Ken Holland on AM 1270
Rough quotes of what GM Ken Holland had to say on AM 1270 at 5pm (Monday).
- You’re not going to be able to find a Brendan Shanahan on the open market…Looking for someone to score half those goals.
- Lots of players going into arbitration…look at teams with budget problems.
- Made some offers…but weren’t prepared to do what some of the contracts required.
- Want to make sure they have cap room next year when they have to re-sign Kronwall and Datsyuk.
- To go out and sign anyone for a deal more than one year, unless we really liked them, would be unwise. Want to be patient.
- We can be patient on defense with Schneider, Lidstrom, Cheli, and Kronwall. Be patient to find the right players and have financial flexibility.
- If you put Jimmy Howard in the playoffs and he let’s in some bad goals and lose, it’ll be tough on the young goaltender (with pressures and expectations). At the 60 game mark, we could bring him up if he’s ready.
- We’ve struggled back and forth to both situations (Belfour and Hasek). Talked to Dom this morning and he says his groin is good. Both are very good goaltenders. It’s a very close call. I don’t know if you can be right or wrong in either situation until it all plays out.
- If we bring back Dom, he wants to know he’s the No. 1 guy. They don’t want to be in a competition. If they don’t play good, they understand someone will take their job.
- We haven’t agreed to terms to anybody right now.
- I don’t think we’re going to bring in a high profile big name guy. Long term deals…we’re not comfortable with.
- Happy with Samuelsson and Lilja’s play, which is why we could offer a longer term contract.
- I think Jiri Hudler is very close to being ready to play. If all of a sudden, he’s good at training camp we’ll find a place on our roster. We want to sign him…we’re intrigued. Great hands, great hockey sense, great vision. We want to give Hudler and Kopecky a chance at training camp since they’d have to clear waivers.
- Most of the action was took by non-playoff teams who were looking to overhaul their team. We have a good nucleus…it doesn’t make any sense to me to go spend a lot on a seventh forward. We didn’t want to tie up that kind of money in those kind of players.
- I would never say never… I like Manny… Unfortunately we lost out in the 1st round and I decided, after talking to everyone, we wanted to make a change in goal. And Osgood was prepared to come back at a backup position. I’m stunned, like you guys, that he hasn’t gotten an offer.
- He’d like to talk to players about contract extensions to see who’s going to stay and who’s going to test the open market next summer. I’m going to slowly work the younger players.
Sounds like Willy will be coming back if they can agree to terms (whether before or during arbitration) as Kenny said he’d be one of the Top 6 forwards. Does that scare anyone else?
Steve did tell Holland the day before July 1st so that didn’t affect Holland’s timing.
Unfortuntately, that interview did not help lift my confidence in Kenny. The most important point I got out of that interview was that it seems Kenny is terrified of long term deals and isn’t willing to lock up salary in certain players because he wants financial flexibility…
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