The Detroit Red Wings have had quite an eventful month. They hired Steve Yzerman to become the 12th general manager in franchise history, while Ken Holland, who has been the GM for the past 22 years, was promoted to vice president.
It took just over two weeks and one scouting trip for Holland to realize he still had the itch to run a team.
“When I went to the World Under 18’s a week later,’ Holland said on Jamie and Stoney’s morning show on 97.1 the Ticket, “with Steve, Kris Draper and their scouts, obviously the rumors were out there and there were a couple teams out there [in need of a general manager], I started to realized that I enjoyed being a general manager in the National Hockey League and felt that Edmonton would be a great opportunity for myself.”
Fifteen days after Yzerman’s introductory press conference, it was announced that Holland was off to Edmonton. The Oilers offered him a 5-year, $25 million contract to be their general manager.
Holland spent 36 years in Detroit, but was promoted to general manager in 1997. As GM of the Red Wings, Holland won three cups and helped the Wings make the historic 25-year playoff run that ended in 2017.
“Making the playoffs for all those years,” Holland said, “and giving the fans hope that we can be the last team standing. With the salary cap coming in 2005 and with Yzerman near the end, Fedorov gone and Shanahan was near the end, there was a lot of talk of doom and gloom in Detroit. For the next 10 years with the work of our scouts and drafting Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Kronwall, Franzen, Hudler, Filppula and Howard and others we had another 10 year run. We were the last team to miss the playoffs in the salary cap era. We lost a lot of players and still were able to go on a 10 year run. I was proud to work with Mike Babcock for 10 years.”
Holland has a lot to be proud of when he looks back at his tenure, but what was his favorite moment?
“The transition from 05-06 into a salary cap world and we had to go from a $80 million payroll to a $40 million payroll, basically halved it, and we were able to continue to be an elite team.”
In terms of biggest mistake, Jamie and Stoney insist that it was passing on Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov, who led the NHL with 128 points this season, thrice in the 2011 NHL Draft.
“I think Tampa Bay even passed on him,” said Holland, “but you know it speaks to the drafting of 18-year-old kids, it’s a guessing game. What I tried to do at the end here in Detroit was acquire more draft picks. It gives you better odds. That’s why teams that are going through rebuild are able to trade players and acquire draft picks. We can talk about Kucherov and then we can talk about Zetterberg and Datsyuk in the sixth and seventh rounds, so it all evens out.”
Despite having a historic career in Detroit, there are those who still criticize Holland’s decision making, but he was always looking to learn from his mistakes.
“You gather all the information at the time and you make a decision. They ask me about the bad contracts and everything. I was here for 22 years and if you think every decision I make is going to be the right one, you’re dreaming. I look back at the decisions we made internally and say, ‘those ones that didn’t work out, why didn’t they work out and what can we do differently going forward, how can those decision affect the future decisions that I make?’”
Holland never let fans opinion get to him, in fact he rarely ever listened to the feedback, good or bad.
“In order for me to do to the very best job that I can do on a daily basis, I need to be in a bubble and I can’t be influenced by all the noise out there. I talk to my people, we hunker down and gather the information and make decisions. Those people that want to think I did a good job will find a reason to throw bouquets and those people that want to say I was overrated will find reasons too. That’s the beauty of sports.”