Wings Nation Mailbag: What in tarnation is Ken Holland doing?

It’s been a crazy week in Motown and the hockey world that surrounds it. In what was supposed to be a cool, calm week where the Wings probably lose an okay mid-20’s defenceman, Ken Holland comes around and fudges everything up. In what will go down as one of his worst moves as GM (assuming there’s not some crazy voodoo to keep him), Holland decided Petr Mrazek was not worthy of protecting in the expansion draft despite being younger, cheaper, on a shorter contract and with more to offer the future of the franchise.

There really hasn’t been a story quite like this one in a while. Holland’s had more than his fair share of bad moves, but usually it’s signing a player for too long or trading him for a bad return or something like that. Likely giving one of the team’s best assets away for free? That’s a new kind of, well, something.

Understandably, our readers were jazzed up on this topic in our first ever mailbag.

Carolina doesn’t really make sense, as it appears they’ve got the idea of giving Scott Darling the starting role. Philadelphia could be interested as could Buffalo as neither team has long-term solidity in their starting position (though Buffalo’s situation is clearer than Philly) and both teams have GMs who may be looking to make a splash.

That being said, I think Mrazek plays through this season for Vegas, as he’s young enough to keep as their starter option if they want by the time the team becomes competitive.

This is the Detroit Red Wings we’re talking about. Blashill will likely get a long leash, because he performed pretty poorly in each of his first two seasons and neither time seemed to shake management at all. Even if the Wings finish in the bottom 5 or so again, it’s easy enough for Blash and Holland to come up with an excuse about why it was the fault of injuries or spiritual powers or some other reason than their own incompetence. So anyway, he’ll probably last at least the season.

“Can Holland” is a good pun that I’m stealing. I think he’s already tainted his legacy, but his playoff streak has hidden most of the damage until about now. But, a decade or so after he’s gone, we’ll probably mostly only remember the good years. Mostly.

Brad with the hard hitting questions.

Could Nick do a better job than Ken Holland and most GMs? Absolutely. But he’s not quitting his day job selling rum, so no, Brad, he cannot.

I wrote about this a few weeks ago, comparing Ken Holland to Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, who’s been in charge of the Premier League club since 1996 and recently signed a two-year extension in the team’s worst league finish since the 1990s. I really do think Holland stays until he wants out. He’s not getting cut in the middle of the season.

I’ll give Blashill a few different windows. Blashill could get canned by November/December, if the team gets like three regulation wins over the first 25 games.

His next window is probably February, if the team was in a “playoff hunt” (i.e. was like eight points out of the last wild card spot) in mid-January and goes on a bad losing streak.

April, after the season. The Wings season ends in April now, guys.

I’ll give him the same three windows for the following season, and then present another one:

Never, or when he wants out. The ol’ Mike Babcock approach.

Easily Bikini Bottom, which makes more sense than “Spongebob”. Robbie Rotten, though unsuccessful most of the time, is a world-class troll who can wreak havoc anywhere. Squidward is a dude who gets angry over his neighbour being loud, and would not fit in well with the dynamic of Lazytown, though maybe he likes SportsCandy.

Ha! No they are not, although b’Rock does have a cousin named Nick. I don’t know why I’m allowed to write on this site either, when we could just fill it with cooomtent. He does do great work on Blue Jay’s Nation, after all.

Because Ken Holland wants the other teams in the Atlantic Division to do well? Secret Vegas fan? Or he’s just bad at his job. Probably the third one.

I’m not sure what you should do, but you’ll probably get promoted to the Red Wings front office.

No. There’s no hyperbole here. Cup-winning teams are usually full of good, mid-20s talent. The Wings are full of old dudes, average young players and don’t have a fantastic prospect pool coming up. Plus like half their team is signed for the next four to seventy-four years.

Would it be that crazy to ask if the team will make the playoffs with Ken Holland again?