Holland's extensive trade deadline thoughts

Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland was on Vancouver’s TSN 1040 on Wednesday morning.

On if he’s still in the market for a defenseman:

“Well, I would say to you there’s a lot of talk about us looking for a right-shot defenseman. That was last summer when we weren’t sure about Daniel Alfredsson’s health, and we really wanted a right shot defenseman we thought could play on the power play. As we speak today, I think we’re No. 1 in the league on the power play. Mike Babcock puts out four forwards on each unit. Danny DeKeyser, a defenseman, on one unit. Kronwall on another unit. With the development of Sheahan, and Tats, and Nyquist, Helm is healthy, Abdelkader, Zetterberg, Datsyuk – we’ve been able to have two units.

“So ideally would we like to have a right-shot defenseman, yeah; but I think it has to be the right right-shot defenseman. We’re not just looking for a right-shot defenseman. Our defense has played real good. We’ve come off it a little bit in the penalty kill. We were first or second on the penalty kill for a long time, but the last 10 games we haven’t done as good a job. We need to get better in that area.

“So I think this time of the year between now and the deadline I’m hoping we can continue to put points on the board, and really feel that we’re a real good buyer at the trade deadline. Then we’ll see what’s available and what the price is.

“I like the depth of our team. Petr Mrazek’s our third goalie, he’s come up and done real well. Teemu Pulkkinen scored two goals today in an afternoon game in Grand Rapids. He’s got 26 goals on the year. He came up and played five games, I think, scored a goal. So he’s an NHL player in the making. We played Xavier Ouellet 10-15 games. He’s back in Grand Rapids. We’re now getting a look at Alexey Marchenko, we think he’s an NHL player. He played for us the other night against the Islanders.

“So we’re trying to take an opportunity here to see what some of the younger players in the organization can do, and see if we’ve got enough depth internally, or if we’ve got to try to get some depth at the deadline, or make a bigger deal if one’s available.

“But we’re probably in the assessing stage here right now, working the phones a little bit. When things start to happen, we’ll have our information and our meetings and we’ll be ready to do whatever we’ve got to do. Maybe it might even mean standing pat, but we’re trying to see what we’ve got internally too.”

Source: TSN 1040/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey

Nichols on Hockey

Nichols on Hockey

Worth Reading

Nichols on Hockey

Nichols on Hockey