Red Wings 2016 free agency results

“But He knows the way I take; When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

Red Wings General Manager,
 Ken Holland

You know when you start a post with a quote from the book of Job, things probably did not go well for your team in free agency.

Look, I know it's probably silly for Red Wings fans to ever complain. 4 Stanley Cups in the modern era, 25 years of playoffs, half the teams in the league being coached or run by former Red Wings employees. I get it, they've had more than their share of success.

But sometimes you need to call out stupid. I think we all knew it before, but if there was any doubt, July 1, 2016 cemented it, Ken Holland has got to go. The man is a dinosaur who the game has passed by. He looks at a league that is getting faster, younger, creative and nimble and he continues to pour money into overpaid veterans with their best years long past. He watches as teams like Tampa Bay, Chicago and Pittsburgh dominate with speed and skill and he responds by saying he needs his team to be big and slow.

Let's do a quick recap of the state of the Red Wings

Steve Ott, known for playing
white supremacist characters
in the off-season

1. Holland handed out a $31.5 million contract to a 32 year-old (Frans Nielsen). The six-year-contract actually does not expire until after Zetterberg's insane contract. 
2. He gave Darren Helm a five-year-contract at almost the same cap hit as Johan Franzen. Helm will be 34 when that contract expires and so far has played more than 75 games in a season only four times in his career. Oh, and in his best season he scored a whopping 15 goals.
3. Almost $2.5 million tied up in Luke Glendening. Drew Miller and Steve Ott, with Miller potentially earning another $350,000 in a performance bonus. That trio will very likely be the worst fourth line in the NHL by a mile. Not one of them is an NHL caliber player. Detroit could easily ice a vastly superior fourth line using players on entry level contracts and use the extra cap space for flexibility in a trade. But ... grit?
4. Speaking of trades. Signing Miller and Ott creates a log-jam at the forward position, with Holland obviously intending to trade some forwards for much needed help on defense. The scary thing is, signing those guys means they're not the forwards he plans to trade.
5. $1.9 million - That's how much cap space the Red Wings are using to cover bonuses from last year and for Stephen Weiss and Jakub Kindl to not play for them this year.
6. These guys - Jimmy Howard (3 more years and $15 million cap hit), Justin Abdelkader (7, 7!, 7 years and $30 million), Henrik Zetterberg (5 years and $30 million), Jonathan Ericsson (4 years and $17 million), and Niklas Kronwall (3 years and $14 million)
7. That pretty much leaves 5-6 guys on contracts that are not terrible, though this group is probably getting smaller once Holland trades for a defenseman.

This does not look like a playoff team to me, let alone one that could advance on a serious playoff run. Unless there are drastic moves made, the "streak" dies at 25. The sad thing is, I would probably be happy to miss the playoffs if it meant Holland was canned. But by that point Holland will no doubt have already traded Detroit's first lottery pick in 25 years.