Required for Improvement - -

Holland’s coatails were powered by unlimited pizza $$$. On the cap playing field he fell asleep at the wheel ten years ago. He’s got a few nice young players now but he’s also his own worst enemy (really, who isn’t) in overpaying yeoman and overating his team’s ability. He lost his core of 19, 91, 14, and 5 without being able to rebuild in a timely manner and put the org in a slow tailspin. The Grand Rapids experiment was a decent plan but it yielded no blue chippers for the core, just supporting actors. So he had to dive a little deeper to get some better draft picks. 19 did a great job building a contender in TB. It’s not like the DRWs have that core yet needed to contend first and then eventually win. But I don’t expect any more sleeping at the wheel or overpaid yeomen. There’s a new old sheriff in town and he is ready willing, and able to re-energize this franchise back to contention. I do not think there was a better move to be made!

The question I ask myself when seeking what SY has won is I'd take the team he build up in Tampa as and put Red Wing jerseys on them. Or ask yourself who has the better chance of winning the Stanley Cup in the next 3-5 seasons or so? It aint us boys.

In terms of winning this past season our Detroit Red Wings got sore necks looking up at TB at #1 from the basement of the league where we ended at #28 of 31 teams. We really should have been worse but we decided to play good hockey with piecemeal players going 7-3 in our last 10 which potentially cost us an elite level draft pick.

I love skill of the game so I watch Tampa a bit more than I should care only because we sucked. Tough words hurt but that was the reality, we could only suck 10 points less to knock Ottawa to 30th. We have some solid pieces but yeah, we're rebuilding. The Lightning team reminded me a lot of the Golden Era Detroit teams who looked like the Harlem Globetrotters thru the 82 game season. Did they win anything? Nope, only went 62-16-4 for 128 points tying league record of 62 wins, won the presidents trophy and bounced in 4 games in round one. Been there and done that. I can't see how anyone could honestly think today's Kenny Holland Detroit Red Wings are equal to Steve Yzermans Tampa Bay Lightning because of ZERO cups. Yes the name of the game is Cups but Tampa has way better chances of winning a cup the next couple of seasons that we do.