By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@Gmail.com
July 11, 2014
Before you can fully understand the total abomination that occurred yesterday with the Red Wings offering another beaten down and decrepit forward a one-year deal – which was the contractual equivalent of a pity fuck — you need to know the entire backstory of the Dan Cleary Saga.
And by telling this story, I might burn some sources. The people who relayed this might never divulge any inside information to me or even talk to me again. And guess what? I don’t give a fuck; I am so aggravated with my favorite hockey team that I am having chest pains while I try to bang my fingers on this keyboard in an effort to explain my angst over the Wings’ current offseason.
Here is the story that Ken Holland, Mike Babcock and the beat writers who cover this franchise want you to believe: Dan Cleary had verbally accepted a three-year deal worth $8.25 million with Philadelphia last summer only to have second thoughts about leaving Detroit. Instead of taking that deal with the Flyers, Cleary ended up staying with the Wings for one year at $1.75 million. And while that part of the tale might be true**, there is WAY more to Cleary’s return than just those simple facts.
(** — I say “might” because there are rumors that Philadelphia never really offered Cleary that deal. This is going to be an incredibly long ard so I don’t want to waste much time on the internal machinations of the Flyers.)
What REALLY occurred last summer makes Cleary’s 2014-15 contract even more distasteful. You see, Holland didn’t want Cleary back. He was done with the Newfie and was more than happy to watch the Flyers sign him for that ridiculous sum.
Yep, even a guy who thought it was brilliant to give nearly six million dollars over three years to Jordin Tootoo had reservations about a long-term contract for Cleary.
But Babcock didn’t want his right-wing security blanket to exit stage right. Mike Babcock loves him some Dan Cleary due to all of his intangibles and his locker room presence.
So Babcock petitioned his supervisor to bring Cleary back. At first, this nudging by the Wings head coach didn’t work. Holland wasn’t about to spend anywhere near that kind of cash on Cleary and he was anxious to get Gustav Nyquist and Tomas Tatar into the forward mix on his aging squad. At that point, Coach Canada upped the ante by enlisting his players to convince Holland that Cleary’s return was vital to the team’s success, both on the ice and off.
Babcock even requested that two players who aren’t enamored with him (Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk) do his dirty work. Even though that pair has had issues with their coach in the past, they did him this solid. My sources have also told me that an inebriated Jimmy Howard also went to bat for Cleary (errr, Babcock) in a drunken call to Holland in which in he pleaded for Cleary’s return.
Holland finally budged and agreed to offer Cleary a one-year deal for the $1.75 million thinking there was NO WAY IN HELL that the beat-up winger would accept it. Not only was the deal for $1 million less in the first year than Cleary could get in Philly, the term was two years shorter!!!!! Holland figured nobody in their right mind would accept a deal for less cash and less job security.
He was wrong. Cleary called the bluff, ended up signing the contract with Detroit and somehow also elicited a promise that the Wings would honor his loyalty by taking care of him this offseason. This was a total Mike Babcock production from day one with Ken Holland basically kicking and screaming the whole way through. There are salary cap ramifications as to why Cleary didn’t just get a two-year deal last summer; that other shoe just dropped yesterday when we found out the terms to Cleary’s new contract.
Not only did Cleary get a $1.5 million deal this season, it wasn’t even a two-way contract, which would have provided an easy out to send him up I-96 to Grand Rapids after he predictably sucked during the upcoming exhibition season. The same two-way deals that other ex-Wings have received when they got up there in years (Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby). Not only that, this ridiculous contract includes a NO-TRADE CLAUSE PLUS a $1 million bonus if Cleary plays TEN GAMES with the Wings. Of course, the NTC is basically superfluous since the contract became immovable the minute the ink dried.
So now you know the rest of the story and one can only guess how much of this front office drama is playing out because Babcock has refused to sign a contract extension in Detroit, thereby setting himself up for free-agency next summer.
As if this offseason hadn’t ALREADY been a total disaster, this Cleary situation has not only amplified Holland’s ineptitude but has now caused a forward logjam similar to the one that resulted in Gustav Nyquist’s banishment to the Griffins last season until around Thanksgiving. Tomas Jurco is most likely the 2014-15 odd-man out because of this moronic show of “loyalty.”
And can we talk about loyalty for a minute? The following is a quote from Holland yesterday that appeared in Helene St. James’ article in the Freep:
My program has been one of loyalty, and there’s good things and bad things that go with that. Way more good, in my opinion
The problem with this loyalty is that it is exclusive to ONE PERSON — Dan Cleary!!!! Where is the loyalty to Datsyuk and Zetterberg — who are in the twilight of their careers and just watched their GM give a ROSTER SPOT to someone undeserving of one???? If Jurco or Anthony Mantha (if he proves he is ready in September) or both start the season in Grand Rapids, is that fair to Nik Kronwall and others who have been just as loyal to the Winged Wheel as Cleary has been?
We just got done watching the Wings barely eke into the postseason because deference was paid to washed-up veterans at the expense of youth; instead of making sure that never occurred again, Holland has crawled back down that rabbit hole.
And where is the LOYALTY to this fan base that has supported this franchise for years with upper-tier attendance and high television ratings???? For fuck’s sake, the team’s most loyal and subservient fan (George Malik) penned an open letter to Holland yesterday basically regurgitating every single one of my talking points from the last couple of years. The contents of that blog post make the Hulk Hogan NWO heel turn look like child’s play by comparison.
How tight are Malik and Holland? Last year when Brendan Shanahan failed to suspend Jared Cowen for a hit on Pavel, Holland suggested to Shanahan that he contact Malik to explain his decision!!!!! Because Malik was an excellent conduit to Wings fans.
I mean, that open letter was the equivalent of White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest walking into a media briefing and stating that President Obama has totally fucked up Syria, Iraq and the US/Mexico border issue ………. now do you have any questions?????
Holland has a lot of problems right now but his biggest headache might be the Mike Babcock conundrum. On one hand, Holland has a Stanley Cup- and repeat Olympic Gold Medal winner in Babcock. On the other, he has a man who basically blackmailed him to keep Cleary and a guy with a league-wide reputation of being difficult to play for — which was a contributing factor in the Wings getting shut out when the July free-agency period started.
The NHL is a tight community; everybody knows other teams’ dirty laundry. Not only is it a horribly-kept secret that #13 and #40 do not like playing for Babcock, it’s not exactly hidden that STEVE YZERMAN himself couldn’t stand Babcock when he coached HIM during the last days of his career!!!! And this is the man who hired him TWICE to coach Canada’s Olympic team!!!!! Of course, it’s easier to tolerate Babcock’s idiosyncrasies for a couple of weeks in February as opposed to spending YEARS with the man; everybody in the NHL knows that you can’t spell Babcock without C-O-C-K.
Seriously, do you think it is a coincidence that this team’s free-agent haul in the last few years has consisted of guys like Tootoo, Mikael Samuelsson and Carlo Colaiacovo while every big name has rejected “Hockeytown?”
I mean, Matt Niskanen, Dan Boyle and Christian Ehrhoff ALL took less money to play elsewhere!!!!! It’s gotten so bad that former Wings (with axes to grind against Babcock) have begun trolling us ….
Hey Detroit…1 week into FA…talk to me…been out of the loop…who is coming in?
— Mike Commodore (@commie22) July 8, 2014
I begged Commodore to come on a DSR Podcast to share his thoughts on why nobody wants to play for Babcock but he chose to take the high road. Rats.
The predicament that Holland currently finds himself in with Babcock would be funny if it wasn’t so [Trout] damn depressing: Babcock won’t re-sign in Detroit if Holland doesn’t improve the roster but the main impediment to Holland being able to improve the roster is BABCOCK!!! Hell, I didn’t know Shakespeare was Canadian.
And it’s not even like I was terribly disappointed that Holland struck-out™ (Austin Jackson) in free-agency on July 1st since there was no guarantee that a guy like Niskanen wouldn’t end up commanding an albatross of a contract anyhow. No, it was my complete and utter fear that Kenny would panic like he did when Ryan Suter spurned Detroit a couple of years ago, leading to some ridiculous trade for Tyler Myers or Mike Greene which would totally compromise this team’s future.
I mean, WE ARE talking about the same man who just dealt Calle Jarnkrok, a second-round pick and Patrick Eaves for 26 games of MINUS TEN hockey from David Legwand. And how bad was that trade, you might ask?
Well, let me put it in perspective for you. Holland gave up the 41st-ranked prospect in the world according to The Hockey News and a second-round selection (the same round in which the team has drafted Tomas Tatar, Jurco, Ryan Sproul and Xavier Ouelett) for a couple months of garbage hockey from Legwand. Meanwhile, the Washington Nationals received TWO YEARS of Doug Fister for the 150th-rated prospect in baseball, a situational lefty and a garbage utility man.
I actually almost feel bad for Holland — he didn’t have the balls to let lame-duck Babcock go this offseason and hire Jeff Blashill and he now has to watch his former lieutenants Jim Nill (who, along with Hakan Andersson, is responsible for the team’s youth) and Yzerman run circles around him this summer.
Nill is now running the show in Dallas, and while the Stars’ 2013 first-round pick, Valeri Nichushkin, successfully spent the entire season in Dallas, his former boss just signed a scrub with no knee ligaments to block the Wings 2013 first-round selection (Mantha) from starting in Detroit this fall.
But hey, what Wings fan would rather have watched the development of their best prospect since Keith Primeau instead of Cleary flopping all over the ice and using his stick as a cane?
Like I said, I ALMOST feel bad that Holland is immobilized by Babcock and that he has neither Nill nor the scouts he took to Dallas (Joe McDonnell and Mark Leach) to rely on, but then the imbecile says something like this:
“(Cleary’s) a guy the coaching staff likes, his teammates like. He’s a leader in the room. He can play left wing/right wing, can go on the power play.”
Cleary’s a guy who can play on the POWER PLAY?!??!?!!??!?! Are you fucking kidding me?
During the 2013-14 season Cleary received 78 power play minutes. That’s almost an entire FOUR PERIODS in which Cleary was on the ice with a MAN ADVANTAGE.
He had ZERO goals and ZERO assists during those 78 minutes!!!!!!! I mean, how can that even occur? Not once did a puck go off Cleary’s ASS and onto the stick of Datsyuk for a goal. You would almost have to be a saboteur to play a game and a period of 5-on-4 and NOT register one solitary point!!!!!
And Holland says that Cleary “can go on the power play.” I have no words, people.
This is the Wings’ offseason to date: Bringing back a guy who went 78 minutes last year without even a PP assist; and the insane doling out of $8.5 million dollars to Kyle Quincey for a two-year contract because Holland has told us that the organization has made a determination that Ouelett and Sproul aren’t ready for the NHL yet.
Of course, these are the SAME DOLTS who also informed us last fall that there was no chance in hell that Riley Sheahan and Jurco were ready for the “Men’s League” and who elected to start the season with Tatar eating popcorn in the press box and Nyquist playing in Van Andel Arena. Sorry if I don’t accept their judgment when it comes to scouting THEIR OWN PLAYERS.
But my personal highlight so far this offseason has been Holland’s reaction to getting rejected by every right-handed free agent defenseman on the planet and the inference that nobody wants to play for his head coach …..
“It’s free agency, it’s wide open. Other teams are after these players, too. Last year we got the guys wanted.”
Last year? Yeah, Holland somehow enticed a 40-year-old SWEDE to come play in DETROIT. That’s like the CEO of Yum! Brands bragging that he somehow got Scott “The Gator” Anderson to dine at a KFC or Taco Bell. And does Holland really want to play the Stephen Weiss card? You might not want to remind Wings fans that you somehow persuaded Weiss to come to Detroit for $4.9 million a year when the injury-plagued center only had four points in 26 games.
And I am 2,300 words into this diatribe and I haven’t even hinted at the asinine decision to amnesty Tootoo and the $2 million remaining on his deal — so poor Jordin could maybe get a chance to play in another city — rather than Holland ridding himself of Johan Franzen’s toxic contract which lasts until 2020!!!!!
Of course, that wouldn’t been very loyal to Franzen if Holland had used his Get Out of Jail Free Card on “The Mule.” Like, could you imagine if the Wings were known as a disloyal organization? I bet potential free agents would turn down more lucrative offers to come to Detroit because of such treasonous behavior. Oh. Wait.
Now, I am sure if you are a Wings fan like me, this has all been VERY depressing to see in stark relief. But I am going to leave you with some hope.
Just this morning, Ansar Khan “Lives With His Dad and Mom, Smokes Pot All Day and He Doesn’t Use a Bong” wrote an article stating that it looked like Holland wasn’t going to be able to make a blockbuster trade.
This is where we currently stand as Red Wings fans: The best news is no news. Yes, I am actually rooting for INERTIA. Hopefully there will be sufficient injuries to veterans so Mantha, Jurco, Ouelett and Sproul can become roster fixtures in 2014-15.
And when Canada’s beloved hero ends up leaving Detroit for Toronto next June and is replaced by Blashill, the Wings might actually be able to entice a free agent to play in the Motor City again.
Of course, I will be there watching every minute of the Wings season either at the Joe or on Fox Sports Detroit.
Ya know, because I am LOYAL.