导出博客文章DETROIT -- When?Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland sat down this past offseason to plan out his approach, he had one simple goal:He wanted to win.
Cheap Toronto Blue Jays Jerseys .I know, weird.His team has made the playoffs for 25 consecutive seasons, a streak unheard of in hockey these days. In all of sports, really. Holland wants a 26th. He just wasnt willing to concede the Eastern Conference to the Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals or?Pittsburgh Penguins?-- or willing to make way for young teams making strides in the East like the?Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres.So when Pavel Datsyuk left after 14 seasons as a Wing, Holland replaced him with?Frans Nielsen. When he saw a weakness in his teams power play, Holland addressed it by adding Thomas Vanek. The GM thought his dressing room needed more personality and spark. Enter Steve Ott, who has both oozing from his pores. Constantly.A rebuild? No thanks. Thats not something Holland is interested in undertaking.There are no guarantees with rebuilds, Holland said after the Red Wings practiced on Wednesday. There are no guarantees youre going to come out the other side and youre going to be elite.Rarely do playoff teams initiate their own rebuild. Rebuilds are the result of a team petering out for some reason, a franchise that has reached the end of the line. Not a team with a rich history of success that is the result of decades instilling a culture of winning and playing the right way into every player who enters the organization.In Detroit, its a culture of winning that has been handed down from Steve Yzerman to Nicklas Lidstrom to Henrik Zetterberg and now to?Dylan Larkin, Petr Mrazek and Andreas Athanasiou.You can excuse Holland and the Red Wings if theyre not overly eager to rip out that fabric of success in exchange for the opportunity to draft somewhere closer to the top.But Ill admit that Ive wondered if a few down years might do the Red Wings some good. Ive suggested as much. Ive wondered what this organization could do if it added a couple of top-10 picks to its talented young core. I certainly understood why some fans were puzzled the past couple of years that Detroit brought in guys such as?Mike Green, Vanek and Ott instead of young players who might be able to do the same thing much more cheaply, gain experience, lose a few more games and help improve the draft odds.Holland has done the analysis -- and decided that the cost and risk of going down that path far outweighed a possible reward.Theres now a lottery. The first four picks are lottery picks. You can be the worst team in the league and get the fifth pick in the draft, Holland said. Each year, we go forward, it becomes more and more a parity league. Why is that? Players come out of the entry level and they go from entry-level contracts to $5-$6 million.This isnt the same system that that Penguins and Blackhawks had to navigate on the way to landing elite players -- and neither are the contract structures.Chicago, for example, won a Stanley Cup with?Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews?still playing on their entry-level deals. Then they got matching contracts for five years and $6.3 million. Then came the monster deals worth $10.5 million per season. To land those players, Chicago fans had to endure a decade in which the Blackhawks made the playoffs just once. Teams dont have to do that anymore.Besides the changes to the draft lottery, young players are getting bigger contracts earlier, which lends itself to more parity. The?Edmonton Oilers, you can be sure, are planning on?Connor McDavids next contract looking much more like Kanes and Toews current ones than their second deals. And thats if youre lucky enough to land McDavid during your rebuild in the first place. Only one team every decade gets to do that.The Red Wings have considered all that as they march forward. Their solution is to keep doing what theyve always done: just keep winning. Draft well from the position in which youre placed and make the kids earn the playing time.Detroit signed Green last year, and he has seven points in eight games this season. Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said Greens teammates are learning how to play to his strengths more, to take advantage of his skating.Green said it took him half a season to get comfortable on a new team. Now, here he is.Weve changed up a few things, but mostly its a confidence thing, Green said. We are detailed in our assignments, and it has shown this season.Both Holland and Blashill phoned Vanek when he was a free agent and made their pitch to get him to Detroit. They wanted him playing in front of the net. They loved the idea of another right-handed shot. They realize hes not a guy who needs 18 minutes per game to put up points. Right now, hes averaging 13:11, the lowest of his career. He has eight points in seven games. Its been a great fit.Am I as fast as Larkin or McDavid? Not even close, Vanek said. I never was and never will be. But I can read the game, I have hockey IQ -- which, to me, is something that is leaving the game a little.The Red Wings have started 6-2-0, in large part because of veterans Vanek and Green. Its important to note that while their even-strength save percentage and shooting percentage are near the top of the league, that wont continue. Detroit controls only 45.6 percent of its even-strength shot attempts, a rate that has to improve for it to keep winning. So, despite the early success, there are red flags for the Red Wings.But on Tuesday, Larkin joined the party with a two-goal game against the?Carolina Hurricanes.?They were his first goals of the season. Athanasiou scored for the second consecutive game, showing what it can look like when all generations are contributing for the Red Wings.Detroit has opted not to go all-in on the youth movement, and if theres a franchise that has earned the benefit of the doubt, its this one.The media wants a young game, they want the speed, they want the addiction, Ott said, before being interrupted momentarily.Dont blame it all on us, Steve.No, I think its true, he continued. Who is the model that built completely young and won everything? It hasnt happened. Why has that not happened? You tell me.Because successful teams need a mix of youth and experience. Its early, but the Red Wings believe they have the right mix. Theyre winning with veterans and young guns, they have a kid in forward?Anthony Mantha, who is banging on the door with six goals in five AHL games. They dont think Tyler Bertuzzi is too far behind him. Eventually Evgeny Svechnikov will be there, too.Theres a plan in place to keep the success going. No, the Red Wings are not interested in tearing it down. Just winning, as theyve done for two and a half decades. Perhaps, in Detroit, theyve earned the right to keep trying.
Cheap Detroit Tigers Jerseys . You can watch the game live on TSN at 7:30pm et/4:30pm pt. The Flyers had won seven of eight before dropping their last two outings on consecutive days over the weekend. Philadelphia was handed a 6-3 loss by the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday afternoon before dropping a 4-1 decision to the Rangers the following night in New York City.
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http://www.cheapmlbjerseysoutlet.com/ . The giant slalom world champion slipped during her first run in the morning, landing on her back and then twisting forward before getting her leg caught in the protective material on the side of the slope. Iceland is showing that its run to the European Championship quarterfinals was no fluke.The small nation keeps surprising and Turkey was the latest victim at the Laugardalsvollur stadium in Reykjavik, beaten 2-0 thanks to two goals shortly before halftime Sunday in qualifying for the 2018 World Cup.The first was an own-goal from center back Omer Toprak before Iceland forward Alfred Finnbogason scored with a volley 90 seconds later, hitting the back of the net for his third international game in succession.Iceland went out to host France in the Euro 2016 quarterfinals. It reached the playoffs in 2014 World Cup qualification, losing to Croatia, which may prove its toughest opponent in the current qualifying campaign, too.Coach Fatih Terims Turkey, meanwhile, now has just one win from its last seven games, continuing a miserable year which also included a group stage exit at the Euros.Croatia and Iceland each have seven points but Croatia leads Group I on goal differential after its 1-0 win in Finland. Ukraine is two points back after a 3-0 victory over Kosovo, Turkey is next with two points while Finland is level with Kosovo at the bottom of the group on one point.Only the nine group winners in Europe qualify directly for the tournament in Russia. The best eight group runner-ups advance to a playoff.---GROUP DWales and its star forward Gareth Bale hit a first major bump on the road to the World Cup.Perhaps unsurprisingly for the Welsh, it was Georgia dealing the blow.The Georgians havent lost to Wales in four meetings now after they recovered from conceding a 10th-minute goal to Bale to draw 1-1 against the Euro 2016 semifinalists. The first three matches between the countries all ended as wins for Georgia.Georgia attacked in waves in the second half and Tornike Okriashvili equalized with a header in the 57th.Serbia leads the group on goal differential ahead of Ireland after a 3-2 win over Austria. Wales is two points back and Austria trails by three. Georgia picked up its first point, while Moldova is bottom in thee group.
Cheap MLB Jerseys China. Dusan Tadic scored a 74th-minute winner for Serbia in Belgrade.Aleksandar Mitrovic twice gave Serbia the lead only for Marcel Sabitzer and Marc Janko to score equalizers for Austria, which had started the round on four points like Serbia.In Moldova, James McClean scored two goals in the final 21 minutes to help unbeaten Ireland earn a 3-1 win.Shane Longs second-minute goal for Ireland was canceled out by Igor Bugaev in first-half injury time. McClean scored in the 69th and 76th minutes.---GROUP GItaly kept Spain from opening a significant advantage atop the group by scoring two late goals and salvaging a 3-2 win at Macedonia.Spain got off to a slow start at Albania but eased to a 2-0 victory behind second-half goals by Diego Costa and Manuel Nolito Agudo.Italy needed an injury-time goal by Ciro Immobile to secure the hard-fought win that allowed it to join Spain atop the group with seven points.Albania stayed on six points along with Israel, which beat Liechtenstein 2-1. Macedonia and Liechtenstein remain without a point after three matches.---GROUP ICroatia stayed atop the group with a 1-0 win at Finland.Mario Mandzukic hasnt had much luck in front of goal for Juventus this season, but he cant stop scoring for his country.Fresh off a hat trick against Kosovo, the Croatia star scored the only goal of the game in Finland with a simple finish from point-blank range.Meanwhile, its been a tough life on the road for new FIFA member Kosovo.The loss to Ukraine in a game staged in Poland meant the Kosovans have conceded nine goals this week at neutral venues.Fresh off a 6-0 home loss to Croatia which was actually played in Albania because Kosovo still doesnt have a certified stadium, Kosovo had to face Ukraine in Poland because the Ukrainian government doesnt recognize the tiny Balkan nations independence.Artem Kravets, Andriy Yarmolenko and Ruslan Rotan scored for Ukraine.
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