jesterx7769 wrote:As I said the season has been over, no one expected stanely cup. Defense is obviously a huge problem but they are going to have big cap space and have made it clear they aren't going to do any moves during the season, even though I would have liked to see them get Smid instead of Flames. This year they are just evaluating young talent with guys like Tatar stepping up, I would considered battling for the 8th seed on a throw away year a success.
The young forwards have been awesome. Tatar, Jurco, Nyquist, and even a guy like Sheahan stepping up. Andersson has been fine too, though I'm not blown away by him. When you consider the OTHER forwards DET has in the system yet (Jarnkrok, Pulkkinen, Ferraro, etc) , they're pretty loaded, some of those guys will hit and hit big. Ferraro is out of waiver exemption next season, so the logjam in DET could get even worse. Don't get me wrong with my complaining, because the young forwards have been everything they were advertised as. Tatar in particular is ridiculous and probably doesn't get enough buzz league-wide. He completely can take over a game.
The defense is a wreck though. I only consider Kronwall, Ericsson, and DeKeyser to be legit NHL d-men right now. Lashoff still should be immune to criticism as he's had a lot asked of him before he was ready, that he's gottne NHL time at all as an undrafted FA is a huge bonus. Kronwall takes a lot of flak but, my God they ask SO MUCH of him. They're asking him to be the A #1 d-man with Ericsson (who is really a 2nd pairing guy)... he needs to jump up and provide offense while also STILL being more of a stay-at-home d-man, and it's a combination where he can't really succeed. I shudder to think of how bad things would be if the Wings hadn't landed DeKeyser, they'd easily be down in the basement with EDM, BUF, etc. No joke.
Guys like Almqvist, Oullett are in the system too as promising d-men but... I don't see any of them developing into top pairing guys either. DET has a bunch of already 2nd/3rd pairing guys, and prospects who project to 2nd or 3rd pairing. And I doubt either of them will be ready for NHL next year. Almqvist might as a longshot become a Rafalski-type but it'll be years down the road.
There will be no reasonable d-men available as FA's this summer it looks like, not that would actually address their need(s). They desperately need a shut-down 1st pairing guy to free Kronwall up a bit more there, and as of right now none of the guys who will be available are 1st pairing guys. Just like there were none this last offseason. As we discussed, there's really a serious lack of legit top pairing d-men leaguewide and DET got caught on the short end of the stick when Stuart asked to be traded back to California to be with his stepkids. He was supposed to still be here with Kronwall on the top pairing probably.
The problem with the "evaluation" year is that it is what shortened LAST year was too when DET nearly missed the playoffs. So wasting another 82 games on another "evaluation year".... how many evaluation seasons do you need? I get the feeling Holland is simply riding out a year or two before he dumps the team onto someone else and lets them deal with it. He doesn't seem to want to change or do ANYTHING.
