Sounds like it's time for Kenny to 'kick the tires' and make some trades to improve chemistry. Alas..........trades are hard.

Reading through comments in various places about the Wings, you can tell people hate to critique Yzerman and Lalonde.

But why? The new coach, the infusion if talent. Yet I still see that this is "Kenny's mess" and the Wings are a "rock bottom team."

My fellow KK members seem to be kicking their own tires on old tropes against Kenny instead of facing the realities in our back yard.

Shoot, these guys made it to the western finals last summer. 

Perhaps its silly to jump in and re-litigate this tired argument. But, to me, a very very thin, limited point most of us could probably agree with. SY is a legend for good reason (and not just a a player: helped build repeat winners with Team Canada; helped build repeat winners in Tampa; has by all accounts done a very solid job beginning to work the Wings out of the smoking crater Holland did leave them in - and with no lottery luck). That narrow point is that, because he was the ultimate leader and winner as a player and captain in Detroit, and because those other team building situations did include some advantages, theres some possibility fans could cut him too much slack, could extend him too much good will. Fans could judge him by a different standard than Holland. Ok, I guess that could be possible. But when does an incoming GM whose won elsewhere and who is a returning favorite son not going to be embraced by the fanbase? Unless an incoming GM has no track record of accomplishment and then also trips and falls on his face repeatedly in his first few decisions on the job, theres going to be a honeymoon phase. But the, yes, very very tired implication is that Holland and Yzerman are being judged by totally different standards and fans are somehow blinded to Yzermans supposed failures and limitations - failures and limitations which make every fan whose ever criticized Holland a fanboy hypocrite for not criticizing Yzerman with equal intensity. 

Ok. Does the record of the respective GMs, former and current, given the contexts in which they were working, bear this out? Not even close! Apparently Yzerman was supposed to have already guided the Wings to repeat deep playoff runs by now. Does anyone claiming that Yzerman should get as much grief as Holland did in his last seasons in Detroit not remember what the roster looked like just a couple seasons ago? When a historically bad team was ludicrously left to pick fourth? Or a little further back, a team with a defense made up of a broken down Ericsson, Daley, Green (when healthy) and supplemented by soon to be stars, like Madison Bowey? It was flaming wreckage. What was SY supposed to do - trade higher draft picks for veteran help? Or grossly overpay aging free agents in salary, term, with NMCs sprinkled on top? Oh, wait, thats exactly what Holland kept doing, far far far too long and too late. Even if your mandate from ownership is to be competitive, there are more and less competent ways of doing that, including having some eye toward not saddling future teams with terrible contracts and a paucity of higher picks. Speaking of which the drafting wasnt very good either. 1st round picks are GM picks and a bad team cant afford to miss on most of those. How was the scouting under Hollands mgmt - both pro and amateur? Ghastly, and mediocre at best. 

Trades are hard? Its an objective fact that no GM attempted or at least was able to complete fewer trades than Holland over his last several years in Detroit. When he was creative which was extraordinarily rare, he created bigger messes like drafting Cholowski instead of Chychrun in order to move one year of the Magic Mans contract, so he could cluelessly chase Stamkos who was never faintly interested (and was soon signed by SY to a team-friendly deal), and then throw a huge deal at an already aging and declining forty point player in Frans Nielsen. No GM is all good or all bad. Whoever saw something in Hronek got a very useful player when deployed right. Listening to Draper on Bertuzzi was smart. Not everything SY has tried has panned out. But look at his first round picks so far. Even with relative sophomore slumps theres no denying how good Seider and Raymond are and can be. Those players werent rushed or held back and they have very bright future. Time will tell with Edvinsson and Kaspar. But its not like SY was gifted with top-three picks. Overall the results from improved pro scouting and finding promising prospects in rounds 2-5 are becoming evident. And when has SY ever had trouble making trade - and winning far more than losing? I see more calculated risks overall in whom he signs and the kind of deals he signs them to. I see signings appropriate to the stage of the rebuild. I see a much greater willingness to cut his losses early if a move or player hes inherited isnt working out. Look, the fun part and the harder part is just beginning. No one here is a fairweather fan to say the least. The fun is in the longterm loyalty and enjoying seeing progress, then competitiveness, then playoff runs. But for a team that never really tanked on purpose but simply had to bottom out given how bad it was and a team that never got lottery luck, theres been pretty steady if gradual improvement.

Who on the current roster or in the system is SY supposed to trade? Do we really think hes not going to make some moves when an opening emerges? This is a GM who leveraged a terrible year from Nick Leddy into recouping the pick he traded and adding two solid roster players. 

Im not going to get into Hollands career in Edmonton in depth. Theres been some good and some bad and the main issue is they and he dont have a ton of time to take advantage of their two superstars time there. Its win now and hes somewhat painted himself into a corner trying to find effective veteran players to help them win. Again, some good moves and some bad. But when some cap room opened up did he use it cost-effectively? The Campbell signing is classic Holland. Theyre so tight to the cap they have to play rookies simply because the salaries fit. 

Anyway, if fans here are going too easy on SY, weve got plenty of company seemingly from most players and executives around the league and journalists who cover the league most closely. Canadian media can get antsy. But its Hollands decisions that are being questioned, not Yzermans. If the Wings go nowhere and get stuck in mediocrity or have to rebuild again, we can revisit this. Likewise if Holland finds a way to mold a winner before his contract is up.