Apparently this was a new thing in the last contract...just the league saving face when the players are forced to open the CBA.
Went to pick up my food from the local wing place and a car in the parking lot had a Sabres sticker on it. Found the owner (place was close to empty at 5) and bought them a beer for being so brave and putting up with so much
I think Tuukka gets the most unwarranted hate for any Boston athlete but Krejci is a close second. It’s baffling
So are Vanek, Marleau, etc who can give you good value in the middle six. It feels like honestly last year when Thomas Vanek was maybe the most sought after free agent
If Holland were still around, Vanek would have been given another contract (I’m glad this isn’t a reality)
To say he did a good job the last x number of years of his career in Detroit would be a lie. He handed out some brutal contracts and traded numerous valuable picks for aging vets or mediocre players (a first round pick for Kyle Quincey) desperately trying to keep the streak alive. It’s a very common opinion amongst Wings fans that he needed to be replaced.
The funny/sad thing is that Vanek would be a better winger for McDavid than anyone else they've tried there (sans Draisaitl).
Probably true. If there’s one thing I’ll always give Vanek credit for, it’s his ridiculous vision and ability to always find the open man.
Holland’s hands were kind of tied for a number of those years trying to compete for a playoff spot. I agree he made bad deals during that timeframe, but once the team missed the playoffs and it was time they admitted to a rebuild, Holland did a good job making rebuild trades. You look at his return for Brendan Smith, a literal dumpster fire of a defenseman. His return for Tatar has been mentioned numerous times by media people since the deal happened as a huge return for a mid-6 winger, and then this past year turning Jensen from a #7 dman into upper round draft picks, and then grabbing a return for Nyquist. I think he was in the process of doing a pretty decent job rebuilding Detroit’s roster. He also did a phenomenal job with all of his recent RFA deals. I’m not excusing him for the mistakes he made leading up to the rebuild, including disgusting contracts to Abdelkader, Helm, and Nielsen. I’m simply mentioning that he had been doing a pretty solid job over the last couple of years to put Detroit in a better position moving forward. If he had been replaced the year the team missed the playoffs with a different GM, people would say that specific GM was doing a pretty solid job right now, imo.
No one said he was good, just that opinion of him was a little bit much. I agree with everything said above. He left Stevie Y with a very good situation.
Vanek isn't with a team yet because age finally caught up with him, he got a lot slower than he once was. He could definitely help a playoff team in a bottom pairing but it seems like he's trying to get as much as he can right now. I'd love to see him on the pens, leafs, sharks, etc.
I would like to see Don sign him for cheap. There are two huge openings at 2RW/3RW, and he could be a big addition to the second PP unit.