistake. Getting a 2nd and  a 3rd for Smith was great. Every
team could use more depth on defense and Holland exploited that.

Alright, let me speak the words I never thought I’d speak: I
like Steve Ott and I’m sad to see him go. He came to Detroit with an amazing
attitude and did everything the Wings asked of him, he wanted to be a Red Wing
and made that point clear. That being said, his role is pretty much useless in
today’s NHL and he’s not good at hockey. Getting anything in return for him,
especially considering he’s a pending UFA, is terrific.

Grade: A

To be specific, it’s a conditional 3rd round pick. The condition is that if Florida makes the playoffs, Detroit gets Arizona’s 3rd
round pick instead of Florida’s, bumping them up 10-15 spots in the draft. This was
easily the most contentious trade Holland made and there’s a lot of ways to
break it down so let’s try to be as even about this as possible. Thomas Vanek
was putting up terrific offensive numbers playing a very sheltered role. He
played 3rd line minutes against weaker matchups and got heavy PP
time so it’s not to say he wasn’t good but there’s definite reason to see why
he’d be overvalued among the general populous. He’s a terrible defender and has
basically no foot speed. The point I’m making here is that the rumours of him
fetching a 1st, a 2nd and a prospect were likely way
overblown.

However, there were few sellers this deadline and the trades
of Patrick Eaves, Brian Boyle and Martin Hanzal set a very high market.
Comparing these three to Vanek is tough since they’re very different players.
Vanek was the cream of this crop offensively but the weakest of this crop in
every other facet of the game. Based on the returns Dallas, Tampa and Arizona
got for these guys, it was very easy to understand why everyone thought Detroit
might get a 1st+ for Vanek. They didn’t, they didn’t even come
close. This could be the result of a very soft market for Vanek, this could be
the result of Holland misreading the market and pulling the trigger a couple
hours too early. We’ll never know for sure. In the end it was too small a
return.

Some will say that adding McIlrath sweetens the deal. To me, he’s a non-factor in this trade. He’s a former 1st round pick (10th
overall in 2010) of the New York Rangers. The Rangers traded him to Florida for
a song, Florida sent him through waivers this season and nobody claimed him. 29
teams at the time felt he wasn’t worth picking up for nothing so I’ll view him as
being added to this trade for nothing.

At the end of the day, no matter the circumstance, Holland
missed big on this one.

Ken Holland missed big on his biggest trade piece but fared
very well on his other three trades so overall it was a good, not great,
deadline for the Wings. In terms of acquiring assets, the Wings added 5 picks in
the next two drafts bringing their total to 11 picks in 2017 and 9 in 2018. That’s exactly what you want to do when starting a rebuild.

The other upside is that moving Jurco, Ott, Smith and Vanek
clears up a lot of the roster clutter and should give players like Ryan Sproul
and Mitch Callahan a chance to prove their worth regularly. I’m sure we will see some
spot call ups for other Griffins as well so this a great opportunity for the
Wings brass to gauge what they have in the system.