Resting on his laurels. Living in the past. Overrated. And, perhaps more damning than any other accusation, lucky.
Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland is somewhat under siege these days. The summer in Hockeytown was at best forgettable, at worst condemnable, and it ended with a four-year contract extension for the man most hold responsible for that. The Wings failed to land any of their free-agent targets (notably a top-four, right-shooting defenceman), despite several offers to players who said no before taking less money elsewhere.
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Instead, Holland brought back veterans Kyle Quincey and Dan Cleary in moves that were widely panned—Quincey received a $500,000-per-year raise despite his play declining, and Cleary had the worst season of his 16-year career in 2013–14, battling a chronic knee issue that limited him to eight points in 52 games and required painkiller injections usually given to sufferers of osteoarthritis.
Meanwhile, the Wings stalled before signing restricted free agent Danny DeKeyser, perhaps the team’s second-best defenceman, and still haven’t locked down the consensus Best Coach In Hockey, Mike Babcock, who is taking a wait-and-see approach in the final year of his deal.
Yes, the Wings clinched an NHL-best 23rd-straight playoff trip on April 10. Since then, though, there hasn’t been much good news. Sure, there are teams that would kill to have the Red Wings’ problems, but that’s not relevant in Motown. What’s relevant is that there is a standard that is not being met.
The Wings are no longer mentioned among the handful of top Stanley Cup contenders. Stars Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and Niklas Kronwall are moving past their primes, and the plethora of young talent the team has managed to stockpile is still at least a season or two away from their best days. There’s an illustrious past and a promising future, but the present is sketchy, and for that Holland is taking heat.
The question being asked through the past two seasons, at first whispered but now more loudly voiced, is whether Holland was ever really the architect of Detroit’s astounding success, or if he has merely been the front man for an incredibly talented band—one that has, over the past several years, broken up behind him while he’s continued singing the same song, oblivious to an increasingly discordant melody.
In 2008, the Red Wings won their fourth Stanley Cup under Holland’s leadership. Immediately afterwards, assistant coach Todd McLellan began the exodus when he departed to take over behind the bench of the San Jose Sharks. Most years since have brought a defection or two. Assistant coach Paul MacLean left to become the head coach in Ottawa. His fellow assistant Brad McCrimmon went to the KHL, then tragically died in the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash.
Holland’s executive adviser and longtime Wings legend Steve Yzerman became the GM in Tampa Bay. Assistant GM Jim Nill did the same in Dallas—and took Joe McDonnell and Steve Leach, the Wings’ head amateur scout and his first lieutenant, with him. Assistant Bill Peters, who replaced MacLean, became the head coach in Carolina this past summer.
LISTEN: Ken Holland talks Babcock, Shanahan on Hockey Central
Holland’s Red Wings are victims of their own success. It’s not uncommon—the NFL and NBA are riddled with coaches and executives who have served time with the Patriots and Spurs, respectively. The legendary GMs and coaches are left to continue the tradition without their strong right hands. Holland has said often that he’s proud when another organization poaches a Wings assistant or scout, that it’s a sign of all they’re doing right in Detroit. And it is—but each time someone leaves, the Wings lose a little bit of what made them special, what has tied them together through more than two decades in the NHL’s upper echelon.
Since their last Cup win, the Wings have gone from 115 points to 112, then three years of 102, 104 and 102, followed by a lockout-adjusted 96 in 2012–13 and, last year, 93 points, barely enough for the Eastern Conference’s final playoff berth. One of the results of that slide is that Detroit is no longer the top-of-list destination it used to be for marquee free agents.
Once the big names are gone, clubs usually look for bargains who can perform above their cost, but here the Wings’ prosperous past still haunts them. Holland’s loyalty to the Red Wings brand means he often eschews the bargain-hunting approach in favour of signing known quantities—veterans like Cleary, Todd Bertuzzi and Mikael Samuelsson—who have worn the winged wheel before and fit into the team’s blueprint. He also often plays those veterans over the team’s younger, more talented prospects.
In other organizations, this commitment to past-their-prime veterans would be nearly unforgivable, but the Wings’ track record makes the moves tougher to criticize. It may leave the team constantly searching for upside, but it’s precisely this approach—loyalty to his people, patience with those he trusts, only veering from the status quo when he sees real benefit or has no real choice—that has gotten Ken Holland to where he is and earned him that four-year extension.
So is Holland just lucky? In a sense, sure. But perhaps he just built a staff so good that all he had to do was manage them, you know, generally.
