The depth is better," Larkin said. "It's exciting. I really believe that last year, a game like that, we would have been a lot closer but our veteran leadership guys that have been in big situations throughout their careers, really stepped up vocally. On the bench, they really were hammering us to play the right way the last 20 minutes.
Below, cattch the extended game highlights from last night
1 and 2 year deals with cast-offs from other teams wasn't depth enough? Imagine that!
Had less to do with that and more to do with cleaning up the roster and removing players who were no longer useful and bad contracts.
Something Holland never would have done. He loved paying people who were past their prime to ride off into the sunset instead of learning how to have tough conversations with people.
Holland is a great GM when he can spend w/e he needs to and the players are already there for him. Once much of the core staff left to other teams, you could see Holland was nothing without his supporting cast.
I would mostly agree, however the last Red Wings Cup came when they had the #16 payroll under Holland. They still had a small HOF core with character guys like Cleary, and the best GAA in the NHL.
mcCarty, Draper, maltby, Holmstrom, Lidstrom.
from Bob Duff of Detroit Hockey Now,
In the NHL, there are occasional generational players, but the description of Olli Maatta would be that he is a transformational player.
These days, the Detroit Red Wings defenseman is known for his stops. Early in his career, the view of Maatta was that he was a defender who could be starting something.
When he was a first-round selection of the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2012 NHL entry draft (22nd overall), Olli Maatta was thought of as someone who could run a power play. And early on, he did that. The 2013-14 NHL season saw Maatta potting nine goals and producing 29 points. He scored six goals in 2015-16 and seven in 2017-18.
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