By AJ Petronzi
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Holland: When you give up a 1st round pick you’re looking for a guy who you plan to have next year. A 2nd round pick is a rental. I’d give up any first round pick to get a 26 year old NHL defenseman. Quincy has at least eight more productive seasons at the NHL level in his career. There’s no guarantee that a draft pick will ever play in this league. It’s a chance at a proven player over a possible player. You’re not going to find a magical player picking in the 20-30 pick range, so why not get a guy you know will show up every night and could wind up being a top six d-man for ten more seasons?
In Play: Now you’ve got eight defensemen, does today’s move free up some movement for one of the guys struggling to make the lineup?
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In Play! Magazine caught up with Ken Holland, the Red Wings
General Manager, in the bowels of the United Center in Chicago and Holland was
kind enough to answer some questions regarding the Kyle Quincy trade for the
magazine.
In Play: What was the motivation behind the move today to
pick up Quincy in this three-way deal?
Holland: Kyle is a good NHL defenseman. He’ll add some depth
to the blue line and help with a deep run into the playoffs. In retrospect, we
shouldn’t have let him go a few years ago, but we had an abundance of D-men and
we felt he’d be better off getting developed somewhere in the NHL than in Grand
Rapids. The truth is that this deal worked for Colorado and it worked for Steve
[Yzerman] (the General Manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning) to have this 1st
round pick.
In Play: Is there somewhat of a danger in looking back at
the past rather than looking forward by acquiring a former player and giving up
a first round pick?
Holland: It worked well for us when we reacquired [Igor]
Larionov from Florida in the 90’s. We also brought back [Chris] Osgood and [Dominic]
Hasek. Sometime’s there’s a benefit to bringing a guy back in who knows the
system and might have something new to offer to the table.
In Play: Do you see it as a problem giving up a 1st
round pick for what could be a rental?
Holland: When you give up a 1st round pick you’re looking for a guy who you plan to have next year. A 2nd round pick is a rental. I’d give up any first round pick to get a 26 year old NHL defenseman. Quincy has at least eight more productive seasons at the NHL level in his career. There’s no guarantee that a draft pick will ever play in this league. It’s a chance at a proven player over a possible player. You’re not going to find a magical player picking in the 20-30 pick range, so why not get a guy you know will show up every night and could wind up being a top six d-man for ten more seasons?
In Play: Now you’ve got eight defensemen, does today’s move free up some movement for one of the guys struggling to make the lineup?
Holland: This is the NHL and you can’t have too many
defensemen. In 2005 we set to rebuilding our core and this is now the fruition
of that. I feel we’re done when it comes to our D. We’re set in goal. Whether
we’ll make a move on the forward aspect remains to be seen with what become available.
Obviously having [Pavel] Datsyuk out of a couple weeks will be a test to see
how our forward lines react.
In Play: Was this deal a preemptive move in case things fall
through with [Brad] Stuart over the summer?
Holland: Yes. We hope everything works out on that front and
we get Stuart resigned, but there’s nothing wrong with having too many D-men.
We’ve got eight tested NHL quality defensemen and at least one NHL ready
defenseman down in Grand Rapids. I hope this is a problem we can continue to have
and I hope to have Stuart and Nicklas Lidstrom come the fall.
